Alex In the City by BymagaJones 2/9: Home is Where You Hang Your Hat
Chapter 1: Alex In the City
Chapter 2: Home is Where You Hang Your Hat
Alex owned two jackets, his thin jean one and an oversized hoodie. Since he’d managed to obtain that awesome hat he’d given to Chase, he hadn’t bothered wearing the hoodie, and now he deeply regretted it. His scalp alternated between feeling numb and scraped raw; he’d lost feeling in his ears a while ago, and he knew from experience that the thaw once he’d gotten someplace warm was going to be painful. The problem was, he was supposed to meet the man at 10:30, but he didn’t have a watch. He knew it must be close, but he hated asking strangers for the time. Some looked at him like they’d accidentally stepped on him and gotten his stink on their shoes, but those he could understand. As hard as he tried, he wasn’t always able to find a place to clean himself up in the mornings, so he looked just like he was - homeless and pathetic. If he were one of those people leaving their warm homes, latte and muffin in their hands, walking to work, he probably wouldn’t want someone like him getting even remotely close. The worst, though, were the ones who looked straight through him, like there wasn’t enough of him to be acknowledged. Sometimes he’d have gone days without talking to anyone, and he’d wonder if somehow he had actually begun to fade away. So he kept his interactions with others to a minimum and had come up with different ways to figure out the time. Sometimes he’d snatch a forgotten receipt from an ATM or one thrown away from a grocery store. He found that a lot of impossible tasks were actually manageable with some creativity mixed with a dash of determination.
Since he knew he was close to the meeting time, he just closed his eyes and forced his body to relax, bringing down the shivers to a more manageable level. He pulled his bag closer to his chest, knowing it wouldn’t make him warmer, but the comfort of having it so close to him was better than nothing. Opening his eyes, he saw the man exit his car and jog up to him. Almost bald, the guy huddled in his coat, blowing on his hands to keep them warm. Fighting back an unexpected surge of tears, Alex realized that the man reminded him of his dad, and he had to force his mind to remain in the present.
“You the kid?” The man asked.
Alex nodded.
Withdrawing a set of keys from his pocket, the man unlocked the heavy metal door and preceded Alex inside, where it felt as cold as it had been outside.
“This place is old and doesn’t much in the way of amenities, but you’ll get your own room, and there’s a communal bathroom on each floor. Each of the bathrooms have their own keys, so you’ll only be able to get into the bathroom on your floor, and you won’t be able to get in at all if you lose it.” He eyeballed Alex, who nodded.
Alex could feel the man staring at him, as if trying to decide whether the whole thing was worth it, and Alex felt himself holding his breath.
“Your room is on the fifth floor,” the man said, starting for the stairs, turning before Alex quietly exhaled and started breathing again.
They made the climb in silence, the man slightly panting by the time they’d arrived. Alex’s legs were burning, but he pushed through the pain, knowing that at the end of it was something he’d thought he’d never have again.
Pulling out another key chain from his pocket, the man unlocked the three locks on the door and stepped into the room.
Alex paused for a moment, taking a big breath, before he followed the man inside.
The room had one piece of furniture, a cot, that ran along the length of the wall on the right. A barred window stood on the far wall, and the left wall contained a sink and a small counter with an outlet between the two. The room was small enough that the man and Alex could stand with their arms out and touch both ends of the peeling white painted walls, but it looked like a miracle to Alex.
“You have the money?”
Alex nodded, turning his back to the man so he could reach into his pants and pull the pantyhose up from where his money hung a little past his knee. Once he’d pulled it up, he had to undo the knot around his waist and then shove his hand down its length until he reached the small wad of bills. Taking it out, he counted it carefully and turned back to the man, who had walked over to the window and stood peering outside from between two of the bars.
“Here,” Alex said, clearing his voice after the word came out hoarse and scratchy.
The man took the money and counted it. “As we discussed on the phone, the rent is due the last day of the month for the next month. If you don’t have it, you’re out. I don’t do credit or extensions.”
Alex nodded, his eyes darting around the room.
“I reserve the right to come into your room at any time to make sure that you haven’t destroyed it. If I find that you’ve, say, pulled out the sink or have a whole family living in here, you’re out. If I find out you’re using this place for illegal purposes, I’ll call the cops myself.”
