The Necessities of Life
The unwashed, unshaven homeless old man walked along the city street, picking up half-smoked cigarette butts and rummaging through garbage cans and dumpsters for whatever scraps of food he could find. All loose change he found went into his pocket, where it would remain until he accumulated enough to buy a bottle of cheap whiskey.
After dining on stale pizza crust, a brown banana, a smashed Hostess Twinkie from some school kid's lunchbox and half a bottle of flat Dr. Pepper, he smoked three butts and then walked to a dark alley where he curled up beside a dumpster and tried to fall asleep.
If only I had a bottle to keep me warm tonight, he thought.
In lieu of internal warmth, he settled for covering himself with cardboard boxes and newspapers. Hopefully, they would not blow away during the chilly autumn night.
Meanwhile, just seven blocks away a young, well-to-do couple, both dressed in the height of fashion, was leaving the latest trendy restaurant after a late-night dinner with friends. Several other couples waited beside the exit while the doorman hailed them taxis, but Zoë and Marcus Kovacs preferred to walk, unafraid of the potential dangers the dark city streets held.
"The temperature is supposed to plummet tonight," Zoë announced, buttoning her jacket around her throat. "The Weather Channel forecast said there's even a twenty percent chance of snow."
"It's too soon to snow."
"I don't know. It's cold enough."
Marcus put his arm around his wife's shoulder, and the couple's pace slowed to a leisurely stroll. When they passed an alley, Zoë heard a shuffling noise in the darkness.
"I think someone is down there," she told her husband.
"It's probably a cat, a dog or maybe even a rat rummaging through the trash."
"But it might be a person," Zoë argued, as she fearlessly walked down the dark alley toward the dumpster.
The homeless man looked out from behind his cardboard box and newspaper blankets at the well-dressed couple.
"Is this your property?" he asked sleepily. "You're not going to make me leave, are you? I ain't hurtin' nothin'. Just takin' a little nap."
"Don't worry, old timer," Marcus replied. "It's not our neighborhood. We live uptown."
"You poor man. Don't you have anywhere else to sleep?" Zoë asked.
The old vagrant shook his head.
"No, ma'am, but this here's as good a place as any."
"Why don't you come with us?" Marcus suggested.
The old man looked at him suspiciously. The obviously wealthy gentleman and his wife looked normal enough, but you couldn't always tell by appearances.
"What would you want with a useless old bum like me?"
"We don't want anything from you. My wife and I run a shelter and soup kitchen a few blocks from here," Marcus explained.
Zoë smiled angelically.
I never took this pair for churchy folk, the old man thought. But who else would go out into the night and offer a homeless guy a place to sleep?
"Please come with us. We can give you a hot meal and a warm bed."
The old man figured he would be subjected to Bible readings or religious sermons in exchange for the couple's Christian charity. It was not a welcome prospect.
I don't need anyone to save my soul. That ship sailed a long time ago.
"Don't suppose you have a little whiskey there?" the old man asked the couple hopefully.
Marcus laughed.
"No, but I think we can manage a glass of wine if you're thirsty."
The old man's eyes lit up. He tossed the cardboard boxes and newspapers aside, got up slowly—trying to ignore the ache in his lower back—and followed the Kovacses to the waterfront soup kitchen.
* * *
There were a handful of indigent men and women eating at the large dining table, a small group sitting on the old couch and chairs in front of a portable television and about a dozen others sleeping on cots in the large dormitory. In addition to Zoë and Marcus, there were two other people—Emilio and Drusilla Saldivar—working in the shelter. The latter two were busy in the kitchen, peeling and chopping vegetables for a huge pot of stew.
"We have another guest, everyone," Zoë announced cheerfully, as she ushered the vagrant into the warm dining room.
There were scattered grunts of greeting from the homeless. Then Emilio welcomed the old man with a hot meal.
"Sit down and have a bowl of homemade stew and a cup of hot coffee. I think Drusilla might even have a slice of her apple pie left in the kitchen."
The homeless man ate well that night, stuffing himself until his stomach hurt.
