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Dennis pulls on his big chore coat, the one that had belonged to Mark until he’d grown out of it and was ultimately given to Dennis, who at this rate would never grow out of anything, and he zips it up over his hoodie and scarf. It is a cold day in November. He’d been used to the Plains chill but the wind whipping between the skyscrapers is something else, even in his fourth Pittsburgh winter. He checks the route about three times waiting for the bus, glancing up to make sure he’s at the right stop, even though the first bus is the same as the one to the hospital.
Trinity had been up when he was getting ready, and had asked in a roundabout way what he was up to, and hadn’t been able to come up with an insult for him without sounding like a total asshole when Dennis told her he was going to meet the PTMC Street Team. “Good luck, Huckleberry!” she’d yelled out the door after him, which he’d learned in the last month was usually the best you got with Trinity.
He stood on the crowded bus, awkwardly trying to juggle his phone, earbuds, and thermos, one hand holding onto the rail, until he finally got his music playing without too much coffee spilled on the floor. He texted his oldest brother Hudson a picture of the skyline as they passed the river. Hudson replied with his own picture of the barn at sunrise, one timezone behind Pittsburgh but already awake, even on a Saturday. Dennis transferred buses at the stop he usually got off for the hospital, and rode further downtown.
After another twenty minutes of tucking his elbows to his sides and trying to keep his thermos upright Dennis walks towards the empty parking lot of a red-brick church and waved hello to Kiara, standing under a pop-up tent holding a clipboard. She’s wearing dark jeans and a big puffer coat instead of her usual soft, natural-fiber clothing, but she looks warmer out of the harsh light of the ER.
“Good morning, Whitaker,” she says and smiles at him, “We’re just waiting for a couple more people to arrive, help yourself to some breakfast in the meantime.” Behind her is a table with a massive tray of bagels in individual aluminum foil wrappers, labelled with their toppings. “Are these for patients?” he asks, and Kiara shakes her head, “They’re donated by the church for our staff. Take one.” Dennis grabs a smoked salmon bagel, still warm, and eats it with one hand, his thermos still in the other. He looks around at the other medical staff in the parking lot.
There are seven of them total, all wearing brightly colored pins with their medical designation. Kiara taps him on the back and hands him one with “Medical Student” in white against a cheery blue background. He pins it over his coat, and slips off his backpack, storing it where he spotted Kiara’s purse under the pop-up tent table.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s debrief,” Kiara says, and they gather around her. Dennis finishes off the last bites of his bagel, balling the foil in his hand. Kiara gestures at Dr. Abbot standing next to her, wearing cargo pants and a sweatshirt with 212th MASH scripted over a massive eagle emblazoned on it, his camo backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Jack will be our primary today, he has all the prescriptions for our regular patients. Emery, you can collect them from him before you lead your team out. I’ll be the secondary contact, hold down the fort here. I’d like to introduce Pavel Soroka from the dentistry clinic, and Ellen Chen from Peace Heart Veterinary across the river, and our new med student Dennis Whitaker,” she gestures at each of them in turn, and Dennis gives a little wave.
“We expect people to start arriving in the next fifteen minutes. Jack, want to give the spiel to the new blood?” She steps back.
Dr. Abbot’s face twists a little, “Welcome to the street team. Glad to have you with us,” he nods at Dennis and the dentist, “We serve our clientele where they’re at, no questions asked, no judgment. Treat them with dignity and respect, as you would any other patient. Use first names for each other. Ask for help when you need it.”
He nodded, and the team splits up, going to unpack boxes of food and medical equipment. “Dennis, you’ll shadow me and Cassie today,” Abbot says, “We’ll go out towards the homeless encampment on Fifth to treat the more critical patients and pass out prescriptions, then come back here to help out Kiara.”
Abbot opens up one of the plastic bins around the pop-up tent and points at the two backpacks in it. Dennis shoulders the nondescript black bag and Cassie takes the other, following Abbot out of the church parking lot. The other medical staff, except the dentist and veterinarian, group up and head in the opposite direction, led by Dr. Walsh.
“The church has a soup kitchen that opens at ten today, Kiara will interface with our patients after that. We’re going to triage and send them her way for a hot meal,” Abbot tells him. He leads them about ten blocks away, chatting about Cassie’s son and the hospital intramural soccer team he coaches, to a highway onramp. “Here’s the tricky part,” he says, “We need to cross that,” he points at the highway, “to get to the median.” He points again, and Dennis can see a cluster of tents set up on the strip between the onramp and the highway, partially covered by the overpass and scrubby bushes.
