Voices From The Heart

The Lean Years

Chapter 1

Looking out the clubhouse window from the cashier’s station, Tony Feller watched Alan Paige ride the ball picker out at the far end of the driving range. The ground was still wet from the rainstorm that blew into town the day before. He could see how soggy it was out there as the machine scooped up the balls, pulling up small rivulets of water behind the wheels.

It’s not too bad at the range. Rain or shine or even snow, people came in and do buckets, swinging at the balls on dozens of tee pads, some of them under the cover of a long canopy. But he wondered about the golf course behind the clubhouse, all nine holes of it, how playable it really was.

Lee Henson, the grounds maintenance manager who had been it for twenty-six years at this facility of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, said it was fine when he came back in a few minutes ago to report the condition.

It looks like the rain stopped just right before it dumped any more water we don’t want, he said to Tony. Anybody calls, tell them we’re open, he added.

It was seven-twenty in the morning, a Saturday in late March. No customer had shown up yet. Tony didn’t think there’d be many showing up today on account of the rain. Then the phone started ringing.

Yes, we’re open. Come on in, he said over and over again as calls came in one after the other.

During a lull, he turned back to the window and now saw Alan Paige doing the near half of the driving range where fewer balls lay on the ground and was thus close to finishing the job. Tony could see him clearly in the driver’s seat of the ball picker, working the scooper now loaded with hundreds of balls. Even from this distance and with his head under the hood of the cold-weather jacket, Tony could discern that empty look on his face. All that expression of quiet submission and helplessness.

Poor kid, Tony was thinking, recalling some of the things he had learned about the young man. They had chatted a number of times out at the starter gazebo by the first-hole teeing ground when either of them was on starter duty, and once here in the clubhouse when Tony was on cashier duty like now. He worked one day a week, usually Saturday, Alan five or as many days as he could a week, morning or afternoon shift, or both.

This is it for now, Alan, working as a starter, had said to him one day as they leaned against the wooden fence near the gazebo. It was a Friday, Tony’s day off from his regular job as an apps developer with a tech contractor in Alexandria, Virginia. There aren’t any jobs anywhere. I’ve tried everywhere. Fast foods, retail stores, foodstores, malls. Even Home Depot where I worked before for three months but wouldn’t want to go back to. Nobody’s hiring.

He’d do anything, he added, to make a decent pay. So far, working as he did now at the golf course as a sort of a do-it-all staff was all he could have, making six-fifty an hour. Even with this, he’s worried about his boss, Lee Henson, cutting his hours down some when business was slow, let alone when the place was closed during bad weather.

He finished high school a year ago and started working full time at this job. He’d try anything, he told Tony, to get a chance to go to college. He wanted to go into business, he said. Investing. Marketing. Banking. Learn all about using money and making it. Not just working for wages. He’s not going to spend thirty or forty years of his life working for somebody else. Not if he could help it.

But the way things looked now, he could only dream about college. But enough about that. There’s something else.

Tony felt worse when Alan said his father too couldn’t find a job anywhere. And here he was—holding two jobs, one full time as a tech worker now making over sixty thousand a year and just for the fun of it one day a week usually on Saturday as a cashier or a starter here at the golf course.

Alan said his dad’s been out of work three months. Work dried up at this construction company he had been with for some years and got laid off. His mother worked at a school library in Bowie, wasn’t making enough from that so she took a part-time job as a sales clerk at Target. His sister, just turning sixteen, worked some hours behind the counter at a MacDonald’s near his mother’s school library job. Whatever they brought home and his father’s state unemployment plus his six-fifty an hour wage he made every couple of weeks, that was all they lived on. For now, till his father could get back to work, hopefully soon.

A few minutes before eight o’clock, people started coming in. Mostly to buy tickets to get buckets of balls from the machine outside and head out to the driving range. Then close to nine o’clock, business picked up at the links. A short line built up for a while from the door to the counter and he got busy. Hank Welch, today’s sales manager, got up once in a while from his end of the sales counter to help when customers asked questions he didn’t have time to answer or wanted something else to buy besides the green fees or the ball machine tickets. Things like gloves, towels, hats.

Hank Welch was a retired power company employee. Nobody knew exactly how old he was but many guessed at least eighty. When Tony asked what he did, Hank said he pulled cables. As he explained what it meant, he did so with some heft in his voice. Trying to make it sound more dignified than it was, Tony felt, knowing that Tony was college-educated, worked with his mind, not his hands, using a specialized knowledge in a white-collar job that paid good money.

