Early the next day Joseph paid a visit to his lawyers to set up the transfer of his business to Brian and Beth. It took most of the morning to work out the details but in the end there was an ironclad contract that the lawyers would send to the Craigs for their signatures. With that accomplished, Joseph felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
I'm a man of leisure, probably for the first time in my life, he thought with a small smile as he stood outside the building, wondering what to do next. Lunch, I think. Somewhere special to celebrate my new-found freedom.
Using his phone, he discovered he was just three blocks from a place that BEN's restaurant critic had given a five-star rating. Taking off his suit coat for the moment, he slung it over his shoulder and started walking.
"They're even here," he murmured minutes later when he spied a pair of homeless men, one barely eighteen, if he didn't miss his guess, the other a few years older. They were squatting on a tattered blanket at an alley entrance, an upturned cap sitting in front of them. Joseph wondered if they chose that location so they could escape down the alley if the cops tried to roust them. As he passed, he dug into his pocket, coming up with a handful of change that he dropped into the cap.
A block later, as he neared the restaurant, he saw a woman pushing an over-flowing shopping cart. Even in the mid-day heat, she was bundled up in a ragged coat. In the cart, on top of what he was certain were all of her worldly possessions, sat a cat. When the woman saw him looking at her, she ducked her head and moved faster, heading, he thought, toward the riverfront. He quickened his pace, taking out his wallet as he did, extracting a couple of dollars. When he came up beside her, he handed them to her.
"Thank you, sir," she said in a gravelly voice, quickly stuffing the bills inside her coat.
Impulsively he asked, "Do you have somewhere safe to stay at night?"
He was surprised when she actually replied. "You're kidding, right? There's places, yeah, but they all fill up too quick, and they ain't all that safe, anyways."
"Surely they're still better than… than under a bridge or in an alley?"
She snorted derisively. "Check them out; you'll see." With that, she continued on her way. The cat looked back at him for an instant, snarled, and returned to what it had been doing, snoozing on top of a tattered blanket.
A few minutes later, while he waited by the restaurant's hostess-stand to be seated, Joseph thought about what the woman has said. He wondered if it was the truth. Were the shelters really so unsafe that a woman would prefer taking her chances on the streets at night. And what about the men who lived under the bridges, did they feel the same way?
Perhaps… He rapped a knuckle against his lip. Maybe I should at least check it out? Not that there's much I could do even if it was the truth, other than donate to one of the shelters, one where the people seem to care. And I'm being cynical. Why work at a shelter if you don't care?
His musings were interrupted by the hostess telling him his table was ready. Shelving his thoughts for the moment, he followed her.
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