The Park Street Challenge — "Touch me, just touch me, please"

pivotal · UNDATED (nine-month span ending ~Y.T.S.D.B.)

• When: UNDATED nine-month span (ends with the Mario rescue, event 5)
• What: The brother's terms: Barry is to stop washing and changing until he looks homeless, louse-ridden, and clearly in need, stand outside Park Street T-station among the change-stemming "lumpen dregs," and, instead of begging money, hold out his hand and simply ask passersby to touch him. Barry does — for weeks, then months. Nobody will: citizens read "Touch me" as new panhandling argot and drop money with bullwhip flinches, never making contact — so that Barry finds himself "hauling in a rather impressive daily total of $," significantly more than he'd earned at his work-study job wrapping ankles and sterilizing dental prostheses for Boston College lacrosse players — while the brother watches from the jamb, idly shuffling cards, ruling out the few accidental brushes (a stumbler Barry catches; a bipolar bag-lady who gets him in a headlock and tries to bite his ear off in week three). Barry's own upbeat faith starts taking blows; other stem-artists adopt his cry, further ruining his odds; he takes Incompletes, loses the work-study job, is offered warming drinks by the down-and-out and can't refuse — and slides toward disappearing into Boston street life for good. The brother, long since bored, has stopped coming at all: he's gone back to his room to wait for the Seminary administration to give him "his walking papers" — and what became of him and his vocation the Loach-story never says (see Dating notes).