I worked on a lot of buildings in Washington and all around the area for years, old man Hank said proudly. The way it sounded, he was a lineman pulling power lines into buildings, under the roof or between floors and ceilings. Tony got curious and wanted to ask if he ever got zapped.

There were a number of elderly people working at the facility. Fifty- to eighty- something years old. One of them, a guy named Bob Lufkins, was eighty-six, he told Tony one time at the gazebo. Bob worked as a starter.

This one had a story, way back when he was in the service, that sounded like he might have caused the U.S. entry into World War II. He worked for the Navy Department as a civilian in the old Navy building near the Mall in Washington. One day in December 1941, he said, somebody handed him a message on a piece of paper for their office boss, an Admiral, who was supposed to take it up with the State Department and the Department of Defense immediately. But Bob misplaced the piece of paper in the pile on his desk.

It was a confidential message supposedly from the Japanese Consul General proposing further negotiation to avoid an armed conflict between the two countries. He didn’t find it till a couple days later, after Pearl Harbor.

Tony couldn’t believe it when he first heard the story and at the same time thought how funny it was. If it were true, he wondered if Bob could get into trouble even now. Maybe he should stop telling it to anybody.

Some of these elderly workers he liked better than others. For instance, he liked Bob better than Hank who was bossy and even spiteful sometimes. He’d had one incident with Hank, so far, a few weeks ago one day when he was assigned as a starter for the morning shift. Hank didn’t know and turned belligerent when Tony said Louise Roderick, the clubhouse manager and their boss, had scheduled him outside to get the hang of it more.

Tony was the newest addition to the staff doing mostly cashier duty but he had also done starter duty three times since he got hired four months before. Again, Hank didn’t know he already had some experience doing the job, read the procedure manual and had gone past all the basics.

You don’t know how to handle that job, Hank barked at him. Alan Paige happened to be sitting at a table in the sales area across from the counter. He sat there quietly as he watched the old man grab the manual from under the counter and flip through it, looking for a place where he could show Tony what a starter did.

Loose pages went flying out of the manual as Hank flipped through it vigorously. He looked angry. Tony finally spoke when he saw the old man getting more agitated. He said: Hank, I’ve already gone through all that weeks ago. Twice.

You don’t know what to do out there, Hank countered.

Yes, I do. I’d been out there once with another starter, and three times on my own. Ask Louise when she comes in, Tony said as he moved toward the door carrying the key to the starter gazebo, She put me in as today’s starter. Check the work schedule in the drawer.

We’ll see about that! Hank barked again.

Tony didn’t even listen to that and headed out, exchanging looks with Alan still sitting there shaking his head slightly side to side as if to say ‘Bad, bad, mean old sonofabitch.’

And then there was Karl Jeong, Don Lange, Paul Hatcher, Trish Mahoney, Terry Sitter and several others, all seniors working part-time at the facility at least two days a week.

There had been several other incidents, all involving personality issues, he learned not long after Louise Roderick hired him. One was between Karl Jeong, a seventy-five-year old Korean ex-military, a starter, and Don Lange, a sixty-two-year old ex-cop, another sales manager.

Karl was a South Korean army Captain during the Korean war. He joined the U.S. Army after he moved to America and fought in the Vietnam war. Don was a local policeman for twenty some years and liked to talk, brag, about having ‘put away a few bad guys’ over the years and getting cut or shot at in the process. He’d show scars on his limbs and torso and tell the story behind each of them to anybody willing to listen.

Karl got into a tussle with Don one day while working the afternoon shift. Several small groups of players had come one after the other within minutes so he got busy checking them in by the gazebo. He was in the process of setting up teams and their teeing order when Don showed up and started minding how he was doing it.

Are you the manager today? Karl asked Don, eyeballing the guy hard. He knew the guy wasn’t on duty today and, therefore, had no business minding Karl or anybody with their work. The guy was only hanging out at the golf course and the clubhouse which he did on any given day. A retired cop with nothing to do with his life but hang out at the golf club.

What difference does it make? replied Don and went on to tell him how to pick players for each team and which team to tee off first, even telling players where to line up.

