Chapter 4

The pencil flew over the paper driven by a strong confident hand. The face that emerged was alive and vibrant, even though the subject was a homeless man staring at the ground in front of him. Another of the homeless men was standing behind Dante watching him work.

Awed, he said, “You’re good.”

Dante shrugged his shoulders and filled in details around the eyes. So many deep lines gave the eyes a depth that was nearly impossible to capture. The pencil moved with short quick strokes in a staccato beat. A deeper character emerged from the broad expanse of the paper.

Another man commented, “Damn, that picture almost makes The Beamer look handsome.”

Dante smiled at the comment. The Beamer - called that because he liked Jim Beam Whiskey - was about as far from handsome as any man could be.

Beamer looked up and said, “Don’t be insulting the word handsome. There are some folks who actually deserve to be called handsome. If you don’t believe me, look at Handsome Sam over there.”

The comment created a loud round of laughter from the men sitting around the public area of the Homeless Hotel. If there was anyone who was uglier than the Beamer, it was Handsome Sam. Sounding offended, Handsome Sam said, “Hey, I resemble that remark.”

Adding a few finishing touches to the sketch, Dante said, “Actually, Beamer has a great face to draw. Lots of character and experience is etched upon it. I’ll admit that I wouldn’t want to kiss that mug, but of course there isn’t anyone around here that I would want to kiss. Well, except for Bad Betty.”

Handsome Sam said, “Everyone wants to kiss Bad Betty.”

Grinning across the fire pit, Betty said, “There ain’t one face here I’d kiss and that includes Hungry Man, too.”

Dante flipped the page over and adjusted the drawing pad back on his lap. He said, “I saw you kissing Harry when we pulled up.”

Snorting, Betty said, “Harry ain’t here. I’m stuck with you ugly mugs.”

Turning to Betty, Dante started outlining the shape of her face on the page with a light stroke. The initial lines would disappear when he laid the heavier lines over them. Beamer asked, “Who is he drawing now, Bushman?”

Bushman looked down at the page and grinned. Wiggling his bushy eyebrows at Betty, he said, “He’s drawing Betty.”

Merv the Perv asked, “Can you draw her without her clothes?”

Dante asked, “How about I draw you without your clothes?”

“I saw him playing with himself while staring lustfully at the ducks swimming in the park just the other day,” Betty said. She held up her fist with her little finger extended and said, “I swear his cock isn’t any bigger than my little finger.”

Handsome Sam asked, “Ducks?”

“Hey, the egg has to come out from somewhere,” Merv the Perv replied.

“You are one sick fuck,” Bushman said. He looked over at Betty shaking her head and then back down at the sketch pad. He couldn’t believe the image Dante was creating.

Softening the strokes of his pencil, Dante emphasized the gentle nature of Betty that wasn’t easily seen on the face of the woman. There was a twinkle to the eyes that emerged infrequently, but was what drew men to her. His pencil captured the twinkle with ease. Bushman drew in a sharp breath.

Betty asked, “When are you going draw Bushman?”

Smiling, Dante said, “I’m sure there’s a face under all that hair, but I’ll be damned if I can see it.”

Stroking the beard that went all of the way down to the top of his pot belly, Bushman said, “You’re just jealous of this beard of mine.”

Scratching his chin with the end of his pencil, Dante had to admit that after a month of not shaving that his beard barely qualified as a one compared to that worn by the Bushman. He went back to work and commented, “You’ve got a magnificent beard. It just hides your face.”

“So you can’t draw me?”

“Sure I can. I did it last night while you were telling us about jumping into the creek and sinking to your knees in the mud,” Dante answered. He spent some time working on Betty’s hair. He wanted to capture that half tamed texture created by the hair that had escaped from the hair clip.

The Beamer said, “I still don’t see why they had to pull you out with a tow truck.”

“They didn’t have to use a tow truck, but it was the only thing that was handy,” the Bushman said.

Happy Harry walked into the camp and looked around at the laughing faces. He wandered behind Dante and looked at the picture. Shaking his head, he said, “That doesn’t look like me. It looks more like Bushman.”

“It’s Bad Betty,” Dante said while chuckling.

Looking hurt, Bad Betty said, “Your picture of me makes me look like Bushman?”

Winking at her, Harry said, “Sure does.”

“Damn, I’m gonna have to shave my underarms again.”

Merv the Perv said, “Don’t do that. Hairy underarms turn me on.”

“Road kill turns you on,” Bad Betty said rolling her eyes.

“You’re right. All except for skunk, of course. Skunk turns me into a rutting monster,” the resident pervert said. He scratched his stomach and said, “On that note, I’m off to the john to relieve some of the fluids that such sexy thoughts have riled up.”

