Around two o’clock one of men who had entered the church returned to the stairwell. “Girls,” he said, squinting at the street. “We need you to move on now.” He jangled coins in his pant pocket, never meeting the eyes of the two homeless Indian girls sitting in his church’s stairwell. He’d discussed this with the others inside. He’d said he didn’t ask for money during the sermon every week to house stray Indians in the stairwell.
The girls moved a block down, descending into the damp stairwell of a three-story brick apartment building, chunks of mortar missing in spots where they could have slipped their hands in sideways. A white teenage boy, his hair shaggy like the Beatles, exited the building. Before he shut the door, Sher glimpsed wine-colored, matted carpeting, and yellowed walls wit
