He greeted me and made a quip about the space in the tram (which really wasn't crowded). When I smiled and responded, he began talking about how he still has his sense of humor if nothing else. His words were hurried as if he were afraid that his time in my attention had already run out and I would soon become mindful of this and turn away. A few seconds of silence passed as he squatted down in the bike zone near the wall opposite me. He complimented my eyes and my sunglasses. He liked the way they were accentuated without being exposed, like a mystery.
And then shame.
He became quick to tell me he was too old (56 years) to think of me that way, that I did not have to worry. He just meant to compliment me. I reassured him that I was not freaked out and I watched as all of him relaxed. I asked his name and he looked up at me to say, "Scott" and then ask mine. We filled the space that followed with mutually believed commentary on how Americans are too stand-off when they travel and do not know how to have time for the people around them. (I am pretty sure that we bewildered the people around us to pieces, he and I.) He thanked me for my time and told me he was tired of talking to himself, that he missed conversation. He expounded on the dichotomy of security and freedom saying that if we never take any risks we lose our freedom. And again, when we seek security over freedom, we lose both.
And I listened. Through my aviators, across the max, I listened for the whole of maybe 5 or 10 minutes. And then he did what almost every homeless man I talk to does.
Scott told me that he liked my confidence. He likes the way I carry myself boldly, comfortably but not offensively. As he was talking, I passed my stop so I went over to shake his hand. He continued complimenting and encouraging me gently but firmly, not rushed to let all of his words fall out like he was when we first met ten minutes prior. Scott said that I shouldn't worry, I have a lot more figured out than I think I do, I've just got to keep the faith.
I do not feel that I really know what it is that he and Mike and Dave and Richard see in me. And I do not know why they all tell me the same things: confidence. faith. don't worry. i'm headed in a good direction. Always. And always men around the age of 55. And almost always, homeless. It is like they know that I do not trust myself in the least on my bad days.
In some unconventional way, we need each other. People like me and people like Scott. We need to have someone hand us back our humanity from whatever dark place it has been cast and let us rest awhile in friendly conversation. We cannot waste time because we only have 4 or so max stops for our familiarity to mature. I would have gladly spent more time with him to hear about the family he alluded to and just to watch him become more human.
Some of us are more visibly and more desperately clinging to our humanity than others. Scott is one of them. Too many people will never give him a real name...just labels and titles and shadows to live in. They wont remember seeing him. They are likely to be offended if he spoke to them. He is on the streets because he is alone. For whatever reason, he has lost or severed all the ties that might have caught him. I cannot help but use people like him to measure society against because the heart of a nation can be seen in how they treat their outcasts.
We are offended by them. We do not understand them and we do not have the time to. And it breaks me. I saw so many other people that same day. A homeless woman through the window yelling and crying in the corner of a building. A beggar working the St. Patrick's crowd. A woman and her pimp. Stories writhing without pages.
I had been told that the most meaningful things you can give to a homeless person, should reason and security allow, are an identity and a little human contact. And it is funny the way can you know something that has been told to you and still be blown away by it in real and living life. He never asked for money. He just wanted to talk, to remember, and to be without being alone. And he did not take my time even, because he gave too. I am bewildered by what he said to me, but I treasure it too. And I hope to understand.
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