There is a man that I see about one out of every eight times I go to Borders (I go a lot). I noticed him because it's pretty clear that he is homeless and so there was a tug at my heart. He is an old man, and small. His hair has gone silver, his cheeks are gaunt, and the first time I remember seeing him, he was picking up trash from the ground outside and throwing it away. I remember thinking what a sad/sweet thing that was, for this man with no home to care about the upkeep of a public place where he spends a great deal of his time--he was cleaning his house, in a way. Another time I saw him, I was at a table with a friend of mine when he came in to buy some coffee and a bagel with a giftcard someone had given him. I had a moment of panic when there was a problem with his card. He excused himself to go wash up in the restroom while the clerk continued to try and get his card to swipe. I ran to the counter the second he was gone to make sure there was enough on his card to buy his dinner. I was dead broke, but determined to figure something out if I needed to step in. Luckily, the card starting working and he had plenty left on it. I quickly resumed my seat before the man came back. I was afraid if he knew my concern, it would embarass us both. From time to time, I have thought about that little man with the gray hair and black jacket. I have thought about him, and seen him, and debated whether I should try and talk with him sometime.
'Sometime' was Friday night.
I was exhausted and had been on a film set all day. I looked a little rough and was looking forward to a quick bite and then bed. I called Hungry Howie's from the road, ordered my dinner, and headed to Blockbuster to return my overdue movies and then to Hungry Howie's, next door. That's when I saw him: the homeless man. He was digging through the trashcan out front until he found a water bottle. I watched from my car as he washed his hands with the water left in the bottle and dried them on his shirt. Taking a deep breath, I got out of the car, dropped my DVDs in the return slot at Blockbuster, and reached into my purse for my hand sanitizer. I very timidly approached him and offered him the sanitizer, telling him he could keep it, that I had plenty. He thanked me, and I suddenly found myself asking him if he'd had dinner yet, and if not, would he join me for pizza? I always over order, I told him. A large is too much for one person. He took me up on it and so in we went, the man and I, to Hungry Howie's for cheese pizza.
About this time, I was feeling lots of things at once. Hunger, sure. Pity for the man, unease at the situation, and yes, just a bit nervous that he would do something crazy or dangerous. The man, whose name is Steve, has quite a story. He's remarkably well-read, retains a great deal of the knowledge he's gotten from books, and really likes to talk. We talked about classical Greek plays and the nuclear weapons race, we talked about Los Angeles (his home town and where I plan to move in a few months). We talked about Tallahassee and traveling and age (he's in his 60s) and music. And then I did it: I asked him how it was he came to be homeless. This is the point where the conversation took a VERY unexpected turn.
As it turns out, my homeless man (as I'd fondly begun to think of him) is not a very nice person. He's also made some pretty terrible choices in his life. In fact, and yes, this will sound judgemental to say, but he's a pretty bad guy. Without batting an eye, this mild mannered man who thirty minutes before wouldn't shake my hand because it wouldn't have been proper for him to touch a lady, began telling me about things like abandoning three children by two different wives because he never wanted the little bastards, as he put it. He told me how he served three years in jail in California for non-support of those kids. He told me about illegal Tijuana abortions and described to me in graphic terms what that meant and how that's why scrambled eggs are sometimes called Tijuana eggs. He left another woman because she refused to have one of these. He told me he hated working and only a stupid man would waste forty years at a job and that he'd been begging his way through life simply because he could. He told me about his 'beggar wife' as he called his most recent relationship, and how he used to smack her around a little but he'd break a man's face just for looking at her too long. He left her because she was cramping his style, whatever that means. He has no idea if his parents are still living, he last contacted them three years ago. He tried once to find his kids though his parents, but they wouldn't tell him where to find them because they knew he'd only contact them because he wanted money. "Well, what else would I want from the little bastards?" he'd asked, as if it were the most logical question in the universe.
I sat there for a good thirty minutes listening to him rant, asking qestions periodically, and becoming more and more distant from this person who only an hour before, I wanted to champion. I had wanted to find him a job and a house and give him money and a chance and in my Pollyanna brain, it was all going to work out fine. He was just down on his luck, that's all. Something tragic and horrible had happened to him and he just needed a helping hand. But that was before. By this point, I was hard pressed to keep my seat across from the man without smacking him a good one. Finally, when he finished his rant about religion and churches in general and the Catholic church in particular, I broke in. Very quietly, I said "Steve, I'm Catholic." He didn't miss a beat. He just told me that I was a regular idiot and had no clout since I wasn't a nun and couldn't be a priest. I didn't even know what that meant, but frankly, I'd had it.
I put my hand up to end the ranting. I had a few things I wanted to say. I made myself stay calm and keep my voice kind, and then I let loose. I told him that he'd made some pretty terrible choices in his life. I told him what he did to his children was awful and that my father died when I was nine and every day I wish he could have been there to watch me grow up. I told him that he DID have a chance to be there for his kids and should be ashamed that he wasn't. Fine if you didn't want them, I said, but it's a crappy thing to not even make sure they can eat. I can't hold the women you've left against you because frankly, they were grown and should have been able to see who you were for themselves. As for the begging, I suppose it's a good thing that so many other people didn't mind working boring jobs for 40 years and it's very fortunate for you that at least some of them had good hearts and didn't mind sharing what they'd worked for with you. It's just a pity, I said, that there are so many people out there with legitimate disabilities who can't work and would love the chance to, who aren't faring nearly as well as you seem to be. I'm sad for you, Steve, that your heart is so hardened that you don't care that you're alone and that you don't care if your parents are even still alive. I sat down with you expecting another story entirely, and to be honest, the one you tell is hard and bitter and I almost wish I hadn't hear it.
I stood to go, still struggling to be cordial. I insisted he take the leftover pizza. I told him it was nice to meet him and I'd likely see him around. And then remorse pierced my heart, and the guilt came. For all of what I'd heard, Steve was still a person, and lost, and unarguably living a hard life. I turned to look at him as I held the door. "Hey Steve. You know you've messed up, man. You've made some really crappy choices and I can't say I'll ever understand them, but the thing is, even though made your thoughts on the subject really clear, I just want to tell you that no matter what happened before or will happen in the future, Jesus really does love you, man." It was the best and only truth I could give him. My compassion was not as it should have been.
I got in my car feeling like I failed him. And he failed me. And neither of us got what we were expecting.
As I pulled out of the parking lot, I saw Steve in the rearview mirror. He was throwing away the pizza.
