1

Scott Harrington

The Tenth Street Bridge spanned overhead with a thousand metallic arms reaching skyward in the eerie darkness. It crossed the Monongahela River, connecting Pittsburgh to the South Side. The insufficient cardboard wouldn’t hold my 6’2” frame, so I curled my knees close to my body to keep out the chill of touching cold concrete. Every joint throbbed. The acrid scent of puddled asphalt burned my nostrils.

I sat up and readjusted my backpack against the concrete pylon. Raindrops sparkled like diamonds in the glow of streetlamps, which also illuminated the other men. Three slept well, as evidenced by the heavy snoring. A drunken slumber, if the discarded bottles were any indication. About ten feet from where I sat, another man stretched flat on the icy cement, wide-eyed yet oblivious to anything around him. The dark of night swallowed the blackness of his face, but his large white eyes held a wild and unrelenting stare at the grating of the bridge above. Where had his trip taken him?

The fifth man appeared no older than a teenager. Wide awake, his gaze darted from side to side, nervousness cloaking him like a well-worn jacket. Sandy-colored hair, shaggy and unkempt, escaped his steel-gray hoodie. No cardboard insulated him from the bite of the cold surface. A crumpled up sweatshirt served as his pillow. If it weren’t three in the morning, I might have attempted a conversation. But voices at this hour would be an intrusion.

Tight fingers gripped a backpack bulging beyond the capacity of the zipper. Was he concerned that someone would take his belongings if he succumbed to sleep? Perhaps I was the naïve one. Maybe he watched to see when everyone else slept and pilfered what he could. Was that why his bag was overstuffed? I pulled my backpack closer and readjusted my head to protect it. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.

Glancing in his direction, I took care to avoid eye contact. He looked like Richie Cunningham from Happy Days, a touch of red in the sandy-colored hair and a pale complexion. But he wasn’t a clean-cut suburbanite kid with his own bedroom and a doting mother. Where were his parents? Wasn’t there anyone he could turn to?

An occasional car infringed upon the night sounds as it rattled the trestle above. I closed my eyes, imagining I was somewhere else, someplace sleep would come. My childhood home, the pretentious estate with all the grandeur of old money. What would my father think if he could see me now? Those were memories I didn’t care to visit. Much better to focus on my own little home, the comfortable living room, the smell of wood burning in the fireplace. A place where my mind could escape. Cozy and simple, the feet of my recliner raised as I sank into the soft brown leather, swallowing me with comfort. The TV hummed with a sportscaster’s dialogue while I drifted into the shadows of my mind, almost forgetting I was lying on a thin piece of cardboard under a cold bridge.

The inclination to compare myself to others was a part of my nature I couldn’t seem to overcome, and it could be exhausting. Charles Harrington made certain that I never forgot that I didn’t measure up to Edwin. There was one brief moment when a flash of insight helped me understand. My father wielded it as a motivator. Nothing would have been enough, because then I might have stopped striving. It’s hard to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination, so over time, that insight faded.

There were times when I thought I’d mastered the tendency to compare myself, when I was satisfied with who I’d become, but then I’d find myself in the company of someone whose accomplishments diminished mine or left me standing in the shadow of my father’s censure.

The opposite was true on this night as I slept under a bridge for the first time. I fought the tendency to feel somewhat superior to the five men who shared this underpass. I came here to blend in, to assimilate into this culture, yet the egocentric part of me wanted to make sure everyone knew I didn’t belong here. But that attitude would be a detriment. I needed to guard against it to accomplish anything.

Sometime before morning light, I slept. I woke to discover two of the snoring men still fast asleep, while the third relieved himself on the other side of the pylon. He paid no notice of me, finished his task, and disappeared into the hazy fog. The man with the wild eyes closed them in sleep. A bare stretch of concrete remained where Richie Cunningham with the hoodie had been. I checked to ensure that my backpack and blanket remained intact and found both secure.

Judging from the predawn light, it was around six o’clock so I’d gotten only two or three hours of sleep. Rising, my body was unbendable until I began to stretch the stiffness away and then blood flowed to my limbs again. Desperate for a bathroom and a hot cup of coffee, I began walking.

~*~

The yellow brick of St. John’s Episcopal Church still held its original charm. It had graced this corner for over a hundred years, with beauty and architecture unparalleled by the new wave of nondescript churches. A white cross peeked down from the cupola, bidding all to come. Walking past the grand oaken doors, I tried to envisage what stood behind them, imagining rich maroon carpeting cushioning dark pews, all illuminated by the rainbow prisms from a thousand pieces of stained glass fashioned to depict the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus with the children.

