The $10 that Aria had gathered on Christmas Day had run out. When Taylor had gone out to the city looking for jobs, which he had done every day the previous week, Aria had waited for him to leave before setting out on her own. First she spent some of the money at a grocery store on a packet of cigarettes. Then she bought a bus fare so she could save herself from walking. She spent the rest of the money on a carton of plain rice from a Chinese fast-food restaurant. Part of her felt guilty for having spent money that she could have saved for emergency situations. Contrary to what people often say about people on the streets, it was not in her nature to spend money all at once. But having nice things and having money on the street is more dangerous than spending it. It would have made Aria a target. And she already knew what it felt like to save money only to have it stolen. So she decided it would be better to spend it on herself than to potentially lose it all.

On their way to the church, Taylor and Aria paused at a stoplight near a shopping center, waiting for it to turn green. Aria felt her heart jump a little at the familiar sight of Darren, who was standing across the intersection from them, panhandling. When the light turned green, Aria held Taylor back so they could spy on him without him noticing. He was sitting on a bench with his battered crutches laid out in plain view. A sign propped up in front of him read “Homeless Vet Support Your Troops.” His prosthetic leg was intentionally displayed.

In the months they had spent at the camp, Aria had come to understand Darren. His entire presentation was meant to guilt people. He was angry. The lack of opportunities that he’d had in life were opportunities that the army had promised to give him. He had enlisted with a sense of national honor and pride. Back then, he felt like he belonged to something bigger than himself. But that honor and that pride were now timeworn. They had frayed out from underneath him, exposing instead a void of terminal aloneness.

Darren now felt as if the very country he served had turned its back on him. And he was determined to make the country and its ungrateful, idiot civilians remember him. He displayed the sacrifices he had made for them in plain view as if to say, “Shame on you, look what I sacrificed for you, now give something back to me for it.”