Читать книгу Come Sunday Morning - Terry E. Hill - Страница 8

Hezekiah first saw the young man kneeling at a corner on skid row. His green canvas backpack lay on the sidewalk beside him, filled with the daily rations of vitamins, warm socks, and condoms for homeless people he encountered on his rounds of the city.

The sounds of horns honking and public-transit bus engines revving echoed off glass towers and graffiti-marred hotel facades. The block was cluttered with wobbly shopping carts filled with plastic trash bags, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, soiled clothes, and half-eaten cans of beans and sardines. Cyclone fences served as the only barriers between the human debris and parking lots filled with BMWs, Jaguars, and other nondescript silver foreign automobiles.

The pungent smell of urine and human feces was everywhere. Emaciated dogs foraged through piles of trash, looking for the morsel that, for them, stood between life and death. Drivers sped by, making extra efforts to avoid looking to the left or the right. The human misery was too painful to witness, and the filth too disgusting to stomach.

One man lay sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. His limbs were twisted and his face was pressed into the cement. His blue denim jeans were stained from being worn for over two months. Alcohol fumes were almost visible as he breathed. He looked as though he had been dropped from the roof of a five-story building.

A woman sat on the curb with her legs spread to the street. She wore a dirty pink scarf wrapped around her matted hair, a dingy, tattered yellow sweater, and no shoes. Her feet were covered with scabs and open wounds. “I told you ta stop bring’n dose peopo in’ta my mothafuck’n house. I’m mo kill that mothafucka if he do dat ta me again,” she cursed to the air as it breezed by.

Other men and women lay coiled and hidden under oily, lice-ridden blankets and behind cardboard fortresses.

When Hezekiah first saw Danny St. John, he was speaking to a homeless man named Old Joe, who was sitting on the curb, rattling a paper cup filled with coins. Everyone who lived in or walked through the shopping cart shanty-town knew Old Joe. He was a tall man with matted black hair, wearing oil-stained clothes.

Brakes screeched, a car barely missing elderly pedestrians, as Danny and Old Joe talked below on the sidewalk. Lights flashed green, yellow, and red, and pigeons danced amid the remains of half-eaten burgers and discarded French fries. The two men spoke of warm places for Joe to sleep when the cold returned for the night.

Danny reached into his bag for a clean hypodermic needle sealed in cellophane. He searched in the bag around packages of alcohol wipes, a tin canister filled with condoms, bottles of Purell hand sanitizer, and bundles of clean socks until he found the syringes. He looked over his shoulder to ensure a private moment for the exchange and found himself staring into the eyes of Hezekiah Cleaveland.

The pastor was watching him intently from the driver’s seat of a silver Mercedes-Benz. Before Danny could look away, Hezekiah called out, “Excuse me. Are you a city employee? May I speak to you for a moment? I have a question for you.”

Danny recognized the handsome face immediately. He excused himself from Old Joe and walked to the car.

“No, I don’t work for the city,” Danny said bending to the window. “I work for a nonprofit homeless-outreach agency downtown.”

Hezekiah’s brain went uncharacteristically blank as the tall, attractive young man looked into the car. He hadn’t expected to see such a beautiful face or hear so gentle a voice come from a man who worked so closely with the outcasts of the city.

At twenty-eight Danny looked as though he had never had a difficult day in his life. He was a handsome man, with smooth almond-brown skin, who attracted admiring glances from both men and women. Just over six feet tall, his slender body was modestly hidden under a baggy T-shirt and green army fatigues.

Hezekiah quickly regained his composure and introduced himself. “My name is Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland. There’s a homeless woman who sleeps near my church on Cleaveland Avenue at Imperial Highway,” he said. “She’s obviously mentally ill and has a dog in a shopping cart. You can’t miss her. She’s always there. Can you go over and talk to her?”

“I know her. Everyone in my agency knows her but she has a long history of refusing services from our agency.”

As Danny spoke, Hezekiah became distracted again by a glimmer in the beautiful young man’s eyes.

There was an awkward silence after Danny finished his sentence. Then Hezekiah replied, “I would appreciate it if you would speak with her again.”

Danny looked surprised. He never thought Hezekiah Cleaveland had any interest in people who couldn’t send him a donation.

“I’m glad to hear you’re concerned Rev. Cleaveland. When I’ve seen you and your wife on television it seemed you were only interested in people who could make large contributions to your church.”

“Don’t believe everything you see on television,” Hezekiah said, smiling. “I was poor once myself and I’ve never forgotten it.”

As Danny walked back to Old Joe he heard Hezekiah call out again. “After you talk to her would you mind stopping by my office at the church? Just to let me know how it goes,” the minister explained.

“I’ll stop by and see her this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” Hezekiah replied with an odd sense of relief. “By the way, what’s your name?”

“Danny. Danny St. John.”