Then it hit me. I envisioned the interior of my childhood church which, as teenagers, Edwin and I coined Fellowship of the Elite. Worshippers showing off their designer fashions and glittering jewels. How discordant would it be to visit a Sunday service dressed in these frayed jeans and in obvious need of a shower?

The doors to St. John’s remained locked throughout the week. I walked the manicured path to the side of the church, breathing in the fragrance of fresh grass and withering flowers, a contrast to the stagnant scent of auto exhaust and concrete. A simple sign posted on the gray, metal door noted the hours for breakfast. They began serving at six. I prayed the door would open when I turned the knob, and it cooperated, the heavy metal scraping the surface of a frayed welcome mat. I entered the oversized room with its large industrial kitchen and the welcoming aroma of coffee.

A small portion of the space in the vast room had been set up with tables where pancakes were being served. People already occupied some seats, even at this early hour. Most of them scattered throughout the area with their coffee and pancakes, spaced for solitude. I needed human interaction. Scanning the tables, I chose one with two men and carried my cup and plate over to join them.

“Good morning.” I sat down without asking permission. A grunt and a nod came from my left.

The man seated across the table rewarded me with a hearty welcome. “Howdie do.” He flashed a grin as wide as his voice was loud. I glanced around as a few heads turned our way. “Always a good mornin’ here. We get the best coffee and hotcakes in town. Name’s Pete. This here’s D.J.” His attempted introduction brought another grunt.

Pete’s grin revealed sparse and decaying teeth. Age spots peppered his arms, and red cheeks bookended a bulky, bulbous nose. His booming tones continued to reverberate throughout the room, oblivious to the fact that he displaced the quiet.

“Good to meet you, Pete. I’m Scott.” I muffled my words hoping he’d get the message. “So Pete, anywhere else someone like me can get a meal around here? This ain’t gonna last me ’til supper.”

“No sir-ee, Scotty. That it ain’t.” His voice still thundered. “Couple’a places you can try. If’n I were you, I’d head on down to Stanwix and try the shelter there. Or you can try Hope House. It’s a place that lets a feller stay and tries to get him turned around, like learnin’ new job stuff.”

I knew about Hope House, but it wasn’t what I needed. “So how does the Stanwix Street one work? I’m kinda new at this. A little down on my luck right now.”

“Well, ain’t we all.” His eyes sparkled despite the bloodshot streaks. “Ain’t we all. First time you go, you gotta tell ’em some stuff about you and sign a paper agreein’ to their rules. After that, you just sign in when you go. You can get a good, hot meal and a bed for the night.”

Right about now, a bed sounded like heaven. I’d have traded my pancakes for sleep, but Pete’s response squashed that dream. Besides, I didn’t come here for sleep, I came for information.

“Doors open at five o’clock, first come, first serve. Can’t be late ’cause them doors get locked when they have enough people to fill the beds.”

Could I make it until five?

“Listen here, Scotty boy. You come along and stick with me, and I’ll show you the ropes. But get eatin’, boy. We gotta hurry,” Pete bellowed again.

No one had called me Scotty since I was nine, but I didn’t correct him. I’d walked into an opportunity, someone loose-lipped, willing to show me the ropes and let me stick with him. But why the hurry? It felt like hours of daylight stretched before us with nowhere to go.

I didn’t rush my pancakes, but instead watched a few people come and go through the metal door. When the clock on the wall showed seven o’clock approaching, Pete’s agitated hand formed little circles in front of my face, a motion saying, “Hurry.” Determined to take a cup of coffee with me, I picked up our Styrofoam cups and asked, “Black or cream?”

Pete flashed his easy grin. “Black and sweet. I take mine black and sweet.”

His chuckle led to a fit of coughing. I hesitated for a moment, not sure if I should do something, but he motioned me away with his hand. I turned in the direction of the man he called D.J., but he flipped his empty cup upside down on the table without glancing up.

After we exited the church’s side door, Pete stopped to light up a cigarette from the pack tucked in his shirt pocket. We walked through the midst of the morning rush hour with cars at a stand-still, drivers waiting to get past the red light. Dense pedestrian traffic hurried in all directions. Pete could move for an old man, but I kept up, intrigued to see our destination. He darted to a city bench near a busy intersection. Plopping on the bench, Pete reached his weathered hand into a plastic grocery bag he toted around with him. He produced a large and rugged piece of cardboard with “Homeless and Hungry” scribbled on it in black marker. He stationed the sign in front of him and reached in to retrieve a large plastic cup, the kind you might get with a convenience store soft drink. It had “God Bless You” written in marker across the front.