They argued and came close to a shouting match until Karl had enough and told him to leave or he’ll have to call Louise, the clubhouse manager. You’re not on duty today, he told the ex-cop, so you have no business minding anybody here or in the clubhouse.

Karl told Louise about the incident the next day and later the same day Louise had a talk with Don about it.

You gotta watch that guy, Karl, who had been on the job for three years, told Tony afterwards. That old man Hank is another one. Don’t let any of them push you around. That’s not the first time this one has done that. He’s done it with Terry too. Terry talked to Louise about it and turned in his club jacket to resign but Louise told him to hold off and cool down. She talked to the sonofabitch to tell him to leave people alone when he has no business messing with them.

Don Lange had done the same thing to Alan Paige—just a kid young enough to be his grandson—with Alan’s duties as a starter, a ball picker, a substitute cashier. Alan said Don even told him how to drive the golf carts, where not to drive it, how fast to drive it and where to park it and where not to park it.

The guy talks to you, Alan said, like you have nothing but pure air in your head for a brain. Actually, Alan had a bigger problem than Don Lange in Lee Henson, his immediate boss. He told Tony in one of their chats that Lee works him like a mule doing anything nobody else would do. And he wouldn’t give me a raise. He said he would after a year. I’ve been here a year since last month, he said.

Tony Feller had worked with Don Lange twice in the clubhouse. The first time he did, he didn’t like the way the guy talked to him. Condescending, arrogant, know-it-all. He knew then even before he heard about him from the others, he’d rather not work with him and hoped Louise wouldn’t put him in a shift with the guy.

The second time he worked with Don, he was so put off listening to him talk about his beat when he was a cop, talking down to him when he had a question, say, about a function in the cashier PC, or worse when there’s a problem with the computer. He’d take over the keyboard, sweeping his hands out of it like he wasn’t even there. Hank Welch did the same thing.

At closing time at night, Don ordered him around like he didn’t know the routine after he had been on the job several months. Printing the balance sheet for the report file before shutting down the machine, turning off the coffeemaker, taking the cash drawer to the vault and counting the day’s take, restoring the seventy-five-dollar initial cash in the cash register drawer for the following morning’s opening. It was simply humiliating working with the man.

He decided he’d make an excuse not to show up the next time Louise scheduled him to work with Don Lange. The same with Hank Welch.

Today, he would have done that had he known that Hank was filling in for Paul Hatcher who was scheduled as the sales manager in the shift but had to take the day off on personal business. Paul Hatcher was a nice guy; friendly and respectful. Nothing like those other guys at all.

The morning shift went fairly smoothly except for one incident involving Hank and the shift’s starter, Joe Taylor, not a senior, early forties and one of only a few younger workers in the facility. It was twelve-thirty, a half hour before the end of the morning shift at one o’clock. Joe walked in to sign out and Hank asked him in his usual bossy way what he’s doing in the clubhouse while still on duty out there.

I have to take off early for my doctor’s appointment, said Joe. Alan’s out there now for me. I asked him earlier and he said no problem.

Maybe not with him but it is—a problem, with me, said Hank. Mean old man Hank, thought Tony at the cashier’s station. Besides, Hank added, the kid’s got other things to do. Next time, you let me know first. I’m the manager.

Let it go, man. It’s only half an hour. Mean old sonofabitch, Tony thought this time.

********************

Chapter 2

Monday morning at work, Tony Feller was thinking: What am I doing letting myself get too involved in that place? He chuckled, looking back to how it all started one late afternoon last year while he was out running on the trail by the golf course.

He was near the end of the three miles he did every other day as he reached the road that dead-ended at the front parking lot of the golf course where he parked this time. He turned left on it towards the parking lot just as a car coming out slowed down to a stop and a silver-haired man stepped out of it.

Is that your car parked in there? the man asked, walking straight to the entrance gate near the intersection of the road with University Boulevard. The blue Toyota?

Yes, he replied, hopping in place opposite the man on the road. Is there a problem?

Good thing you got here before I left. We’re closed. Hurry up and get it out of here. I’m closing the gate.

I’ll be right out. Sorry, didn’t mean to hold you up, he said and hurried to the car on his new Nike Air. The man wasn’t upset or hostile. He was friendly and accommodating, even waved at him with a smile as he stood there near the gate and waited.

He stopped on the way out as the man was closing the opposite half of the swinging iron gate and had a quick chat with him.

