Lulu continued working in silence. The kids were entertaining and friendly, but experience had taught him not to talk with them
Lulu slept in a quiet corner of Sanhedria Park, wrapped in a shabby old quilt. Beside him stood a gray baby stroller, piled with bundles. By the time he’d arrived the previous night it had been late, and he’d been too fatigued to set up a proper shelter, so he’d simply lain down in the first reasonable place he’d found.
The sun awakened him at six thirty. He got up immediately and went straight to the nearest water faucet to wash his hands. He’d never liked to sleep in; he’d always been a hard worker. But his diligence hadn’t done him a bit of good. If I hadn’t put so much hard work into my store in Los Angeles, maybe I wouldn’t have lost so much money, he thought, snickering bitterly.
By 6:32, he was ready to make the Shacharis rounds. Where could he leave the stroller? He didn’t feel like schlepping it with him, so he pushed it behind a large bush, hoping nobody would touch it while he was gone.
At 6:35, he was walking the streets of Sanhedria, trying to get a feel for the neighborhood and its people. He stopped by two different Shacharis minyanim and collected a few donations, and by eight o’clock he was already back at the park, looking for a suitable spot to set up camp for the time being. It needed to have some shade, and it had to have trees or fence rails of some kind, so he could tie his canvas sheeting to them and make a little dwelling for himself. “And it can’t be too close to the playground,” he said to himself, “because the mothers won’t be happy to see me hanging around near their children.”
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