Almost every day starts with a long walk. Friday morning, I found myself exploring the lesser traveled neighborhoods of Grand Rapids, and about three miles out, I bought a bottle of water and sat on the sidewalk in front of the convenience store for a few minutes to drink it. The moment I sat, he spotted me and started across the parking lot.
“Hey, brother … you mind if I join you?”
“Be my guest,” I said, gesturing to the sidewalk beside me.
He sat down and opened the dirty plastic bag he’d been carrying. He pulled out a beer. It was 7:30 in the morning.
He was obviously homeless, and I was waiting for the ask. Why else would he approach me? I never carry a wallet when I’m exercising; I had about thirty-five cents left over in my pocket.
The ask never came.
“The cops don’t show up here as much as they used to,” he informed me.
“Oh?”
“No. They moved their substation a little further down the road. Now we call this place the Easy-to-Rob.” He laughed and looked at me knowingly. The store was actually called Quik-N-Easy.
“It used to be a Seven Eleven,” he said. “But now it’s not. We call it Easy-to-Rob because it gets robbed so often.”
He took a sip of his beer. His leathery hands had sores on them. I wondered how long he’d been on the streets.
“Oh,” I said. “I hadn’t heard that. I’m not from around here.”
“You’re not? Where are you from?”
“Well, that’s hard to tell, because I’ve been a lot of places. I guess I’m from Maryland, but I’m on my way to Colorado.”
“Oh! You’re doing one of these, are you?” He stuck out his thumb as if hitchhiking. That’s when I suddenly understood why he hadn’t asked for money. He saw me sitting on the sidewalk, wearing a ratty ball cap and t-shirt, and he figured I was eking out a living on the streets, just like him. He didn’t want money; he just wanted company.
“No, I’ve got transportation,” I told him, not wanting to spoil the moment by telling him I’d be flying.
“Ah,” he said. Another swig of morning beer. “I’m originally from Canada,” he said.
“No kidding! Me too.”
He looked at me, surprised. “I’m from B.C.,” I told him.
“I’m from Ontario, from Windsor,” he volunteered. “There are a lot of great strip clubs there.” He smiled broadly, assuming I’d be impressed with his gritty worldliness. It wasn’t an attempt to be crude; he was using guy talk, trying to find some sort of common ground. Judging by his appearance, I doubted that anybody had let him into a strip club in a very long time.
I smiled back. “I’m not really into that stuff. I’m a married man.”
“Ahh! You gave up all your freedoms, did you?”
“Quite happily,” I said. “I’ve been married more than twenty years.”
He whistled and looked me over. “How old are you?” he asked.
“I’ll be 45 in a couple of months.”
He paused and looked me over once more. “You’re almost the same age as me!” he said, in disbelief. “I’m forty-six!”
It was my turn to be surprised. He easily looked twenty years my senior, maybe more. The thought crossed my mind: at some point, we looked about the same age. Maybe when we were ten, but at some point, neither one of us would have been surprised at the other’s age.
We sat and looked at each other for a few moments, both of us obviously contemplating the visible results of the lives we were leading. His hard living had aged him dramatically, and he was perhaps realizing it for the first time: other forty-somethings don’t look like him.
But he wasn’t the only one staring in the mirror this morning. I suddenly saw how jaded life can make a man. In my world, everybody is on the take. When somebody approaches me, more often than not, they want something. It’s been my life for decades: People want a book endorsement, or they want to appear on a broadcast, or they want me to come and speak at their event, or … something. Very few people want to just hang out. Almost nobody wants mere friendship. You erect barriers after a while. But this guy? He just wanted to share a bit of sidewalk with me. He had no idea who I am, or what I do, or what kind of life I lead. He just saw another guy sitting on the sidewalk and he wanted some company.
We sat and talked for a while. He’d managed to procure an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. He’d been in Michigan for years now. He could cross the US/Canadian border with ease because he has his status card and can cross on the reservation. As we talked, an amazing thing happened. We built a one-morning friendship that was deeper than some I’ve had for years. I had thought he was going to ask me for something; instead, he gave me the one only thing he still owns in this world: himself. Unreservedly. With no expectation of a pay-out.
I’ve worked in all sorts of destitute places. I’ve traveled third-world nations, bringing badly-needed humanitarian aid. I frequent bad neighborhoods on my morning walks. But I’m usually the white knight, riding in to save the day – or the preacher, coming with answers – or the working man with change to spare. It’s not every day that I am admitted to the privilege of being considered an equal on a homeless man’s sidewalk.
I made the visit last as long as possible.
And then it was time to go. I had appointments to keep, and miles of walking to reach them. “Thanks for sharing the morning with me,” I said, holding out my hand. I only wished I’d had something to give him for all he’d just given me. But I told myself that maybe it would have ruined everything if I’d actually had twenty bucks to give him—it would have roughly moved us onto different social strata again. He took my hand in his street-weathered, sore-covered hand and shook it vigorously.
“What was your name?” I asked.
“Dan,” he said.
“I’m Shawn,” I replied, “thanks for hanging out with me this morning. You just made my whole day better.”
No wonder Jesus loved hanging out with the sidewalk crowd.
From Shawn Boonstra Voice of Prophecy blog
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