Eddie, a punk, stands against the pillar just outside the automatic doors to Fall Apart. He jabbers with his less-punk friend, Mike, who are raising money for Teenage Dare, a group that embraces a drug-and-alcohol-free life through faith in Jesus Christ. Between potential donors, they chant some kind of spirit raising hymn, a combination of hip-hop and gospel, spontaneously contrived.
Eddie and Mike continually block the paths of almost everyone who might give them a cash contribution. They have a rickety card table covered with a half-dozen brochures about the sin and black death delivered by intoxicants. They follow evaders into the parking lot pleading for donations. Eddie puts his palms together in supplication, telling people he is clean because of Jesus and the rehab program. Mike does the same, but less aggressively. "Please, anything helps."
After about an hour, I notice that Eddie has a disturbing eye for young girls. He solicits their mothers more often and more persistently than he does any other customer. He gets too near the girls, invades their spaces, caresses their hair and upper arms. He cannot stop staring at little girls.
I walk up to the table and say hello and ask what their program consists of, how it works. Eddie and Mike give a perfectly blended response. They say they get clean at a facility in New Hampshire, although their program is based in Providence. They worship, look deep inside themselves, and gradually, after several months of guidance, spiritual growth, and brutally honest introspection, graduate to soliciting funds from the public. After eighteen months or so, they start to go out on their own. I ask whether they learn some kind of skill while in the program, such as carpentry or do they get a GED. They say this is it, collecting money. Seems like they will have a future in telemarketing or debt collection.
I stare fiercely at Eddie every time I walk in and out the door to retrieve carts. He knows I have noticed his predilection. He is familiar with having been spotted before. He stares back but always blinks. He cuts back on his unwarranted friendliness to young females, but cannot completely stop himself, especially when he thinks I am not nearby. Mike also sees that I have spotted Eddie and maintains a greater distance between the two of them. Mike is uneasy, but Eddie is somewhat confrontational, as if entitled.
After a couple more hours I approach Eddie face to face and ask him what happens to the money. He says it goes to maintaining their program. I ask how it maintains the program. He says he doesn't know or question the details of God's plan for his life, but he knows he wouldn't be saved and would still be on the streets using dope if it wasn't for the program. He says he was lucky the court let him get into the program instead of going to jail on drug charges.
I ask him if all these people giving them money are, in effect, paying them to stay off the streets, to stay out of their lives, to not steal their purses or break into their homes, to not steal their cars and crash into innocent victims. Is that what this donation business is all about, Eddie? Is this another version of extortion? If you get enough money you'll stay in your program and not harm these little girls you're so fond of? Is that about right, Eddie? Are people paying you so you can get driven here in a van and dropped off by a supervisor who leaves you here to stare at little girls but fetches you back at the end of the day? Is this what people are paying you for? So you'll go back to your spiritual center and not molest their children?
Eddie wants to hit me but plunges his hands into his baggy pockets. He walks off with his head down, then suddenly turns and spit-yells that he didn't ask to be made like this, but that's the plan God has for him. How would you like it if God made you like this, he asks. What would you do to redeem yourself? Tears gather in his eyes, run down his red cheeks. All I can do, he says, is believe in God, all I can do is believe, man, just believe. It's all I got. God does the rest.
Eddie heads for the men's room inside. Mike stays with the table and money box, which has a clear plastic window on the front so everyone can see how much cash has been collected, how much safer the world is. A woman opens her purse and takes out a dollar bill, then adds another to it and stuffs it in the box. Mike says thank you, every donation helps.
