Pt 3

Happy Harry stood outside the section of sewer pipe and looked at the feet hanging out the end. Using his shepherd's staff, he nudged the man on his side. The man rolled over and sat up with the result that he hit his head. Dante swore, "Damn! That hurts."

"Got to be careful in there," Harry said with a grin.

Dante rubbed his head where he had hit it. He groaned and asked, "What time is it?"

"Sunrise. Breakfast will be in ten minutes. We'll leave after breakfast."

"How do I get out of here?"

Harry shook his head while wondering what kind of problem William had given him. There had been no hints about the need to learn respect for the homeless or social responsibility. William had said nothing, but it was clear the guy was going to be a problem. Until he knew more, he'd let it ride. He answered, "You'll figure it out."

Feeling like a worm, Dante inched his way down the length of the pipe. When his legs hung over the edge, he rolled over on his stomach and inched back more until he could lower his feet to the ground. When he straightened out, he hit the back of his head on the edge of the pipe. He swore and said, "That hurts."

Looking around, he didn't find Harry. Other men were climbing out their beds. They handled the exit with much greater ease than he had. None of them had hit their heads. He folded the blanket to return it to Boy Scout since he was leaving after breakfast.

He wandered in the general direction of the food shack. A number of men were already standing around drinking coffee and waiting for the food to become available. A couple of men were walking off with trash sacks. He wondered what they were doing. His curiosity was satisfied when he heard Boy Scout tell another man, "You know the rules. Earn the food first and then you can get the food. Take this sack and fill it with trash."

He went over to get a sack figuring that he had to earn his breakfast. Boy Scout looked at him and asked, "What do you want?"

"Aren't I supposed to pick up trash to get breakfast?" Dante asked.

"You earned it yesterday peeling those potatoes. Don't you remember that?"

"Oh. I'm still waking up," Dante said in a lame attempt to hide his ignorance. "Here's my blanket."

Boy Scout looked at him for a good ten seconds and then said, "I don't want your dirty blanket back. For all I know, you pissed on it in your sleep. It's yours to keep."

"Oh. So what am I supposed to do until breakfast?"

Pointing to a coffee urn, Boy Scout said, "There's coffee over there."

Dante went over and got a cup of coffee. He stood in front of the urn and took a sip of out of the cup. He was savoring the rush of caffeine when Jewels growled, "Move out of the way, Hungry Man."

Dante stepped over to the side. "Sorry."

Harry walked over to Dante and stood with crossed arms staring at him with a frown on his face. Boy Scout had told him a strange tale about an artist who was going to create a statue of him. He exhaled loudly through his nose. It was close to a snort, but it was not quite short enough to qualify as one. He said, "Hungry Man, William put you up to this, didn't he?"

"He hired me to do this," Dante answered realizing that Happy Harry had not known he was there to create a statue of the man.

"He hired you?"

"Oh yes. He's paying me a lot of money to make a statue of you," Dante said. He wondered if that information would free him from having to work around the Homeless Hotel for dinner.

"We'll talk about this later," Harry said while turning away. He started fishing through his pockets trying to find his cell phone. He had just pulled it out when it rang. Surprised he looked at the caller id and answered it, "What are you trying to pull?"

"Hi Harry," William said. The young man's voice was entirely too cheerful for the time of day.

"Don't hi Harry me. What's this about a statue?" Happy Harry asked.

"Eight hundred castings of a statue and two castings of a bust," William corrected.

"I'll bust you."

"I'm sure you will. Have a good breakfast," William said just before hanging up. Harry could hear the young man's laughter before the call cut off.

Thirty minutes after breakfast, Dante climbed into the Roach Coach and closed the door. He'd just finished the most miserable shower of his life. He wondered what kind of person would have designed the Homeless Hotel with unheated outdoor showers. His balls had tried to climb into his body. He was sure that his scream of shock was loud enough to wake the dead.

Harry climbed into the wagon and said, "Only thirty minutes late and we're about to shuffle off to Buffalo. Hang on because this here beast has more sway in it than a tree in a hurricane."

The rocking motion started as soon as Harry pulled out of the Homeless Hotel. Looking out the window, Dante could see the ground rise up towards him. Panicked, Dante shouted, "We're going to fall over!"

"Bosh! It just has a little sway to it. That's all."

"It should be sent to a junk yard!"

Ignoring the comment about his wagon, Harry said, "Now tell me about this statue you're supposed to do of me. Did William tell you why he wanted it?"

Dante shook his head and said, "Nope. He just said that castings were going to be placed in Fusion Foundation sites."

"Did he say locations supported by the Fusion Foundation or Fusion Foundation Buildings?"

