I spent today with a man who has nothing.
Eric (not his real name) called me at 7 A.M. Saturday morning.
“Where’d you sleep last night, Eric?”
“Outside the Church of Latter Day Saints.”
“You got some clothes to change into?”
“Just what I’m wearing.”
“When’d you eat last?”
“Been a couple of days.”
“Where are you calling me from?”
“A pay phone.”
“Where in crap did you find an actual, working pay phone?”
Now before you recite the clichés about “those people” let me point out a couple or three things. Eric’s doesn’t get food stamps, or SSI/disability. He’s not on section 8, or Medicare, or Medicaid. He doesn’t panhandle. He didn’t bum off family. He’d gotten a full time job; and because he didn’t have a car, he walked several miles to and from work. After work and on weekends he picked up all the odd jobs he could find in the neighborhood. He ate what he could buy. He lived where he could afford. He joined a church. He did everything we say he is supposed to do as a good American capitalist.
And it worked. Last month Eric wasn’t really homeless. “Not really homeless.” That’s what we call it because technically he had a place to live. Sure the only place he could afford had no electricity, no water, at least 8 transient occupants any given day, and both the ownership and legality of occupancy was vague, but the place had 4 walls and a roof and he ought to be thankful for that. Eric was thankful.
But then somebody (probably one of his housemates) snuck up behind him as he was walking home on payday and cut his throat. They literally sliced his neck from ear to ear. The doctors don’t know how the razor missed the big arteries and veins.
I went to see him a couple of days after the attack. He strained the staples in his neck trying to tell me what happened but he caught the blood in a towel that he pressed against his open throat.
He couldn’t work. He lost his job. His i.d. and all of his clothes went missing from the house. For some reason he started drinking again.
This is where you can recite the clichés about how those people make too many excuses.
A few days after getting out of the hospital, Eric was “really” homeless. Since then he’s bounced from place to place, emergency room to shelter, abandoned house to Mormon church doorway. He called me Saturday because, “I can’t do it on my own. I need help.”
I spent that morning on the phone. I spent today today driving around getting Eric a shower and a belt for the clothes I ironed and gave him out of my closet. We followed up on possible programs and lots of referrals to somewhere else because he doesn’t have Medicare or Medicaid or private insurance or money.
This is where you recite the clichés about the socialist evils of universal healthcare.
This is where you recite the clichés about the socialist evils of universal healthcare.
The workday came and went without me doing anything I’d planned when I left the office Friday. But I bought my friend Eric lunch. (He actually ordered steak, but I did say “Whatever you want.”) Tonight, he has a safe, air-conditioned place to sleep, a new network of wonderful people in the Montgomery non-profit community, and a certified plan to get sober and back to pursuing the American dream.
His situation isn’t typical, but it is normal. There are men like him all over our community and yours. They have screwed up their lives with alcohol, drugs, dropping out, and getting arrested; but they still believe in the American dream. They believe that if they sacrifice and work hard and do what we tell them to do then they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and achieve all of their goals. Because this is America, goshdarnit!
They believe that. They really do.
You know the stories of extraordinary men and women went from nothing all by themselves, the extraordinary people who made a decision to improve themselves and never looked back. Those stories are extraordinary, i.e., they're not normal. NORMALLY when a man, like Eric, has nothing in this sinful world and he tries to do better on his own, then somebody comes along and takes what little he does Normally, he can’t do it on his own. He needs help.
The only way any of the Erics has a chance at becoming what we tell them they’re supposed to become is if the you’s and me’s are willing to spend some time and money on men and women who have nothing.
It’s exhausting, and annoying, and not cheap. (Did I mention the steak?) You’ve got other things to do, and you’ve got a head full of clichés to excuse you.
I guess this is where I should make some profound point.
Eric is the profound point.
The man who has nothing is A MAN. A man Jesus thought was worth dying for.
What’s he worth to you?
Lord, when did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ (Matthew 25: 38-40)
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director of
rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
#Awordtothewise
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