Page 12 of Families and Other Enemies

Kellen nodded.

Lena concluded, “That’s what Ralph is for people who live on the street.”

Dorothy smiled slowly. “Very apt! Yes, Ralph is a people whisperer.” She wiggled to get more comfortable on the no-doubt-donated bar stool. “He is, well, I suppose I’d say he’s one of the good guys. Sandra lets him know whenever someone new comes in. Often it’s kids, living on the street because they ran away from a horrible situation. Ralph can find out what’s troubling them, and he is amazing at taking what he knows from a few short conversations and translating it into a job.”

Kellen was shocked. She was impressed enough by all the volunteers she had met and the donors she had seen bring food and toiletries and socks to the food bank. After last winter at Yearning Sands Resort, and her encounter with Aunt Cora, Kellen had begun to doubt the kindness of humanity. Now she was glad she’d been coerced into volunteering at the food bank. “Does Ralph work here?”

“If you’re asking if he gets paid—no, he doesn’t,” Dorothy said. “Though I bet he’d tell you he gets paid in a million tiny ways. We all do.”

Kellen insisted, “If he’s here every day and he doesn’t get paid, how does he live?”

“On the street. I didn’t say he had no problems to speak of.” Dorothy counted off on her fingers. “He doesn’t talk much, he scavenges in garbage cans, he keeps clean because we insist. Sometimes I see him on the street corner with a sign asking for money. He helps everyone else, but he refuses to help himself.”

Kellen thought about that; he worked at an assistance shelter, but preferred to live on the street in lieu of asking for and getting aid. PTSD had awful ways of taking its toll. “What does he do about kids with drug problems or mental illness issues?”

Lena’s broad face lit up. “I can answer that! The first time I came to the food bank, Ralph sat me down and listened to my problems. I told him about my baby’s recurrent sicknesses and my struggle to find work because I couldn’t get a babysitter on the cheap, especially when I was asking them to take care of a croupy baby. Ralph drilled down to the fact that I was suffering from depression, helped me to find day care through the church next door and got me into a trial for a new antidepressant.”

“That’s amazing,” Kellen said.

Dorothy cracked another dozen eggs. “He even trains new volunteers who come in with no culinary skills. You’d be surprised what some kids don’t know in the kitchen.”

“Like what?” Kellen could imagine.

Lena started ticking off her fingers one by one. “How to slice a tomato, how to properly wash dishes, how to use a can opener.”

Dorothy started chuckling. “Some of them aren’t kids, either. I had a woman with two grandchildren act like I was an encyclopedia of produce. She would go through the produce boxes, and bring in fruits and vegetables for me to identify. She always asked for a good recipe using that piece of produce, too. But you would have thought I had given birth to a cow based on the look she gave me that time I explained that what she was holding was turmeric root.”

Lena giggled. “But Ralph—he has built up a lot of goodwill around here. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him get angry with anyone for relapsing into addiction or getting in fights, which happens a lot. People without a home can get very territorial when they find a tiny space where they can relax for a moment.”

Dorothy agreed. “He also protects the new kids from predators, which has the unfortunate effect of making him a prime target. But he takes it all in stride.”

Kellen nodded. “He’s a veteran,” she said, voicing her earlier hunch.

“I think he’s been here a long time,” Lena agreed.

“No,” Kellen said, “I meant a veteran of the armed forces. Which conflict? Do you know?”

“No conflict. He says he’s not a veteran,” Lena said.

Kellen didn’t believe it. “Come on. What you were talking about, his behavior, that’s PTSD.”

“You can get PTSD from other situations besides war,” Dorothy said.

“Yes,” Kellen said, “but I was in the military, and he has that way of carrying himself...”

“Once you’ve worked around homeless folks for a while, you don’t believe when they say they’re a veteran.” Dorothy smiled at Kellen’s expression. “In the end, it’s often a ploy to beg more money off the tourists. Boy, does it work!”

“The sad thing is that a number of the people who come through the soup line are veterans. It’s an injustice that we can’t believe everyone who says so. But either way, Ralph tells us he worked in transportation prior to...this.” Lena waved a hand around at the kitchen.

“Hmm.” Kellen turned back to her onion chopping. When she had entered the food bank, Ralph had looked her over and called her “Captain.” He didn’t know she had been a captain, of course—and she had—but he had recognized her as a veteran and an officer. Only other veterans seemed to have that ability, that gift for taking in a person’s posture and demeanor and determining that they were of the same ilk.

Out of the corner of her watery eye, Kellen saw Ralph reenter the prep kitchen and head toward her.

Lena and Dorothy turned to listen to the exchange, a small bit of drama to brighten the dreary, rainy morning.

“Captain, could you come with me?” Ralph spoke so quietly Kellen had to strain to hear. “I can’t get Sophia—she’s the new girl—to trust me. She’s frightened of everyone, but won’t tell me why.”

Sure, I’ll come out. Sure, I’m so confident of myself I can talk to some kid who has problems so horrible she lives on the streets. Don’t you know I’m the loser who’s afraid of her seven-year-old daughter? “Why me?”

“Someone has hurt her physically. She needs someone who can relate and has moved beyond.”

How did he know that Kellen had once been abused?

He must have seen the shock on her face, for he lowered his gaze and bowed his head. “Excuse me. I made intrusive assumptions. You keep everyone at a distance until you know them very well, and on the street that’s a sign of—”

“Abuse. Yes, you’re right. Once someone has lived on the street, one can always tell. Of course I’ll come.” Kellen laid her knife down, took her gloves off, washed her hands at the sink and followed Ralph into the street.

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