Close Encounters With the Homeless Kind
I once found myself with a homeless man on the trunk of my car,apparently trying to get my attention because I didn’t “look at him”. I was stopped at a red light at an intersection when I noticed him on the corner by a Jack-In-the-Box restaurant. I saw him, then glanced the other way, waiting for the light to turn green. Suddenly, I heard a thud coming from my trunk and felt the back of my car drop. There, lounging on my car, was the homeless man – oblivious to the honks surrounding him. I ran out to get an explanation and persuade him to get off, and he says to me, “Oh, now you notice me.” Lesson number one: Don’t ignore the homeless.
I was a young college student living with my ex-boyfriend in the back of a small antique shop when I had my closest encounter with a homeless person. True, I was about as homeless as I have ever felt in my life given we weren’t supposed to be living in this space meant for our business, but I easily blended in with the rest of the bathed society and chose to identify myself with them. It was during this time that I became a regular plasma donor. I received fifteen dollars for my first successful donation and forty-five dollars for the second – potentially a nice supplemental income for a college student.
I took off one evening, upset at my ex-boyfriend, with no intention of returning. I planned to donate plasma the next day and receive forty-five dollars. Being anemic, I had to stock up on high protein foods the night before to boost my hermaticrit level. Without a high enough red blood cell count, they would turn you away instead of risk leaving you without enough energy. I didn’t have enough money for bus fare much less a can of red beans when I wandered out that night. I came near a church where someone had set up some blankets for a shelter, but it seemed to be unoccupied. I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night, so I decided to poke around this shack and hope for a place to lay my head. I’m not sure how I got to a point where sleeping on some dirty blankets next to a church somewhere in downtown was acceptable, but I didn’t twice about it at the time.
To my surprise, I was invading the privacy of a homeless man lying on a mattress watching t.v. from his battery-operated set. I don’t remember what he was watching – I don’t even totally remember what he looked like – only that he was probably in his thirties and wore a cap, glasses, and an unshaven beard. I apologized and intended to move on, but the man insisted that I stay, offering me the spot on his mattress while he slept elsewhere. Somehow that wasn’t enough for me, and I proceeded to explain my need for a can of beans. Who would have thought this homeless man had more cash with him than someone as respectable as me, but it wasn’t long after my story that we were walking out of the local food mart with a can of Van de Camp beans that he had purchased for me. He opened it, of course, with a knife he carried with him. I was overwhelmed by this man’s kindness and never once felt threatened by him, nor did I ever get the sense that he ever expected anything back from me. I told myself that I would return the next day with my forty-five dollars and dole out a portion to him.
After a successful plasma donation the next morning (thanks to the can of beans), I headed back to my friend’s shelter, excited to share with him the fruit of his kindness. To my disappointment, there was no shelter left standing – only the church gardener belting out the loud noise of a hedger. It was as if the makeshift shelter and the friend I had met there never even existed. I considered stashing the cash somewhere that he would find it, perhaps in a nearby tree with a note. But what if he never came back? And wouldn’t it be pointless if he did, in reality, never exist and that the whole encounter was just a gesture from God to restore my hope? I’ll never remember what I spent the forty-five dollars in my pocket on, but I can’t help but remember nearly ten years later that kindness can come from the most unexpected people and places.
Deborah Wilson
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