Dante paused in his drawing and watched Merv the Perv walk off. The baby face told the story that his words tried to hide. Dante wondered how he would act if he’d lost his testicles to testicular cancer at the age of sixteen.

Harry said, “He handles it the only way he knows how.”

“I know. I was just wondering how I’d handle it,” Dante said. He turned back to the pad and rubbed a thumb over a part of the paper. It softened the hair.

“If I didn’t know about his condition, I’d be scared to death of him. The things that come out of his mouth are downright disturbing,” Bad Betty said. She shivered at the thought of what kind of monster would say those things.

“He’s never hurt another person,” Happy Harry said.

Bushman looked down at the sketchpad and said, “You’ve got to show that one to Bad Betty.”

Dante held up the sketch pad for everyone to see. Holding a hand over her mouth, Betty asked, “Is that how you see me?”

“Yes.”

Handsome Sam looked at the picture and then over at Bad Betty. He commented, “You better watch out, Harry. I think Bad Betty is going to fall in love with Hungry Man.”

“That’s a mighty fine picture,” said the Beamer.

Recovering from the shock of the picture, Betty said, “You’re right Harry. He did make me look like Bushman.”

Dante had laughed and flipped the page over to begin another drawing when Bushman said, “It’s getting late. If you’re going to eat tonight, you’d better earn your keep.”

Closing the sketch pad, Dante asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“How about cleaning the sleep platforms that opened up today? Bad Betty, you help him. While they’re doing that, Beamer can wash out the bunks. I’ll let Handsome Sam help me cook today,” Bushman answered.

After stowing the sketch pad in the Roach Coach, Dante said, “Betty, why don’t you get the pail and the bleach. I’ll carry the platforms over to the hose.”

She nodded and went to get the bucket, brushes, and bleach. He went to the sewer pipe sections that had been freed up with the departure of three of the homeless men that morning. Looking in the pipes, he frowned. This was one of the dirtiest and nastiest jobs at the Homeless Hotel. He pulled out the wooden platform on which the former occupant had slept and dragged it over by the showers. A pungent combination of odors rose off the wooden platform. He dropped it and went back for another after glancing over at Bad Betty as she filled the bucket with water.

Two more trips and he was ready to help Betty scrub down the platforms. She handed him a brush and said, “Let’s get to it.”

He dunked the brush into the bleach solution and then started scrubbing with great energy. The smell of bleach permeated the air and brought tears to his eyes. Stains disappeared under the energetic scrubbing. Once one side was done, he grabbed the hose and sprayed if off. He flipped the platform over and repeated the process on it. He said, “I hate this job.”

“Everyone has to do it sometimes,” Bad Betty said. She looked up from the piece she was working on and studied the artist. In a softer voice, she asked, “Do you really see me like that?”

“Sure.”

Using her shoulder to wipe her cheekbone, she was thankful that the bleach hid her tears. She said, “You made me look all soft and gentle.”

“I draw what I see, but I don’t draw everything that I see,” Dante said.

“What does that mean?”

“I didn’t draw the sadness that is most visible on The Beamer’s face,” Dante said.

“Oh,” she said and wondered what he hadn’t drawn about her. She started scrubbing with a vengeance to push the question out of her mind.

Dante finished the first platform before Bad Betty finished hers. He went to work on the third one and had nearly finished half of it before Betty was done. She rinsed off his side and suggested, “Why don’t you take the first two back while I finish the backside of this one?”

“Sure thing, Betty,” Dante answered. He picked up the one he had finished and carried it off. There was still the slight smell of bleach, but it was no longer over-powering. Beamer was still washing the third section of sewer pipes and said, “I’ll be done in a minute.”

While wrestling the wooden platform into one of the sections of pipe, Dante said, “I never thought I’d spend an afternoon doing this.”

Beamer said, “I grew up thinking that I’d be a brain surgeon or something like that. I never thought that a bottle of booze would be more important to me than saving lives. I never thought I’d spend my life wandering the streets, sleeping in alleys, or eating out of trash cans.”

Dante didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything for him to say that Beamer hadn’t already thought. Having gotten the platform in place, he said, “I’ll be right back with another one.”

“Okay.”

When Dante returned with the second platform, Beamer was gone. He wrestled the platform into the section of pipe without much difficulty. A month on the road had given him a certain facility in dealing with the sections of sewer pipe. At least now he didn’t hit his head each time he entered and exited one of them.

Happy Harry was standing by the third section of sewer pipe. He helped Dante slide the platform in place. Once they were finished, Harry said, “We’re heading out tomorrow morning.”

This was the second time that he had been in a New York Homeless Hotel. The first time they had dropped off Maggie and stayed a couple of days. They had then turned north and visited sites in New York, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. He knew that Harry was going to turn south and cover New Jersey, Maryland, Washington D.C, and Virginia over the next couple of weeks.