Private Yoga Instructor Santa Monica & Los Angeles Westside private yoga classes in-home or on-location Jennifer Pastiloff Contact Jennifer (310-926-0172) Yoga at home - comfort and convenience! |
The Collected Works of Jennifer Pastiloff THE W. THIRD ST. HOMELESS, NYC Inside the Salvation Army Truck they move their hands fast, reach for styrofoam cups and fill them with boiling black liquid. The men outside, waiting in line, silently step up to meet the hand emerging into the cold through the opening in the plastic window. They step close to the truck, praying the coffee will be steaming, hot enough to burn through the numb stubs at the end of their arms. They can taste the chocolate spreading, falling down their throats, as they blow breath out of their bodies and watch it freeze. They wait patiently, knowing that soon the cookie will settle in their bloated stomachs and push the emptiness out: they will flatten. Then the chili, like a game, will blow them back up again, their bellies will swell, this time with gas instead of hunger. They will laugh, they love this. Despite the cold the men will lift up their shirts: swollen stomachs stain the sidewalk. Each turns to the next, shows off his hilarity: his once skinny torso, now fat and pimply with goose flesh. They are balloons. Later, long after the truck has pulled away, and taken with it the vats of greasy chili, the men flatten. Empty, they will roam the streets in search of a truck. Blue breath and balls swing like jazz, they pass us on the street and offer smokes?smokes? without stopping, they trek on. Hiking over piles of snow, through traffic, two stories on the way in, two on the way back, these men are on a pilgrimage. As blood sugars drop lower voices get louder. They are tired, they want to be the ones inside the truck handing out Dixie cups of chili, scalding their fingers on hot pots. They want to be on the other side of the window looking out at the men who shape their mouths into tight little circles, their clay-like figures nothing but chimneys, puffing air. They want to climb inside the truck, curl up on the dirty floor, forget the men outside swallowing the cold like it was a woman. j. pastiloff |
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