Hunger of the Pine

forced her to consent to being there, where her pride could not. This was a poison called philanthropy. The reality was that people did not care. Every other day of the year, these same people would yell at them to stop loitering in front of their buildings or to go get a job. Every other day of the year, these same people would pass them by, dousing them in the ordure of their car fumes. But today, with the Christmas spirit upon them, suddenly they all acted like they cared. Aria would have been glad for this sudden shift, were it not for the smug looks on their faces. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not Christ-like at all. She could see that this giving was not really giving. It was taking. It was a transaction. People like herself accepted whatever they were handing out, and in exchange, they could revel in a sense of their own moral goodness. It was a display of self-gratification. People love nothing more than seeing themselves as good, even if it is by definition entirely self-centered.

By the end of the day, Aria had begrudgingly accrued an orange, four water bottles, mouthwash, shaving cream and a razor, four pairs of new socks, a pack of sanitary wipes, a bottle of hand sanitizer, two toothbrushes with toothpaste, a packet of gum, chapstick, five hand warmers, a packet of mixed nuts, four granola bars, a comb, a packet of cheese and crackers, $10 and some beef jerky which she couldn’t eat. When neither Luke nor Taylor was close enough to see, she fed the jerky to Palin, who inhaled it. Palin seemed overwhelmed with the excitement of the unforeseen change of atmosphere and the energy between people in the air. Each time a person had approached them, she submissively flattened her ears and crawled toward them, anxiously wagging her tail. Only one person leaned down to pet her. The rest simply assumed that because she was in the company of a vagrant, she must be carrying some kind of disease.

Having caught wind of a turkey dinner that was apparently offered every year to the homeless and hungry at the United Methodist Church, Taylor and Luke decided to follow a fellow drifter there. Aria declined to join them. Instead, she walked the long distance back to the car lot alone. When she arrived, she could see that Anthony had not moved from his original position. The cup of cocoa that Luke had placed beside him had been spilled. Aria assumed it had been knocked over intentionally. Aside from Anthony, there was no one else at the lot. They had probably all gone out to take advantage of the many opportunities that existed as a result of this sudden Christmas caring.

Aria sat in the mute atmosphere of the back seat of the Land Cruiser. Here, away from the self-gratification of the people and the diminishment she felt because of it, she was glad for her little pile of charity items, where she hadn’t felt glad before. She spread them all out on the seat of the car. She was conscious that the way she felt, looking at them, was similar to the way she’d felt on the few occasions when one of her foster parents had taken her trick-or-treating. She felt replete. At least for a little while, she wouldn’t have to go desperately searching to meet an immediate need.

Stripping down to her bra and underwear, Aria used a few of the hand wipes to give herself a kind of provisional sponge bath. She pulled the comb unforgivingly through the length of her hair. She was grateful for the comb most of all. Since her brush had gone missing when her backpack was stolen on one of her first days in the city, she had been using her own hands to untangle her hair every morning. Leaning her legs out the opposite side of the car from where Anthony’s camp was situated, she used one of the bottles of water, the razor and the men’s shaving cream to shave her legs for the first time in ages. She didn’t know why she did it. Perhaps it was stupid. There was no reason to shave her legs in the life she was currently living. In fact, doing so might make her more uncomfortable once the hair started to grow back in. But she was sick of feeling decrepit.

Because it was Christmas, she allowed herself to separate the orange and the packet of cheese and crackers from the rest of the stash, which she stuffed deep into the main compartment of her backpack. The sweet-sour taste of the orange segments was tainted by the bitter pith that still glazed her hand from when she’d peeled off the rind. She spread the cheese on one of the crackers with the little red stick that was provided in the packet. It tasted chemical, but it felt luxurious to eat. When she had finished, she threw the orange rind and the little tangle of hair that had come loose in her comb over the fence of the car lot.

Waiting for Taylor and Luke to return, Aria found herself loosely watching over Anthony’s little denigrated arbor. The blue tarp over his head was contorting with the lift and release of the wind. Aria imagined that he must have actually had good Christmases once. It made her sad to imagine them. She could see him younger, wearing a ridiculous Christmas sweater and sitting down at a long table with so many family members that he would have to shout to be heard over the chorus of voices. Of course, she didn’t know if what she imagined was anything like his actual Christmases. But she could conjure up no other explanation for his catatonic state.

For most people, Christmas was a time of celebration. It was a time for gifts and family and feasts. But for people like herself and Anthony, whose ostracization had led them straight into