You work here? Tony asked, leaning out the car window.

Yeah. I just do it part-time. Half a day twice a week.

How long you’ve been doing it?

Um-m, seven, eight years.

So what do you do working in a golf course.

I started out a cashier, then a starter. We all started the same way doing that. And a few other things, help run the place. I’m a sales manager now.

You get to play for free?

Oh, yes. All you want anytime except when you’re working.

At that point, Tony started getting interested and let the idea play in his head about maybe doing the same thing. This tech job he had, he worked ten hours a day and got a day off every week, any day he chose.

Lately, he had gotten curious about the game of golf and started watching PGA tournaments on TV, following up on the actions of the big stars. He knew diddly about the game, never even held a club except one time when he went with a golfer friend to a driving range. He missed the ball on the tee pad half the time he swung at it.

He introduced himself to the man closing the gate, not wanting to hold him up any longer but at the same time eager to learn more about the part-time job.

I’m Paul Hatcher, said the man.

So how do you get a job there? he asked straight out.

You interested? asked Paul.

Yeah. I think so. Part-time.

Yeah, well, that’s what all of us do. Go in and see Louise. Louise Roderick. She’s the clubhouse manager. Monday through Friday. She does the hiring. I think she’s looking to hire a couple more people.

Heck, why not? He could do it on his day off, or weekends.

In six months since he got hired, he had shot buckets and buckets of balls in the driving range. In the process, several people, co-workers at the place and some customers who recognized him and noticed his swing, had come to his aid and showed him how it’s done. He would have spent a lot of money if he had had to pay for the balls.

Soon, he was hitting the ball and hitting it straight down the range, most of the time. Later, he practiced putting, on the green behind the driving range tee pads and the one behind the first-hole teeing ground. Short putts. Four-footers and long ones, twenty, thirty-footers

To date, he had dared venture onto the links only twice and each time carded in over 90 on the par 31 nine-hole course. He found he enjoyed the game, especially at the driving range and the putting greens. But he was convinced he was never going to be any good at it.

Well, whaddahell, it’s just fun, he thought. Go out there in open fields. Green grass, trees, ponds. Good way to get your mind off some… stuff. Same as running except you don’t bust your guts doing it.

Only thing was, come Monday morning, everything’s back. All the stuff. So he didn’t need any of that with those snotty seniors at the golf club on top of the ones he had going here at work. Like, among other things, the very real possibility that he too might be out of work at any time.

Contract work which was mostly on government projects in the Capital area were never a secure livelihood. When the Pentagon awarded Orbital Data Systems (ODS) the two-billion-dollar contract to upgrade an existing satellite tracking system and eventually replace it, a hiring frenzy went on in town for weeks. He was one of hundreds recruited. A company called Aerospace Communication Software Systems (ACSS) hired him to help develop state-of-the-art application system software for the land-based control stations. ACSS was actually a subcontractor which landed one of the contract packages put out by ODS for open bidding.

That was three years ago. He was four years out of college. Four years he bounced around from job to job first as a programmer, then a systems analyst, later as a software engineer. Basically the same thing but called different names for marketing purposes.

The going was good at ACSS the first couple of years. It looked like a career job, finally, starting at $40k a year. It went up to $55k after two years. He was able to move out of his mother’s house in Adelphi at last into a one-bedroom in nearby Greenbelt and ‘upgrade’ to a brand new Toyota Camry LE from the ten-year old Honda Civic.

Then last year, near the end of fiscal year in September (this time of the year was one of the most significant events in the D.C. area), word got out in the office that due to budget cuts in some areas of Defense, parts of the satellite project contract may get short-funded. And things began to happen early this year.

Two subcontracts were pulled back by ODS causing mass layoffs in the subcontractor firms. The same thing was due to happen with ACSS. It was anybody’s guess when it will come down. The ax.

A couple of weeks ago, however, word came that ODS could keep ACSS on the project but there will have to be some downsizing. It didn’t do much to calm people’s nerves. Instead of waiting for the ax to drop, now it was like playing Russian roulette. Nobody knew who’s getting blown off and when. Since last week, Tony had started looking at the job ads, sending out resumes.

Stuff.

That’s one of them in the office. Another was the work itself. For weeks now, he had been waiting for some… stuff from Air Force, Pentagon, both civilian and military personnel he had been working with on the project. Systems Design Requirements, Operation and Maintenance Specs, Security Procedures. Stuff like that. They said they were going to call soon, and maybe deliver.

