Along Came a Spider

eleven hundred meals a day. The kitchen starts serving at ten-fifteen, and lunch is over by twelve-thirty. That means if you get there at exactly one minute past twelve-thirty, you go hungry that day. Discipline, be it ever so humble, is a big part of St. A’s program.
    No one is admitted drunk or too obviously high. You’re expected to behave during your meal. You get about ten minutes to eat — other people are cold and hungry waiting on the long line outside. Everyone is treated with dignity and respect. No questions are asked of any of the guests. If you wait on line, you get fed. You’re addressed as either Sir or Ms., and the mostly volunteer staff is trained to be upbeat. “Smile checks” are actually done on the new volunteers working the serving line or the dining room.
    Around noon there was a major disturbance outside. I could hear Sampson shouting. Something was going down.
    People on the soup line were shouting and cursing loudly. Then I heard Sampson call for help. “Alex! Come on out here!”
    I ran outside and immediately saw what was going down. My fists were clenched into tight, hard anvils. The press had found us again. They had found me.
    A couple of squirrelly news cameramen were filming folks on the soup-kitchen line, and that’s very unpopular — understandably. These people were trying to keep the last of their self-respect, and they didn’t want to be seen on TV standing on a soup line for a handout.
    Jimmy Moore is a tough, rude Irishman who used to work on the D.C. police force with us. He was already outside, and it was Jimmy, actually, who was making most of the noise.
    “You cocksucking, motherfucking sons-of-bitches!” I suddenly found myself yelling. “You’re not invited here! You’re not fucking welcome! Leave these people alone. Let us serve our lunch in peace.”
    The photographers stopped shooting their pictures. They stared at me. So did Sampson. And Jimmy Moore. And most everybody on the soup line. The press didn’t leave, but they backed away. Most of them crossed 12th Street, and I knew they would wait for me to come out.
    We were serving people their lunch, I thought to myself as I watched the reporters and photographers waiting for me in a park across the street. Who the hell did the press serve these days other than the wealthy business conglomerates and families they all worked for?
    Angry rumblings were starting up around us. “People are hungry and cold. Let’s eat. People got a right to eat,” someone yelled from the line.
    I went back inside to my post. We started to serve lunch. I was the Peanut Butter Man.

CHAPTER 29

    IN THE CITY OF WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, Gary Murphy was shoveling away four inches of snow. It was Wednesday afternoon, the sixth of January. He was thinking about the kidnapping. He was trying to keep under control. He was thinking about the little rich bitch Maggie Rose Dunne, when a shiny blue Cadillac pulled up alongside his small Colonial-style house on Central Avenue. Gary cursed under the breath streaming from his mouth.
    Six-year-old Roni, Gary’s daughter, was making snowballs, setting them out on the icy crust that topped the snow. She squealed when she saw her uncle Marty climbing out of his car.
    “Who’s that boot-i-ful little girl?” Uncle Marty called across the yard to Roni. “Is that a movie star? It is! I think so. Is that Ron-eee? I think it is!”
    “Uncle Marty! Uncle Marty!” Roni screamed as she ran toward the car.
    Every time Gary saw Marty Kasajian, he thought of the really putrid movie
Uncle Buck
. In
Uncle Buck
, John Candy was an unlikable, unwelcome, unlikely relative who kept showing up to torture a whitebread mid-western family. It was an obnoxious flick. Uncle Marty Kasajian was rich and successful; and louder than John Candy; and he was here. Gary despised Missy’s big brother for all of those reasons, but most of all because Marty was his boss.
    Missy must have heard Marty’s commotion. How could anyone on Central Avenue or nearby North Street miss it? She came out of the back door with a dish towel still wrapped around one hand.
    “Look who’s here!” Missy squealed. She and Roni sounded like identical piglets to Gary.
    Quel fucking surprise
, Gary felt like yelling. He held it all in — the way he held in all of his true feelings at home. He imagined beating Marty to death with his snow shovel, actually murdering Kasajian in front of Missy and Roni. Show them who the man of the house