As the new arrival shoveled down his food, a bearded, emaciated young man with the distinctive look of a junkie sat down beside him and warned, "Slow down, Grandpa. You don't want to heave it all back up."
"Listen, son, I don't know when or even if I'll ever have such a feast again," the old man explained. "I intend to enjoy every last morsel."
"That's what I thought when Zoë and Marcus first brought me to this place. That was six or seven weeks ago. I've been getting a decent meal, a hot bath and a warm bed at least three or four nights a week ever since. Of course, the menu doesn't vary. It's always the same old stew, but what the hell? It's hot, and it tastes good."
"And what's the price we have to pay for this hospitality?" the old man asked suspiciously. "Do we have to listen to some Bible-thumpin' preacher lecture us on the sins of alcohol?"
"Nah," the addict laughed. "This ain't the Salvation Army. They don't do God's work here. It's a private place run by Zoë and Marcus."
"And what do they want from us?"
"Nothing at all," Marcus answered, appearing in the dining room doorway.
"Then why do all of this, if you get nothin' out of it?"
"Zoë and I get a great deal out of this. So do Emilio and Drusilla, the couple that works in the kitchen."
"Let me guess. You four are bleeding heart liberals, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and all you want is the satisfaction of knowing you helped your fellow man," the elderly vagrant said sarcastically.
"You sound as if you don't believe that's possible," Marcus said.
"I've lived in this city all my life, young fella. I know what the people are like here. No one does anything for nothin'. They always expect something in return."
"If it makes you feel any better," Marcus said jovially, "I claim all the shelter's expenses on my income tax."
Both the vagabond and the addict broke out in laughter.
"That's more like it!" the old man exclaimed, feeling his misanthropic outlook had been justified. "This is a rich man's way of getting out of paying his taxes."
"Why a shelter and soup kitchen, though?" the addict asked.
The old man's curiosity had been contagious, and he caught it.
"I'm sure that there are tax shelters that require a lot less time and effort."
"True," Marcus agreed, "but I wasn't born rich. To use the popular vernacular, my family didn't have a pot to piss in. So I know what it's like to be hungry, to have to sleep on a park bench or in the men's room at the bus terminal. Now that I have money, I can afford to help those who are as desperate as I once was. Oh, I know I can't change the world, but I can make sure that a few unfortunate souls, like you two, receive the necessities of life."
"Ah, life's necessities," the old man sighed. "What might they be?"
"A meal, a bath, a warm bed, a safe place to sleep at night and maybe a little companionship."
"I could sure use some companionship right now," the old man laughed. "I miss my good friends Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Johnny Walker. Hell, about now I'd even welcome my good old buddy, Sam Adams."
"Would you like me to disapprove?" Marcus asked.
"Do you?"
"Not at all. Everybody has a weakness for something. One is no better or worse than another," he said, his eyes shifting from the old alcoholic to the addict.
* * *
It was after midnight when Emilio and Drusilla finished cooking and cleaning up the kitchen. Marcus met them in the dining room and handed each of them an envelope filled with cash.
"It's the first of the month already?" Emilio asked as he pocketed his pay.
"Time flies when you're having fun," Marcus laughed.
"If you call chopping carrots and potatoes having fun," Emilio replied.
"There are worse ways to make a living," Drusilla reminded him.
"Yeah," Marcus concurred. "Let us never forget our humble beginnings."
After Emilio and Drusilla departed, Marcus went to the office in the back of the shelter where his wife was busy checking stock prices on her laptop computer.
"How's the market doing?" Marcus asked. "Or shouldn't I ask?"
"By the look of these low numbers, I'd say our soup kitchen might be in for some more business. It's beginning to look like round two of the Great Depression."
"Maybe we ought to add a breadline to our shelter in addition to the soup kitchen," he joked and then became serious again. "Not to change the subject, but I'm a little worried about the old alcoholic we brought in tonight."
"Why?" Zoë asked. "He seems nice enough to me. You have to admit he gives the place an air of authenticity."
"He asked a lot of questions."