In the meantime, he had something else happen like three days later when his Aunt Rosie, his mother’s older sister, called. He had just gotten back from a late luncheon at work, close to two o’clock.

Your mother’s in the hospital, was the first thing she said. She has that pain again.

When did she enter the hospital? he asked. She told him what happened.

Aunt Rosie was a volunteer cook for Meals on Wheels in the United Methodist Church in College Park. She worked there Thursdays, as she did today, between nine and eleven in the morning. Tony himself was a volunteer the past two years now, delivering meals Fridays, his day off, from eleven to twelve-thirty or one in the afternoon, depending on a number of things. The number of drops (deliveries), their location, traffic, weather.

Shortly before Aunt Rosie left for home after she was done, her sister Vera, Tony’s mother, called the church number for her and asked her to come by the house. She wasn’t feeling well and left work early. She needed some help, she said.

Aunt Rosie went out to her house quickly, a ten-minute drive from the church, and found her in bed sick. They called her doctor and told him her symptoms. The doctor told Aunt Rosie to take her to the hospital right away.

I’m still here in the waiting room just outside the patients’ screening room, she said when Tony asked. Doctors are still examining her. She’s been there over an hour.

He left work immediately after telling his boss and drove the thirty-four miles from Alexandria, Virginia to the Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland.

He got there shortly after she was moved to a two-bed room. He and Aunt Rosie sat by her side while they waited for the result of the tests and the imaging processes. The pain pills she took appeared to have taken effect. She said she felt better and asked why she had to stay overnight in the hospital.

Doctor’s order, Aunt Rosie said. They want you here under twenty-four hour observation.

Around six o’clock in the evening, her doctor returned with some of the test results. One of them, the CT scan of her abdomen where she felt the severe pain earlier in the day showed a tumor the size of a plum. She was scheduled for a biopsy procedure early the next day to determine whether or not the growth was indeed benign as the blood tests indicated.

They stayed with her till shortly before the end of visiting hours at eight, telling her before they left not to worry, rest for the night, things will turn out alright, they’ll be back to check on her the next day.

At the parking lot before they drove off separately, Aunt Rosie asked him: So, are you doing Meals on Wheels tomorrow?

He hesitated a moment and when she saw this, she said: It’s alright. I’ll check on her early tomorrow.

You think they can get somebody to sub for me?

I don’t know. You can call Prudie and ask before it gets too late. Prudie was the coordinating manager on Friday in the church kitchen. The manager oversaw the activities of the kitchen and delivery volunteers, planned the drops for each Route the most direct and fuel-efficient way and kept the address/direction clipboards for each Route current.

I’d like to see Mom first if I could— Tony said.

But she interrupted him, saying: Wait a minute. We can’t see her in the morning, anyway. It’ll have to be in the afternoon. Visiting hours start at two in this hospital.

She told him she’ll call her in the morning, see how she’s feeling. And she’ll let him know what’s happening. Then they can come in the afternoon and visit, see what the doctors say. If she can come home or not."

The house phone rang at 8:30 A.M. the next day and woke him up.

I just talked to her, Aunt Rosie said. She’s doing fine. They’re getting her ready for the biopsy shortly. I told her we’ll be over at two.

********************

Chapter 3

Two years ago, he was on his way out of the apartment to go running Friday morning. He had moved out of his mother’s house into the new place only a few weeks before. His cell phone rang as he was getting in the car. It was Aunt Rosie calling from the church kitchen.

We need a substitute for Route 4, she told him. The person on duty for the Route just called in sick. She knew Tony was off work on Friday.

It was almost eleven o’clock. All the meals are packed and ready to go, she said. The hot ones are going to get cold. All the other volunteers for the other Routes had gone out.

He couldn’t say no and simply told her he’ll be over in fifteen minutes. He got in the car and, instead of driving to Lake Artemesia in Berwyn Heights where he often did his three miles, drove to the church and delivered Meals on Wheels in his running gear.

That was only the second time he had done it, and the first time he did by himself as the driver and the runner. Many volunteers, especially the seniors who comprised the majority of them, went out in pairs. One was the driver and stayed at the wheel throughout the delivery and the other the runner. The first time he did it, a month before, Aunt Rosie went with him. He drove but she had him go with her to deliver the meals so he’d see what it’s like doing the drops.

