Just a Little Bit More: reluctantly

Seeing is believing. Television producers know this. So do newspapers, this is why they print photographs. I am not, nor was I before last weekend, one of those conspiracy theorists who think the moon landing was staged; I am one of the reasonable folks, a believer if you will. But I learned something all over again last weekend when I got to see firsthand something I already believed in. I learned it against my will. I had other plans. Recreational ones.

I had already done my part, I was done. A sign-up sheet had been passed around in Sunday School and I could see that there were plenty of people in the room to fill the available slots. I signed my name on an open space and passed the clipboard on to the person next to me. I silently nodded my head up and down showing approval of the great work to which I had just committed myself. Yes, I am a good man and I had just signed up to do my part.

My part was to drop off empty grocery bags on people’s porches for a community food drive. I was given a route of approximately 200 homes and a stack of bags to deliver over one weekend. The home owners were informed that if they wished to participate in the food drive to simply fill the bag with non-perishable food items and leave it on their curb the following Saturday. There was another group of people, who signed their names on a different space on the sign-up sheet, who would then drive around the neighborhoods picking up filled bags of food to then go drop off at the municipal food pantry. This food would then be given out to those in need, homeless, unemployed, or just plain hungry.

I loved the idea. This was, and shall I say is, a great example of religious congregations working together with municipalities, to involve the general community in helping the needy. Sold! I’m a believer. I read the flier and was all in, no printed picture or images needed. Done.

Done, just like I was after dropping off 189 paper grocery bags. I didn’t do it all alone; I made my two young daughters help. They were fairly willing participants. We all drove to the assigned neighborhood, I gave them each a stack of bags, and told them the first one to finish their side of the street was the winner. The prize was only a round of applause but they weren’t disappointed. The feelings felt from participating in something good were reward enough. Good kids, good dad, all done. Nice job.

The next Friday I found myself carrying a rolled up blanket to a neighborhood outdoor movie. I had been looking forward to this Friday, not for the movie, but because it meant it was almost Saturday. I was especially happy for this Saturday because I had no plans and a green light from the powers that be to spend my plan-less time doing only what I pleased. I was beholden to no one and I meant to capitalize in some unplanned fashion even if it meant doing nothing. I worked hard that week and I had earned it. I wandered around the grassy area till I found an open spot next to my good friend Gary and his family. I spread out the blanket, gave my small people permission to go eat some unhealthy things, and got a fabulous idea.

“Gary! What are you doing tomorrow morning!”

I blurted out the question the moment inspiration hit me. Hiking. We should go hiking. Gary is always looking for something to do, I needed some recreation, he’s a cool guy, perfect scenario.

Gary looked up from his blanket and gaggle of kids and replied, “I’m finishing up that food drive. Why? You wanna come help?”

My inspired idea popped and fizzled like “get well” balloon at a funeral.

“Um-Uh-Oh yeah. Ha, ha, no. Ya see we dropped off bags last weekend. We already helped. No, uh, I was gonna see if you wanted to go hiking in the morning.”

I had forgotten that Gary was the guy who had been asked to coordinate this whole food drive project. He didn’t really volunteer for it but didn’t bat an eye when they asked him to do it. He didn’t frown or fret at my stammering, he just smiled and declined the hiking and repeated his invitation for me to help.

My mind quickly retorted “Dude. Didn’t you just hear me? I said we already did our part. We are done man!” While this was in my mind, something, perhaps the memory of my mother’s advice to be nice, it didn’t come out of my mouth. Nothing came out, I just sort stood with an empty stare. He took opportunity of the pause to cheerfully explain that there was still plenty of work to be done, he had dropped off bags too but wasn’t sure there would be enough people at the food pantry to handle the response so he planned to show up there just in case. He said it the same way you recount math; matter of factly, no guile. It caught me off guard. He didn’t make me feel bad, or even guilty, though I did feel a little bit of that as I stared at my deflated hiking idea on the ground, but it didn’t come from him. It came from me.

I said yes.