Alex nodded, his heart pounding so hard that it felt like he could look down and see it trying to burst through his chest.
“I’ve told you all about the bathroom,” the man mused, then huffed out some air. “Do you have any more questions for me?”
“No, sir,” Alex said, the heartbeat rising into his throat. He clutched the sides of his bag and waited.
“Here,” the man said, holding out the keychain. “One key is to the door, one is to the bathroom.”
Alex took the keys, hoping the man didn’t notice the way his hands shook.
“Momma Cass said I could trust you. Don’t let us both down.”
Alex nodded again, almost giggling from nerves when he pictured himself as one of those bobbleheads.
The man sighed again and turned, leaving the room, the door clicking behind him.
Clutching the keys to the bag against his chest, Alex slowly turned into a circle, thinking, This is mine. This is all mine! He quickly walked to the door and locked the three locks and then sank in the middle of the room, pressing his hands against his eyes as he tried to keep himself from losing control.
GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE
Winding their way through the various shopping carts and homeless people huddled outside the front door, Puck and Mercedes headed toward the back of the building. Mercedes knocked on the door, which was opened a few seconds later by the black version of the Incredible Hulk.
“Mercedes? Is that you, girl?” The man said, his deep voice forcing Puck to work hard not to back up a few steps.
“Marcel?”
The man laughed and picked up Mercedes, hugging her as her feet dangled far from the ground. “Momma told me you were living here now. I figured we’d never see you, though.”
“My mom would come up here and kick my tail personally if I didn’t come help,” Mercedes said as she was lowered back down to the ground. “I also brought a friend, my roommate Pu-Noah,” she said, turning to give Puck a questioning look.
“Puhnoah?” Marcel asked.
Puck shrugged. “They called me Puck in Lima, but the name’s Noah.”
“What do you prefer?”
“Noah’s fine,” Puck said. He didn’t really care, but he supposed his real name reflected how he had changed, grown up a bit, since high school.
The man nodded and held out his hand. “I’m Marcel.”
Puck watched his hand disappear inside of Marcel’s and said, “Dude, you’re like a mountain. How tall are you?”
The man laughed. “I’m six-six, but mom says that I’m built like a brick shithouse, so I might seem a little taller.” He moved backwards. “Come on in; momma’s gonna start yelling at me for letting out the heat in a moment.”
Just then they heard a voice, “Boy! We don’t have enough money to spend it on heat that’s just going to fly out of the room!”
Puck followed Mercedes into a huge kitchen, filled with people and activity and noise. Walking toward them was a tall, very thin black woman.
“Mercedes! You made it!” The woman enveloped her in one of those full-body hugs that seemed to meld the two bodies together.
After a few seconds, Mercedes pulled away and gestured toward Puck. “This is my friend, Noah.”
“The new roommate, one who’s not afraid to come to Queens and help us out,” the woman said.
“Ma’am,” Puck said, holding out his hand.
The woman neatly sidestepped it and gathered him into a hug. She might have been thin, but she was strong and warm and smelled of comfort and spices, and Puck couldn’t help but hug her back just as tightly for a few seconds. “Call me Momma Cass,” she said, pulling back and looking him up and down. “You are a cutie,” she muttered, eyeballing Mercedes.
“Oh, no!” Mercedes protested. “We know way too much about each other for that.”
“Besides,” Puck couldn’t help saying, “we tried that in high school, and she dumped me.”
“Really?” Momma Cass arched an eyebrow at Mercedes, who was glaring at Puck, who was grinning back at her.
They were interrupted by the sound of crashing pans, and Momma Cass turned around to yell at someone in the crowd of people mulling around the kitchen. She turned back to them. “Sorry about that. Thanksgiving and Christmas are our busiest holidays of the year. Marcel will show you where you can put your stuff, and then he’ll get you started.”
“Tables?” Marcel asked.
She nodded. “These two would probably end up burned alive back here, the way things are going.” She said it with a smile, but Puck looked at the craziness behind her and wasn’t really sure she was joking.
They followed Marcel down a hallway and up some stairs. He stopped at the top and pulled out some keys attached to the belt loop of his jeans, using three different keys to unlock the three locks on the door. Opening it, he used his arm to gesture for them to precede him.
