Disclaimer: Don't own and never will, okay?

AN: I've incorporated a few lyrics from the Down and out song into this fic. I think they should be obvious, but to be sure they're in italics

Down, down, down, down, down, down and out,

The soup kitchen was supposed to be a place for God's good work to take place. A place where a good Christian could engage in good works and help their fellow Christian man. In practise, the two ladies who doled out an (inadequate) spoonful of soup into the white bowls and provided but a small piece of bread, found it depressing, as though the fate of these men drove them into the ground as badly as it did those who lived it.

Down, down, down, down, down, down and out,

It distressed them both that despite the fact that most of these men had fought for their country in the last war. These men had shown courage under fire, faced the worse that modern warfare could throw at them and still came home standing tall. And yet the unrelenting grind of life in the Great Depression had driven them into the ground. The older one could remember how these men had stood tall and marched proudly. Now the government had abandoned them and discarded them like rubbish and now their heads were bowed and the only march they did was closer to a shuffle.

Down, down, down, down, down, down and out,

For a while, it had seemed like life was going to return to normal after the war. Shipbuilding was down and the docks had less trade, but there were still jobs to be had in the docks and the sea for those who couldn't find or didn't want to work locally. Ships were always willing to hire new hands in port to replace missing, lost or retiring seamen and at least one vessel was searching for crew at any given time.

Then the Wall Street crashed and the entire area crashed with it. Shipping dried up as the markets that drove them all but vanished. A handful of ships still came, but their crews were lean and efficient and never enough to support the area that used to rely on them. And as jobs became scarcer, wages were cut and working hours reduced as the work ceased to be there for them to work more hours. And without the working hours to keep men occupied, those with jobs spent their money in speakeasies and the like. And at the bottom of the pile were the men who could be found here, in this depressing, ramshackle building where a sense of despair permeated the very air.

Down, down, down, down, down, down and out,

When a group of wealthy 'businessmen' (crooks of some sort no doubt, probably gangsters) set up a new warehouse, many of the men had hoped for a job there. The morality of working for criminals who no doubt broke the prohibition was no issue to men who had nothing. But instead the 'businessmen' brought in their own security men and staff, men, no thugs, who had no attachment to the area or the people living there. They were brutal and callous and the locals avoided them as much as possible.

Down, down, down, down, down, down and out,

Now, when all hope was lost, there was a man in a suit and his dark skinned friend. And he was talking to the men. Talking to them like he actually thought they were worth something, that they could actually do something when they themselves had lost confidence. He fired up the fires that had once burned in them, pulling out a spunk that neither of the ladies had seen in a long time. And for the first time since the soup kitchen had opened, there was something else in the air. Hope. Hope for the future. It was a beautiful sight and a beautiful feeling. It was enough to renew a person's faith in God, long after it had died a hidden death.