Maggie Nerz Iribarne
Bruce Tuesdays
She watched the line stretch down the block from the front windows. Cars passed in a stream, unrelenting. Business people, regular people, those who did not need a free meal, crossed the street to avoid the crowd. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d seen them, the poor, the hungry. On a trip into the city with her grandmother for the Christmas show all she remembered afterwards was the homeless man shivering on a steaming grate, the elderly woman with smeared lipstick poking through the garbage, a dirty sleeping bag unrolled under a tree in the park. Before sleep each night, those images lingered. She worried and wondered about them all. She dreamed about the poor.
“C’mon in, everybody!” She propped open the front door and waved, welcoming the line. “Starting to rain. Dinner’s almost ready! Get a cup of joe and a seat!”
“Hey, Bethie, how’re ya?” John took her hand.
“I’m good, very good, glad to see you!”
She glanced once more out the door before closing it. Horns honked, someone gave someone else the finger. Life continued in the outside world of oblivion. Inside, she enjoyed a better view: her team of volunteers preparing a meal for the poor, all for free.
This was Beth’s dream come true, her nonprofit soup kitchen, “The Table.” The dream that mystified and disappointed her parents, repulsed her older sister, and destroyed her social and sex lives. How many people are living their dream? she often asked herself. Not many, she answered, not many at all.
***
Bruce, a new guy, came to fill out a volunteer application. Beth thought his jeans looked pressed, his white hair too freshly cut, wafts of a not-unpleasant aftershave emanated around him. He wore expensive, new looking running shoes. When Beth shook his hand, it felt too smooth.
“I just retired. I’ve always wanted to give back.”
Blah bah blah. Beth nodded, skimming the application.
“Okay, I’ll give you a call,” she said.
“I could start right now. Just give me a job!”
Overenthusiastic. Too happy. Entitled.
“It doesn’t work like that. I have a team I train. Like I said, I’ll call you.”
His smile lingered, his eyes full of questions.
“He’s never done real work. He lives out in the country. I saw him getting out of a giant SUV,” Beth said to Jeanie, her office assistant.
“He’s a doctor. His training alone was real work,” Jeanie said.
“I guess.”
“You’re not going to take him?”
“Well, maybe I can get a big donation out of him,” Beth said.
“Sheesh. You’re a tough customer.”
“All these people waltzin’ in here, all dolled up, finally ready to help out, after years of doing nothing.” Beth’s face heated.
“He seemed fine to me. Heart’s in the right place, “ Jeanie said, turning back to her computer.
***
On Bruce’s first day he talked. A lot. He talked to Greg in salads. He talked to Ruth at the coffee stand. He talked to Chef Terry. Mostly he talked about his garden. Bruce obsessed about his garden.
“We get all our produce day-old from the local businesses. We save it from being tossed. I’m really committed to that,” Beth said.
Her words fell on deaf ears.
“I could start out back. You’ve got the space. And it’s kind of messy out there. I-”
“Hey, Bruce. I’ve got an idea, I’ll put you in the toiletry give-away closet today,” Beth said.
The toiletry closet was the real wake up call for anyone who didn’t get it - the real-time desperation of the poor. Every Tuesday they lined up for toilet paper, soap, tooth paste, all the things many take for granted.
“Uh, okay,” Bruce said.
Later when she snuck a peak, Beth enjoyed the sight of flustered Bruce, grabbing from the shelves, telling people they could only have two rolls. Still, he kept the chatter flowing. He even dispensed medical advice.
“How long you had that rash?” he asked Selma, who’d just lost her son in a shooting and probably didn’t give a rat’s ass about her rash.
“I’ve got something for that. I can bring it next time,” Bruce said.
Selma smiled a stiff smile. Beth read her mind. Is this guy for real?
The following week, Bruce brought a box of tomatoes and several first aid kits.
“I thought I’d put them outside the closet,” he said, hopeful eyes.
“I’d focus on the toilet paper and soap. Basics, Bruce, basics.”
“I gotcha,” he said. “Off I go!” he said brightly, too brightly for Beth’s taste.
***
On one of the Bruce Tuesdays, Beth stood by the drink stand talking to John about his new apartment they just helped him secure.
“Hey, I know what that’s like.” Bruce popped up out of nowhere.
“You do?” John said.
“My wife passed last year. Cancer. I had to start all over again. I had to move. I couldn’t take staying where I was,” Bruce held his mop in front of him like a baton.
“Wow, sorry to hear that. I lost my Florence too. Heart trouble,” John said.
Beth wanted to roll her eyes.
“Well, we’ve got John all sorted out, don’t we John?”
“We sure do, Bethie, sure thing.”
“Bruce? Why don’t you do the dish room today?”
“On it!” Bruce ran his mop to the closet and disappeared.
***
August’s dog days hit. The Table lacked air conditioning. Fans turned slowly in all corners of the dining room. The guests sat sweating, fanning themselves. Some regulars failed to show. Beth stirred an iced coffee. She worried about her guests suffering, even dying in the heat.