He said he would pick me up at 10.

The next morning at 10:15 I saw it. I saw it and I believed.

Cars started showing up with bags full of groceries and drivers full of smiles. Some cars came with two bags, a couple came with twenty. I pitched in carrying bags and cans inside where the food was separated, organized and shelved. People would drive up, others would scurry about carrying and sorting, and the stack of food grew and grew. Gary was counting the bags as they came in, comparing that number to the number of empty bags distributed. Five percent. Five percent is the ratio of how many people donated compared to the number of bags left on porches. Gary had hoped for ten. By the time we wrapped up that percentage had grown to seven. In that seven percent I saw something I would have missed had I gone up the mountainside as planned.

I saw potential for the greatness of humanity.

I saw it in the smiles of the drivers delivering donated food. I saw it in the stack of food that filled the racks inside the pantry. I saw it in Gary and his clipboard. I got to see that if you drop off empty bags on the porches of strangers, they will in fact fill it with food to give to the homeless. That is amazing. I did not consider seven percent is a huge return, until I considered the amount of food that percentage produced. It was a lot of food. For and from strangers! It was wonderful. It was wonderful and I almost missed it. I almost missed it because I considered myself to already be a believer. I didn’t need to see. I wasn’t Thomas and I had already done my part. Oh, but how glad am I that I got to see. How glad am I that Gary gave me that little push to do a little more.

Before he pushed me, by just inviting, I think I was experiencing a seven percent return of goodness on that food drive. My kids had participated, we got the bags onto doorsteps, it was good. That seven percent of good didn’t compare to the good I felt and saw Saturday morning. All because Gary gave me a chance to do just a little more than I signed up for, just a little more than just my part. I saw it and my belief went to a new place.

Imagine if all those neighborhoods had done just a little bit more. Or maybe if they could just see what I saw. Imagine what the whole city could do with just one more little invitation. Imagine the country or the world if we were all asked to go just a little bit past that seven percent, if everyone could see that good that could be done. It would almost be enough to make me think we would never need to do such a project ever again.

If just a little. A little bit.

More.

I Abandoned A Homeless Man: what a horrible thing to say, uhhhh… do.

Calvin James *not his real name.
Today I got great news. I was informed that I am no longer responsible for a homeless man. Yup, he’s off the books.
This doesn’t mean he is all the way off the streets; he’s just off my plate.
Off my plate.
How cold. Like left overs.
Has-been, second rate, and inconsequential leftovers. It feels heartless to talk about him this way because it is. I feel heartless that I was even able to walk away from his life, but I have. It is good that I’m no longer responsible for him, I was never very good at it, but I was all he had. I wish I could say I left him in a better spot than when I found him, but that isn’t true.
That isn’t true mostly because he wasn’t homeless when I found him.
When I met Calvin James he was a competent, cocky, guy. He wore shined shoes and suit jackets along with gold hoop earrings. He was a little flashy for my taste but always well put together. He was funny and friendly and above all else, he was sure of himself. But he had reason to be.
Calvin can cook.
When we met he was the head chef of a fancy prep school. He had a kitchen and a staff. He loved what he did and took great pride in it. The man could, and really still can, cook.
We met in church.
This cocky guy came in contact with some missionaries and couldn’t shake them. He began to realize that his life lacked depth and this new church had it. Now I have met some others in church who came there to escape their past. Calvin wasn’t doing that. I have met some who lived hard lives, or maybe lived life hard, and once on the bottom looked to God as a way back up. That wasn’t really Calvin either.
Calvin had it together. He had done some college, business school, had a career he loved, and he wasn’t all that old, just a little over 40. He was single, no kids, owned a house. He came to church, not necessarily came from somewhere else.
That was Calvin.
Then came cancer.
I don’t know all the details, I’m not a doctor. I know he lost a lot of weight, he was never very big, went through radiation of some sort but kept his hair, and I know it was very hard on him. He had to take time off work to get healthy; Dr.’s orders. He took so much time off that his job let him go.
It wasn’t right for them to let him go and after a lot of haggling the courts agreed and he got a settlement. He got a settlement, but not his job. He was also awarded disability benefits but not a clean bill of health. So now he had a little bit of money but still had cancer.
Losing the job hurt him a lot. Chemo is painful and so is unemployment. Calvin tried to kill the pain. But Calvin found this pain was hard to kill and then the doctors told him it wasn’t just ordinary pain, it was depression. For those keeping score we are up to cancer, unemployed, and depressed.

