Epic Trip Out West, Day Forty-Eight: Homeless

Right now, I don’t have time to tell you, dear readers, about everything that I saw today, everything I experienced as I trekked around Tucson, chugging water and eating dino fruit snacks and soaking up the distinctly non-St.-Louis, non-west-coast feel of this unique town. Neither do I have time to give Saguaro National Monument its due attention. So I’ll stick with the experiences that had the most impact on me today: meeting homeless people.

I gave one a granola bar, another some peanuts, and a third one of my water bottles. One man, his earth-brown skin crinkled with age, looked deep into my eyes with a warm and bloodshot gaze, and told me with an earnest smile (even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t say “sorry”), “Don’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ People who say ‘I’m sorry’ are sorry people. Say, ‘I apologize for being wrong.’ Remember that!” he said with a grin missing a couple of teeth. “Listen to the old guys— they know what they’re talking about.”

While I waited for the white walking symbol at a light, a man approached me, wearing a brown jacket and holding a cardboard sign with neatly-written words in marker: “Homeless Need Food Please Help.” Before he could even open his mouth, I blurted out, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money to spare.” 

“Oh, I don’t need your money,” he said, getting the signal that I wouldn’t give him anything. “I just want your smile!”

I promptly removed my sunglasses and flashed him the biggest grin I could manage. He grinned back and extended his hand, which was clean, with only a little dirt under the fingernails. “I’m Tony. I’m from California.”

“I’m Lisa, and I’m from St. Louis.” The light changed green, and I wished him good luck. Not a block away in Santa Cruz River Park, I veered off-course to avoid a man leaned against a sentinel of decorative stone, screaming and swearing with the kind of foaming-at-the-mouth wrath that gave me the shivers. Not a half-block from him, however, four other homeless people, two men and two women, perched on the wall around the park, lounging like tumbleweeds on a still summer day. One of them called out to me, “Look at those cammo pants! You got style, girl!” and another said, “Come sit with us! We’re okay, we don’t mean no harm.” 

So I stopped, and I pulled off my sunglasses and I sat down on the white-hot sidewalk and asked them where they were from and what they were up to. The seeming leader of the group introduced himself as Daniel, a man in his fifties with wise gray eyes, hair starting to grow white, a tendency to repeat himself, and a determined pace to his Tennessee accent that kept him going even when other people interjected. A late middle-aged woman, her face lined and re-lined with worry and laughter and sunburn, rocked gently on her heels as she listened to the conversation. The other man and woman were a couple, the man at least twenty-five years older than his wife (“Age don’t matter,” he said, “age is just a number. We got love, and that’s what matters”). His wife, young and blonde and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, showed me a picture of their two-month old who had been taken away from them, named Augustine. He was adorable, and I told her so, and she beamed with more pride and love than I’ve seen in any other mother.

Daniel and his friend has served in the war, and now they found peace on the streets, “where everything’s controlled by the Big Man,” Daniel said, referring to God. “He’s in charge, I’m not in charge, he is. I served eighteen years, seven months, three days in the military. I love my country. Don’t you believe what the people say about us. We don’t mean no harm. We’re a family. There’s idiots, of course…”

“There’re always idiots, everywhere you go,” I said.

All four of them laughed. “Thank you!” Daniel said. “I like you. We’re friends.” He held out his clenched hand, and we fist-bumped.

I talked with them on the frying sidewalk for nearly half an hour, then bid them goodbye, politely refused to give them money, and exchanged “God bless!” with them. They’re people who have made a choice, people who are lost, people who have a skewed perspective of the world in which they live. But they’re children of God, and it was easier than ever to remember that today.

On my way back across the street, Tony called out with a huge grin, “Look, there’s that pretty lady!” And it occurred to me that if I really was living on the streets, I would have just made five new friends.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent today: $49.05 (Greyhound ticket from Tucson to Flagstaff— I’m heading out on Wednesday)

Deficit: $32.32