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Hidden Ace of Hearts or the worse one, the Church of Father Joe's Crack. It was all in good fun as some parishioners would pull their offerings from inside the backside of their pants when Joe passed the basket himself. But aside from those few, everybody from before was gone. The projects were the hallmark of the transition as some called it, or the exodus as others preferred. Dad spent many an evening at these projects with the Baptist minister of the mission situated a short distance down the street, opposite his store and adjacent the bus terminal. The store. The mission. The bus terminal. How many countless drunks and homeless did the pair help? Some even thought Jazz Man worked for the mission. He simply stated, "This shit," referring to selling furniture and anything else that wasn't jazz, "bores me to insanity. I can't take it. Helping is easy and it feels good. Why not do it?" Actually, he spent considerable funds, of which his wife reminded him, in his charitable ventures. As to why he didn't help Father Joe, his childhood playmate, instead, "Joe want's to save their souls. The minister feeds and clothes them. What the hell do I know about souls? Food I know. Shoes I know. Used furniture, I get for free. It's garbage to my customers and salvation to these folks." Most of that salvage furniture was delivered, single handedly, into the projects which stood alone on the peak of the mountain. Nobody white went past there, let alone in there. Nobody. Nobody except Jazz Man. "You should have seen those faces," he beamed to his wife Emily over supper with welling eyes. He seldom showed such gushy emotion. Here were overt tears as he described two adults and six kids - all clambering onto a single used mattress - working out the geometry - staking out their turf. Ecstatic in this possession in a room of empty squalor.