I Think I Missed My Calling

There’s something about me, I’m not sure what it is exactly, that draws the attention of the chosen few who are either mentally challenged, homeless, depressed or just looking for someone to tell their story to. I’m approached mostly in a bar scene, but that’s not to say the limit is within the confines of a tavern. I have talked sad people into a smile, held the hand of a man who needed the aid of paramedics for mental reasons, changed the outlook of an older couple who had been married for 50 years and, just recently, heard the story of how a homeless man had become the way he is today, just to name a few. I think I missed my calling; I should have been a psychologist. I don’t know how they find me or why they tell me their stories. I guess I look like someone who will listen. But I often think there are lessons I need to learn from each of these people. I learned a hard lesson very long ago that if someone needs to talk, let them, it could literally be the difference between life and death.

Here are a few true accounts of happenings that occur in my life quite often.

Jimmy the Homeless Man

Last night after a long hard day of work, we my boyfriend and I, decided to go out for a few beers to unwind. During the evening sometime, a man came and sat next to me and with a toothy grin he said “hello, my name is Jimmy and I’m homeless”. Just like that. I politely smiled back, said hello and went back to my conversation. A minute later, I feel a little tap on my shoulder as Jimmy asked to bum a cigarette. I obliged and he began to tell me his story.

Jimmy is, as you can imagine, a skinny, scruffy, 60 something man who walks with a cane and wears Rosary Beads around his neck to remind him of his faith. He wore a tattered red sweatshirt and blue jeans that were maybe a size or two too big for him. I noticed that every time he felt some embarrassment or discomfort during our conversation, he would grab on to the cross and hold it tightly for just a few seconds. He has a small duffle bag which holds the contents of his life. He told me he used to have a sleeping bag but the police took it away. He said that in the six months he’s been homeless, he had been sent to the detention center twice for loitering. He said they treated him very badly there and he’s trying to stay hidden so he doesn’t have to go back. With a small tear beading up in his eye, he said other then bad decisions and wrong choices throughout his life, he’s never been a criminal or hurt anyone in any way. When I asked him about shelters, he laughed, nervously, and said that all the shelters were full and always turn him away. He said, “They don’t want my kind there, if you know what I mean”. I didn’t get what he saying so I asked him what he was meant by “my kind”. He said in a whisper, “unless you are Hispanic, black or an illegal, they don’t let you in. I wondered if there was any real truth to that. I disagreed silently and didn’t want to tell him that I thought he wasn’t being all that truthful but I let it go. I felt he was embarrassed to go to a shelter and I didn’t want to make him feel anymore awkward then I could tell he was feeling as he grabbed the cross again. The conversation seemed to last for hours.

At this point, my boyfriend was getting a little antsy so he played a few slow songs on the juke box and grabbed me to dance with him. I felt very lucky to have him in my arms at that moment. After all, years of being together, sometimes that feeling falls to the wayside. When we got back to our seats, Jimmy turned to me and said “Now that’s what life is all about, don’t ever give it up ‘cause you don’t know what you got ‘til it gone forever”. He went on to tell me other little tidbits of his life including how he hadn’t seen his son since the boy was 14 and was now grown with children of his own; again, with watery eyes. On his key ring he carries a small ring with two hearts that belonged to his wife once in another lifetime. It was now getting late and time to head home. As we got up to leave, he shook my hand with a big smile on his face and thanked me for the conversation. He said you don’t meet many people in this world that you can talk to and that I was one of a kind. I don’t think Jimmy sitting next to me in that bar was an accident by any means, I think he was there for a reason. I feel that my own life probably needed a wake up call and it came in the form of a lonely homeless man. Ah, lesson learned. Thanks Jimmy.

The Story of Jim and Lil

Quite some time ago, maybe seven or eight years, I was in a bar having a few drinks when my attention was drawn to an older couple sitting a few stools away. Seemingly, the couple had been married for many, many years. Both were disheveled in appearance, she was not made up and didn’t seem to keep herself well groomed and was looking extremely sad and depressed while he, a nasty old man, also not well kept sat beside her and repeatedly belittled and berated her out loud so all the bar could hear. She was very quiet and just sat there sipping on her drink as if she had been listening to this her whole life. At one point, he was yelling in her face, saying that she was boring him and was totally worthless. I just couldn’t sit there another minute listening to this so I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong.