 

Then came the fire.
While Calvin was in the hospital there was a fire in his house. He didn’t know about it till he got home. Calvin was, and still is, a nice guy; the kind that lets people live in his house. Some of the sorts of people who just live in a friend’s house are also the sort that just runs away when a fire starts. Sometimes when you live in an old house in North Philly and you get cancer you don’t really think about things like insurance. Calvin didn’t have homeowner’s insurance.
For almost a year Calvin lived in a fire damaged house with no windows and a door that wouldn’t close all the way. He spent most of that time trying to kill the pain. Now a bunch of us tried to tell him things, warn him about stuff, and he tried coming to church, but none of the words, or sitting in a pew, made the pain go away.

 

Then Calvin just kind of went away.
I would go by his house, the one with the open door, but he was never there. Sometimes some very suspicious people would be there, but never him. After a while the people who were there didn’t even know who he was. He was gone.
But he was never all the way gone. He would turn up, usually in a hospital, and usually when it was cold. Sometimes he would just show up on a Sunday to say hello. He would be there looking a little unkempt, never asking anyone for anything, just wanted to say hello and go to Sunday school. He told me the cancer was gone and he was doing OK. I never pressed to hard. People who have hit the bottom don’t normally like to be pressed too hard. When you are on the bottom being pressed feels like being smashed.
One day Calvin called me in tears. His father had died.
He told me his father had been sick for some time, living in a nursing home. The funeral was tomorrow, he had just been told today. He found out via an aunt. All the arrangements had been made by one of Calvin’s two brothers, but none had thought to tell Calvin.
Calvin asked if I would come with him to the service and just be there with him. I took the day off work and went.
I never knew Calvin had a family and when we showed up at the service, I didn’t really learn anything different. They all knew who he was, he looked exactly like his two brothers, but it was equally as obvious he wasn’t really one of them. I sort of stood back and observed as Calvin looked in the casket and touched his father’s face. We sat off to the side as the service went on, speaker after singer after speaker. Everyone in the family got a turn. But not Calvin. In fact Calvin’s name was not in the obituary, not on the program, and not on the lips of anyone who spoke that day. When it was all over I pulled Calvin’s arm over my shoulder and half carried, half drug, this grown man to my car. Then I dropped him off at a shelter.

 

