Lonnie has been living by choice with the homeless for the last nine months. His camp is set up with a few tents and a sleeping bag that keeps him sweating and surviving in temperatures as low as -20 degrees.
I ask how he’s been able to stay alive.
“It’s the little things.”
“The little things?”
“Yeah, it’s the little things that keep you going. Like the fact that my toilet runs right into the sewer. No mess, you know?” He shrugs his shoulders like, Yeah, he knows, and breaks some bread for the birds at his feet.
Last weekend I packed myself inside a dark, punk rock club with drunken, tattooed strangers moshing to post-hardcore rock. It was there a young man named David selling band merch said to me in those select moments before the band took the stage screaming incomprehensible words only decipherable to their most adoring of fans, “Well, if you’re looking for God, you’ve come to the right place.” He punctuated his sentence, and a sea of bodies vibrated and shook to the beat of drums and throat-shredding vocals from above.
“Looking for God, you say? Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Lonnie drops the last of the crumbs in his hands, rubbing them together as if trying to keep warm. “Two things I fear in this world...” Another man, tattered and dirty, drunkenly wanders into our conversation, joining Lonnie on the bench. “Hello Robert. Robert. This is Max. Max. Robert.” Robert looks from me to Lonnie and back to me as if we’re uninvited strangers socializing in his living room. “Those two things,” Lonnie continues, “are God and Jesus.”
Robert growls.
I ask why.
“No reason to fear man. Man can take you out and you’re going to a better place. Guaranteed. But if God takes you out...ho ho ho.” Lonnie puts a hand on his belly. His head shakes.
Robert tries to chime in again beginning with a growl, but his words are quickly slurred and indecipherable. Lonnie pats him on the shoulder. “Robert’s been drinking a bit this morning.”
Lonnie then tells me of the night things got a little rough on the streets. “There were some fights. I had my knife in my hand and my hand on a throat, and you know what happened? Peace. Over the whole camp. Everyone just stopped. I was scared then. But not of man anymore. It was the moment I realized I had no more fear of man, I had only peace.”
If you fear God, he said, there is nothing else to fear.
“I’ve told you the bad things. Now let me tell you the good. You’ve got Billy. He’s been out here on the streets for nine years. Guess where he is now? Pennsylvania. Living with his brother. We finally talked him into giving his brother a call. James been out here twelve years. He’s now taking care of a house out on Wilmington Island. Making a little bit of cash. It’s the little things, man, that keep you going.”
The little things.
“The little celebrations, my man. This life is meant to be enjoyed. We are meant to love life and love others.”
Lonnie tells me he loves his life, loves the people he’s surrounded himself with. He loves hanging out on the park bench, feeding the birds and befriending the homeless. He loves encouraging them to pick up a phone and call their family. He loves getting them to church on a Sunday morning, and getting them bus tickets out of town.
I tell him I went to church yesterday, that the pastor had said we need to stop looking at life through the lens of suffering. “You’re only going to see the bad. We need to start looking at life through the lens of Christ. How can we question God doesn’t love us when He let his son die for us?”
Lonnie ponders this. He kicks dirt. He lets Robert’s head rest on his shoulder. “If I chose to look at my life through the lens of suffering...huh.” He scoffs, holds his arms out as if the entire park is his. “No way, man. You know what I’m doing instead?”
“What’s that?”
Lonnie says he’s trying to acquire an abandoned building downtown to be open twenty-four hours a day to provide shelter for the homeless. He wants to open it up for men coming out of prison, in which case, the government will fund his operation.
“I got my demons, man. I got my demons. Just cause I’m trying to do good doesn’t make me any better than Robert here.” Lonnie nudges his friend who sits up sick like he’s about to burp or vomit then rolls his head to the other side. “You got them too, you know. Don’t know if anyone ever told you.
“No one ever had to, Lonnie. I see them every day.”
“I’m not trying to be mean or anything.”
“I know, Lonnie. I know.”
“Can’t be scared of them, though, you know? Ah, you know. Who am I kidding. Look at you. Traveling across the country. Homeless as I am. A man who is scared of his demons is a man who is scared to live.” Lonnie shakes my hand, tells me I am welcome to Savannah anytime.
Grace Is...
“Are you a religious man?” the bartender asks, pointing to the cross tattooed on the back of my forearm, the word TRUTH written inside.
I take a drink. Gin and tonic. It’s disgusting, but I’m on my way down and out and want to get there as fast as possible. Yesterday I was sober from alcohol for fourteen months. Today I am not sober at all, already fantasizing about the porn I am going to watch when I get home unless I am lucky enough to get the girl in the corner booth to come home with me. Maybe she’s into the same kind of kink I am, and she’ll want to watch to get herself excited. “I am a man of faith,” I answer.
The girl’s friends join her in the booth. They break into immediate laughter. I turn away.
“Christian?” the bartender wants to know.
I shrug.
“You don’t look like a Christian.”