Puck followed Mercedes into a large loft, filled with the feeling of space, something that he realized he didn’t feel often in a city where space was at a premium.
“This used to be a warehouse,” Marcel explained, stepping past them and moving toward a little office in the far corner. “Mom converted the bottom floor into a homeless shelter, with the kitchen and dining room, and there’s a room that can hold up to 40 cots and a place for teens to hang out. Up here is where we live.” He still held the keys in his hand and used a key to unlock a file cabinet and open the top drawer. “You can put your purse and jackets in here.”
As they took off their jackets, and Mercedes tossed her purse in the cabinet, she asked, “Do you really need our help? It looks like you have a lot of people down there already.”
“We have people doing this for community service, and some of them are just fine. Others are just barely doing the minimum, and we have to keep an eye on them to make sure they’re not trying to steal the silver wear or trying to sneak out to score. Most of them have no idea what they’re doing in the kitchen, and half of them have to be told to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom.” He smiled, locking the file cabinet. “We need all the help we can get.”
“We’re here for whatever you need,” Mercedes said, turning for the door, and Puck watched Marcel’s eyes trace her body, returning for an encore performance of her booty as she sashayed to the door.
Interesting, Puck thought with a grin as he followed the mountain.
The next hour Puck and Mercedes did everything from rolling plastic over the long tables and taping them down at the ends to setting places and pulling down chairs. By the time they were finished, they’d both worked up a good sheen. They leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room and surveyed their handiwork.
“Not bad, guys,” Momma Cass said, leaning on the counter kitchen-side.
“What’s next?” Mercedes asked.
“Come on back and get your food,” she said. “Everyone’s going to eat, and then we’ll open up the doors and serve all the others.”
“How come we get to eat first?” Mercedes asked. “What if we run out of food?”
“We won’t run out of food,” Momma Cass assured her, walking over to the door and opening it so they could walk into the kitchen. They fell into line behind some of the kitchen workers, Mercedes and Puck mimicking the others as they moved down the line, grabbing cutlery and dishes and helping themselves to the food lined up along the counters. “I’ve learned from experience that a hungry volunteer has less patience with our guests than one who has already eaten.” She tossed a grin in their direction. “You’re going to meet some of the sweetest, and some of the most obstinate people. Some are grateful that we’re here to help, while others resent us for it. Some of these people have lost everything; all they have left is their pride, and having to come here is very difficult for them. It’s almost like it’s reinforcing that they can’t take care of themselves, of their families, and that doesn’t always make them very friendly. But a volunteer with a full belly is going to be more open to their plight than one who has just spent hours preparing all this food for someone who’s standing in front of them glaring at them.” She nodded toward Marcel, who’d had to duck slightly as he walked into the room. “He taught me that.”
Marcel jerked his head at his mother, who nodded. “Excuse me. Go ahead and help yourself.” She headed toward Marcel and disappeared with him back into another room.
Mercedes shrugged at Puck, and they walked down the line, piling food on their plates. Puck felt his stomach growling.
“They might not be experts, but I have to say that everything looks and smells really good,” Mercedes whispered to Puck.
“Or we’re just starving,” Puck said, sharing a smile with her as she rolled her eyes.
They walked into the dining room, and Puck had a sensation of déjà vu, as he and Mercedes looked for a place to sit.
“Feels like back at McKinley, doesn’t it?” Mercedes whispered to him.
“Sure does,” Puck said confidently. “I sit wherever I damn well want to sit.” He knew what Mercedes meant, and he felt that awkwardness too, but one thing he’d learned was that people took their cues from you. If you acted all unsure and scared, they would eat you alive. So he strutted ahead of Mercedes and sat down in the middle of a row, a few chairs down from a few of the people eating. It was close enough for them to talk to any of the other volunteers if they wanted, but it was far enough for everyone to know that Puck wasn’t actively looking for more friends. He felt Mercedes follow him, and she put down her tray and sat across from him.
“Let us pray,” Marcel said from the front.
Puck shot a look at Mercedes, who shrugged, and they lowered their heads.
