He was stuck in the doorway. His legs wouldn’t let him inside.
It was a big room, the full width of the storefront, with fresh paint on the dented walls and mismatched carpet remnants laid over the bare concrete floor. At one end, three ancient steel desks stood in a line, their legs rusting from the bottom up as if they’d survived a flood. The nearest held a desktop computer and a potted plant and a broken-handled mug filled with pens. At the far desk, a skinny young guy with a buzz cut and a gigantic black beard poked experimentally at a vintage laptop while he muttered to himself.
Arrayed near the big front windows were a long homemade plywood table and a dozen cheap folding chairs. In the middle of the room stood an assortment of ratty plaid couches, where another man lay sleeping with his arm over his eyes and his coat for a pillow. At the back was a raw plywood wall, rough-nailed in place, with a framed opening that led to a dim plywood hallway.
It was the bare plywood that stopped him, thought Peter. It looked like the combat outpost they had carved out of that Afghan hilltop. Unfinished plywood walls and ceilings, plywood bunks, even a makeshift plywood command center. Everything reinforced with Hescos and sandbags to keep out the RPGs and contain the mortar blasts.
“It’s not much,” said Josie. “Not yet, anyway. Go in. I’ll show you what we need.” She still held the door behind him, still waiting for Peter to walk inside. He liked the lines around her mouth, the bright intensity of her eyes.
He reminded himself that he’d wanted to ask about Jimmy. It was a big open room with big windows. He’d be okay for a few minutes. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.
“A friend of mine used to come here,” he said. “Maybe you knew him, James Johnson, usually went by Jimmy. He was here maybe three or four weeks ago?”
“What’s he look like?”
“Black guy, big.” Peter held his hand six inches above his own head. “Real friendly, big smile, great sense of humor. The kind of guy who liked everybody, or tried to.”
She nodded in recognition. “Yeah, I think he was here a few days. We’re not much for recordkeeping, so I couldn’t swear to it. I haven’t seen him since. How’s he doing?”
“The police said he killed himself. That’s why I’m here. Trying to understand.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Fuck.” Angry now. “What a fucking waste.”
The skinny man with the gigantic beard said, loudly, “On behalf of the American people!”
Josie sighed. “Cas, keep it down, okay?”
The skinny man’s eyes were wide. He stood abruptly, knocking his chair over backward. “The American people! We shall rise!”
“Cas,” said Josie, slightly louder now. “Have you taken your meds today?”
The skinny man closed his mouth with an audible click, eyes flicking from side to side. Then hurriedly bent to pick up his chair and sat down.
Peter looked at the skinny man more closely. The beard was big and bushy, hiding the lower half of the man’s face. With the buzz-cut hair, what you saw was the shape of the skull. But there was something familiar around the eyes.
“Sorry,” said Josie, turning back to Peter. She lowered her voice. “Cas is our special case. The shelters are full of the people that got foreclosed on or dumped on the street when the mental hospitals got closed down. Even veterans are on waiting lists, and there are a lot of us who are homeless. Someone figured out Cas was a Marine, and he ended up with us. Harmless, but a little excitable. Just don’t talk about the financial crisis or the economy. Or politics.”
“He’s sleeping here?”
She nodded. “Don’t tell the city, ’cause we’re not legal. But yeah, we’ve got people sleeping here. Where else are they supposed to go?”
“Semper fi,” said Peter.
“Absofuckinglutely.” The woman was fierce. “If you served your country, you deserve help. It’s not easy getting back to the world. The skills we learned overseas don’t tend to apply to the civilian world. Veterans have double the rate of unemployment and homelessness as similar nonveterans. Then there’s bomb-blast brain injuries and PTSD, a lot of it undiagnosed. And the suicide rates are through the roof. The VA isn’t helping much. So we’ve got to help ourselves.”
“And my friend Jimmy, was he here to get help?”
“I hope so,” she said. “I really do. I only talked to him once or twice.” She made a face. “But clearly we didn’t help enough. Not if he killed himself.”
The white sparks clamored in his head. “I’ve got to leave soon,” he said. “You wanted to show me something?”
“Right.” She turned toward the opening in the plywood partition. “This way. We want to expand the bunkroom and add more bathrooms. Maybe you could help.”