Persons who have been homeless carry within them a certain philosophy of life which makes them apprehensive about ownership. - Jerzy Kosinski
He approached me as I entered the food area at the Harrison Street Station in Chicago. He complimented my jacket and asked where I got it.
"I been wanting a jacket like that," he said. Then he shrugged. I told him I'd had it a while and that it served me well. He nodded, shrugged and again, and shuffled off.
The slow painful gait was one I understood. He moved like a man whose feet were swollen and had been giving him trouble. On the heavy side with sandy gray hair. Ash colored complexion, like he hadn't had a decent meal in a while... or, at any rate, with any regularity. The smell of rotten onion emanating from him caused people to break in front of him. Sometimes when people walk through a crowd -- it was midday, high traffic time -- the crowd with swallow them, ingest them, make them disappear. But there was no making Roger disappear. The wide swath he cut through the crowd of people waiting for buses to here and there and everywhere was visible and took more than a few seconds to disappear.
My bus wasn't scheduled to leave until 3:30 in the morning. 14 hours to wait. I'd had longer waits, and at least I wasn't going to get the bum's rush this time... though I kept my ticket handy and accessible in case the rent-a-cop (who couldn't carry a live firearm but was allowed a club-sized flashlight and a can of mace) and the off-duty Chicago cop(who did have a live firearm) decided to do a random ticket check. I bought a cup of watered down chili and coffee, sat down and ate it slowly, and read Walt Whitman. After I finished, I made my way over to the waiting area and found a seat, letting my m mind wander.
Roger came over and sat down not far from me. People started to move away almost immediately. He asked where I was going. We talked about different places we'd been. Roger had been out for several months, mostly in Illinois and Michigan. He was waiting for a bus -- his wasn't going to leave until 6 in the morning-- that would take him to Grand Rapids. Roger said there was a job rehabilitation program up there. That a friend of his went through the program and had found regular work. He told me he'd had trouble holding down a job.
"But I was on those meds," he said, shaking his head and pointing to his right temple. "Those things make me not right. In the head.
He was surprised to hear I didn't draw a crazy check. I can only assume it was the beard.
Not everyone had moved away at that point. But when he hoisted his foot up on the bench and removed his shoe... he wasn't wearing any socks... the remaining few moved away. Roger was sitting on my right. To my left, a young mother and her daughter, who was around four years old, were busy trying pack clothes from old shopping bags into two small suitcases. They were the kind sold at the depot at an exorbitant price. I could tell the mother wasn't happy about having to transfer; I can only assume that one of the ticket agents informed her she had too much to carry on and it was too loosely packed to go under the bus. The little girl was having more fun, playing extreme wack-a-mole with her clothes in an attempt to make room in one of the suitcases for her stuffed animals.
Once Roger took his shoes off, the mother rushed through the repacking job, tried to fold up the the shopping bags -- the little girl had a good time tearing one of them into pieces -- and hurried off, leaving a semi-smushed loaf of bread.
Roger's feet and legs were swollen and covered with a red, flaky rash. He complained of the itching, how he'd gone to the emergency room and they didn't really help him. After asking a few questions, I thought maybe he'd picked up a bad case of scabies; he said he picked up whatever it was in shower at a men's shelter.
"Do you think she's coming back for that bread?"
"Oh,I doubt it."
He asked if I wanted it. I told him I wasn't interested in it. He hemmed and hawed about it, talked about his feet. Talked about Grand Rapids. He asked if I thought it was a good idea for him to go there. I told him it sounded fine, as long as he had shelter for the winter. He asked what I thought he should do about his feet. I didn't know what to tell him,but I suggested calamine lotion for the itch. He talked about being a truck driver and working at a meat packing plant. One eye was always on the loaf of bread. A few times he asked if I would hand it to him and then changed his mind.
My legs were getting stiff and I wanted to move around, so I told Roger I was stepping out for a smoke. When I finished, I found a piece of floor in front of the gate, stretched out, and took a nap. When I woke up, Roger came over and talked to until it was time for me to board the bus. I told him to take care of himself, stay warm. We shook hands. Roger smiled and stood a little straighter. The rent-a-cop and off duty pig eyed me, but didn't comment.