"Locations supported by the Fusion Foundation," Dante answered trying to recall William's words exactly. He thought they meant the same thing.

"That sneaky brat," Harry said when he realized what William was doing. Looking over at Dante, he said, "William wants to immortalize me by turning this fine figure of a man into a repository for bird shit."

"That's disgusting. A statue is not a repository for bird shit. It's art."

Nothing would be worse than having ugly statues of himself scattered around the country. Harry asked, "So are you any good?"

Dante pretended not to hear the question and looked out the window as the city of Cleveland rolled past. He didn't know how to answer that question. Three years ago he would have answered in the affirmative. Sitting in the Roach Coach and watching run down buildings pass by, he didn't know.

Harry repeated his question in a louder voice. Dante answered, "William paid a lot of money for it. Figure it out for yourself."

Although Dante didn't realize it at the time, Happy Harry figured it out before Dante had even finished speaking. The old man didn't even glance over at his passenger. There was time enough to deal with him later. For now, he was traveling and it was time to appreciate the movement. He started singing the song about being a born under a wandering star from the movie, Paint Your Wagon. It was his favorite song to sing while driving across the country.

Dante looked out the window, but didn't see the landscape pass by. His thoughts were turned inward. Harry's questions had reawakened all of his self-doubts. He was on the verge of quitting the commission when he fell asleep. Harry didn't wake him until they had reached a restaurant for lunch.

It was a typical roadside family dining place that was part of a national chain. Dante sat across from Harry and studied the menu. He had just decided that he'd get the Chef Salad when Harry asked, "What are you getting?"

"Chef Salad."

Harry frowned and said, "You might want to get something with a little more fat in it. You're going to need it since the nights are still cold. Once the temperature starts dropping below forty, you need every calorie you can burn."

"Why don't we sleep in a regular hotel?"

"Hungry Man, you are going to become one with the environment. Air conditioning and heating is part of a false world that isolates you from the change of seasons. You are going to find out what it means to be alive in the physical world," Harry said. He also thought to himself that he was about to rediscover what it meant to live in the world of men and women.

"There's a reason air conditioning and heating was invented," Dante countered feeling a little intimidated by the fact that Harry was a Druid. Despite that, he felt a need to argue and Harry was the only one available to satisfy that need.

"That's true. It doesn't change the fact that people lost something as a result of it," Harry agreed amiably.

Wanting to make a point, Dante said, "I'm still going to get a Chef's Salad."

"I didn't say you couldn't."

A tense half hour passed during which the order was taken and the food delivered. Harry enjoyed his meal, waxing poetic about the fine qualities of Chicken Fried Steak. Dante ate his salad quietly. About the time Dante was halfway through his salad, Harry said, "Hungry Man, my people named you correctly. You are a starving artist. The problem is that what you are hungry for doesn't fill the stomach. That's not a good thing in an artist."

Dante looked up from his salad and stared at Harry. The old man looked him directly in the eye with an unwavering gaze. He wondered what it was that the Druid saw in him. A shiver went through Dante and he bent down to finish his lunch. His appetite was gone.

Harry and Dante stayed for three days in Buffalo. Dante had become accustomed to the flow of life in a Homeless Hotel. Although the bed had never become comfortable, he had become used to sleeping on the hard surface. The meals were nutritious, but not always tasty. The nights were cold and he found that he was loosing weight since his body was trying to accommodate the changes in weather.

Dante hadn't tried to fit in with the men and women in the Homeless Hotel. Most of the time was spent sitting on a railroad tie thinking about his commission, but he didn't do anything about it. The only time he wasn't on the railroad tie was when he was doing some odd job around the Homeless Hotel to earn his food for the day. Not once did he pick up his sketch book to draw Harry. He didn't even consider attempting to draw Harry.

Even worse than not doing anything, Dante had ignored everyone around him. In the entire three days, he hadn't said one word more than was necessary to get food. He ignored the conversations that took place around him even when those conversations concerned him. When someone said something really outrageous, all he did was look in their direction for a moment and then look away.

On the morning of the fourth day, Harry found Dante standing by the coffee urn drinking a cup of coffee. Harry said, "We leave in half an hour. You'll need to take a shower before we go. You stink and I don't want to smell you all the way to New York City."

Dante stared at the Druid angered by his blunt talk. Wanting to get back at the Druid, he said, "You're a mean bastard. If you're so good, aren't you supposed to be nice?"

"What's being nice got to do with being good?" Harry asked with a twinkle in his eye.

