“Should be about normal, 5:30 or so.”
“Sounds good.”
John took a quick shower and put on his workout clothes. He began to package up his things for the day. It felt like he was moving out. He needed to take his hero bag that had his planner and a wide assortment of items that he needed. It was a result of being a boy scout. “Always prepared” was their motto and John Hero was definitely prepared. He had administrative items like markers, pens, paper and highlighters. He had a first aid kit, ropes, matches, super glue and duct tape in case an emergency came up. Also weighing him down on his approach to the car was his laptop computer and a backpack with his clothes for the day.
Lumbering to the car with this seemingly overwhelming amount of luggage, he seemed to stall out at each door as he would need to reposition everything so that he could open the door. Carefully he would move through, then close the door and move to the next portal. When everything was in the car he would do a mental checklist. On more than one occasion he had forgotten something important, like pants so he wanted to make sure that he was ready to make it through the day. When all was in order he sat in the car, started an audio book and took off to toward the office gym.
Sweat permeated his clothes and made him shiver just a bit as he lugged his gear into his office. People gawked at him in the parking lot as he made his way to the office. “Don’t you know its winter?”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed the snow or all of the people in coats.”
The workout had been great but now he needed to cool down and get to work. In his office he set up his lap top, sipped some water and grabbed the communication book from the front office. Casually he skimmed the entries looking for anything that he might need to address. “This is a Crisis Shelter,” he muttered to himself as he read several of the entries. He felt his heart bounce between joy and sorrow over the various entries. “How is the tension between rooms 8 and 3?” Darlene seemed to be waiting for that question. “It’s a time bomb. Saturday is the first entry on it but I think there were issues before then.”
“I thought they were like best friends?”
“They were but something happened over at the men’s mission. I’m not sure. There was a rumor that one of their men were kicked out for fighting.”
John thought about what she had just said. “Is the tension spreading?”
“Not yet. It looks like it’s just those two for now but I don’t think that will last. I was making a bed in room 9 and overheard a couple of ladies taking sides.”
“We’ll need to address this right away. I’ll get dressed here and go over the men’s mission and find out what I can. Anything else going on?”
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