Editor's note: At the Lighthouse Soup Kitchen and Shelter on Peter Street, there's never a dull moment. There are many trials, difficult situations and stories of hope. Board member Tony Bianco has seen much in recent months and decided to write about it. He has changed people's names, but everything he has chronicled here has happened - although not on the same day. He believes, in the end, hope wins.
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Ryan is pacing again. He’s gone off his meds. He bounces around the café, swearing at the voices he hears in his head. Sometimes, he goes out for a smoke, or sits in the shelter office with his case-worker, his hands drumming on her desk.
They call him Spiderman; he’s thin and 19 years old, and he can’t sit still. “He’s a good kid, just won’t take his meds…”
Mike sits in the café and pours a ridiculous amount of sugar into his coffee. “He’s been on the street since he was 14… he sleeps anywhere,” someone says of Mike. “He can sleep there tonight, then,” mutters another. Someone murmurs from the table behind:. “C’mon, it’s Christmas Eve already.”
Fourteen guys last night, the cold nights and distance from a welfare cheque always fills the shelter. They’re gruff and sullen after a bad night’s sleep in the dorm rooms with Ryan pacing most of the night.
One of the shelter workers bursts into the café, her arms wrapped around a large nativity scene in a plexiglass case.
“Look what just got donated!” she chirps, wrestling aside the coffee machine and creamers to make room for shepherds and camels. Mostly, the guys don’t respond.
One man looks up from his breakfast, fingering his ring. He smiles a little. “That’s how it all started, just like that.” He stares at the porcelain figurines trapped in their plastic case.
Ryan keeps pacing, his long dark hair hanging over his eyes as he looks down at his feet. He walks around the café, down the hall to the kitchen. His hand taps the doorframe once and heads back to the corner where he started, like an old lion in a cheap zoo.
This time, he walks past the nativity scene and gives the middle finger to the baby Jesus. A couple of guys snicker. He starts the whole circuit again, adding the gesture into his routine.
Chairs scrape the floor as the men finish their breakfast and put on heavy coats. Walking into the hallway, they fill their parkas with bread, buns or socks from the bins lining the walls.
Some look at the bulletin board for new job listings, or apartments that have come available. There are only a couple, and most can’t even begin to afford them.
The doorbell at the back door rings. An elderly man waits with a garbage bag of clothes to donate. “It’ll be busy today,” the kitchen volunteer smiles and heads to the door.
Before the café opens again for lunch, there will be 11 turkeys, a box of hand-knitted scarves and hats, heaps of dry goods, more mountains of bread, six used winter coats, eight pairs of boots, and unknown numbers of cookies.
The phone rings incessantly, men looking for a bed, a girlfriend calling from jail, and offers from volunteers to help on Christmas Day.
“Everyone wants to bring their whole family on Christmas,” Jenn complains. She’s been here for 12 years, too long. “Come and look at the homeless, help out and feel good about themselves….”
The men have left, out crunching around town in their used boots, or smoking outside the coffee shop down the block. Some have gone to the library for internet.
Meanwhile, lunch gets prepared in the shelter. Eventually, 40 people file in, half listen to a long-winded prayer, bum smokes and banter. The mood is lighter today, as a turkey dinner is on the menu.
Someone complains loudly about the coffee machine being moved.Several hours later, as the café is mopped, men staying the night start to gather outside, waiting for the doors to open. Ryan’s not there.
“Dan took him to get his meds,” Mike says. Dan looks out for Ryan, like a father. He’s been his protector whenever they’re in the shelter together, speaking up for him when the other men get angry at him for yelling and pacing.
At around 2 p.m., Murray, the pest control guy, shows up. He’s there to spray the bedbugs upstairs, which haven’t quite left after three tries. He spends some time talking to a shelter worker about the moon landing being a hoax, and eventually heads upstairs in his "Ghostbuster" gear to spray.
Late in the afternoon it starts snowing. A van drives slowly by and pulls over against the snowbank in front of the building, and a lone man waves a few of the guys over. They cautiously approach him, until they realize that he is handing out $100 bills. He gives away $1,200, gets back in his gray minivan and drives off.
Dinner that night is full of talk about the windfall. Ryan and Dan missed out, but don’t complain. One man seems to think it’s counterfeit money, holding it up to the blue fluorescent lights in the dirty ceiling.
As night falls, the men settle into their routines. Some find a corner and huddle with their phones, two watch a movie. Others do their laundry, one flirts with a shelter worker half his age.
Someone finds a string of Christmas lights and wraps it over the top of the plastic nativity scene case. The lights blink on and off and make the wise men’s gifts and robes sparkle.
It's snowing outside, and Spiderman has fallen asleep in his clothes on the hard floor of the café, having finally taken his medication after more than a month.
The rest of the men shuffle upstairs and find their thin mattress and blankets. Some talk and mumble quietly to each other, and gradually fall asleep as the snow filters past the streetlight out the window.
It’s going to be a silent night.