“I’m tired,” I say.
“You seem like an okay guy.”
I tip my glass. “Thanks.”
“What makes you believe in something as prejudicial and judgemental and unfair as the Bible?”
“Wow. Do you have a bone to pick?” I can still hear the girls laughing behind me. It makes me sick. Or it could just be the gin. My feet feel too far away. “Whatever,” I slur. “You’re probably right.”
The answer is clearly unexpected, but probably not surprising considering both my mental and physical state. “I’ll drink to that,” he replies and pours himself a shot. As far as the bartender can tell, I am a man taking his first steps away from Christianity and it’s worthy of a celebration. Welcome to the real world. He drinks his poison and shouts a call of triumph. He asks the patrons behind me what he can make them. Then he returns to me and asks, “So tell me, what’s your least favorite part of the Bible?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
“Well, I grew up in a Christian home. Vacation Bible School every summer and all that crap. ‘What’s your favorite verse?’ God, I cannot tell you how many times adults would ask me that. All I had memorized was Genesis 1:1. It was embarrassing. So now I like to ask people what they like the least about the Bible. Or what their favorite ‘worst part’ is. I find people remember those verses and stories better. The judgemental, hypocritcal ones. So let’s have it.”
I take a sip and try not to wince. The gin burns my throat and hopefully my sins “Grace,” I say.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Grace, man. It’s so fucking vulgar, offensive, and despicable,” I tell him. “I don’t deserve it, yet for some reason I can’t seem to get rid of it. People keep trying to give it to me. No matter how badly I screw this whole thing up. It. Just. Won’t. Let. Me. Go.”
“Dude...”
“I know.” I push myself away from the bar, dizzy. “I need to use the bathroom,” I say. I stand. I’m going to be sick. I try to wipe the drink from the corners of my mouth. “It’s unfair, you know? It shows no favorites and respects no boundaries. Now excuse me.”
I stumble awa
y from the bar. Gin is by far the worst thing I have ever consumed.
“Hey man,” the bartender calls out. I almost don’t hear him over the laughter of the girls. “When you come back your next drink is on me.”
Worthless
On the corner of Hollywood and Vine sat a man who looked like one might expect Santa Claus to present himself if he’d been kicked out of the North Pole, mugged in a back alley, and surviving on a diet of donuts and diet coke since being down on his luck. I sat idling in my car. He sat idling in a broken-down electric wheelchair, his stomach and beard spilling forth over his lap. In his hands, a half-chewed cup held out to every pedestrian on the sidewalk within poking distance of his cane.
“Quarters! Quarters! Do you have any quarters?”
I rolled up the windows and turned the radio on before the guilt lurking around in the backseat became a living, breathing thing I could not escape. “If I was on foot,” I thought to myself, “I’d give him a few dollars, but…”
Father Christmas had parked himself at the bus stop, the intersection of Hollywood and Vine a major artery for bus and foot traffic. Every pedestrian flowing through this vein ignored his desperate plea for “Quarters! Quarters! Do you have any extra quarters?”
The light turned green. My chance for a gateway. I could put the sad, sad image of him forever out of my mind. Instead, I cut into the right lane, jammed up traffic, and parked. With the car still running, I rounded the corner, fumbling with my wallet, and stopped. Someone else was there striking up a conversation. Friend or foe, it was unclear. He was a tall, thin man with dark, leathery features, and clothes too big for his frail frame. The skin on his face rippled like waves in a storm at sea. These two knuckleheads could have certainly been friends. The buses were loud. I could not catch their conversation, but I watched as the thin man pulled a DVD case from his bag. The cover featuring grassy fields full of flowers and big yellow letters announcing the ability to hear from the spirit of God. All you needed was electricity and a DVD player.
“Do you have access to a DVD player?” the thin man inquired.
Santa frowned, displeased the compact disc was nothing more than a compact disc and not a sandwich. I hung around until a strong enough breeze blew through the intersection, carrying the thin man off to his next destination.
“Quarters! Quarters! Do you have any quarters? Any extra quarters?” I handed Santa a pathetic five dollars. His eyes went wide. “Whoa. Hey. Sir.” Holding up his hands, under arrest and guilty, he asked if I need change or something.
I’ve had homeless men spit in my face, threaten to kill me, pray for me, scowl at my offers to buy them lunch, ignore my deliveries of pillows and blankets, and even instruct me to give my money to Los Angeles because the city could use my generosity to pave the roads. But none of them have ever asked if I needed change.
Santa was in such complete disbelief over someone handing him a five-dollar bill — not even enough money to purchase a Venti Latte — that he believed I needed change. What was surging through his heart in that moment? Did he believe he was only worth the couple of quarters he was asking for?