He was a wreck.
About a year after that Calvin called me for a ride. We had been in and out of touch so this was not completely out of the ordinary. This ride was to the social security office. He had to be there at 9am. He asked me to sit in on his appointment. This part was not ordinary.
As the woman began shuffling papers around and talking in official tones I began picking up that there was a problem with Calvin’s money. The money didn’t come right to Calvin, it went to his aunt. Because Calvin had once been hospitalized for depression and dependence, the state would not just hand him some cash, they required a responsible third party to make sure it was spent responsibly. The aunt was now refusing to be this responsible party.
She asked Calvin who the new “payee” would be.
He stared at his hands in his lap, said nothing, and sheepishly looked over at me. I wanted to argue. I wanted to walk away right there. But I knew just enough of his family and situation to know I was there because he had already tried everything else. I signed the paper.
Shortly after signing the paper I got a government ATM card with my name on it in the mail along with an IRS accounting form. I had to report to them how every penny was spent.
From then on I also got a phone call on the first of every month from Calvin. Well, not every month. Sometimes he would disappear and then pop back up in a hospital. There was always a story that went along with it, but after the third one I stopped believing. Not long after that I stopped listening.
Once Calvin started trying to put the pieces back together I began trying to really help. We got him a phone he could afford. The doctor found him a half-way house recovery program. Calvin and I went back to his burned out house and loaded some clothes into trash bags and took them to this half way house. If you have never been to a half-way house for recovering addicts the first thing that you will notice is that they are filled with recovering addicts. Obvious, recovering addicts.
The man who ran this first house wore fur coats, gold chains, and had his fingernails painted like American flags. Most of the men in the house weren’t really recovering. I learned this because Calvin began buying his stuff from his roommates with the money he was supposed to be spending on food.
The second place we went to had forty men staying in about 1500 square feet.
We tried having Calvin live on his own. We stopped trying to have Calvin live on his own after two more trips to the hospital.
Calvin has a good therapist. This good therapist found Calvin a spot in a home run by the Catholic Church. Calvin has lived in this shelter for a little more than a year.
We have been at this for some years now Calvin and I. Long enough that if I’m honest with myself I must admit I stopped really trying to help a long time ago. A long time ago I met with the director of the shelter and worked out a plan. I pretty much turned it all over to him. At first I would get a call from Calvin on the first of the month, and then I would deliver a money order for his rent and some cash for his food. Then a little later on I would deliver some cash and make him go get the money order.
But really, near the end, what I did was make a withdrawal, make a delivery, and then make an accounting to the IRS. Calvin became an errand.
I feel bad about that.
The good news is that Calvin has been clean and stable long enough that the he is no longer required to have a payee. The money goes right to him. The bad news is that I’m not confident that Calvin will be OK. He isn’t the Calvin I first met. He isn’t the cocky guy who loves his job. In his place is a beaten down guy who is mostly tired of living with addicts.
I watched this guy go from there to here and at the end of it all I am mostly just glad to not be his payee. That is it. The prevailing emotion, the feeling, is the same relief one gets from crossing off the bottom of the honey-do list.
But he isn’t a task he is a person.
A person with a life. A person with problems bigger than anything I face and at the end of it all I walked away. Well, really I drove a moving truck away, but none-the-less I left. I left a man with problems. A man I tried to help but failed, and then I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and moved away. I shrug my shoulders, move away, reflect, and write it up as a story. I write a story mostly about what I feel.
What about Calvin?

The Car on Christmas

The steering wheel tightened up without warning. The dashboard lit up like a tree as I pulled into a parking space at the Chevron. My wife asked , “What’s wrong?” I don’t remember answering, just hitting the button that pops the hood, taking off my jacket and tie, and stepping out into the rain. She went back to reading her magazine and passing dropped crayons to the kids.

Under the hood things looked and sounded normal. I looked around for leaks, smoke, anything, then I saw the auxiliary belt was slack and stationary. I looked closer and saw a plastic round something just sitting there, underneath everything, on top of the wheel well. I hollered for the Mrs. to shut the engine off as I rolled up my sleeve and plunged my arm into the greasy mess.

As I was blindly fishing for that plastic round thing, a very black man wearing two coats, one beanie, and no teeth asked what was wrong with the car. I answered I was a bit unsure but think the broken part was just under here, barely out of reach. He waved me aside and tried his double coated arm. He couldn’t reach either. He told me he lived across the street and thought he had a hangar over there. I watched as he trotted off toward an abandoned tire shop and vacant lot.

“Mind if I try?” an Indian man asked as he flicked a cigarette butt onto the sidewalk. He had a long handled grabber thing, the kind with a claw, a trigger, and no name that I know of. He took his turn reaching for the plastic thing. As I stood back feeling lame, watching another make attempts where I had failed, I tried to at least be cordial. “What a way to spend Christmas right?” “Got it!” he responded as he held up a black plastic doughnut shaped something. I inspected the burnt piece of engine and saw the two coated man approaching. He saw the part in my hand and tossed the hangar over his shoulder onto the ground. “Let us be looking to see if the part store is open.” the victor said waving me toward his Lexus. I waived to the wife as she locked the doors and the kids kept coloring.