Puck glanced out of the corner of his eyes and noticed that everyone had bowed their heads. He wasn’t surprised. A mountain like Marcel said it was time to pray, it was time to pray. He figured even an atheist like Hummel would pretend.
A pang of loss shot through his body. He didn’t think of Hummel often, but every once in a while, a thought would flicker through his mind, and he’d get that feeling - he wasn’t quite sure what it was, maybe a mixture of anger and fear and sadness and loss, or whatever. He wasn’t one to sit there and think about his feelings, but there was something so… tragic about what had happened to Hummel. He had been his usual sarcastic, bitchy self until his father’d had that heart attack and died, leaving him at the mercy of that distant relative of his mother’s. And then what happened afterward, and not knowing if he were still alive out there somewhere, it had to do something to a person. It’s not as though they had been friends, but they’d been teammates and in Glee together, and it had just felt so wrong when suddenly he wasn’t there anymore, wasn’t anywhere anymore.
Suddenly he realized that something had changed, and he looked up to find that everyone had finished praying, and Mercedes was looking at him curiously. “Almost fell asleep,” he lied smoothly. “Someone got me up at the butt crack of dawn so she could vacuum the walls.”
Mercedes narrowed her eyes in a mock glare. “It was eleven. If you hadn’t stayed out late whoring somewhere, you would have gotten enough rest.”
“It’s only whoring if you get paid for it,” Puck shot back.
“I want to officially welcome all of the volunteers and thank you for all of the help you’ve done and are going to continue to do this afternoon,” Momma Cass said, stepping beside Marcel.
Now that he had time to ponder on it, Puck could totally see the family resemblance. Marcel was much larger than Momma Cass, but the woman had to be close to six foot tall herself. She was extremely thin, but Puck knew from her hug that she had some serious muscles underneath that green turtleneck. She had a nice enough rack, he thought idly, but it wasn’t bounteous like Aretha’s. The faded jeans weren’t extremely tight, but they showed that she was just as thin on the bottom as she was on the top, although Puck had noticed that she had a rather nice little bit of action going on in her trunk for such a thin person.
Both mother and son had the same dark skin, the same mouth, the exact same smile. They both also had this presence that gave off the sense that they knew their place in the world and that they would make things better - as long as you didn’t piss them off.
“You can start eating,” Momma Cass said, waving an arm. “This is just an informal thank you, since it’s probably the only time I’m going to have you all together. For those of you who have never been here before, let me just go through how the rest of the evening’s going to proceed. We’re going to put out a full plate of food, a cup of milk, and a cup of water at every seat, and when we are ready, we’ll open the door for our guests, who will come in from there.” She pointed to the far door. “They will fill up these seats first and move down each table until all of the seats are full. Once they’ve finished eating, they’ll walk up to the counter here for a small plate to take with them.” She patted the counter. “I’m going to have Mercedes and Puck - wave guys - here to hand them out.”
Mercedes smiled shyly and waved. Puck just gave a whassup jerk of his head. He’d been eyeballing the crowd as Momma Cass gave her little speech, and he wasn’t real impressed with the pickings. He hadn’t expected to find some boobalicious barbie doll or buffed-out stud at a shelter in Queens; he figured those types probably volunteered somewhere in Manhattan. But he’d never been one to assume, so he’d looked around. Resolved to going home alone tonight - Aretha didn’t count when he thought along these lines - Puck didn’t really worry about trying to impress anyone.
“One of my other sons, Marcus, will be out there making sure that all of their protective devices remain outside. They all know that this is a facility where weapons aren’t allowed, so those who can, try to keep them elsewhere. Unfortunately, many need to protect themselves, so Marcel will hold on to their protective devices until they leave the building. Marcus and my other son Malachi are running late, but they should be here any time. Malachi will be helping out anywhere he’s needed.
“So eat up, and we’ll get started putting out the food in about ten minutes.”
Puck had already finished and saw that Mercedes had done the same. “I’ll grab the plates if you grab the cups,” he said, and she nodded at him.
They made their way to the kitchen, and Puck heard laughter coming from the other large room. “It sounds like the party’s already started,” Puck said, his face turned back to Mercedes as he walked through the doorway into the kitchen, so he was completely unprepared when he heard a voice he recognized, one he thought he’d never hear again.
