'Ah - Alec, are there not other institutions to which a person in distress may turn?'

'Oh, certainly. In a city this size the Roman Catholic Church is bound to have more than one refuge. And there will be other Protestant ones. Probably a Jewish one. And -'

'I meant, "Not connected with a church".'

'Ah, so. Margrethe, we both know that this is not really my home country; you probably know as much about how it works as I do. There may be refuges for the homeless here that are totally unconnected with a church. I'm not sure, as churches tend to monopolize the field - nobody else wants it. If it were early in the day instead of getting dark, I would try to find something called united charities or community chest or the equivalent, and look over the menu; there might be something. But now - Finding a policeman and asking for help is the only other thing I can think of this time of day... and I can tell you ahead of time what a cop in this part of town would do if you told him you have nowhere to sleep. He would point you toward the mission right there. Old Sal.'

'In Kobenhavrt - or Stockholm or Oslo - I would go straight to the main police station. You just ask for a place to sleep; they give it to you.'

'I have to point out that this is not Denmark or Sweden or Norway. Here they might let us stay - by locking me in the drunk tank and locking you up in the holding pen for prostitutes. Then tomorrow morning we might or might not be charged with vagrancy. I don't know.'

'Is America really so' evil?'

'I don't know, dear - this isn't my America. But. I don't want to find out the hard way. Sweetheart... if I worked for whatever they give us, could we spend a night with the Salvation Army without your feeling sinful about it?'

She considered it solemnly - Margrethe's greatest lack was a total absence of sense of humor. Good nature - loads. A child' delight in play, yes. Sense of humor? 'Life is real and life is earnest -'

'Alec, if that can be arranged, I would not feel wrong in entering. I will work, too.'

'Not necessary, dear; it will be my profession that is involved. When they finish feeding the derelicts tonight, there will be a high stack of dirty dishes I and you are looking at the heavyweight champion dishwasher in all of Mexico and los Estados Unidos.'

So I washed dishes. I also helped spread out hymnbooks and set up the evening services. And I borrowed a safety razor and a blade from Brother Eddie McCaw, the adjutant. I told him how we happened to be there - vacationing on the Mexican Riviera, sunbathing on the beach when the big one hit - all the string of lies I had prepared for the Immigration Service and hadn't been able to use. 'Lost it, all. Cash, travelers checks, passports, clothes, ticket home, the works. But just the same, we were lucky. We're alive.'

'The Lord had His arms around you. You tell me that you are born again?'

'Years back.'

'It will do our lost sheep good to rub shoulders with you. When it comes time for witnessing, will you tell them all about it? You're the first eyewitness. Oh, we felt it here but it just rattled the dishes.'

'Glad to.'

Good. Let me get you that razor.'

So I witnessed and gave them a truthful and horrendous description of the quake, but not as horrid as it really was - I never want to see another rat - or another dead baby - and I thanked the Lord publicly that Margrethe and I had not been hurt and found that it was the most sincere prayer I had said in years.

The Reverend Eddie asked that roomful of odorous outcasts to join him in a prayer of thanks that Brother and Sister Graham had been spared, and he made it a good rousing prayer that covered everything from Jonah to the hundredth sheep, and drew shouts of 'Amen!' from around the room. One old wino came forward and said that he had at last seen God's grace and God's mercy and he was now ready to give his life to Christ.

Brother Eddie prayed over him, and invited others to come forward and two more did - a natural evangelist, he saw in our story a theme for his night's sermon and used it, hanging it on Luke fifteen, ten, and Matthew six, nineteen. I don't know that he had prepared from those two verses - probably not, as any preacher worth his salt can preach endlessly from either one of them. Either way, he could think on his feet and he made good use of our unplanned presence.

He was pleased with us, and I am sure that is why he told me, as we were cleaning up for the night, after the supper that followed the service, that while of course they didn't have separate rooms for married couples - they didn't often get married couples - still, it looked like Sister Graham would be the only one in the sisters' dormitory tonight, so why didn't I doss down in there instead of in the men's ~ dormitory? No double bed, just stacked bunks - sorry! But at least we could be in the same room.

I thanked him and we happily went to bed. Two people can share a very narrow bed if they really want to sleep together.

The next morning Margrethe cooked breakfast for the derelicts. She went into the kitchen and volunteered and soon was, doing it all as the regular cook did not cook breakfast; it was the job of whoever had the duty. Breakfast did not require a graduate chef - oatmeal porridge, bread, margarine, little valencia oranges (culls?), coffee. I left her there to wash dishes and to wait until I came back.

I went out and found a job.

I knew, from listening to wireless (called 'radio' here) while washing the dishes the night before, that there was unemployment in the United States-, enough to be a political and social problem.

There is always work in the Southwest for agricultural labor but I had dodged that sort of Work yesterday. I'm not too proud for that work; I had followed the harvest for several years from the time I was big enough to handle a pitchfork. But I could not take Margrethe into the fields.

I did not expect to find a job as a clergyman; I hadn't even told Brother Eddie that I was ordained. There is always an unemployment problem for preachers. Oh, there are always empty pulpits, true - but ones in which a church mouse would starve.

But I had a second profession.

Dishwasher.

No matter how many people are out of work, there are always dishwashing jobs going begging. Yesterday, in walking from the border gate to the Salvation Army mission, I had noticed three restaurants with 'Dishwasher Wanted' signs in their windows - noticed them because I had had plenty of time on the long ride from Mazatlán to admit to myself that I had no other salable skill.

No salable skill. I was not ordained in this world; I would not be ordained in this world as I could not show graduation from seminary or divinity school - or even the backing of a primitive sect that takes no mind of schools but depends on inspiration by the Holy Ghost.

I was certainly not an engineer.

I could not get a job teaching even those subjects I knew *Well because I no longer could show any formal preparation - I couldn't even show that I had graduated from middle school!

In general I was no salesman. True, I had shown an unexpected talent for the complex skills that make up a professional money-raiser... but here I had no record, no reputation. I might someday do this again - but we needed cash today.

What did that leave? I had looked at the help-wanted ads in a copy of the Nogales Times someone had left in the mission. I, was, not a lax accountant. I was not any sort of a mechanic. I did not know what a software designer was but I was not one, nor was I a 'computer' anything. I was not a nurse or any sort of health care professional.

I could go on indefinitely listing the things I was not, and could not learn overnight. But that is pointless. What I could do, What would feed Margrethe and me while we sized up this new world and learned the angles, was what I had been forced to do as a peón.