They dart together through a gap between cars and up through the underbrush to the scraggle of the median. Abbot sets off for the nearest tent, just a few paces away. The smell of unwashed bodies and dirt blankets the camp, a distinctly urban smell Dennis hadn’t been privy to before he moved to Pittsburgh.
“Rich,” Abbot calls out, “It’s Jack Abbot with a few of my friends. I have prescriptions here.”
An older man pokes his head out of the tent, his long white hair tied back with a bandana, wearing about three layers of jackets against the chill. Dennis realizes, with a lick of guilt, that usually his eyes would slide right past a man dressed like this and towards the pavement ahead. He focuses on Rich, the creases of his face and the checked pattern to his outermost coat.
Rich looks over their group, making brief eye contact with Dennis. He nods slowly, and Abbot steps up to confer with him for a moment before jerking his head for them to come into the encampment.
“They got swept a couple weeks ago and lost a lot of medication and supplies,” Jack relays, “We have a few critical patients, it sounds like. We’re gonna take a look and try to treat them here, and arrange for transport to PTMC if we can’t.”
Rich leads them to a blue tent where a young woman with long, dark hair is lying very still on a sleeping bag. Dennis can’t make out the rise and fall of her chest from here, and Jack stoops into the tent, immediately reaching for her carotid pulse.
“She got the flu going around a few weeks ago and couldn’t shake it. She’s only been this bad for the last couple days,” Rich says. The patient suddenly jerks up, Jack leaning back, and coughs violently. “Okay, sweetheart,” Jack says, helping her lay back down on her side, “I’m going to listen to your lungs for a minute.”
He puts his stethoscope on and puts the bell up to her back. “Dennis, come listen to this and give me your differential,” Abbot says, and Dennis slips the earpieces in. He cycles through the four positions, and he hears distinct popping in the lower quadrant. “Pneumonia?” he says. “Don’t ask me, tell me,” he looks to Rich, “She’ll need to go to the hospital. I can call the ambulance now.”
Rich gives Abbot a pinched look, “You should see the others first, save the paramedics a trip.” Abbot nods, and they continue through the camp. Towards the center there’s a makeshift kitchen set up, camp stoves and crates set up in a small circle, a few people sitting around. “Hey, guys,” Abbot starts, and most of them turn to look at him, some of them smiling or nodding hello. He swings his backpack off and pulls out a massive Ziplock bag and a clipboard. “I have prescriptions for you, you know who you are,” he points at a few of the people, “Cassie and Dennis will handle injections, and we have flu vaccines too.”
He hands Dennis a laminated sheet of paper and a small Ziplock of tagged vials. Cassie gets a box labelled ‘flu’ in Sharpie, and they set up on two of the milk crates. Dennis gloves up when his first patient sits down, an older woman who takes off a jacket, then a sweatshirt, then a T-shirt, shivering in her tank-top. Dennis asks her name, and checks and double checks the medication against his laminated sheet, before drawing it up into a syringe. “I’m sorry, I know it’s cold,” Dennis says, and quickly swipes an alcohol wipe across her bicep before injecting into the muscle, his other hand ready with a cotton pad when he pulls out the needle. He sticks on a band-aid and his next patient sits and he repeats the process, until a familiar face sits down in front of him.
“Dr. Whitaker,” Mr. Krakozhia’s face is tense, almost nervous, “I didn’t forget you. I’m sorry, again, for what happened. I’ve been a lot better since; Dr. Abbot came and gave me my shot last month and I’m keeping it up.”
Dennis feels a rush of shame well up, and he strips off his gloves and reaches out to shake his hand. “I should be apologizing to you,” he gestures awkwardly, “I made assumptions and I didn’t treat you with compassion when I should have, and um, I’m not a doctor yet, just Whitaker.” He pauses, “Or um, Dennis.”
Mr. Krakozhia gives him a smile and squeezes his hand, “Thanks to the medication I’m holding down a job at the food bank, and I might get a spot in a long-term shelter soon.”
Dennis looks down at the ground between them, and at the tents around them. He takes a deep breath and continues, cautious of Cassie’s eyes on him and Abbot standing two feet behind him, debriding a young woman with glassy eyes and big, torn-open scabs on her arms.