Master post with chapter breakdown here
Chapter 3: Same As It Never Was
Chapter 2: Home is Where You Hang Your Hat
Alex owned two jackets, his thin jean one and an oversized hoodie. Since he’d managed to obtain that awesome hat he’d given to Chase, he hadn’t bothered wearing the hoodie, and now he deeply regretted it. His scalp alternated between feeling numb and scraped raw; he’d lost feeling in his ears a while ago, and he knew from experience that the thaw once he’d gotten someplace warm was going to be painful. The problem was, he was supposed to meet the man at 10:30, but he didn’t have a watch. He knew it must be close, but he hated asking strangers for the time. Some looked at him like they’d accidentally stepped on him and gotten his stink on their shoes, but those he could understand. As hard as he tried, he wasn’t always able to find a place to clean himself up in the mornings, so he looked just like he was - homeless and pathetic. If he were one of those people leaving their warm homes, latte and muffin in their hands, walking to work, he probably wouldn’t want someone like him getting even remotely close. The worst, though, were the ones who looked straight through him, like there wasn’t enough of him to be acknowledged. Sometimes he’d have gone days without talking to anyone, and he’d wonder if somehow he had actually begun to fade away. So he kept his interactions with others to a minimum and had come up with different ways to figure out the time. Sometimes he’d snatch a forgotten receipt from an ATM or one thrown away from a grocery store. He found that a lot of impossible tasks were actually manageable with some creativity mixed with a dash of determination.
Since he knew he was close to the meeting time, he just closed his eyes and forced his body to relax, bringing down the shivers to a more manageable level. He pulled his bag closer to his chest, knowing it wouldn’t make him warmer, but the comfort of having it so close to him was better than nothing. Opening his eyes, he saw the man exit his car and jog up to him. Almost bald, the guy huddled in his coat, blowing on his hands to keep them warm. Fighting back an unexpected surge of tears, Alex realized that the man reminded him of his dad, and he had to force his mind to remain in the present.
“You the kid?” The man asked.
Alex nodded.
Withdrawing a set of keys from his pocket, the man unlocked the heavy metal door and preceded Alex inside, where it felt as cold as it had been outside.
“This place is old and doesn’t much in the way of amenities, but you’ll get your own room, and there’s a communal bathroom on each floor. Each of the bathrooms have their own keys, so you’ll only be able to get into the bathroom on your floor, and you won’t be able to get in at all if you lose it.” He eyeballed Alex, who nodded.
Alex could feel the man staring at him, as if trying to decide whether the whole thing was worth it, and Alex felt himself holding his breath.
“Your room is on the fifth floor,” the man said, starting for the stairs, turning before Alex quietly exhaled and started breathing again.
They made the climb in silence, the man slightly panting by the time they’d arrived. Alex’s legs were burning, but he pushed through the pain, knowing that at the end of it was something he’d thought he’d never have again.
Pulling out another key chain from his pocket, the man unlocked the three locks on the door and stepped into the room.
Alex paused for a moment, taking a big breath, before he followed the man inside.
The room had one piece of furniture, a cot, that ran along the length of the wall on the right. A barred window stood on the far wall, and the left wall contained a sink and a small counter with an outlet between the two. The room was small enough that the man and Alex could stand with their arms out and touch both ends of the peeling white painted walls, but it looked like a miracle to Alex.
“You have the money?”
Alex nodded, turning his back to the man so he could reach into his pants and pull the pantyhose up from where his money hung a little past his knee. Once he’d pulled it up, he had to undo the knot around his waist and then shove his hand down its length until he reached the small wad of bills. Taking it out, he counted it carefully and turned back to the man, who had walked over to the window and stood peering outside from between two of the bars.
“Here,” Alex said, clearing his voice after the word came out hoarse and scratchy.
The man took the money and counted it. “As we discussed on the phone, the rent is due the last day of the month for the next month. If you don’t have it, you’re out. I don’t do credit or extensions.”
Alex nodded, his eyes darting around the room.
“I reserve the right to come into your room at any time to make sure that you haven’t destroyed it. If I find that you’ve, say, pulled out the sink or have a whole family living in here, you’re out. If I find out you’re using this place for illegal purposes, I’ll call the cops myself.”
