At lunch, Callahan and the rest of the men sit in the shade of the loading dock. So far as he can tell, there’s no one in this crew from the International Harvester, but he wouldn’t swear to it; he was awfully drunk. All he knows for sure is that he’s once again the only guy present with a white skin. All of them are eating enchiladas from Crazy Mary’s down the road. There’s a dirty old boombox sitting on a pile of crates, playing salsa. Two young men tango together while the others— Callahan included— put aside their lunches so they can clap along.

A young woman in a skirt and blouse comes out, watches the men dance disapprovingly, then looks at Callahan. “You’re anglo, right?” she says.

“Anglo as the day is long,” Callahan agrees.

“Then maybe you’d like this. Certainly no good to the rest of them.” She hands him the newspaper— the SacramentoBee— then looks at the dancing Mexicans. “Beaners,” she says, and the subtext is in the tone: What can you do?

Callahan considers rising to his feet and kicking her narrow can’t-dance anglo ass for her, but it’s noon, too late in the day to get another job if he loses this one. And even if he doesn’t wind up in thecalabozo for assault, he won’t get paid. He settles for giving her turned back the finger, and laughs when several of the men applaud. The young woman wheels, looks at them suspiciously, then goes back inside. Still grinning, Callahan shakes open the paper. The grin lasts until he gets to the page marked NATIONAL BRIEFS, then fades in a hurry. Between a story about a train derailment in Vermont and a bank robbery in Missouri, he finds this:

AWARD-WINNING “STREET ANGEL” CRITICAL

NEW YORK (AP) Rowan R. Magruder, owner and Chief Supervisor of what may be America’s most highly regarded shelter for the homeless, alcoholic, and drug-addicted, is in critical condition after being assaulted by the so-called Hitler Brothers. The Hitler Brothers have been operating in the five boroughs of New York for at least eight years. According to police, they are believed responsible for over three dozen assaults and the deaths of two men. Unlike their other victims, Magruder is neither black nor Jewish, but he was found in a doorway not far from Home, the shelter he founded in 1968, with the Hitler Brothers’ trademark swastika cut into his forehead. Magruder had also suffered multiple stab-wounds.

Home gained nationwide notice in 1977, when Mother Teresa visited, helped to serve dinner, and prayed with the clients. Magruder himself was the subject of a Newsweek cover story in 1980, when the East Side’s so-called “Street Angel” was named Manhattan’s Man of the Year by Mayor Ed Koch.