“I have to apologize because when you saw me last I was homeless; of all the people in that room I should’ve known that it can happen to anyone. And that you’re not any less a person for it. And I’m sorry for the way I treated you, I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
Mr. Krakozhia gives him a surprised look, “You still sleeping rough?” he asks in an undertone, and Dennis shakes his head. Mr. Krakozhia pats his hand and nods, “Good. You ever need help, you come here and Rich will take good care of you.” He has the eyes of a deer, Dennis thinks, wild and skittish, darting to a salt lick and expecting to be shot.
Dennis meets his eyes, and stammers out a yes, and then they have to do the awkward dance of patient-and-doctor, and Dennis injects the Aripiprazole into his thigh and sends him towards the church, where Kiara will be waiting with a care kit and a hot meal. He gives a lot of antipsychotic medications that morning.
The ambulance comes while Dennis is passing out the last few medications to the newer members of the camp, the ones who sheepishly tell him their stuff got stolen, or lost in a police sweep. They help load the pneumonia patient and two others, one with alcohol poisoning and a man Abbot diagnosed with lung disease, but after they send him off he tells Dennis and Cassie, “Tuberculosis,” in an undertone.
The more ambulatory people start walking towards the church. Abbot directs Dennis and Cassie to leave most of the contents of their backpacks, bandages and alcohol wipes and wet wipes, with Rich. “See you next month, brother,” Abbot says, and Rich nods back, “Thanks, Cap.”
They weave through the tents and back towards the highway, and Dennis smells the clean air again, and he hadn’t even noticed the scent of the encampment by the end of it, as they sprint back across the median. He asks when they’re back on the sidewalk, “How do you know Rich?”
Abbot looks back at him, “He was one of my patients, when I was in the Army.” Dennis doesn’t ask, why don’t you help him, why is he still there, but instead says, “Oh, he looked older,” and Abbot chuckles, humorlessly, and says, “He’s about ten years younger than me. Clean living will do that to you.”
He hikes his camo backpack on his shoulder and, his back to Dennis, says, “You were homeless?” His tone is neutral, as if he’s asking what Dennis had for lunch, or how many scrub credits he has left on his shift.
Dennis feels anxiety well in him, and he bows his head as tears start to prick at his eyes (he reminds himself at least he didn’t cry in front of Mr. Krakozhia), “I guess I wasn’t really homeless, I just didn’t really have a place,” he tries, and Abbot stops ahead of him and fixes him with a stare.
The silence that follows is expectant, waiting, until he opens his mouth. “I’m the first person in my family to go to college. My parents wanted me to be debt-free. They took out loans for undergrad, and then even more for medical school. I was working, keeping up with everything except my tuition, and saving for med school,
“But we had a bad season last year, with the new taxes and everything, and I couldn’t ask them for any more help,” Dennis is rambling now, but the words won’t stop, “So when my lease ran out I moved into my car, and by the time I couldn’t make my car payments I was starting rotations, and there was the abandoned wing of the hospital, so I wasn’t ever really homeless,” he just didn’t have a home he doesn’t say, and Cassie gives him that crumpled look she gives to victims of domestic abuse and runaway teens when they finally give up the charade that everything is fine, and she stops on the sidewalk ahead of him and pulls him into a full-body hug.
Cassie is warm, and about the same height as his mom, who he didn’t call for a month because he couldn’t lie to her, and when she pulls away from him she has the same no-nonsense set to her mouth that his mom used to raise five boys. “Have you told your parents?”
Dennis shakes his head, “I told them when I moved in with Trinity. They don’t have to know.”
Abbot gives him a look, “They’re your parents, Whitaker.” Dennis looks down, and the guilt floods back through him, for failing his parents, and then lying to them, and then he can’t hold back the tears and he’s really crying, and in front of his attending.
“I just– I couldn’t worry them more, I’m already taking up more than my brothers, and I wasn’t really homeless, it’s not like I was living there,” he scrubs at his face and gestures behind them, towards the encampment.
Cassie keeps a hand on his shoulder, “Dennis, living in an abandoned hospital room is still not a stable housing situation.”
He knows that, and he knows that even though he and Trinity get along, and she keeps reassuring him the room is available as long as he needs it, he worries something will come up and he’ll need to start paying rent or move out, and he does not know what he’ll do then.
“I’m sorry,” Abbot says, “You shouldn’t have been put in that position as a student, and one of us should have noticed.”