I looked past him and directly at her and asked if she was happy and was ok with this tyrant speaking to her that way. She looked at him as to ask if she could reply and said, “Honey, you get used to it after fifty years together, you’ll see”. I replied with “oh hell no”. With that I picked up my drink and went and sat beside her and started asking them both questions to try to get a feel for where they we coming from. He was completely jovial and happy with me sitting there, cracking jokes and acting as if he was the nicest guy in the world. As our conversation continued, I started questioning why he treated her this way. I asked if her loved her, he said “Oh yes, with all my heart”. I asked if he thought he treated her the way she ought to be treated. He, to my surprise, said “oh no, she deserves much better. She raised our children with virtually no help from me; she cooks, cleans and takes care of me”. He continued “but I worked hard and kept a roof over her head and she wouldn’t be anything without me.” I then asked why he would treat her like that and added the fact that couples each have a role in the relationship and should always be treated with respect. She doesn’t owe you anything, I said. He explained he just like to joke around with her that way. Now clearly, he was NOT joking with her and she was not happy with the way she was being treated but maybe afraid to ever speak her mind. And, I’m sorry, but you don’t talk to the women you claim to “love with all your heart” in that manner. I asked of her, what if things were different? What if he was nicer to you? I also told her she didn’t deserve this kind of treatment and should think about herself for once and stand up to him. Long story short, and with that said, she turned to him and said “I’m not going to take this anymore”, picked up her drink and moved to a table. To my surprise (once again) she yelled across the bar, “If you want me, you’ll have to change your ways or I won’t be coming home tonight”. WOW, I thought to myself, I should have just kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to break up a marriage. So now in my head, I’m thinking I have to fix this. It was none of my business in the first place. But, before I could get out another word, Jim went over to her, and said “Well Lil, what if I promise to try harder and treat you better, will you come home then, for cryin’ out loud?” I chuckled under my breath at that. She said she would give him the time he needed and that she wouldn’t leave. So, I decided to leave it at that and go back to my on place at the bar and let them work it out. We finished our drinks and left. There was much more said that night but too much for this short story.

About a few months later, we just so happened to stop in that same bar and sure as anything, there was Jim and Lil sitting at the end of the bar. Only this time there was laughing, dancing and hugging. Lil looked beautiful, with make-up on and all dressed up. They were with a few other people just having a good old time. She must have seen me walk in because she ran over, gave me a big hug, grabbed my hand and said there’s was somebody she had wanted me to meet. Jim hugged me like I was his best friend who he hadn’t seen in a long time. Lil turned to another man who was standing next to her and said “this is the girl I was telling you about.” She introduced me to her son, who shook my hand with a big smile said “so you’re the one responsible for this? Thank you, I haven’t seen my parents this happy in a long time.” My response was that they did it all on their own, I had nothing to do with it. But it did make my day to see them so happy. Unfortunately, that night it was my turn for having a bad night. I said nothing but I guess Lil sensed something was wrong so before I left the bar that night, she pulled me aside, handed me a catholic saint scapular and told me that I looked a little down and this will get me through anything as it did her. She said to hold on to it until I didn’t need it anymore then pass it on to someone who I think needs it. That I did. I guess the lesson I could take from is respect. Not only should we respect the people in our lives but first and foremost, ourselves.

Poor Scott

Once again, in a bar, there sitting across from me was a man sitting alone who had a far away look in his eye and was being ignored by others whom he tried to start a conversation with. As I sat there with my friends, minding my own business, he directed his eyes to me and started talking. I couldn’t quite here what he was saying over the noise but I felt bad so I went over to the other side to hear what he was saying.

He had a glazed over look about him and a bit of a slur, otherwise clean cut looking. It wasn’t a drunken slur though; it was more of a mentally challenged slur. I could clearly see, just by looking in his eyes, that the man was troubled, lonely and had some issues so I pulled up a chair and sat beside him. He went on to tell me that his dad had died the week before as he was Scott’s only caretaker. He told me that his mother has passed away some time ago and for many years, it had just been him and his dad. He mentioned he stopped taking his medication because his dad usually handled that for him. He started to cry saying how much he missed his father and how he didn’t know if he could go on without him. As we were talking, the bartender rudely came over, interrupted us and said to him, “Ok, you got to go”. I was a little pissed off with the bartender because Scott was not hurting anyone and was nursing only one drink the entire time he was sitting at the bar. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t being belligerent or anything. We were just talking. We sat for a while longer talking about all kinds of things when the bartender came over once again telling him he had to leave. When I asked the bartender why, he said he’s nuts, we don’t like crazy people coming in here and he has to pay for all his drinks. What a jerk, I thought. Now I know the man only had the one drink that was still in front of him and he also had a $20.00 dollar bill sitting on the bar. I pushed the money toward the bartender and was told it wasn’t enough. What I didn’t know at that moment was that the bartender had called the cops. Scott and I just kept on talking. He had stopped crying now and was just telling me about all the things he would miss about his dad and what they used to do and so on.