Alex nodded, his heart pounding so hard that it felt like he could look down and see it trying to burst through his chest.
“I’ve told you all about the bathroom,” the man mused, then huffed out some air. “Do you have any more questions for me?”
“No, sir,” Alex said, the heartbeat rising into his throat. He clutched the sides of his bag and waited.
“Here,” the man said, holding out the keychain. “One key is to the door, one is to the bathroom.”
Alex took the keys, hoping the man didn’t notice the way his hands shook.
“Momma Cass said I could trust you. Don’t let us both down.”
Alex nodded again, almost giggling from nerves when he pictured himself as one of those bobbleheads.
The man sighed again and turned, leaving the room, the door clicking behind him.
Clutching the keys to the bag against his chest, Alex slowly turned into a circle, thinking, This is mine. This is all mine! He quickly walked to the door and locked the three locks and then sank in the middle of the room, pressing his hands against his eyes as he tried to keep himself from losing control.
GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE
Winding their way through the various shopping carts and homeless people huddled outside the front door, Puck and Mercedes headed toward the back of the building. Mercedes knocked on the door, which was opened a few seconds later by the black version of the Incredible Hulk.
“Mercedes? Is that you, girl?” The man said, his deep voice forcing Puck to work hard not to back up a few steps.
“Marcel?”
The man laughed and picked up Mercedes, hugging her as her feet dangled far from the ground. “Momma told me you were living here now. I figured we’d never see you, though.”
“My mom would come up here and kick my tail personally if I didn’t come help,” Mercedes said as she was lowered back down to the ground. “I also brought a friend, my roommate Pu-Noah,” she said, turning to give Puck a questioning look.
“Puhnoah?” Marcel asked.
Puck shrugged. “They called me Puck in Lima, but the name’s Noah.”
“What do you prefer?”
“Noah’s fine,” Puck said. He didn’t really care, but he supposed his real name reflected how he had changed, grown up a bit, since high school.
The man nodded and held out his hand. “I’m Marcel.”
Puck watched his hand disappear inside of Marcel’s and said, “Dude, you’re like a mountain. How tall are you?”
The man laughed. “I’m six-six, but mom says that I’m built like a brick shithouse, so I might seem a little taller.” He moved backwards. “Come on in; momma’s gonna start yelling at me for letting out the heat in a moment.”
Just then they heard a voice, “Boy! We don’t have enough money to spend it on heat that’s just going to fly out of the room!”
Puck followed Mercedes into a huge kitchen, filled with people and activity and noise. Walking toward them was a tall, very thin black woman.
“Mercedes! You made it!” The woman enveloped her in one of those full-body hugs that seemed to meld the two bodies together.
After a few seconds, Mercedes pulled away and gestured toward Puck. “This is my friend, Noah.”
“The new roommate, one who’s not afraid to come to Queens and help us out,” the woman said.
“Ma’am,” Puck said, holding out his hand.
The woman neatly sidestepped it and gathered him into a hug. She might have been thin, but she was strong and warm and smelled of comfort and spices, and Puck couldn’t help but hug her back just as tightly for a few seconds. “Call me Momma Cass,” she said, pulling back and looking him up and down. “You are a cutie,” she muttered, eyeballing Mercedes.
“Oh, no!” Mercedes protested. “We know way too much about each other for that.”
“Besides,” Puck couldn’t help saying, “we tried that in high school, and she dumped me.”
“Really?” Momma Cass arched an eyebrow at Mercedes, who was glaring at Puck, who was grinning back at her.
They were interrupted by the sound of crashing pans, and Momma Cass turned around to yell at someone in the crowd of people mulling around the kitchen. She turned back to them. “Sorry about that. Thanksgiving and Christmas are our busiest holidays of the year. Marcel will show you where you can put your stuff, and then he’ll get you started.”
“Tables?” Marcel asked.
She nodded. “These two would probably end up burned alive back here, the way things are going.” She said it with a smile, but Puck looked at the craziness behind her and wasn’t really sure she was joking.
They followed Marcel down a hallway and up some stairs. He stopped at the top and pulled out some keys attached to the belt loop of his jeans, using three different keys to unlock the three locks on the door. Opening it, he used his arm to gesture for them to precede him.
