End of the Soup Kitchen?

Today, I received an email from Jeff about how the Catholic Worker House is planning on closing down the soup kitchen. The phrase "different priorities" came up in describing the reason for this. I wonder what those different priorities are?

Gracie

I was lying when I said that David was the only other Asian. There is also Gracie, a short, elderly, wrinkly, ashen-faced Chinese woman who comes to kitchen every week. Gracie does not speak very much, but when she does, most people cannot understand what she is saying. She often lingers at the house after meals and sits in a chair reading and keeping to herself. In some ways, she is in her own little world.

Once, Gracie had been sitting at the table for a long time and people in line were getting upset. Someone tried to say something to Gracie and she began screaming and yelling at the person. The rest of us just kind of shrugged...there wasn't much that could be done; she was going to take as long as she wanted to drink that bowl of soup and that's how it was.

Rumor has it that Gracie used to be a professor at the university. They say that she had a PhD in math and then something happened. Society calls this "losing one's mind," but for some reason, I want to believe that it wasn't so simple.

David

David is the only other Asian in the soup kitchen. He is also the only one who is there every week. Part of this is because he lives in the adjacent housing complex, and in exchange for the new housing he is supposed to help out in the soup kitchen. Still, he says, most people don't really help out. I sense a twinge of resentment.

David's job is the dishes. He is proficient at what he does, to a frighteningly frantic degree. As he puts it, in addition to the jolly rancher kool-aid and coffee, he doesn't do anything else.

Whenever he needs to wheel the coffee cart out into living room area, he tells me to stand by the door until he comes back. Then he opens the door and scurries into the throng of homelessness and scurries back, making sure to shut the door quickly, always with a look of nervousness on his face.

New volunteers are always nervous around David. I was no exception. David tends to give the impression that he's bossing people around. I don't think this is the case. Some will just follow his directives and others will ask "what gives?" Shaun was one of the latter. He and David are not on talking terms. Shaun insinuates that David is afraid of black people. His suspicion may not be without warrant.

I tell David that my parents are moving to Cali.
"Oh yeah, where?"
"Laguna Niguel"
"Oh, I've heard of that..."

Turns out, David is from Cali.

"What's it like?"
"It sounds like one of those new developing, ritzy suburbs..."

Douglas

Douglas shows up to help out. He is dressed in a three piece beige suit. I'm a little confused, even if it's his first time on the job. Douglas is 16. He and Shaun are supposed to help me out with the bag lunches, but the fact that the two are classmates reduces the effective help I receive. Douglas needs to go take a smoke break--before we start. It is 9:30 in the morning and this will not be his last one.

I think about how lonely of an activity smoking is. Then again, most addictions tend to isolate people from the rest of society, unless we're talking about online gaming--but that's another point altogether.

Douglas is from Mississippi. When I ask him what he likes to do in his free time, he says "this." He can't wait to get his own car and get his own place in his name.

Shaun and Douglas chat while they bag chips. Shaun tells Douglas that there's this thing that some bands do where they go out into the woods and jam.
"I ain't goin out to no woods with no white people...I ain't never gonna come back!"
Shaun points out that he's black too, and that this is different. Douglas still isn't satisfied.

Shaun recounts at time at school where some speaker comes in to talk about equality (I assume racial equality). The speaker had said something to the effect of "I know you guys want equality..." to whcih Douglas had shouted out "We don't want equality, we want payback!"

He's a nice kid, this Douglas. He came out of jail and like Shaun, seems to have come from some unstable family situations. When I ask Shaun why he [referring to Shaun] kept coming to the Catholic Worker House, he tells me he liked "the people." I imagine if Douglas keeps coming, it will be for the same reason.

Soup ponderings

As we are cleaning up, Jeff asks me to help him move some soup containers from the fridge upstairs to the freezer downstairs. This week's variety comes in two sorts: clam chowder and beef and veggie. The soup is partitioned in gallon containers that used to hold ice cream so it's only fitting that these containers return to their old home bearing new substance. The clam chowder is no stranger to me. It was I who portioned it out in the first place. The beef veggie was someone else's doing. I eye it suspiciously, if only because some of it sits lazily in a Ziploc bag.

Jeff cracks open the freezer. It is full with all sorts of goodies. One of these goodies includes a bag of pork bones labeled from February 2008. Jeff recognizes the handwriting as his own and wonders aloud why exactly he had thought it fitting to store such a commodity in the first place. Soup, of course, it had been kept for a future soup, a soup that was never realized.