Knock on the door or ring the bell then either hand over the meals at the door or go in if asked and put them where the customer wanted them. The kitchen or the dining table. Take a little time if they want to talk, a minute or two, not too long but just enough to give some company, a little conversation. Most of them are shut-ins, elderly, disabled, or all of the foregoing. Every little bit of kindness means a lot to them, especially if you were the first and the last person they expected to see the rest of the day. He decided, after that first time with Aunt Rosie, he’d rather do it all by himself alone. Both as the driver and the runner.

Ever since she learned about his work schedule (off on Friday), Aunt Rosie would call him everytime they needed a sub and couldn’t find anybody else. One of the regular Friday volunteers who had taken ill frequently and for whom he had subbed a number of times eventually dropped out. When Aunt Rosie asked him if he’d like to do it regularly, he thought: Why not? Somebody’s gotta do it. Here’s your chance to give some back for… whatever. For at last having a steady job and a good-paying one. Or just for being reasonably healthy in body and mind. Or simply for being born in America, a land of freedom and opportunity, instead of some poor country in Africa or Asia or any third-world country on the planet living on two dollars a day.

After he had been doing it a few weeks, it became a routine he didn’t mind at all and at times actually even looked forward to. It provided some sort of a break from the long ten-hour work-days during the week. And it gave him a sense of purpose, something that’s just there while he was at it, on the road; something that need not be defined or justified or explained in any way. The act of giving of his time and the use of his car spoke for itself.

One thing he did not like about it, though, was when he got a new drop on his Route. He worried about the kind of drop it would be. Whether it’s a few steps’ walk from the street directly to the front door or a long walk through a fenced frontyard where a monster dog might be waiting to jump him as soon as he went through the gate. One type of job, he thought then, nobody could pay him enough to do was that of a mail carrier.

There was a drop he did in his Route for more than a year, a house in College Park near the Branchville Volunteer Fire Department building. It was set back some twelve yards from the street and had a chain-link fence around it. In the clipboard he carried, there was a note under the address that warned of a dog. The first time he delivered there, he parked right in front of the house and saw a red ‘Beware of Dog’ sign on the fence gate. He was told at the church that it was a big dog, a German shepherd, but that it was friendly, according to the owner. Sure, they always say that, dog owners: Gentle and friendly, doesn’t bite.

He was also told that the animal was usually in the house but was let out in the yard once in a while because there was no one in there to walk it in the neighborhood. When he finally got out of the car carrying the basket loaded with the meals, he was convinced the dog was out there somewhere outside waiting to attack anybody entering the property. He stood outside the fence on the sidewalk for what seemed an eternity, looking everywhere for any sign of the animal, hoping he would see it inside the house behind one of the ground floor windows or, better yet, the upper-floor ones.

Everything was quiet as he stood there helplessly in mortal fear. Finally, he swung the gate open and went in, prepared to sprint back to the car, which he left unlocked, at the first sight of the animal. He walked through what felt like a hundred yards of the lawn, up four steps to the porch and the door.

No dog, so far. He knocked several times, each time turning his head side to side watching out for any sign of the animal. When nobody came to the door after the fourth knock, he decided to leave the meals at the doorstep as was usually done. Getting back to the car took him about a tenth of the time it took him to get to the house frontdoor.

Other volunteers had the same concern about the drop so that later on, the phone number of the house was added to the address in the clipboard. From then on, he would call first while sitting in the car in front of the house. Somebody would come out and he’d simply hand over the meals over the fence. There were occasions when nobody would answer the phone and he was told that if that happened, it was alright to leave the meals on the ground just inside the fence. And he did that more often than not, leaving a message in the answering machine to tell the time and day he delivered the meals.

The only other thing he didn’t look forward to was the living condition he saw with some of the drops. There was an elderly couple who lived in a small one-storey house which looked like a warehouse inside. Piles of old newspaper and magazines, boxes of books, empty bottles, old clothes, everywhere. Hoarders. Sometimes they asked to bring in the meals to the kitchen table and he had to carefully pick his way to get there and back out the door.

And then there was a man, late sixties, one of four drops he did at the Spellman House, a government-subsidized low-income hi-rise apartment building for the elderly on Berwyn House Road across Route 1 from the University of Maryland. The last drop he did in the building, second floor. Here we go again, he’d mutter to himself everytime he stood in front of the apartment door and knocked, the gas chamber.