Dennis shakes his head. He’s helped Kiara and Cassie hand out pamphlets on shelters and soup kitchens, watched Dana ferret out stories from people who looked for all the world like there was nothing wrong, who were living in cars and by the mercy of friend’s couches. “I hid it,” he says, and there’s nothing else to say.
They walk back in silence, Cassie tapping away at her phone. Dennis pulls his scarf further up his neck against the biting wind, and breathes a sigh of relief when the church comes back into view and he won’t be stuck in this awful, disappointed quiet, only the wind and traffic keeping him company.
There’s a line in front of Kiara’s tent, and Abbot directs them to stash the backpacks and go to the makeshift ‘clinic’ (a line of chairs and rolling first-aid carts set up on big tarps), where Walsh appears to be directing operations. “Jack,” she says, “You and Dennis can set up over here.
Abbot nods at her and swings his backpack down, leaning against the cart and beckoning their first patient forward, a young man with a burn on his arm. Abbot stands back and observes while Dennis debrides the wound and applies a topical antiseptic, before wrapping the arm in gauze. Abbot chats comfortably with the patient, asking where he’s living, what kind of food or supplies they might want the street team to bring next week, and when Dennis is done Abbot takes a look in the patient's mouth and sends him to Soroka, the dentist.
Dennis looks up, and Abbot says, “He was talking entirely on the left side of his mouth, avoided even touching his tongue to the other side, figure he has a cavity or abscess,” and shrugs. Dennis nods and stores the information away for later.
The next patients pass in minor wounds and easy small-talk, most of them happy to have a med student treat them, until Abbot sees a patient heading their way, a man with long, matted hair bundled in blankets, his mouth moving ceaselessly, and motions for Dennis to get up, “Go observe Soroka or Chen, I’ll take this guy.”
Dennis starts going before he hears the mumble of words from the patient’s mouth, but stops automatically and turns when he recognizes Ecclesiastes, “Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart,” he finishes, “They take nothing from their toil that they can carry in their hands.”
Jack is staring at him now, openly, but the patient has turned towards Dennis and quotes back at him, “This too is a grievous evil,” in a clear strong voice, before returning to his lilting cant, finishing the verse.
“Um, what brings you here today?” Dennis starts awkwardly, his mind back in the smooth wooden pews of First Lutheran listening to Pastor Thomas drone on, and his patient unwraps layers of blankets, discarding them on the tarp covering the ground, and raises his arm, showing Dennis a gaping wound on his side. Abbot holds out a box of gloves to him, and says, “Dennis, meet John.”
Dennis snaps the gloves on and runs through treatment for the wound in his head. “I’m going to touch your side now,” Dennis says, half a question. John just stands there placidly, and says to Dennis, “But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, because you are called an outcast, Zion, for whom no one cares.”
“Jeremiah 30:17,” Dennis says, clicking on the penlight to get a better look at the edges of the wound. John seems happy enough to let Dennis treat him, keeping up a patter of Bible verses in the background. Abbot stands and watches silently, his arms crossed, as Dennis debrides the wound with a saline wash, checking the edges of the shallow gash for signs of infection. He coats on a thin layer of antibiotic ointment and tapes a square of gauze over the wound. John gives him an empty smile, and Dennis glances to Abbot before he says, “Will you pray with me?”
John nods and Dennis stands up, and reaches for John’s hands. He closes his eyes and tries to find the comforting voice Pastor Thomas used when Dennis asked him for blessings, “Heavenly Father, I come to you in prayer. I ask that you take away sickness, infirmity and pain from John and restore him to health. I thank you for sending your Son into the world, who drove out evil spirits with a command and cured all who were sick,” he takes a breath, “I ask for your Holy Spirit to flow through me. I bless you, Father, and forget none of your benefits. I trust in your promise to forgive all our sins and heal all our diseases. I believe that by Jesus’ wounds, he will be healed. I give you all the glory and praise. Amen.”
John and, surprisingly, Abbot, chime in on the amen, and John thanks him profusely, wrapping his blankets back around himself. “There’s winter clothing under that tent,” Dennis points out Kiara’s tent, but John just ambles towards the street, muttering a verse from the book of Luke.
“I keep learning new things about you today, Whitaker,” Abbot says, watching him go, “You were a choir boy?”
Dennis had thought was going to be a minister. But the first summer he’d worked at Faith Hill Children’s Hospital, he’d been unable to simply stand there with his empty comfort and prayers, and he went back in the fall of his junior year determined to complete a biology degree, and started studying for the MCAT. Dennis shakes his head, “Theology student. I uh, did a year as a hospital chaplain before I started medical school.”
