Aria felt uncomfortable in her own skin. The entire display made her lose even more faith in humanity. It was her poverty that forced her to consent to being there, where her pride could not. This was a poison called philanthropy. The reality was that people did not care. Every other day of the year, these same people would yell at them to stop loitering in front of their buildings or to go get a job. Every other day of the year, these same people would pass them by, dousing them in the ordure of their car fumes. But today, with the Christmas spirit upon them, suddenly they all acted like they cared. Aria would have been glad for this sudden shift, were it not for the smug looks on their faces. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not Christ-like at all. She could see that this giving was not really giving. It was taking. It was a transaction. People like herself accepted whatever they were handing out, and in exchange, they could revel in a sense of their own moral goodness. It was a display of self-gratification. People love nothing more than seeing themselves as good, even if it is by definition entirely self-centered.

By the end of the day, Aria had begrudgingly accrued an orange, four water bottles, mouthwash, shaving cream and a razor, four pairs of new socks, a pack of sanitary wipes, a bottle of hand sanitizer, two toothbrushes with toothpaste, a packet of gum, chapstick, five hand warmers, a packet of mixed nuts, four granola bars, a comb, a packet of cheese and crackers, $10 and some beef jerky which she couldn’t eat. When neither Luke nor Taylor was close enough to see, she fed the jerky to Palin, who inhaled it. Palin seemed overwhelmed with the excitement of the unforeseen change of atmosphere and the energy between people in the air. Each time a person had approached them, she submissively flattened her ears and crawled toward them, anxiously wagging her tail. Only one person leaned down to pet her. The rest simply assumed that because she was in the company of a vagrant, she must be carrying some kind of disease.

Having caught wind of a turkey dinner that was apparently offered every year to the homeless and hungry at the United Methodist Church, Taylor and Luke decided to follow a fellow drifter there. Aria declined to join them. Instead, she walked the long distance back to the car lot alone. When she arrived, she could see that Anthony had not moved from his original position. The cup of cocoa that Luke had placed beside him had been spilled. Aria assumed it had been knocked over intentionally. Aside from Anthony, there was no one else at the lot. They had probably all gone out to take advantage of the many opportunities that existed as a result of this sudden Christmas caring.