He would ease back a half a step once the man opened the door to minimize the assault of the awful smell from the inside. The stale air bearing the scent of an unwashed human body, of stagnant cigarette smoke that had been hanging in the apartment for sometime, not to mention the odor coming from the man himself, his body, his hair and the clothes he wore, the same wrinkled and stained shirt and workout pants Tony had seen on him time and time again. He was glad the man always took the meals at the door and he never had to go one step inside the apartment.

Other drops weren’t all that bad. There were a number of them where he didn’t mind going in and sharing a little time for that little bit of kindness. In fact, there were times when he wished he could stay longer, seeing how it cheered them up to have company, get in a small talk about anything. The weather, taxes, bills, arthritis, lower-back pain. Anything. He didn’t mind at all. He got used to it after a while. But he could only stay for a couple of minutes and not much more for he had to get going. He had to take care of the rest of the drops before the hot meals got too cold and it got too late in the day.

One of these drops was a woman named Maggie Britton in a Cape Cod house on Autoville Drive in College Park. She was a small, lightly built woman in her early eighties, Tony guessed. Half-blind, he noticed one day when she asked him to help her find a couple of house bills among the papers she had scattered on the table she was working on in the kitchen. He always delivered the meals through the kitchen door coming from a landing atop a short flight of stair outside by the concrete driveway on the side of the house.

She lived alone and he often wondered if she had any family looking in on her once in a while. He had never seen anybody else in the house in all the months he’d been delivering to her. He never got into the customers’ personal lives when he talked to them during his quick cheer-up visits unless they opened up about it.

He always found the door unlocked after he knocked and heard her call out for him to come in. He’d simply step in directly to the kitchen table and deliver the meals on it. If she’s not sitting at the table, he’d find her on the sofa in the open lounge room next to the kitchen either laying down on it or sitting up watching television.

Sometimes, coming up the steps outside carrying the basket of food for her, he wondered what would happen this time when he knocked on the door, announcing ‘Meals on Wheels’. And she didn’t answer. And he pushed in the unlocked door and… He always stopped short of thinking the worst and felt glad when she responded, calling out for him to come in.

Once in a while, he’d stay an extra minute or two to help her with the papers on the kitchen table, put them in order, address an envelope and stick a stamp on it, all the while talking to her about whatever she might start out with. Usually how cold or how hot it is in the house.

At times, she’d ask him to check the temperature in the thermostat on a wall in the kitchen and he’d raise it up or down a tad just to satisfy her. Then she’d ask him to take her mails on his way out, thanking him kindly, telling him what a nice young man he is. He’d pick them up on the kitchen counter by the door, telling her ‘Don’t mention it. Happy to do it for you. Take care. See you next week,’ and he’d put them in the mailbox near the church on his way back there after the last drop.

Today, he got to the church at 10:45 A.M., ten minutes earlier than usual. He wanted to catch Aunt Rosie before she left at eleven and check with her about his mother. Sure enough, she was just getting out of the kitchen back door to the parking lot when he arrived.

Anything I should do? he asked her. Anything you want me to do before I get there after I’m done here?

No, Tony, she said. I’ll take care of everything. I’m on my way to her house now to get her daily medicine. We didn’t bring it with us to the hospital yesterday. We didn’t know she won’t be coming home. It’s alright, though. She hasn’t missed a dose. She can take it as soon as I get there today. I’m also bringing her a change of clothes. Just meet us there at two.

Thank God for Aunt Rosie, he thought, as she turned to her car fishing for the key in her purse. Since childhood, he and his older brother Ricky who was now an Army Captain currently on a three-year tour of duty in South Korea, had looked up to Aunt Rosie like their second mother. She was always there for them when mother was away or couldn’t be with them.

He gave her a quick hug before they parted. She, to look after her sister, his mother. He, to take part in the next thing to do with what she helped prepare in the church kitchen—delivering them to those less capable of taking care of themselves.

He went in the kitchen back door saying hello to the rest of the cooks and the packers still packing the last of the meals. In the adjacent room, back of the church basement hall, where other volunteers were waiting to pick up the bag of meals, he signed in and picked up the basket containing the clipboard for his Route.

There was no change in the Route after he read the list on it. The same number