Intake room, and disappeared. We set up our clinic, and were ready to dispense advice.

Mordecai walked to the door with the clipboard, and called out the first name: "Luther

Williams."

Luther barely fit through the door, and the chair popped as he fell into it across from us.

He wore a green work uniform, white socks, and orange rubber shower sandals. He

worked nights at a boiler room under the Pentagon. A girlfriend had moved out and taken

everything, then run up bills. He lost his apartment, and was ashamed to be in the shelter.

"I just need a break," he said, and I felt sorry for him.

He had a lot of bills. Credit agencies were hounding him. For the moment, he was hiding

at CCNV.

"Let's do a bankruptcy," Mordecai said to me. I had no idea how to do a bankruptcy. I

nodded with a frown. Luther seemed pleased. We filled out forms for twenty minutes,

and he left a happy man.

The next client was Tommy, who slid gracefully into the room and extended a hand upon

which the fingernails had been painted bright red. I shook it; Mordecai did not. Tommy

was in drug rehab full-time--crack and heroin--and he owed back taxes. He had not filed

a tax return for three years, and the IRS had suddenly' discovered his oversights. He also

hadn't paid a couple of thousand in back child support. I was somewhat relieved to learn

he was a father, of some sort. The rehab was intense--seven days a week--and prevented

fulltime employment.

"You can't bankrupt the child support, nor the taxes," Mordecai said.

"Well, I can't work because of the rehab, and if I drop out of rehab then I'll get on drugs

again. So if I can't work and can't go bankrupt, then what can I do?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it until you finish rehab and get a job. Then call Michael

Brock here."

Tommy smiled and winked at me, then floated out of the room.

"I think he likes you," Mordecai said.

Ernie brought another sign-up sheet with eleven names on it. There was a line outside the

door. We embraced the strategy of separation; I went to the far end of the room,

Mordecai stayed where he was, and we began interiewing clients two at a time.

The first one for me was a young man facing a drug charge. I wrote down everything so I

could replay it to Mordecai at the clinic.

Next was a sight that shocked me: a white man, about forty, with no tattoos, facial scars,

chipped teeth, earrings, bloodshot eyes, or red nose. His beard was a week old and his

head had been shaved about a month earlier. When we shook hands I noticed his were

soft and moist. Paul Pelham was his name, a three-month resident of the shelter. He had

once been a doctor.

Drugs, divorce, bankruptcy, and the revocation of his license were all water under his

bridge, recent memories but fading fast. He just wanted someone to talk to, preferably

someone with a white face. Occasionally, he glanced fearfully down the table at

Mordecai.

Pelham had been a prominent gynecologist in Scranton, Pennsylvania--big house,

Mercedes, pretty wife, couple of kids. First he abused Valium, then got addicted to harder

stuff. He also began sampling the delights of cocaine and the flesh of various nurses in

his clinic. On the side, he was a real estate swinger with developments and lots of bank

financing. Then he dropped a baby during a routine delivery. It died. Its father, a well-

respected minister, witnessed the accident. The humiliation of a lawsuit, more drugs,

more nurses, and everything collapsed. He caught herpes from a patient, gave it to his

wife, she got everything and moved to Florida.