Part 1
One night this summer in Midtown Manhattan I couldn't sleep. I was restless. So around 2AM I went out for a walk. It was drizzling and chilly. I put on a full length black flowy skirt and a black sweater turtle neck. I put my hair in a ponytail, put on some black flats, grabbed a red and black umbrella and hit the streets. I had no intentions, except to escape the apartment and my cooped up thoughts. I crossed the street whenever I had the light and turned a corner wherever it felt like I was following the flow of least resistance.
I paused on the corner of 41st. I had been walking relatively empty streets, but knew as I approached 42nd St I would be making the choice to enter more crowded territory. My night of solitude might lose its quality of introspection and turn to disgust if I encountered people in the setting of 24/7 consumption of fast food and clothes and stuff and stuff.
But I wasn't there yet, on the corner of 41st I was on the block of bus parking and the whale mural, and the belly dancing bar, but that was unobtrusive. The sidewalk had that film noir quality of the lamplight being reflected in the puddles. Behind me, but on the other side of the street walked an amber-dark coffee colored skinned man, bearded, wearing a white tank top and sagging jeans carrying only a cardboard box and blinking out the rain. He paused also on the corner. He turned to see me looking at him. He pointed and asked if 42nd St was in that direction.
"Yes," I replied and smiled, "What are you looking for?"
He wiped his face, "Uh, the bus station."
"Which bus are you looking for? There are two port authority buildings. There's an old and a new building, but both have buses."
"The 42nd street one. I'm homeless and there's a place I heard about."
"Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. The entrance on 8th avenue. Why don't I walk with you to make sure you find it?"
I can't remember exactly what happened. But I believe I ushered him under my umbrella and we started walking toward 8th avenue. In some sequence I can't recall, we exchanged names, he asked me where my rosary was, what I was doing, did my my parents know where I was. He told me about how he was looking into getting off the streets. We stopped at one spot under the bridge between buildings, which he said would be fine.
He asked where I went to church and if he could call me sometime. I asked where he went to church, he said the Times Square Church, and I told him I'd been there for Bible Study and was actually planning on going to the Friday fellowship tomorrow. I told him he should come and I would see him there. He didn't have paper, but he had a small psalm book in his box, and I had a pen. So inside the front cover I wrote my name and number and "Friday Fellowship," so he would remember why I was giving him my number. As I was about to say goodbye, he said he'd rather go to the other side of the building. He just wanted to put his box down to rest his arms. I sympathized that his box must be heavy.
"May I carry it for you?" I asked.
He grinned.
"You wanna carry my box for me?"
I picked up his box and as we started walking he draped his arm around me. He told me I made him think of his daughter and about a book he wrote called "Destiny." More and more, I started to think he was a little out of his mind. But I couldn't stop smiling. I thought we must look like an unusual couple and I could feel the crowd staring as we turned the corner on 8th avenue and started walking towards 42nd st.
We stopped again, now at a set of stairs with many other nomads. I put down his box, and made a little speech in preparation to depart. He asked me where I was going. I lied and said a friends house, afraid if I said I was walking around with no place to be he'd insist I stay with him. As friendly as he'd been and as delighted as I was to talk with him and make him smile, I was also growing equally nervous. He hadn't said or done anything salacious. But his eagerness was mounting, and the comment about his daughter had slightly shocked me.
He asked if he could walk with me. I said politely that I'd rather walk alone, but thank you. I was afraid I might upset him, but he continued smiling and said "I'll be here all night", "you know where to find me."
I crossed the street without lingering, not quite sure if he'd follow me. When I was certain enough that I'd gone far enough in one direction, I made my way back, a little uneasy expecting I might see him again.
I had been touched when I hugged him, it was a kind of hug, that made me think he hadn't been hugged in a long time. I felt some sort of perhaps naive missionary joy thinking I'd given him a vision of God's love or something.
But the evening was tainted. It wasn't a perfect service of love. I hugged him, walked with him, and carried his box, but our communication was jumbled with his randomness. And I thought of his daughter, if she existed, and how much pain must be involved to have a father like him, as sweet as he seemed.
He was just slightly out of his mind and living on the street, and I couldn't fix that.
Before I returned to apartment 5D that night . . . I would encounter a couple more eager and lonely men.
