Receiving     Peas . . . peas . . . pears . . . pears . . . canned fish . . . cocktail rye. Cocktail rye? The hazards of donated food. Make a bag for seven people, he said. It was to go to a small woman whom I saw being led into the back room of the trailer for a short interview. She had never been here before. They had to find out who she was; had to make a record of her. When I returned with the food, she had partially reappeared, remaining alone in the doorway and working furtively over a brown bag identical to the one I had just brought in. It would be difficult in a room that was at all populated to stuff a cat into a sack without letting anyone notice. It would make you apprehensive even to plan such a thing. And she, half hidden in the doorway, gray with anxiety, struggled against something that kept popping its arms out the top. Everyone's attention was occupied elsewhere (so she must have thought) except I could see that the creature in the bag was not a cat but a coat. My coat, which I had hung up in the back room to be kept safe with the volunteers' winter gear. The old coat's impending departure was easy to accept at first. It wasn't an object of special attachment for me; more like an old companion whose presence one has ceased to remark. It was called a "Comfy Coat," and comfy it was. Warm, too, though there were small, ragged holes with the down coming out where my pet rat Sarah had gnawed it. Perhaps the rat had chosen to disrupt this single item of clothing because of its particularly pungent shade of purple. Perhaps the woman with six children (or five children and an elderly parent) needed the coat so much she didn't mind the color. Then I remembered the pockets. That coat had four big pockets into which I stowed all kinds of things. I tried to recount to myself which of their occasional residents might have been in them on that particular day. My watch? No, today it was in my jeans. Car keys? No, today I hadn't driven the car. It was impossible to tell if there was anything of monetary or sentimental value without initiating a sordid and embarrassing seizure and search. Perhaps all the new owner would find would be some old Kleenex and cracker residue. Finally, she had the coat in the bag. Now she was standing by the table, waiting for her paperwork to be dealt with. Head down, expressionless; she was one of a whole class of tired people who aren't particularly grateful to have others feed them. Wishing she would hurry up and leave, I wondered what to do if she looked at me; ask, politely, if she realized that the coat in the bag was mine? No, if it would be painful even to meet her eyes, it would be intolerable to behave in so familiar a manner. She shuffled her leaden feet, still waiting.      Someone once said, "When poor people are thinking, they shouldn't be dis- turbed."      Someone once said, "The poor are the same as you and I." My map to the place I was staying, was that in one of the pockets? This was an unfamiliar city. I could feel the sweat starting on my palms. I knew a long time ago what I would do if some rough young man snatched something from me on the street, or invaded my home after dark, but here was a worn and feeble- looking woman taking something I needed. And I afraid that if I intruded myself into her consciousness, she would be startled; people would look at both of us. She was thinking, concentrating, it would be callous of me to disturb her. Because she still hadn't left, because I had already filled up enough bags for everyone who was there, I wandered behind a partition in order to see out the window. The sun was nice. A skinny cat lay languid across the hood of a parked car. I stared, wondered how much I really needed the coat, wanted the debate to stop, wished the committee in my head would come to a painless and comforting decision. Forget about it. It's no big deal. Let her take it. But respect demands that you don't let people steal from you. I would have given that coat away without a second thought to someone who asked for it. Another small passage of time, and then she was gone. Shuffled away: peas, peas, pears, pears, fish, bread, coat. I had made sure to give her a real loaf of bread and not that absurd cocktail rye. Out the door and with her went the possibility of any encounter, of any word between two people, of reproach or apology or forgiveness.      Someone once said, "Love your neighbor." People came and went, and the day was over, and I went too. The ragged man standing next to me, waiting for the stoplight to change, wanted my attention. His words were difficult to understand and his teasing manner possibly was meant to be threatening. I thought, "Well, here we are on this streetcorner, and you don't have a coat either, and I wish I could understand what you are saying, because here we are waiting on this streetcorner together."   Ann Spires, MSII