Short Ride to Nowhere Read Online Free PDF

had and it didn’t look so bad, at least in the summer.   In the winter you’d have to hole up in the subways or shelters or clinics, but you could make it if you wanted to.   The trouble was wanting to.
    There was still a small amount of scattered books around, torn mostly to shreds, the pages bloated from rain.   He knelt and collected some of the novels, recognizing passages and titles and authors, thinking about the days when books used to matter to him.
    He kept asking questions.   The rummies, addicts, and the newly impoverished seemed scared of him at first.   But it didn’t take long for them to recognize one of their own. He asked about the little girl.   Too much time had apparently passed.   These were a new batch of transients.   They told Jenks to try the nearest shelter.   Hale probably would’ve stopped in there on occasion for food or a dry place to sleep on particularly cold, wet nights.  
    They told him how to get there.   They told him the food was good on Monday nights and to stay away next Thursday.   Next Thursday was a full moon.   The lunatics crammed into the shelter on nights of the full moon.   Most of them were loud and harmless but a few were dangerous.   Make sure you got your bed early in the day and that you held it until at least the following morning.   If you wandered in too late the muggers would be waiting for the chance to roll you.   Ask for Angela.
    Jenks found the shelter and gave it a go.   It was Angela’s day off.   He got Mike instead.   Mike was an NYU student who was volunteering at the shelter to fatten out his college records for when he started filling out resumes in the summer.   It would look good that he did such altruistic extracurricular activities.   He had a smug air of superiority, as if he would always be on the right side of the desk.   Maybe he would.  
    Jenks asked Mike about Hale and got a song and dance about how employees of the shelter couldn’t give out personal information on their patrons.   Hell of a word that, patrons.   Like these folks with nowhere to go are just afternoon shoppers waiting for the aisle six sales.   Jenks figured he could rattle Mike pretty badly if he got a little rough, but there was no reason to go down that road so soon.  
    Men and women had already set up in the wards, entire families, children, even pets.   You wouldn’t be surprised to see somebody holding a goldfish tank in his lap.   People wanted to save what they could.  
    A little girl was crying that she was hungry and her mother shushed her and hummed a lullaby.   He wondered which of these people might go mad on the night of the full moon.
    “Okay,” Jenks said.   “Can I get a bed?”
    Mike looked perplexed.   “What?   Now?”
    “Yeah, now.”
    “I thought you were just asking about your friend.”
    “I was.”
    “Are you homeless as well?”
    “I am.”
    “You don’t look it.”
    “What’s a homeless person look like you little fucker?”
    Mike took umbrage.   “Hey, there’s no reason to use that kind of language!”
    “Right.   Sorry.”
    “Where have you been staying?”
    “In my car.”
    “Where is your car located?”
    “In a parking garage off Times Square.”
    “You have enough money to pay parking lot fees in Manhattan?”
    It wasn’t enough that you had no house or woman or kids or dog anymore.   It wasn’t enough you were practically out of the game.   They wanted to know exactly what you had in your wallet.   They needed to rub your face down in the vomit on the floor.   They had to take your last bit of umbrage.
    “Get me a bed,” Jenks said.
    “You have to fill out paperwork.”
    “Fine. Give it to me.”
    The questions were in-depth, mostly financial.   These people, they asked for reasons.   The reason for your need to use the facility.   Financial?   Medical?   Pertaining to addiction?   Jenks stared a the questions and looked back at the kids roaming around, little girls in