A few minutes later, from the corner of my eye, I see the police come into the establishment and start walking in our direction. He begged me not to let them take him. He started crying again and saying how sorry he was that he’s been so much trouble all his life, and that he just wanted to be able to talk to his dad one more time. I took his hand and told the cops that I would bring him outside and not to touch him. I was the only person he was trusting at that moment and I didn’t want to see him put in a worse position than he was already in. I whispered to the police that he was having some mental issues, missed his meds and just lost his dad and he would need some direct care.

We walked outside hand in hand as he looked only into my eyes as not to see what was going on around him. I assured him that no one was going to take him to jail (as the police had assured me) and that he was just going to get the help he needed. The police were nice enough to let me talk to him for as long as I needed to make sure he was ok to go where he needed to go. The whole bar was now outside watching this. Incidentally, my boyfriend ended up paying his tab because the bartender was being such a …you know what. The bartender claimed that he had had a $60.00 tab. There’s no way he owed that much. Talk about taking advantage!

So Scott and I sat on the curb for about another half hour until he was ready to go. I wrote my phone number on his hand for him to call me to let me know when he was feeling better. He actually called about a week or so later, very upbeat and lucid telling me that his boss held his job for him and that he would be getting out of that place very soon. He said he couldn’t wait to bring flowers to his fathers’ grave. He asked me to come visit him in the rehab center and also wanted to buy me dinner for helping him out that night. I chose not to but I later learned that he was back on his medication, self sufficient and was working a normal job. I felt badly for not going to visit him as I know he could have used a friend but I felt he was getting the help he needed. Maybe it was a little selfish of me but I have had enough of my own problems to deal with in life and didn’t feel it would benefit either of us to become anything more that what it was that night. I never spoke to him again but I sure hope he’s doing well. I guess what I can take from this experience is that sometimes we just need someone to hold our hand so we can make it through the tough spots; if only for a brief moment.

My Friend Jack (God rest his soul)

I once had a friend named Jack. I’m going back many, many years. Jack was a lost soul who was having a really hard time trying to get over his divorce and move on with his life. He had a bunch of other problems as well. He had a teenage son who was such a good kid; very polite, just a nice all around boy. Jack was a good looking, tall, thin man with sandy blond hair who kept himself in great shape. I was a bartender at that time and he had been a patron at my bar. I didn’t know him very long before we became friends. I was engaged at the time but Jack and I had a connection on another level. He and I had become very close friends and would tell each other our problems and life stories. He would call me or come over all the time just to talk things out. He and I would occasionally take the kids, my three and his son, out to get ice cream or bowling or wherever on Saturday afternoons. Jack had eventually turned to drugs because he just couldn’t get his life back together. I guess it was easier to get high instead of dealing with life head on and sober. We talked a lot about how he needed to clean up to be able to move forward and how he wasn’t doing the right thing for his son and lots of things like that. You name it, we talked about it.

One night, my husband to be, myself and some other friends were in an after hours club when someone came up to me telling me that Jack was outside and needed to talk to me. That it was very important and it just couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I turned to my boyfriend and told him what was going on and that Jack needed to speak with me for just a minute. He turned to me and said that if I go out there to talk to Jack, then he and I were through. He was very jealous of the friendship that Jack and I had developed. There was absolutely nothing to be jealous of except maybe the fact that Jack and I had a friendship that he just couldn’t understand. I was very much in love with my husband to be at the time so I told another friend to go out and tell Jack that I promise I would call him in the morning. That was a very bad judgment call on my part. I hated saying that because I knew that if he came all the way to the club and sent someone in for me, it had to be important.

The next morning I woke up to the phone ringing. It was a friend crying telling me that Jack had killed himself the night before. He shot himself in his car. I can’t even say in words just how horrible I felt at that moment. Images of his poor son flashed before my eyes. I couldn’t stop crying. To this day I will never get over it. What kind of person was I? Why did I listen to the boyfriend (who turned out to be a jerk) and why didn’t I just excuse myself and go out and talk to Jack? I know he would not have killed himself if I had just gone outside that night. I questioned myself and my actions for a long time. From that moment to the present day, I will always listen to my gut and do what I feel is the right thing to do. I guess Scott, Jim and Lil and homeless Jimmy and many others benefited from my friend Jack as I will always be an ear if someone needs it. Many hard lessons were learned during that time of my life. I miss you, Jack (R.I.P). I’m a better person for having known you.