"You know what I mean; helping people by giving them a kind word and all of that."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The only way to help people is to tell them the truth. The truth is a harsh mistress," Harry said with a sad shake of his head. He felt that anyone who didn't believe that truth was harsh should spend a day with Ed Biggers.

Being told that he stank was bad, but the comment about him saying something stupid offended him. His offense wasn't great enough to argue, though. He rose and went over to the shower. The blast of cold water barely registered. It was not sufficient to break through his depressed mental state.

They hadn't even left Buffalo before Harry pulled in front of a house in a poor part of town. Dante watched Harry get out and go into the house wondering why they were stopping there. Five minutes later, Harry came out and opened the door on Dante's side. Grinning, Harry said, "There's a bunch of toxins in your body. It's time to get rid of them."

"Leave me alone," Dante said.

"I'm not going to join your private pity party, asshole. You need to get your pipes cleaned. Now get out of this crate and get inside that house. Ask for Maggie."

Moving like a condemned man, Dante made his way to the front door. He knocked. After a few seconds an attractive woman opened the door and invited him into the house. Once there, he said, "Harry said that I was to ask for Maggie."

The request caused her to raise both eyebrows in surprise. Recovering, she said, "I'll get Maggie for you."

Dante watched dully as the woman disappeared down a hallway. A minute later she led a woman in her early twenties into the room. The woman was a brunette with an attractive face. She was wearing a short thin robe that ended well above her knees. The legs shown off were very shapely. Smiling at him, she said, "Come with me."

Realizing that Harry had set him up with a prostitute, Dante followed behind her watching her movements. She was pretty enough and his body wanted it, but his spirit was stunted. She reached a room and opened the door. Gesturing inside, she said, "Get undressed and lie down on the massage table. I'll be back in a minute."

Dante stumbled into the room and turned in time to see the door close behind him. The room was dimly lit and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the lower light level. A standard massage table occupied the center of the room. There was a small dresser against one wall with a variety of creams, powders, and oils randomly placed around it. A drawer was partially opened and he could see folded towels within it.

Next to the table was a chair. He started undressing and put his clothes on the chair. Even as he disrobed, he felt embarrassed by the disregard he had been showing them over the past few days. Once he was naked, he climbed on the table and covered himself with the neatly folded towel that had been on the center of the table.

There was a hole at the head of the table and he adjusted his position so that his face was supported through the hole. He heard the door open behind him and the sounds of Maggie slipping into the room. The door closed with a slam that made him jump. She said, "Sorry about that. The door sticks and I have to slam it to get it to close."

Dante didn't answer, but settled himself back onto the table. His movement was suddenly arrested when she pulled the towel off him. He rose and turned to look at her. She had dropped the robe and was standing next to the table naked except for a pair of French cut panties. She smiled and said, "Lie down. You'll have plenty of opportunity to look all you want when I'm done massaging your back."

Swallowing, Dante returned to his position. After a short time, she poured some oil on his back and started to massage the muscles. After a minute she said, "You're so tense. Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No," Dante answered, "you see, my girlfriend and my best friend left me three years ago. Since then, I haven't been with a woman."

"Sounds like you were really hurt by their leaving," Maggie said while kneading a tight muscle in his neck.

For the next hour, all of the miseries and doubts that had been bottled up inside Dante spilled forth. He was brutally honest about the events leading up to their leaving and his behavior since that time. All of his fears and concerns boiled forth without control. At some point, he realized that he was on his back with his head resting in her lap. Her arms were holding him as she stared down at him with concern filled eyes.

At the same time that he ran out of things to say there was a knock on the door. Maggie looked down at him and said, "Your time is up."

"Sorry to dump all that on you," Dante said feeling embarrassed by his behavior.

She kissed his forehead and said, "Don't be sorry. I'm glad that I was able to help."

Dante sat up and she climbed off the table. While putting her robe on, she said, "Get dressed. Harry's waiting outside."

Knowing that he owed her a debt that was far more than what money could pay, Dante asked, "What do I owe you?"

Grinning, she said, "Don't worry about it. Harry's taking care of it."

After she slipped out of the room, Dante climbed off the table and dressed. He slipped out of the room and returned to the living room. The attractive woman asked, "Did you enjoy your session?"

Surprised at how well he felt, Dante answered, "Very much. It was very therapeutic."

"I hope you'll return some time," she said with a smile. When Dante reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, she said, "Don't ruin it. Harry's waiting outside."

Disappointed at not being able to do something to thank Maggie, he said, "Let her know how much I appreciated what she did."

The woman smiled and said, "She knows."

