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Feeding the Grubs at the Feed-the-Hungry Feast

Lee Robison

    I was wondering if I should spend six dollars at Olivia’s for a hamburger and fries, or if I should wait until 5:00 when the Shelter started serving. I had twenty-three dollars and seventy-two cents left from a sketch I sold a couple of weeks ago. The Shelter menu was a flat chili from a can and stale saltines. I put two dollars in the donation jar at the Shelter if I had it.
    I finished a sketch of people feeding squirrels in the park, and I was feeling pretty charitable toward myself. The clock on the tower behind the big church was on 1:29. So, I closed my pad and put it in my pack. I turned through the park toward downtown, thinking “Olivia’s and hamburger.” I could stop by the Shelter later for desert and drop two dollars, and I’d still have just about twelve-thirteen dollars. It was only three more days until I picked up my monthly check. So, that was plenty. And maybe, somebody would buy a sketch.
    I walked out of the park and crossed the road that passes the big church. There was a large crowd under the cottonwoods and aspens in the church yard. There were tents and canopies scattered around under the trees. Through the black iron bars of the fence, I could see people sitting at tables and being served grilled chicken, macaroni salad and apple pie. Grill smoke, smelling of burnt chicken, wafted from a cooker near the churchyard gate. There was a tagboard sign nailed to the post of the churchyard gate that said,
    South Trinity Baptist Church
    Annual Mission Fund
    Feed the Hungry
    Fund Raiser Feast
    Fete and Festival,
    $15 per plate,
    Drinks $5.
    Game Tickets $2, or $10 for fifteen.

    1 Meal, 1 drinks, 50 Game tickets = $50

    Irene and Benj Philbrotum and Dolly Presterton sat at a folding table in front of the gate. I knew Dolly from the Shelter. She stood behind the serving table on Monday’s and wrinkled her lip and slopped tuna casserole onto our paper plates. It was the thing to do for a person like Dolly. Irene and Benj were real estate and horse people who lived out on East Bench Road. Benj was running for Mayor on the ‘Clean-Up-Our-Town’ ticket. Their pictures were plastered all over town. In the picture plastered all over town there is a guy sitting on the sidewalk behind their campaign faces. The guy sitting on the sidewalk had an X through his face. That guy is me, but they probably do not know who it is.
    There were three colored rolls of tickets and a cash box on the table in front of Irene, Benj and Dolly. I walked up to the table. The cash box was pretty stuffed, but there were still a lot of tickets. Dolly changed her church smile to her Shelter look, a curled lip that went all the way to her flat eyes. Irene and Benj both wore campaign grins.
    “Wha’d you want,” Dolly said.
    “I’m hungry,” I said. I nodded to the big “Feed the Hungry” on sign behind her.
    “Jesus Christ!” Dolly said. “You grubs think it’s all free.”
    “Fifteen dollars,” Benj said. His campaign grin did not make it to his eyes. His grin told me he knew I did not have fifteen dollars. One thing he didn’t know is that I helped with the books at the Shelter. He didn’t know I knew that every Christmas the Shelter got one fifty dollars from this big stone church with its clock tower that unnecessarily told the whole town the time of day. It also got 25 dollars from Philbrotum Valley Realtors.
    “When did you eat last,” Irene said. Her campaign grin was gone. She had one of those classic faces—eyes that always seemed to fleck with sunshine, high cheek bones, wide, full mouth that was pretty when it smiled, even the campaign smile. And you just wanted to sketch the hell out of her.
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Dolly said.
    “You got fifteen?” Benj said. He pretended to start to tear off a blue ticket.
    “Yesterday at the Shelter,” I said to Irene.
    “What about the box lunch?” Dolly thought she had me there.
    After they slopped us dinner at the shelter, they give us a box lunch for the next day. There were a lot of people who couldn’t make the Shelter trough. Del Brist nailed prefab walls in the factory. When he could, he brought his kids to the shelter for dinner because then he could afford the trailer they lived in. This week he was on the two to seven shift. Too-Many, Mother and I brought our lunches to Dell’s kids at the trailer. I did not say anything about the box lunch. What I did with the box lunch wouldn’t mean anything one way or the other. I shrugged.
    Irene reached over Dolly and took the blue roll from her husband. She tore off a ticket, and held it out to me.
    “For the love a God,” Dolly said. “You want every loser in this town to be bringing their grubby stink here and begging for fifteen-dollar tickets?” She grabbed at the blue ticket, but Irene curled her hand around it.
    Benj just grinned, but his eyes were flat and cold, and he looked at me as if I were dog shit on the ground.
    I took my hand out of my pocket and peeled a ten and two fives away from the twelve ones. “I’m thirsty, too,” I said.
    I handed the ten and two fives to Irene. “I don’t need a ticket. Just bring a plate and a cup, please.”
    Dolly O’ed her mouth and gapped like a fish. Benj’s eyebrows went up, and he looked away.
    Irene held the blue ticket out to me. “You’re welcome to go in,” she said.
    Dolly un-gapped and said, “Christ.”
    I shrugged. “Could you just bring a plate and cup, please” I said. “I don’t belong in there.”
    “Sanest thing out of you all day,” Benj said. He was still grimacing, but he was looking off somewhere else. It wasn’t his campaign grin.
    Irene stood up. She went to get me a plate. I thought maybe I should have taken the ticket and gone in and loaded a plate and come back out instead of making her get up. It would have given Dolly and Benj the hissy-shits. It would have been worth it for that. But I wasn’t thinking too clearly because of this whole farce of Feed the Hungry Feast, Fete, and Festival.
    I waited in front of the table.
    “Move on so people can get in,” Benj said. That grin had not gone away but it was not a happy grin. There wasn’t anybody behind me, so I just stood there.
    “Jesus, some people.” Dolly said.
    When Irene came back, the plate was covered with foil and the plastic cup was nearly full of wine.
    “O, sweet Jesus,” Dolly said. “Wasting good Chardonnay on a grubby old alchy.” She shook her head. I am not old. I do not drink alcohol. But I did not think acquainting her with these facts was useful.
    A hurt worry-frown went across Irene’s face. She held the cup uncertainly; she did not want to be an enabler. But she handed me the plate and then the cup. The plate was warm. I set the cup on the table.
    “I didn’t know it was wine,” I said.
    Irene’s smiled a gorgeous, not-campaign at me. She started to rummage in the cash box for a five, but I held up my hand.
    “Feed the hungry,” I said. I put the plate down beside the roll of blue tickets for a second and took off my pack. I took out my pad and tore off the People-Feeding-Squirrels sketch. I handed it to Irene.
    I picked up my plate and turned and crossed the street and went into the park. When I looked back, Irene was looking at her sketch. Dolly was drinking from the cup. Benj was grinning at nothing in particular.
    There were four pieces of chicken and a large dollop of potato salad on the plate, and I went looking for someone to eat it with.

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