I stood there for a moment, my jaw slack. Hungry? We had just finished devouring a huge plate of pancakes. And panhandling? I’d never imagined myself begging on a street corner. I’d always taken some pretentious pleasure in being a giver, not a taker. But today, this is what I needed to do.

I took the final gulp of my coffee, shook out the residual liquid, and moved toward the bench, only to meet Pete, extending his hand and blocking my movement.

“No siree, Scotty boy. One to a corner. Nobody’ll be feedin’ the cup for two of us.” He reached into his plastic bag and retrieved another smaller piece of cardboard with “Homeless and Disabled” printed on it in amateur block letters. Pete held it out in my direction. “Now limp a little and get on outta here. Find a corner a block or two away with some different traffic. I’ll see you in a couple’a hours. We ought’a have enough to get us a burger and some refreshment for tonight, iff’n you know what I mean.” With a gleam in his eye and a suppressed grin, he turned his face away, looking pitiful for the crowd.

My cheeks flushed red, I rotated the sign toward myself and walked to the next block. I didn’t have to panhandle. I could eat at the shelter and didn’t care about Pete’s idea of evening refreshment. But Pete was crucial to my plan. He knew the streets. He’d be a big help to me. I couldn’t go back empty-handed in two hours. So I located a busy spot near a crowded corner, void of a bench. I sat on my backpack on the ground and propped up my sign, holding the foam cup upright to receive my beggar alms. I tugged the visor on my cap and kept my eyes lowered in case someone recognized me. People stared at me pitifully, some swung closer to the building to avoid me, and a few pulled out coins or a one-dollar bill. Unsure of the protocol of panhandling, when the first person dropped some coins in my cup, I glanced up and said, “Thank you kindly.” That became my mantra of the morning. Two hours and $27.50 later, Pete sauntered up the sidewalk with a large grin. He reached for his cardboard sign as I stood to join him.

As I followed Pete into the diner, the word retro might have described the décor. But I’d been a preppy teen. Retro for me was far from this shadowy diner. Dark-green speckled plastic, patched with tape in numerous spots, cushioned the chrome base counter stools. I followed Pete’s lead to a counter seat, but when it wobbled with each movement I made, I convinced him to slide into a booth. Stale cigarette smoke clung to the curtains and mingled with the heavy odor of grease drifting from behind the counter.

A waitress in jeans and a black polo with Larry’s Diner embroidered on the pocket, spread two paper placemats in front of us and topped them with silverware wrapped in a napkin. Her nametag said Kimberly. “What’ll you have?”

Pete’s booming voice echoed through the diner. “I’d be right grateful for some of that there coffee.” He pointed toward the coffeepot behind the counter. “Then a big old burger and fries.”

The pancakes still sat heavily in my stomach, but I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich.

Pete and I sat over a $3.80 lunch for almost two hours. Each time she went past our table, Kimberly refilled our coffee cups and wiped up the coffee spill and stray cigarette ashes from the shaking of Pete’s rheumatic hands.

“So Pete, are all of those people who were in St. John’s homeless? Or do some just come for the breakfast?”

Pete took a drink from his coffee mug, his hand shaking as he lifted it to his mouth. “People got all kinda different places they call home, Scotty. Some might have a place of their own but need help gettin’ food now and then.”

“How about you? You live on these streets or do you have a place somewhere?”

“Me and D.J. mostly stick together.”

That didn’t answer my question, but Pete followed that with a coughing spell. When he recovered, he lit another cigarette and started in on a story about the old steel mill where he once worked.

When the lunchtime foot traffic began to pick up, Larry’s Diner filled to its meager capacity. Pete got up to leave, magnanimously slipping thirty-five cents on the table for the waitress. The haphazard cluster of bills in his hand indicated that his take from panhandling far exceeded mine. An old man must elicit more sympathy than a young man, even with a proclaimed disability.

“I’ll catch up with you later, Scotty.”

“Hey, Pete. Hold on a minute. Where will you be eating and sleeping later? Do you go to the place on Stanwix?” I couldn’t afford to lose this connection. When and where might I hook up with old Pete again?

“Naw. Ain’t fer me. Me and D.J. got us a vacant building over on Liberty. A storage shed in a parking lot. Don’t think nobody checked that ol’ lock out in a year. You come on over if you can’t get you a bed at the shelter. Beats being under the bridge.” He slipped out the door and disappeared into the pedestrian traffic on the city sidewalk.

Settling back in the booth, I accepted Kimberly’s offer of a coffee refill despite the fact that I was already over-caffeinated. With seven hours until the shelter opened its doors, I finished my coffee and set out to find Pete’s vacant building. Perhaps I could sneak a few hours of shut-eye. None of my plans for the day would happen without some sleep. Why in the world did I decide to do this?