Incidental Contact

Come on in and watch the smoke.

I was otuside some bar, having a cigarette, chatting with a female friend.  We were discussing the songs that should be banned from karaoke, "'Summer Nights,' that shit has GOT to go, and if it's busy don't be the douche that puts up 'Don't Fear the Reaper.'  Yeah, we all like cow bell but jeezus fucking christ, it's nine goddamn minutes long."  A few folks near me nodded and chuckled along with my companion.

And coming around the corner was what could best be described as a piece of human refuse.  And I don't mean that to be insulting.  I mean it as an honest description.  He was a human being who society had thrown away, finding him no longer useful.  Despite the summer heat, he wore a ragged sweater, once white and now some blotched mixture of gray and brown, over top of a black t-shirt.  His pants were corduroy, and some sneakers that looked like they were bought in 1982 were on his feat, high tops worn down to near nothing, patched with a mixture of black electrical tape and silver duct tape.  (It's duct, not duck.  It was original made to work on duct work, heating and what not in your house, but I digress...)

I doubted he was much older than me, but he was certainly smaller, couldn't weigh more than 130 lbs, and probably stood only an inch or two shorter than me, but he slumped.  He was hunched over as if compensating for some wound or pain.  His hair was dirty blonde with patches of gray, like the stubble that laid over his jaw. 

Worst were his eyes, he looked at me and I looked him right in the eyes, not as a challenge but as an acknowledgement, one human to another.  I tried to say to him without words, "I see you brother.  You are not going to pass unnoticed and ignored.  I care about you, because everyone needs to be cared for."  All his eyes seemed to project was pain, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual pain.  They said, "I need food, and water, and a place to sleep, but most of all I need a drink, or drugs, anything, something that will remove from me the knowledge of where I am and what I have to do to get by.  Anything, I need anything."

He stopped and hooked his head to the side rather than up to look at me.  He started to speak, but his voice didn't want to work right to start, he garbled something out, then coughed, and turned his back to me to spit in the street, and then spun around again to hitch his head to the side again to look up at me, "You uh.  You got any change?"  The voice was cringing, fearful, expecting this person who acknowledged him to abuse him like the rest of the world usually does.  I nodded and smiled, "Yeah I got some change."  I pulled about six bucks from my pocket, and held it out to him.  "You need anything else?  You smoke?"  I produced my pack, it was half full, and handed it over, I had half a carton in my trunk anyways. 

"Oh uh yeah .. I smoke."  He was staring at me suspiciously, and started to back away without taking the pack.  I slipped it open and took one out, lighting it up and handing the open pack to the beaten man, "G'head, I got more, look like you need it more than I do."  He nodded and snatched at the pack, taking a smoke out and about to light it with some matches.  My companion finally got the hint, she handed over her lighter, "Here take this."  He did and lit his smoke, "I uh... I should be going."  I nodded, not entirely in agreement, but to show he was free to do what he wished.

But before he could leave, I stepped forward.  I laid my hand on his higher shoulder, the one away from where his injury had to be.  Despite how gently I placed my hand, his whole body jolted, flinched and shook, expecting the worst, because the worst is all he knew.  I smiled at him, and let his body settle while I kept my hand on his shoulder, and said, "Take care of yourself, and please keep safe."

As I stepped back, his face twitched.  I swear he was smiling, but it was hard to tell with his face hooked over to the side like it was, "Yeah.  You too."

As he walked away, I listened to the arrogant words of the drunks outside the bar wanting to reprimand me for caring about another human being, "He's just gonna buy booze or drugs with that money, he's a lazy bum," or "Great, that's just going to encourage more of those filthy stinking homeless crazies to come by here expecting some kind of hand out."  Their words were filled with hate and contempt, a form of arrogance that bothered me so deeply, I wanted to turn around and scream at them, ask them why it was ok for them to go back inside and get drunk to forget their problems, but not ok for him just because he had no money or home.  I wanted to kick them so they hurt as bad as the broken man did.  Instead, I just kept feeling the love that I wanted that poor broken human being to feel and turned and smiled to the gathered mass, tossing away most of the smoke I had just lit, wanting to go back inside.  As I passed the two knots of people I said to no one in particular, "I hope no one ever has to feel what that man probably feels day to day.  But if they ever did, I hope someone will treat them like the human being they are." 

I shook it off as I entered, and let the butchered vocals of 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light' wash over me and let me forget my problems.