Day: -17 Liar, liar...

In the back of the site the shelter was on was an old warehouse. The whole complex was part of an ancient city works yard, that in its day had still been using draft horses to pull carts. Built around a central square, the North side was the old tables, the West side the warehouse, East was the shelter and South the Gardiner Expressway.

For awhile the warehouse had been used to store relief supplies that were destined for Eastern Europe, once the organizers raised enough cash to cover the shipping costs. Inside were a collection of clothes, beds, mattresses and boxes and boxes of diapers.

One night on my way to work I caught a group of men, one of them a shelter client, heading through a hole in the fence, just North of the shelter entrance. Jimmy was startled to see me, and quickly started explaining the rules of witnessing thefts on progress. I was to pretend I saw nothing, go on my way, it wasn't safe to intervene. Sadly, the big score for the night seemed to be boxes of diapers, an item that I wouldn't have thought had huge black market appeal.

As an aside, I have many Don Quixote-like qualities. Forever tilting at windmills and imaginary enemies is totally in keeping with my approach to life. So rather than let the situation be I told the group that I was calling the police and they had better drop their swag and leave. Thinking nothing more of it I continued on to work.

A few days later this was the news.

The warehouse was totally destroyed along with all its contents. I wouldn't see Jimmy again for nearly three years, and while we never spoke of it I am sure that he had a role in, or knowledge of, the fire.