hungrier

“How do you know he’s even got his wallet on him. He probably left it in his car before he came in. Just let it be.”
“Well I’m checking. You know you’ll want me to share the money with you when I get it.” Tony’s eyes glassed over, contemplating unknown riches. “Hurry up and eat, we’ll follow him out onto the street.”
A heavy voice from down the table rose out of a what looked like a pile of dirty rags, deep and sonorous: “You boys wouldn’t know what to do with any money you found there anyways.”
“You hear old boy down there just now?” Muck asked Tony.
“What’d you say, sir?” Tony shifted his attention from his beans to the man.
The man lifted his head then and eyed the boys with dark eyes sunk deep in their sockets. He spoke as if he had a secret hiding in each fold his clothing and each shadow on his face. “I said stealing that money won’t bring you any good, unless he has about a thousand dollars on him and you both know he doesn’t. Shit you might well donate what you find to this here church. Save you a whole bunch of trouble.” He extended his hand—knuckles like knots on a gnarled root—“I got a real name, but nobody knows it. They call me Echo.”
Muck grabbed his hand quick—“Muck”, then Tony—“Tony”.
“You boys should listen to me. I had and lost more money than you can think about. Anything you find in that man’s pockets won’t give you nothing but a bunch of hard decisions to make. Men like us are broken on the dollar. Money’d just leave us scattered, like pennies in a fountain.”
“Well we sure as shit aren’t donating it or throwing it any fucking fountain. And we’re not like you,” Tony said. “Isn’t that right, Muck?”
Muck looked at Tony, then at Echo. “Doesn’t matter because we’re not taking anything from him. Let us be, Echo.”
“You’re a wise young man,” said Echo and he sank back down into his clothes without looking at them again.
Muck picked up his empty tray and walked it over to the trashcan with Tony following. Muck leaned into Tony, “Fuck it, what’s that old man know? I know what I’d do with that money. I’ll talk to Sweatpants. You just make sure he doesn’t feel a thing.”
“My man. You trying to do a little magic trick? Turn that money into some pussy?” Tony ducked under Muck’s fist. “I’m just kidding. Sweatpants is walking out though, let’s talk to him.”
The two boys elbows their way through the indolent men, milling around the door, until they were on the street behind the skinny kitchen volunteer in sweatpants. Tony walked ahead of Muck and passed the man with his head down.
“Hey Sweats!” Muck called to him. “Grey Sweatpants!” The man turned. “You the one serving the beans today?” Muck asked. He saw Tony turn with the man and size him up from behind.
“Yes, that was me.” The man said. He shifted his weight uneasily and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Muck saw Tony slink closer to him.
“I just wanted to ask,” Muck said. “Why do you do it? Volunteer here. I’ve seen you here before.”
The man eased a bit with the question, dropped some tension from his shoulders but his hands remained in his pockets. “Well the way I see it is, the bible says, ‘Charity shall cover the multitude of sins’. And I’m not a perfect man, so I figure I better account for my multitude somehow.”
“Bible says a lot of things,” Muck said, careful not to look at Tony, who slunk into a doorway shadow, quiet walking on the balls of his feet.
“You read the bible?”
“Some.”
The man smiled and withdrew hands from his pockets. “Which ‘some’?”
“Just some. The way I see it, no words I know of got power enough to change much around here.” Muck watched Tony inch closer to the man. “You listen to those men in there? Been talking and talking for years. And they still in the same place they were yesterday and they goin’ to be in the same place tomorrow.”
“You’ve thought about this before.” The man stated and crossed his arms. Muck saw Tony’s wrist—whittled thin to bone and vein—knife into the man’s pocket and out again, holding nothing.
“Some. Can’t eat a thought though. Can’t eat the bible either.” Muck had the man thinking. Tony’s crablike hand dipped into the other pocket and he withdrew a brown tri-fold wallet.
“That may be so. But if you’re stuck in a place, you might as well start looking at it a little differently. So you can feel good.”
“I look at it how I want, and I feel alright. My momma’s religious but she’s still banging old men in the apartment so they’ll keep buying her cigarettes and the magazines she likes.” Muck saw the hand slide the wallet back into the man’s pocket and watched Tony retreat diagonally backwards across the street away from the man.
“Well I don’t know anything you don’t already know then. It’s just a choice, just like everything else.”
“Just a choice,” Muck echoed. “Well maybe I’ll see you next time you’re here.” He turned to leave.
“My names Stuart by the way. For next time.” Muck turned and saw him holding his hand out.
“Stu serving the stew. Got it.” Muck grasped his soft hand for an instant before walking away.
Muck walked across the street without looking back at the man, waiting to be sure he’d quit watching him before he leaned against the corner of the building and waited for Tony to emerge from whatever shadow concealed him.