I felt less sympathy for this Samaritan, who I now guessed owned the Chevron, as I pulled shut the car door and looked at a multi-armed Goddess mounted on the dash. I wondered to myself if you would pay yourself time and a half for working on Christmas, if you didn’t celebrate Christmas. I didn’t think the part store would be open, it wasn’t, but he said he didn’t care if we left the car overnight. I called my nephew, the one who just graduated college last week, and he picked us up in his brand new Dodge Charger. Its so new it doesn’t have plates yet.

The day after Christmas the rain had stopped and a mechanic met me at the car. I borrowed an in-law’s car, thinking this could take a while. I planned to drive the forty five minutes back up and make plans to reclaim my hopefully repaired car while the mechanic was working, to ya-know, waste my time but not everyone else’s back at the house. The mechanic didn’t say much at all and just dove into the engine. He made a silent trip back to his truck, came back with a wrench, and went back in. I awkwardly interrupted to ask, how long and how much. He kind of squinted at me, scratched his cheek, and said, “Bout thirty minutes and forty bucks.” Surprised at the time and happy with the price I stepped back and watched.

As I stood back, another Indian man came out of the gas station and stood next to me. He asked if it was getting fixed, I said it was, then he spit his tobacco on the curb and said, “Now there will be the issue of paying.” I had contemplated tipping the generous man who helped me yesterday, but I began reconsidering as I looked at this guy with horrible teeth, a visible hairy chest, who was wagging his head back and forth like a bobble head. “Pardon?” I asked playing dumb. “How much do you suppose it would cost if I had called a tow truck?” he asked with half closed, glossy eyes. “I’m not sure. Why don’t you just tell me how much you are asking for,” I answered.

“It would have been very expensive. They charge to pick up, then to get it back. I am saying only fifty dollars.”

I was not pleased. I tried to show it on my face.

“So what do you think of that? He stated more than asked.

“I think it incredibly un-generous and think this would have been a great conversation to have had yesterday. I understand you did me a favor but to ask that much for something that cost you nothing… I just don’t know.”

He looked at me with his glassy eyes and said, “No! There is no negotiating here, there is no haggling. I have said fifty and so it will be fifty. So, eh!? What you think? Eh!?”

I stood staring deeply at his wood grained brown stained teeth, knowing there was a twenty in my pocket, but not knowing entirely how to keep it and still feel good about myself. What do I say here?

I never had to decide as he started laughing, hit me on the arm and told me he was joking. I told him it was surely funnier for him than for me and he just looked at me doing that head wobble thing.

I thanked the mechanic, called my wife to come so we could drive the car back, then I sat in the car to wait.

Usually I see the view from inside the car like a movie; I sit while scenes play across the windshield. Occasionally I even have snacks. This time, in this lot, it was more like a fishbowl, and I was the fish.

I could not figure out why people, scruffy people, were just milling about around the car. I contemplated taking a picture but decided not too. I realized these folks were standing around outside the car because I was almost right in front of a liquor store. I did not know if they had homes or what hard lives they were living, and to take their photo from my warm and cozy car, waiting to go home and have a well cooked meal, seamed more than patronizing and I was ashamed for having considered it. That is till the buzzards circling the vehicle began to get overly nosy. To lean against the car while I was in it is one thing, but to stand and stare at me, face to face, and then just continue to stare? I raised my iphone and “click”.

They were unfazed.

I was a bit fazed. Not to by the the folks waiting for the Package Store to open, but by the lady walking the block. I have seen enough women walk the block to know what that looks like, but till this day I had never seen a chunky “lady” walk the block while eating a bag of Funions. I realized then more than ever, that that is an industry I truly do not understand. Attractiveness is surely not a component.

She was still walking when my wife arrived.

As we were driving off toward the highway I looked over, behind the abandoned tire shop. There, in a field was two coated guy with a few others standing around a flaming trash can. My wife called me from the other car, “Hey did you see that? He really does live over there.”