Personal Narrative: Volunteering At The Soup Kitchen

The smell of the onion and carrot soup from today lingers in the air. Bread crumbs litter the floor like sand on a beach. I always stay late in the evening to help clean up. As usual, Henry Watkins takes the longest to let the soup move down his throat to his hungry stomach. He was one of the firsts to start eating dinner here. Now we have around 200 people every night. Many people had too much pride to even come in at first. This is all happening due to the stock market crash. I started volunteering at the soup kitchen when I first saw the signs, “Help wanted new soup kitchen opening”. Yet the only reason I was here was to gain some kind of father-daughter relationship with my dad. Al Capone, my father, did not know I was his daughter though.

“So what is on your mind, Mr.Capone?” I questioned. Letting the question hang heavy in the air I see now up close the scar on his face.

“I was just wondering why you would want to help at a soup kitchen, after all I hadn’t even met you until you showed up two weeks ago?” His voice having a challenging tone. Yet I didn’t know how to answer. I couldn’t say the real reason considering that would go against what my mother had always said to do, so I decide that lying is the best option. “I just saw all of the flyers hanging up around town and thought I could help.” I say with a smile even though I am losing control inside. “Are you sure?” He persists. Why is he asking so many questions? “I honestly just wanted to help.” I calmly state. I can tell he is getting a little frustrated. ”I believe I will need to be headed home. My family will be expecting me.” Getting up off of the bench my foot squishes some of the bread crumbs on the floor, but before I make it very far out of the soup kitchen he says something that I was not

“Better keep on the down low for a week or two. Get the idea, boys?” My dad sternly tells them.

“You got it Scarface.” the shorter one chuckles. Before I can even blink my father shoots him in the head, making his blood seep into the road. He must have told the taller of the two to put him in the trunk as well, but I missed it, now knowing why my mother didn’t want my dad in my life. I scurry further back into the shadows and rush behind a building and sprint as fast as I can home.

I slip in the back door of our house and make sure I don’t wake anyone up. I trip all the way up the stairs as a result of me shaking so much, but make it to my room. I change my clothes and slip into my bed. As I start to think over what has happened today I realize I don’t have a real father and that is better the way it is. I am also a witness that will probably never testify out of fear. I also know that today was the last day that I will ever go to the soup kitchen. I try to fall asleep anxious for it to consume me, but the last thought I have is that I do not carry the burden of keeping a secret anymore. And that might be the most marvelous of all of the