I knew he’d been in trouble, but that he’d walked into our program with such a deep-seated mistrust was shocking to me.
I
t was 2 a.m. on the last Friday night of the year at the Yesod program. The seudah had lasted a while, and the oneg following it had lasted even longer, with some 60 guys in and out throughout the night. It had finally wound down, and as I wished the last student a Good Shabbos, I turned around to survey the damage. My apartment looked like it had been ransacked, crowded with tables and chairs and the debris of the seudah and oneg all over the place. Then I noticed the one guy who had stayed to clean up. Mendel. Of course it was Mendel.
I watched Mendel rolling up a plastic tablecloth and remembered the day I had first met him, nine months earlier. He had stepped out of the cab, straight from the airport, and the first thing I had noticed was that he wasn’t wearing shoes. When I shook his hand, I could smell the marijuana on his clothes. I looked behind him. No luggage.
“Um, Mendel, did you bring anything with you?”
He smiled, the shining smile that would become his trademark. “Nah, I was running late, I totally forgot my bags.”
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