Confused by the reply, Dante left the house. Stepping outdoors he was struck by the colors. The sky was a bright blue that was almost painful to the eyes. Bright white fluffy clouds broke up the expanse of blue. He walked to the Roach Coach with a spring to his step that had been absent for years.

Harry watched Dante approach with a smile. When the man climbed into the wagon, Harry said, "Get in the back. We have a passenger."

Not seeing anyone else in the Roach Coach, Dante moved into the back wondering who the mystery passenger was. There wasn't any place to sit, so he sat on the floor. He was shocked when Maggie climbed into the passenger seat and kissed Harry on the cheek. In a happy tone of voice, she said, "Thanks Harry. I'm ready to move on now."

"Maggie," Dante said. The word had slipped past his control.

"Hello Hungry Man. How are you feeling?"

"Shocked. What are you doing here?" Dante asked.

"Harry's taking me to the Fallen Angels. You were my last and I'll remember you forever. It was special. Thank you," she answered.

When the Roach Coach lurched forward, Harry announced, "Hold on, folks. When this wagon is moving, it has more swinging going on than a playground during recess."

Dante chuckled at the comment. He grinned when Maggie cried out, "We're going to fall over."

After ten minutes of riding in the front, Maggie decided that she had enough and made her way to the back of the wagon. Sitting on the floor next to Dante, she said, "This crate should be hauled off to a junk yard."

Dante said, "I've suggested that more than once. He seems to like the way it moves."

"That's Harry for you. He likes to go places that most of us would rather leave behind," she said.

"So what's with this Fallen Angels thing?"

Surprised that Dante didn't know about it, she said, "It is an organization that helps whores get out of the business."

"So why are you going there?"

Maggie stared at him for a minute and then burst out laughing. Lightly, she said, "If you didn't notice, that was a whore house that you just left."

"But you're too nice to be a whore," Dante protested forgetting that she had had been nearly naked when she had given him the massage. He hadn't had a doubt that she was a prostitute when she had led him to the room.

"You're so sweet," Maggie said.

For the rest of the trip, she told Dante about her life. It was an all too common tale of a step-father who was a sexual predator and a young girl who left only to find that she had walked into a world filled with sexual predators.

As she told her story, Dante held her in his arms and allowed her to release the toxins that an aborted childhood had instilled in her. His throat was tight when she told about how horrible and cheap she felt when she turned her first trick to make enough to sleep warm at night on a full stomach. Listening, he came to appreciate her strength and her will to survive. Despite the things that she had suffered, he saw that she still retained a good soul. Despite three years of selling her body, she wanted to love and be loved as a woman and not as a whore.

She described how Harry had gotten her off of the street where it was dangerous and into the house where she was better protected. Dante frowned when he learned that Happy Harry had helped the owner set up the house. He asked, "Why would Harry do that?"

"Some of us aren't ready to leave the business right away. The money is too attractive, we're too screwed up to work, or we don't think we're good enough to rejoin society. Nancy, who runs that house, takes us to a therapist, helps us get our GED, and works with us in learning how to manage our lives. When we're ready to leave, Harry comes by and takes us to the Fallen Angels."

"It sounds to me like this Nancy is using you," Dante said finding the idea repugnant. He didn't like the idea that Harry was involved in something so illegal.

Looking at Dante, she said, "Of course she is. She might call herself a madam, but she's nothing more than a pimp. She makes a lot of money off of the girls in the house. However, she does give back more than any other pimp that I've ever dealt with."

"So what are you going to do when you get to the Fallen Angles?"

Maggie shrugged her shoulders and answered, "I'm thinking of going to college and major in social work. Maybe I can help a few kids before they have the life I've lived."

"Nice."

Dante was sad when they dropped Maggie off at a small building that had a sign in the window that simply said, 'Fallen Angels." Just before she had gotten out of the Roach Coach, Harry had given her a little statue of an angel. Dante had given her a hug and told her that she'd be in his thoughts. He moved into the passenger seat and watched the building as it receded into the distance.

Grinning, Harry could see that an emotional bond had developed between the two. Leering obscenely, he said, "Did you enjoy getting your pipes cleaned by Maggie?"

Offended by the coarse talk, Dante said, "We didn't have sex!"

"I never thought you did for a minute," Harry said with a laugh. He turned a corner which started the Roach Coach to swaying. Winking at Dante, he said, "You did get a lot of that emotional plumbing of yours straightened out. I bet that toilet you call a brain can flush now without flooding the bathroom."

Suspicious, Dante stared at Harry wondering if he was telling the truth. He asked, "You didn't think we did anything?"

"As bound up as you were in your own world of misery, I'd have been surprised if you'd been able to get a hard-on. Of course, you're still a long way from being an artist again."