Abbot hums, “Good job with John.”
“Why isn’t he treated for psychosis? I mean, we seem to manage it for other patients.”
“Patients we meet on the street don’t always want or accept treatment. They might think they don’t deserve it, or they don’t see the point when their material situation remains the same. John… he’s usually pretty angry, violent even,” Abbot inclines his head,
“That’s why I was trying to send you off. You really calmed him down though. Clearly, I don’t know my scripture well enough. Hell, maybe next time he’ll be ready to accept a hot meal and a pair of pants. Then we can work on medication.” Abbot gives him a tight smile.
They work through patients for another hour, and by the end Abbot lets him handle minor wounds on his own while he deals with cataloging chest infections, collecting samples to culture and trying to convince patients to go to the hospital. Eventually, he glances at his watch and over to Kiara at her intake desk, and he taps his watch, wrap it up.
They go through the next couple patients still in the parking lot, a teenage girl with a mottled burn on the left side of her face and a stubborn tilt to her jaw, and a man in an old Army jacket Abbot clearly knows, and ribs affectionately while Dennis kneels down to clean out his leg ulcers. The patient apologizes half a dozen times for letting them get this bad again, and Abbot just nods and says nothing, giving the man a sharp, quick smile when Dennis is done.
“Give it two weeks and he would’ve had maggots in his legs,” Abbot says as their patient walks off, “He’ll still have trouble keeping the wounds clean.”
Dennis nods, “Is there anything I should’ve done differently?”
“No, I would tell you. Just thinking out loud.”
Kiara has cut off the line of patients, and the staff and church volunteers start to form a loose circle, waiting for Chen, the veterinarian, to finish up with a pet cat. She hustles over once the cat has been sent off with delouser and a warm blanket, and Abbot crosses his arms, taking the brawler's stance he always does to start team meetings. “Kiara,” he starts, “What’s our numbers today?”
Kiara holds up her clipboard, “Between the encampments and the church we saw sixty-three human patients, eighteen animals, and handed out nearly three dozen prescription medications. All of those people, and over one hundred more got fed, clothed, and we set two underage patients up with long-term shelter.” Abbot claps at that, everyone else joining for a small round of applause.
“On Tuesday night we’re doing outreach at Monroe High School across the river, and then we’ll be back here next Saturday. Thanks for coming, everyone,” Kiara finishes, then says, “Oh, I forgot! There’s still coffee in the carafes!”
The circle breaks, the church volunteers starting to wash down the chairs and tarps, medical staff packing away their kits. Dennis goes back to Kiara’s tent to get his backpack and deposit his ‘student’ pin in a Ziplock bag with the others, and checks the bus schedule back to Trinity’s apartment. It’ll be an hour on the bus, plus another thirty minutes waiting for transfers and walking. He’s refilling his thermos with the extra coffee when Kiara comes over, and he ends up helping her take the tent down.
“How did you like it?” she asks him.
Dennis finds himself smiling as he reaches up to undo the clasp holding the tent cover in place, “Thanks for inviting me along. I had a really good time. I got to deliver Mr. Krakozhia’s meds to him.”
“Good, I was really hoping you would.”
They lapse back into silence and Dennis folds up the weird skeleton poles of the tent and helps her load them into a hospital-owned van.
“Whitaker,” Abbot calls to him across the parking lot. Dennis jogs over.
“Need a ride?”
“I’m pretty far uptown, it’s kinda out-of-the-way,” Dennis starts, but his protest is half-hearted at best. Abbot just holds up his keys and quirks an eyebrow, and Dennis follows him to a nondescript black Subaru.
Abbot waves to Walsh before he unlocks the car, and she salutes him sarcastically back. Dennis gets into the passenger seat, shedding his chore coat to fit the seatbelt over his chest securely. The drivers’ seat has an extra clutch sticking up from the floor next to the steering wheel. When Abbot gets in he puts one hand on the weird mechanical lever and glances over to check that Dennis has his seatbelt on.
“Address?” he asks, and Dennis has to go through the embarrassing motions of looking up his own address on Google Maps. Abbot’s mouth twitches in an almost-smile when he reads it off and tries to offer directions. They swing out of the parking lot and onto Fifth, up and over the highway Rich’s encampment is hidden beneath.