Some days I feel I’m worth even less than that. Some days I think God doesn’t love me, that I’ll never make it into Heaven. Some days I think my savior is tired of my laments. Some mornings I look in the mirror and cannot fathom why it is my wife is attracted to me. Some nights I feel entirely unloved. Sometimes someone does something for me that I am absolutely undeserving of receiving. I have said to others just as Santa said to me as I walked away, “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me,” I answered. “I don’t need change.” If I’d stuck around any longer, I was certain he’d invite me to McDonald’s to split a Happy Meal with the money, and ask to borrow a DVD player.
I know I’m no hero for giving the man five dollars, and there is no moral to this story. Only a punchline. I walked away feeling worthless. Feeling worth less than I had before I’d tried to help because I couldn’t do more.
“You’re sure you are sure about this?!”
I was sure.
“Well Goddamn!” He shouted as I walked away. “You’re going to heaven, brother! You know that? Believe it!”
I didn’t believe it then, but I believe it now. But only because it costs less than five dollars to get in, and we’re all worth so much more.
The only difference
between me and the homeless
is that I have a door
with which to hide my brokenness
behind.
Invisible
AM I VISIBLE? Black marker words scribbled on a brown piece of cardboard. He sat with his legs crossed, eyes closed, gently rocking back and forth on the skateboard between him and concrete. Knees escaping—pale and dirty like prisoners ought to be—from the holes in his jeans.
AM I VISIBLE? A busy Hollywood street corner. Rush hour traffic going nowhere fast. I catch glimpses of him through passers-by. Students hurrying home. Women in high heels and pencil skirts. Fathers with daughters on their shoulders. Children helping mothers carry bags filled with pumpkin pies, cranberries, and Thanksgiving turkeys.
No one stops. No one notices.
AM I VISIBLE?
“Yes,” I say, holding out a few extra dollars toward him. “You are.”
His eyes open. He smiles. “You read my sign.”
“I did.”
“For me?” He asks, nodding at the cash in my hand.
“For you.”
He takes the money. “I wrote visible instead of invisible. Did you realize that?”
I hadn’t.
“People see right through you out here. They make eye contact, and look away. Like they just saw something they weren’t supposed to see. They go to their phones. They look at the sky. They run across the street. Anything to forget they saw me. I’ll tell you, that’s worse than being invisible.”
I’m looking at everything but him, trying not to think of the ten other homeless men I passed before I finally stopped here. The too small white puppy sleeping next to him, she can’t be more than twelve weeks old. Her precious white and curly fur is already going gray and dirty. She sleeps on her side in a bed he’s created from torn clothes and a pillow from his socks, tucked in so perfect and delicate I resist the urge to poke and see if she’s real.
“My sign used to say that.”
“Say what?” I fear I’ve missed something he’s said, my thoughts frantic about the dog.
“Invisible. My sign used to say invisible because I was mad. Now it just says visible.”
“Does your dog need any food?”
He laughs. He’s missing the left front tooth and the three that are supposed to be next to it. “When people stop, if they stop, the only thing they ask: ‘Is the dog okay?’” He pats the black gym bag on his right. “I’ve got more dog food than I know what to do with. I really appreciate you asking, but sometimes I’ve got to say no.” He laughs again at what you might guess is the idea of a homeless man saying no to anything.
AM I VISIBLE?
“People care more about this damn puppy than they do me. Got to make sure the puppy has food.” He pats her tiny head, holds up the cash I just gave him for me to see. Like I’d forgotten about it. “God bless you.”
“I’m headed into the store. Is there anything else you need?” I’m clumsy with my words, trying to recover from being just another nameless face in a crowd asking after the dog and forgetting the owner is homeless too.
“Muffins.”
“Yeah? Anything else?” There’s no way he wants just muffins.
“Just muffins. Those multi-berry kind.”
“Multi-berry.”
“Yup.”
“You got it.”
AM I VISIBLE? I’m thankful that I am. I am thankful I don’t have to sit on a street corner, hungry and ignored. I am thankful my words don’t fall on deaf ears when I
speak. I am thankful for the ability to see. To truly see what is around me. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I pretend I don’t see them. The homeless. They look right at me, and I look the other way. I look down at my phone. It’s too inconvenient to stop. Maybe I don’t have any extra cash on me. Just plastic. That’s always my excuse. I pretend they are invisible.
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction…” James 1:27
I like when this verse refers to the fatherless as orphans in other translations. I used to think of orphans as something which only existed in Africa. But there are orphans all around us. The fatherless are everywhere. Visible. Right before our eyes.
I emerge from the store, four fresh-baked, multi-berry muffins in tow. I cross the street.
His eyes are closed again. I hold the muffins out. “Here you are, my friend.”
“Wow. Thank you.” He takes the package, cracks it open, bites into a muffin the way you’d imagine Eve bit into that apple. But I doubt the consequences will be as dire. I will be halfway home when I realize I never got his name. I will forgive myself for not engaging further, and decide to take comfort in the idea of him at rest. For he could go to sleep that night knowing full well he was, indeed, visible.
An Anthology of Madness Page 3