Halvah or Daniel Beloved of God

Part Two

“What are you doing here?”  He demanded, as he exited the booth.

 “We really need gas. We got lost driving around the city and then we saw your station.”  

“We?”

“My friends and I.”   

“There are more of you?”  One was bad enough.

“Yes, they’re in the car.”

 Runaways, oh lord, runaways, he thought.  It was 1968 and the city was swamped with runaways, all trying to find Greenwich Village and Bob Dylan. Instead, if they were lucky, they ended up at Father Frank’s calling their parents for money for a return trip home.  If they weren’t lucky, they were used and spit out by the godless ones, left to sit on the doorsteps of brownstones, selling oranges or themselves. 

 “Listen, you girls shouldn’t be in this part of the city,” He warned, as he followed her to their car, a hump-back Volvo with Nevada plates. “You need to get back in your car and leave. This is the Bowery.”  

“But, you don’t understand. We’re really out of gas. We’ve been driving on empty for at least an hour!”   

Empty, out of gas, out of luck, lost.  Probably hungry, dirty and  on each other’s nerves. But he couldn’t help.  His hands were tied.  “Look,” he explained, “I can’t sell you any gas even if I wanted to. The owner has locked up the pumps and gone home and I don’t have the keys.”

“Oh.  Is there another gas station around here?”

“Not in this part of town!”  

Couldn’t they see where they were?  The dilapidated brick buildings, storefronts boarded up, trash and broken glass filling the gutters.  Were they blind to all of that?  “They all close around eight anyway.  No one stays open late down here.”

By now the other two girls had clamored out of the car.  They were even taller than Venus of the Sewers.   They reminded him of the young girls who came to the seminary every spring when grasses exploded overnight, forming a chartreuse chastity belt around them.  Girls who came with his mother and sister.  Girls, hormones igniting at the thought of mingling with young seminarians, pure and chaste, acting out the passion of Christ.   They all made him feel short too although he wasn’t.  He was five ten. 

Venus of the Sewers spoke first: “Then is there a cheap place nearby where we can spend the night?”   

 “You girls don’t want to stay in any of the hotels around here.” 

 “Why not?”

 “Because you’re not prostitutes, are you?”

 “What?” 

 “You’re not prostitutes are you?”  

 ”No!”

 “Then you can’t stay in the hotels around here.”

They looked at him dumb-founded.  He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He couldn’t just leave them at the station.  They’d never survive the night, hunkered down in that small car with winos banging on the steamed windows, begging to be let in for a warm place to sleep.  Maybe he should march them down to Father Frank’s.  They could sleep on the hard wood benches beneath the statues of saints, and early in the morning have breakfast with the Father:  hard boiled eggs and slices of white bread, strong Lipton tea and, a stern lecture.  In the name of all that is holy, go home to your parents.  

But St. Marks was at least a four mile walk.  By the time they got there —if they got there — they would be soaked to the bone, chilled and susceptible to all kinds of city rot.  He had to find someplace closer.  He thought for a few moments and then it came to him. It was easy.  Marcia’s.

“I have a friend you can crash with for the night.  It's not too far and it’ll be safe for you.”

The girls stared at him blankly, their eyes like shiny pennies. 

“She’s a social worker.” His sock was wet. The next time his mother came to town he decided that he’d show her the hole in his shoe, then she’d insist on buying him at least two new pairs of new shoes, one of which he would give to the first shoeless street person he met, of course.  That would make her happy.  She wanted Jesus as a son but a well dressed Jesus, not a scruffy one. 

“Look,” he added, “What choice do you have?  You can’t sleep in the car.  Not in this neighborhood.  And the hotels are filled with … well, you don’t want to stay in the hotels.”  

 “But are you sure she wouldn’t mind a bunch of strange people staying with her?”  

 "She won't mind. Strange people are her business.” 

To be continued....

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