And then, there's the issue of vacancy. As I stand there, Meijer ice cream gallon containers in hand, Jeff continues,

"Hm...and so we are left to ponder what is to be done with this soup."

His thoughtful assessment elicits my laughter. Simple moments like this, seemingly frivolous , are priceless.

Wayne meets his match

Wayne is talking to one of the volunteer workers as we eat this week's lunch leftovers. He tells her that he's working on his memoirs and, in his exuberance, challenges her to name something that he hasn't done.

"How about skydiving?"

Apparently, that's one thing that Wayne hasn't done.

And to think I was about to propose "dunking a basketball."

Writing

Wayne lost his job when the factory closed down. Now he works at Taco Bell on University, but the one further down on Neil. He rides his bike around to the Union on campus or sometimes to the newly constructed public library. He tells me he learns stuff by listening to the students and watching the news on the tvs. He's also decided to start writing his memoirs. He's got free time, anyway, what else is he supposed to do?

"Tell me something a man can do," he challenges me, "you name it, I've done it." My mind fails me and I manage a look of stupidity, baffled by the simple question. Easter bunny? Done it. Santa Claus. Yup

I ask myself: can the richness of life lie not as much in what we do but how we do it?

tales from the soup kitchen

So I've been spending some time at a local soup kitchen that's affiliated with the Catholic Worker Movement. I was able to spend some time taking with one of the homeless folks there., His name was Doug his pal was Verne. Doug is fifty years old, has a prominent belly, has smatterings of facial hair, looks like he's from the streets, but is still rather respectably dressed. Doug wanted to know where I was from. I told him. He asked me, really, where I was from, I told him again. This went on for a bit, and he gets a little exasperated and says he's just trying to make conversation. I realize that he's trying to ask me what ethnicity I am. Fine. I'm Chinese (But I was born in America).

Doug is a jack of all trades sort of fellow. He makes jewelry, works as chef, does whatever he needs to do to get by. He shows me his prized masterpiece which is a work in progress. He has it around his neck. He takes it out and, lo and behold, it's a large gold plated dollar sign. I almost laugh at the absurdity, even though, when I think about, it's not that absurd.

He asks me what I think about all these people who come to this place. I give a safe politically correct answer. He tells me that he thinks that most of these people are lowlifes who come here because they know they can get a free meal and then go spend their money getting drugs.. This makes me think about all of us who are better off financially who use our money, time, whatever, because we can or even just the rich suburban kids who buy drugs because they are bored and want a thrill. I want to tell him that these people he is talking about are really not so different than the volunteers who are serving them lunch. Sometimes the similarities are too striking. It is hard not to be cynical.

One of the elderly volunteers here had a seizure after I left last Saturday. He is in the hospital and has supposedly had a pacemaker placed in. His name is Jim. This soup kitchen has become a second career. The people that eat here know him by name. All of this makes me think about doctors: we learn about seizures and other people suffer them.

Doug tells me how he met Verne. Doug had just got out of prison and was wandering the streets when he runs into Verne. Verne says, "come with me, you're going to be my bro" and that was that. They've been brothers ever since. Brothers are hard to find these days, let alone good friends.

Doug asks me for cash. I don't have any. He asks for a check, credit card, anything. I say i'll bring him something next time. Doug says, "See how I just played you? I can do the same thing to people out in the park and make a good amount of money every day." When I hear this, I think about how if this had happened to me years ago, I might have been upset. Instead, I think about how I can't live life always being afraid that I'm being cheated. I think about how people probably give him money because his presence makes them feel bad. He plays of their guilt, and why shouldn't he?

We are sitting in the living room having this conversation. There is a upright piano in the room against the wall separating the eating area from the rest of the house. It is old but in tune. I think about how i haven't played piano much since getting to Urbana Champaign. Maybe I finally a good reason to start again.

Whenever I leave the soup kitchen, I have a particular smell. I think it's bleach. This usually would bother me but after spending hours in the anatomy lab this week, I don't care so much.

It is 9:37 now, I should get back to work, or at least check the laundry to see if it's done. Tomorrow is a new week. Sometime during this week I need to cut my hair. I did a pretty good job on my last one. I hope you are all well. I miss you all, and if I haven't gotten around to sending you an update yet, I'm glad that we know each othe well enough that I won't feel like we've lost touch.