"So what if he's a nosy old man? He appears to be in fairly good health, but I wouldn't want to trade livers with him."
"Just the same, I'll have Emilio run a check on him and see if we can find any close friends or relatives."
"Go ahead if it makes you feel any better," Zoë said, returning her attention to her computer screen, "but I doubt a man with friends and family would be found sleeping in the shadow of a dumpster on a cold October night."
* * *
The old man had been eating and sleeping at the shelter for more than three weeks, although he still left every morning and spent the day panhandling and dumpster diving. Sometimes he gathered enough loose change to buy a bottle to give him solace, but more often than not he returned to the soup kitchen empty-handed.
As the old man sat in the dining room, dipping a piece of buttered Italian bread in his stew, he called to Emilio.
"I haven't seen Huey all week. Has he ever disappeared this long before?"
"Disappeared?" Emilio echoed with amusement, as he continued peeling potatoes for the following evening's stew. "Isn't that rather a drastic conclusion to draw? After all, this isn't Huey's home; it's a soup kitchen."
"I just think it's peculiar that he used to come in here three or four times a week, and now there's been no sign of him for the past eight or nine days. Where could he be?"
"Who knows?" Emilio replied with a shrug of indifference. "Maybe he finally checked into a rehab center, or, more likely, he was busted by the police and he's getting his free room and board from the Commonwealth now."
"I hope that's all that happened to him," the old man said. "I'd hate to think he OD'ed and is lying in a gutter somewhere."
"Don't worry too much about him; I'm sure he'll be okay. I've seen a lot of junkies come and go around here. It's always the same: now you see them, now you don't."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. People that wind up here have no roots. Take you, for instance. You got a home or a family? Parents? Sisters or brothers? A wife and a couple of kids somewhere?"
"I did, once."
The old man reached down and picked up a brown paper bag that was sitting on the bench beside him. It contained the bottle of alcohol he had purchased earlier.
"Now all I got is this."
He nodded farewell to Emilio and headed toward the dormitory, where he intended to drink himself to sleep.
Frowning, Emilio put down his paring knife and headed for the office to speak to Marcus.
"That old drunk's been asking questions again. This time about the addict."
"Oh, what did he want to know?"
"He noticed that Huey hasn't been around lately, and he wondered what happened to him."
"Seems natural enough. I've seen the two of them talking on numerous occasions. Let's keep an eye on the old guy anyway; make sure he's not talking to anyone during the day."
Meanwhile, the homeless old man decided his inexpensive whiskey might taste better on the rocks, so he went to the kitchen to get some ice. Neither Emilio nor Drusilla was there, so he walked over to the large chest freezer to help himself to a few cubes. He opened the lid and saw several Ziploc bags containing meat, the kind Emilio put into the soup kitchen's stew. Something about them didn't look quite right.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Emilio yelled when he saw the old man standing beside the open freezer.
"Just getting myself some ice cubes," the alcoholic replied.
"Get out! Only employees are allowed back here in the kitchen."
"I wasn't trying to steal anything. I just wanted some ice."
"I don't care. You're not supposed to be in the kitchen. We've got to follow the rules given to us by the board of health or else we get closed down. Got it, old timer?"
The following evening the old man returned to the shelter and sat down to the usual bowl of stew, bread and coffee. As he ate, he felt Marcus's and Zoë's eyes on him.
"This is good stew," he said, licking his lips. "What kind of meat do you use? Lamb? It doesn't taste much like beef."
Emilio, who had been listening in the kitchen, popped his head out of the doorway.
"What's the matter with you, Grandpa?" he laughed uneasily. "Have your taste buds been contaminated by all that booze? Don't you recognize veal when you eat it?"
"Veal, huh? Isn't that kind of expensive to serve to a bunch of drunks, dope addicts and bums at a soup kitchen?"
It was Marcus who replied.
"I told you before. I once had a hard life, and now I want ...."
"Yeah, yeah," the inquisitive old man said, still skeptical of the wealthy couple's motives. "I got all that. You just want to see that everyone gets the necessities of life. That's real noble of you, Mr. Kovacs! I'm just wondering what necessities Huey needs right now."