Puck followed Mercedes into a large loft, filled with the feeling of space, something that he realized he didn’t feel often in a city where space was at a premium.
“This used to be a warehouse,” Marcel explained, stepping past them and moving toward a little office in the far corner. “Mom converted the bottom floor into a homeless shelter, with the kitchen and dining room, and there’s a room that can hold up to 40 cots and a place for teens to hang out. Up here is where we live.” He still held the keys in his hand and used a key to unlock a file cabinet and open the top drawer. “You can put your purse and jackets in here.”
As they took off their jackets, and Mercedes tossed her purse in the cabinet, she asked, “Do you really need our help? It looks like you have a lot of people down there already.”
“We have people doing this for community service, and some of them are just fine. Others are just barely doing the minimum, and we have to keep an eye on them to make sure they’re not trying to steal the silver wear or trying to sneak out to score. Most of them have no idea what they’re doing in the kitchen, and half of them have to be told to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom.” He smiled, locking the file cabinet. “We need all the help we can get.”
“We’re here for whatever you need,” Mercedes said, turning for the door, and Puck watched Marcel’s eyes trace her body, returning for an encore performance of her booty as she sashayed to the door.
Interesting, Puck thought with a grin as he followed the mountain.
The next hour Puck and Mercedes did everything from rolling plastic over the long tables and taping them down at the ends to setting places and pulling down chairs. By the time they were finished, they’d both worked up a good sheen. They leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room and surveyed their handiwork.
“Not bad, guys,” Momma Cass said, leaning on the counter kitchen-side.
“What’s next?” Mercedes asked.
“Come on back and get your food,” she said. “Everyone’s going to eat, and then we’ll open up the doors and serve all the others.”
“How come we get to eat first?” Mercedes asked. “What if we run out of food?”
“We won’t run out of food,” Momma Cass assured her, walking over to the door and opening it so they could walk into the kitchen. They fell into line behind some of the kitchen workers, Mercedes and Puck mimicking the others as they moved down the line, grabbing cutlery and dishes and helping themselves to the food lined up along the counters. “I’ve learned from experience that a hungry volunteer has less patience with our guests than one who has already eaten.” She tossed a grin in their direction. “You’re going to meet some of the sweetest, and some of the most obstinate people. Some are grateful that we’re here to help, while others resent us for it. Some of these people have lost everything; all they have left is their pride, and having to come here is very difficult for them. It’s almost like it’s reinforcing that they can’t take care of themselves, of their families, and that doesn’t always make them very friendly. But a volunteer with a full belly is going to be more open to their plight than one who has just spent hours preparing all this food for someone who’s standing in front of them glaring at them.” She nodded toward Marcel, who’d had to duck slightly as he walked into the room. “He taught me that.”
Marcel jerked his head at his mother, who nodded. “Excuse me. Go ahead and help yourself.” She headed toward Marcel and disappeared with him back into another room.
Mercedes shrugged at Puck, and they walked down the line, piling food on their plates. Puck felt his stomach growling.
“They might not be experts, but I have to say that everything looks and smells really good,” Mercedes whispered to Puck.
“Or we’re just starving,” Puck said, sharing a smile with her as she rolled her eyes.
They walked into the dining room, and Puck had a sensation of déjà vu, as he and Mercedes looked for a place to sit.
“Feels like back at McKinley, doesn’t it?” Mercedes whispered to him.
“Sure does,” Puck said confidently. “I sit wherever I damn well want to sit.” He knew what Mercedes meant, and he felt that awkwardness too, but one thing he’d learned was that people took their cues from you. If you acted all unsure and scared, they would eat you alive. So he strutted ahead of Mercedes and sat down in the middle of a row, a few chairs down from a few of the people eating. It was close enough for them to talk to any of the other volunteers if they wanted, but it was far enough for everyone to know that Puck wasn’t actively looking for more friends. He felt Mercedes follow him, and she put down her tray and sat across from him.
“Let us pray,” Marcel said from the front.
Puck shot a look at Mercedes, who shrugged, and they lowered their heads.
Puck glanced out of the corner of his eyes and noticed that everyone had bowed their heads. He wasn’t surprised. A mountain like Marcel said it was time to pray, it was time to pray. He figured even an atheist like Hummel would pretend.