“I owe you an apology,” Abbot says, “I’m sorry for prying. And I’m sorry that you…” Dennis gets the sense Abbot is searching for words, “... weren’t given enough support by the school or the department.”
“It’s okay, now,” Dennis says.
“You did a good job today,” Abbot switches topics, “Most people aren’t comfortable handling unhoused patients.”
“I wasn’t, for a while,” Dennis admits, “It’s really different from where I grew up, or even than Lincoln. The hospital I chaplained for did a lot of outreach work with unhoused teens. And my church here runs a soup kitchen, too. Then, this year, I learned that no one is really that far from being homeless, and that changed my perspective a lot.”
Abbot hums, and says, “Tell me about Broken Bow.” Dennis is surprised Abbot knows the name of his hometown, he must have mentioned it in passing during rounds or a team meeting.
So Dennis tells him about the farm he’d been raised on just outside of town, the flat plains and windbreak treeline around their house. “We grow soybeans and corn, but my mom keeps a vegetable garden too, and she won best in show for her tomatoes last year at the fair,” Dennis says, and realizes how quaint and rural it makes his family seem, but Abbot just smiles, his eyes on the road in front of them. “My brother Hudson is taking over the farm, once our dad can be convinced to retire. Once I’m an attending,” he looks down, thinking about how far in the future an attending position is, “I’m going to pay for him to go back to school, get his degree in agricultural business. He’s really smart.”
Abbot asks about his older brothers, about his undergrad years in Lincoln, and lets Dennis talk about his loud, bright family and the home he’d left behind, until they reach the exit for Trinity’s apartment and Abbot pulls off the highway and through the narrow streets to the squat brick building set between two sleek highrise condos.
“I’ll see you next Saturday?” Abbot asks as Dennis clambers out of the car and swings his backpack over his shoulder. Dennis smiles back, “I’ll be there.”
Abbot gives him a thumbs-up, and Dennis shuts the door to the Subaru, wrangling his keys out of his pocket. When he gets up to the apartment Trinity is sitting at the kitchen table studying for her boards. “How was it?” she asks, and gives him what Dennis thinks of as her ‘real’ smile.
“It was good,” Dennis puts down his backpack and unwinds his scarf, “It felt like making a difference, y’know?”
***
The next morning Dennis and Trinity have a shift together, taking the bus down to the hospital in the quiet pre-morning light. Trinity is usually quiet in the mornings until they get to work, content to sit with her headphones on next to him. Dennis sits by the window, and as the bus pulls away from a stop, snaps a picture of a heron taking off from the gravel shore of the Allegheny, wings outstretched mid-flight. He texts it to Hudson.
“Hey, Dennis,” McKay says to him right after rounds, and puts a firm hand on his shoulder, “I wanted to show you an interesting case.” She steers him away from the nurses’ station and into one of the behavioral health rooms. It’s empty, and Dennis looks at her.
“I’ve been doing some research, and UPitt has a program for students in need, and you qualify for it. They can help you find and pay for housing while you finish your degree, and you get an EBT card with it.”
Dennis starts to shake his head, “There’s students who need it more, with kids and stuff.”
McKay looks him straight in the eye, “The worst they can say is no, Dennis. Besides, this way you can help Trinity out too.” And prevailing on his sense of guilt is underhanded, but it works, and he spends his lunch break eating an egg salad sandwich from the cart and filling out the form on McKay’s laptop, putting in his student loan information and current housing, and when he finally hits ‘submit’ the page reloads to a list of food and housing resources for students.
McKay gives him a side-hug. “Thanks for indulging me,” she says. Dennis follows her out of the breakroom and back to Chairs.
That evening at shift change Abbot corners him in the locker room (Trinity is off trying to endear herself to Surgery and has ditched Dennis to take the bus home alone). “Cassie talked to you about student housing?” he asks. Dennis nods and Abbot claps him on the shoulder. “Good,” he unzips the camo backpack, “Grabbed this for you.”
He holds out a navy blue hoodie, and Dennis unfolds it to see an emblem of a white dove, the PTMC cross logo and the words “Street Team” over the dove’s wings. Dennis pulls the sweatshirt on, and it’s soft and fleecy, and he tells Abbot thank you about three times before Abbot gives him another thumbs-up and heads into the Pitt.
Dennis walks towards the bus stop in the dark, sleet starting to rain down on him. Outside the door to the apartment he turns his key over in his hands. He unlocks the door and steps over the welcome mat, into the warmth.