"Speaking of Huey," Zoë said in her usual cheerful voice, "he stopped by earlier this afternoon to tell us the good news. He's got a job. I almost didn't recognize him. He was all cleaned up, shaven and wearing a suit."
The old man's eyes narrowed with suspicion. He trusted Saccharin-sweet Zoë even less than he did Marcus.
"Huey in a suit? That don't seem likely. A junkie doesn't clean up his act that quickly."
"Huey did. He apologized that he couldn't stay. However, he did leave something for you. 'A bottle of the finest Tennessee Whiskey,' I believe he called it. Where did that bottle go to? Have you seen it?" she asked Emilio. "I think I might have put it in the kitchen."
The old man's eyes lit up when he saw the full bottle of Jack Daniels.
"Huey left that for me? God bless him! I knew there was something I liked about that boy."
Emilio opened the bottle and put it beside a glass filled with ice.
"No thanks," the old man said. "I'll drink this straight from the bottle."
He then took a mouthful and savored it like a connoisseur would a fine wine.
"Ah!" he said, smiling from ear to ear. "I've been drinking that cheap swill for so long that I forgot what the real thing tastes like."
After drinking more than a third of the bottle, the old man put his hand to his head and laughed giddily.
"I nearly forgot what a kick this stuff has, too," he said and swooned.
Emilio and Marcus caught him before he hit the ground. Then they promptly carried him through the kitchen and down to the cellar, before anyone could notice.
When the old man regained consciousness, there was a blinding light shining in his eyes. He closed them quickly and then squinted as he looked at his surroundings. At first, he assumed he was in a hospital. There were IVs, a tray covered with medical instruments and three people dressed in surgical gowns and masks. He tried to ask what had happened to him, why he was in a hospital, but a gag had been placed in his mouth.
"He's coming to," announced a female, whose voice was muffled by a surgical mask.
"That's okay; he's in no condition to give us any trouble," a man replied. "Just as we suspected: the liver and kidneys are shot."
"The heart looks good, though," a second female voice said. "We should be able to get fifty thousand for it, maybe more."
"Not a bad price for a night's work," the man laughed.
"Not to mention the byproducts," the first female said. "Think of how much we save on overhead expenses."
The alcoholic turned his head and saw the eyes peering down at him from over the surgical mask. The man who held the bloody scalpel above his chest was no surgeon; it was Marcus Kovacs, the shelter's resident philanthropist.
"Don't worry," he said. "I've used a local anesthetic, so you won't feel a thing."
Emilio, garbed in a hospital scrub suit, entered the room carrying a large ice chest.
"You were right about one thing, old timer," Marcus laughed. "No one in this city does anything for nothing."
The four partners in the shelter and soup kitchen laughed.
"I told you I wasn't born rich and that I knew what it was like to be hungry. I was a common hustler, a kid who grew up on the streets. Then my lucky day came. I was stabbed in a knife fight, and the EMTs took me to the emergency room at city hospital where I met a gorgeous nurse."
"Thank you, darling," Zoë said.
"She was the one who told me how much money could be made selling human organs on the black market."
The old man closed his eyes, realizing what gruesome fate lay in store for him.
"Why don't you stop the chatter, Marc?" Emilio asked. "I've got a guy waiting out back to take the heart to the airport. There's an oilman in Texas waiting for it."
"How do you like that, old man? You're going to Texas—well, part of you is, anyway."
Marcus quickly cut the arteries and veins and carefully placed the heart in the ice chest. Emilio then took the chest out to the man in the alley and returned fifteen minutes later. Marcus and Zoë had removed their bloody gloves and surgical gowns and were washing their hands. Drusilla handed a rotary saw and meat cleaver to Emilio and then got out a box of two-gallon-sized Ziploc freezer bags.
"It's time to get to work, sweetheart," she said. "There's a lot of stew meat to be cut up."
Salem, I don't believe cable Internet hook-up fits into the category of life's necessities. Or does it?
