Chapter 5 - Winter at the Curb
It was the first week of November. An early arctic cold front had descended upon the city, sending freezing winds howling between the glass towers.
Thomas stood beside his cart, his hands wrapped in fingerless woolen gloves, blowing warm breath into his palms to keep his fingers from locking up. He wore an old olive-green winter coat with patches sewn over the elbows.
The street was bustling with evening commuters rushing toward the subway entrances, their collars turned up against the biting chill.
No one was buying ice cream in thirty-degree weather.
Thomas had made exactly four sales all day: three hot coffees and one small cup of vanilla for an elderly gentleman. Total earnings: six dollars and fifty cents.
His rent on his small attic apartment was three weeks overdue. The landlord had slipped a final notice of termination under his door that very morning: pay six hundred dollars by Friday noon, or his belongings would be locked out on the sidewalk.
Thomas looked down at his cash tin. His hands trembled slightly—not from the cold, but from the crushing, quiet terror of an honest man who had reached the end of his rope.
"Lord," Thomas whispered into the freezing wind, looking up at the gray evening sky. "I have worked with clean hands every day of my life. I don't need riches. Just let me keep a roof over my head."
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A gust of icy wind rattled the stainless-steel lids on his cart. Thomas pulled the heavy canvas cover over the soft-serve nozzles and began packing his cleaning rags into his wooden crate.
It was time to pack up and walk the four miles home because he couldn't afford the two-dollar bus fare.