“The elderly do not do well in this weather,” she said to Bruce.
She’d just snuffed out his idea of serving dinner out in the back or on the sidewalk.
“It’d be like a bistro in Paris,” he said.
Off his rocker.
“This is not Paris. I’ve been there, I know,” she said.
“You’ve been to Paris?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah, you surprised?”
“I guess a little. Did you love it?”
“Did you love it?”
“I’ve actually never been.”
“Now that’s surprising,” Beth said.
She wiped down the counter with a rag, was about to walk off.
“I never had the time. I was busy working, taking care of my sick wife, getting the kids organized. It was a lot. I almost didn’t make it,” he said, hands on hips.
“What do you mean?”
“Emotionally. I almost didn’t survive that before-now time.”
“Oh,” Beth said, feeling a stab of compassion.
“Do you want to serve tonight?” she asked.
***
“For whatever reason, Bruce thinks I’d want to come out to see his place,” Beth said, seated at her desk, her phone on speaker, digging into leftover mac and cheese. It was evening, everyone else gone for the day. She usually ate in the office alone at night.
“Do you think he likes you? You said he was a widower right?” Beth could picture her sister drinking a glass of wine poolside. She was an old school country club mom, helping out at the PTA, driving the kids to soccer practice, playing tennis in cute matching outfits.
“No, no I do not. I don’t like him. In that way. In any way,” Beth said, “Better go.”
“Okay, Mother Teresa, God forbid you enjoy anything.”
Beth shut down the call and looked around. Boxes of donations lined the walls. There was always so much to do. No matter how much she worked, the poor would just keep multiplying, needing someone, needing her. When she walked to her car, she’d see them. They’d be out there in the shadows, under the overpasses, lining the steps. Sometimes this fact energized her. Tonight, it overwhelmed.
***
The next night, John keeled over outside on the dinner line. Everyone froze in shock. Beth stared at his limp, glistening body sprawled on the sidewalk. She patted her pocket. No phone. Suddenly, Bruce appeared, unflustered. He crouched on the ground beside John, loosened his collar, elevated his feet. After the ambulance left, everyone shuffled into the dining room for dinner and business as usual commenced. Beth stood at the dish stand rolling silverware into napkins with shaking hands. Bruce put a hand on her shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yes, of course. Are you?”
“A little rattled, but glad I was there.” He drank a glass of water, wiped his brow with a napkin.
“Better get to work,” Beth said, turning away.
***
Though late in the season, Beth acquiesced to Bruce’s garden plans. Upon her approval, he immediately began babbling about second seasons and the “fall haul.” He went from Tuesday Bruce to every day Bruce. Beth waited for him to leave each day before walking the garden’s perimeter, enjoying the muffled street sounds, earthy smells, the never-before-appreciated birdsong. Bruce enlisted the guests to help out. Instead of sitting and gabbing after dinner, many now headed to the back to water and weed. Several told stories of their parents’ or grandparents’ gardens or farms. John, returned after his heat stroke episode, remembered growing corn as a child, his smile spreading like a pearly cob. By September they had squash and eggplant and sweet potatoes. Bruce prepared bags of produce to take home. He printed simple recipes so guests could prepare their own dishes. He brought a picnic table, positioned it in the center of the yard.
“Studies show that being in nature actually changes the brain,” he touted.
He even convinced Chef Terry to add the produce to his meal plan each night.
All the while, Bruce chatted away, standing outside with his arms folded, or holding his shovel, nodding and smiling and squatting down to explain something.
“Admit it. Admit you like Bruce,” Jeanie said.
“He’s fine,” Beth said.
***
One evening, Beth jumped at a light knock. She abandoned the microwaved turkey and mash frozen dinner to open her office door, expecting Phil the cleaner.
“Bruce!”
“Hey, sorry to intrude. I know you’re working.”
“What’s up, Bruce?”
He held up a plate covered in plastic wrap.
“I’ve seen you eating in here. I thought I’d make you something. If you don’t want it now, you could save it for tomorrow-or-”
Beth reached for the plate, knowing it would be rude to not accept a kindness.
Didn’t she constantly say to new guests who struggled with “handouts,” “Don’t block the blessing!”?
“Goodnight,” Bruce said, his face open, happy, always so damned happy.
Didn’t he know about all the suffering in the world? Of course he did.
“Thanks,” she said stiffly, reaching to shut the door.
She returned to her desk, pulled the covering from the plate: tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil drizzled with balsamic and olive oil. She took a plastic fork and lifted a bite to her mouth.
She relaxed into her chair, slowly chewing and swallowing. It was delicious, simple, flavorful, fresh. An impulse to be outside overcame, to go out to the garden before it got any darker. Maybe Bruce would still be there, she wondered. She wanted to thank him, properly. She hoped he hadn’t left.
END
Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 53, lives in Syracuse, NY, writes about witches, cleaning ladies, priests/nuns, struggling teachers, neighborhood ghosts, and other things. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com.