A pang of loss shot through his body. He didn’t think of Hummel often, but every once in a while, a thought would flicker through his mind, and he’d get that feeling - he wasn’t quite sure what it was, maybe a mixture of anger and fear and sadness and loss, or whatever. He wasn’t one to sit there and think about his feelings, but there was something so… tragic about what had happened to Hummel. He had been his usual sarcastic, bitchy self until his father’d had that heart attack and died, leaving him at the mercy of that distant relative of his mother’s. And then what happened afterward, and not knowing if he were still alive out there somewhere, it had to do something to a person. It’s not as though they had been friends, but they’d been teammates and in Glee together, and it had just felt so wrong when suddenly he wasn’t there anymore, wasn’t anywhere anymore.
Suddenly he realized that something had changed, and he looked up to find that everyone had finished praying, and Mercedes was looking at him curiously. “Almost fell asleep,” he lied smoothly. “Someone got me up at the butt crack of dawn so she could vacuum the walls.”
Mercedes narrowed her eyes in a mock glare. “It was eleven. If you hadn’t stayed out late whoring somewhere, you would have gotten enough rest.”
“It’s only whoring if you get paid for it,” Puck shot back.
“I want to officially welcome all of the volunteers and thank you for all of the help you’ve done and are going to continue to do this afternoon,” Momma Cass said, stepping beside Marcel.
Now that he had time to ponder on it, Puck could totally see the family resemblance. Marcel was much larger than Momma Cass, but the woman had to be close to six foot tall herself. She was extremely thin, but Puck knew from her hug that she had some serious muscles underneath that green turtleneck. She had a nice enough rack, he thought idly, but it wasn’t bounteous like Aretha’s. The faded jeans weren’t extremely tight, but they showed that she was just as thin on the bottom as she was on the top, although Puck had noticed that she had a rather nice little bit of action going on in her trunk for such a thin person.
Both mother and son had the same dark skin, the same mouth, the exact same smile. They both also had this presence that gave off the sense that they knew their place in the world and that they would make things better - as long as you didn’t piss them off.
“You can start eating,” Momma Cass said, waving an arm. “This is just an informal thank you, since it’s probably the only time I’m going to have you all together. For those of you who have never been here before, let me just go through how the rest of the evening’s going to proceed. We’re going to put out a full plate of food, a cup of milk, and a cup of water at every seat, and when we are ready, we’ll open the door for our guests, who will come in from there.” She pointed to the far door. “They will fill up these seats first and move down each table until all of the seats are full. Once they’ve finished eating, they’ll walk up to the counter here for a small plate to take with them.” She patted the counter. “I’m going to have Mercedes and Puck - wave guys - here to hand them out.”
Mercedes smiled shyly and waved. Puck just gave a whassup jerk of his head. He’d been eyeballing the crowd as Momma Cass gave her little speech, and he wasn’t real impressed with the pickings. He hadn’t expected to find some boobalicious barbie doll or buffed-out stud at a shelter in Queens; he figured those types probably volunteered somewhere in Manhattan. But he’d never been one to assume, so he’d looked around. Resolved to going home alone tonight - Aretha didn’t count when he thought along these lines - Puck didn’t really worry about trying to impress anyone.
“One of my other sons, Marcus, will be out there making sure that all of their protective devices remain outside. They all know that this is a facility where weapons aren’t allowed, so those who can, try to keep them elsewhere. Unfortunately, many need to protect themselves, so Marcel will hold on to their protective devices until they leave the building. Marcus and my other son Malachi are running late, but they should be here any time. Malachi will be helping out anywhere he’s needed.
“So eat up, and we’ll get started putting out the food in about ten minutes.”
Puck had already finished and saw that Mercedes had done the same. “I’ll grab the plates if you grab the cups,” he said, and she nodded at him.
They made their way to the kitchen, and Puck heard laughter coming from the other large room. “It sounds like the party’s already started,” Puck said, his face turned back to Mercedes as he walked through the doorway into the kitchen, so he was completely unprepared when he heard a voice he recognized, one he thought he’d never hear again.
Master post with chapter breakdown here
Chapter 3: Same As It Never Was