"I love the thought of sleeping on a bunch of feathers", he said to himself as his mind whirled with the thoughts of all the birds he's seen in his life through his eyes and pictures on the side of the buildings in the city, carefully choosing which ones he would pluck and stuff a bed with. He's talked to himself more and more as the months have gone on, more wanting to remember how to talk than anything. A man of his lowly stature doesn't take any words from strangers lightly, in fact, he plunges himself within them. He carefully decides that each word must mean something specific that trails so quickly through a person's mind. Maybe being called "dirty soul" is better than "dirty slob". Wondering who chose to make the sidewalks so grey and dull, he laid in his current "bed", his mind wondering and wandering, and fell asleep. He knows his world has crashed. He dreams about it every night.
When he's awake he starts to think about how he loves people who offer food and shelter, but has started to hate the patronizing talk of "I give you food and shelter, now give me conversation so I can shrug my problems off by saying I'm not as bad as him." He told me "When I think about it, that was probably what got me so interested in people's direct words. Yeah, that was it. I thought maybe I could help others who were so desperately trying to put me in a worse position than them, so that they could be in a good one. I noticed people would actually put me down more when they tried to help. That's how these thoughts arose. I had plenty of time to think then, and thinking gets you everywhere sometimes." I love his thought process. It's so understanding. He sees straight through almost everyone who he has a relationship with (which for him takes 5 minutes or seeing you on the street ten times). The relationship starters don't have to be spoken, maybe someone passed his street everyday in the same car for the past month. He might notice them(although he admitted women were much easier to notice) everyday, just seeing the small emotions you have.
Not only does he see the good and bad, he decides maybe there's a reason she, this specific, wonderful girl, is how she is. She loves to have music on, but it's always quiet. Wait, scratch that, she only had it quiet on most days. Other days she had it blaring, and she would roll down the windows, doing her cutest wave for the construction workers, singing for all to hear that she's off key. She even talked to him for two seconds, although if it was "Please move, friend." He counted those seconds, trying to make them last, sent his brain inside the thoughts of her wave and song. He enjoyed those few days more than any others. She was happy, he was happy. He wasn't trying to be creepy, and it wasn't just her, nor was it just women. No, it was everyone, even if they weren't going to be all for one he was going to be one for all.
Little, long and often impossible to follow trains of thought run their course through his brain. They never ended though. The course always had a repeat button, at least back then. He loved it. He could rethink everything, sometimes getting new insights. He had plenty of time, without a job that took thought. He worked at some local sub place. He liked to call it his "Mom and Pop Sandwich Shop". They were thankfully nice enough to give him a job. He was dirty though, so they let him use the shower in the back before work, that way he didn't drive away too much business.
It was worth it, for the "Mom" of the sandwich shop. He's often told me to go and get a sandwich from her on the corner of 7th and King. Mom loved to talk to him, and this is where, sadly, the patronizing talk started. She was, quite obviously to him, a person who assumed she had more problems than the rest of the world combined. That sent him into a darker time. Not much darker, that would be near impossible, but it was still there. Anytime he couldn't understand his relationships, it drove him crazy. People have always talked to him about stuff that they've been going through. He seemed to have that pull on people, and he could always tell everyone else who had the same curse, or maybe the same blessing, but he didn't know what it was then. The ones who had the same condition, maybe that was best word for it, would be more watchful of people. They would notice when someone tripped, maybe help them up or help pick up something. That could change a start of a bad day to the start of a good day for someone. We all wish that when we fell someone would pick our stuff up for us, or at least not step all over it. No one likes to give a report on the financial downfall of the company and have the report marred and mucked with brown footprints. He loves those people who do help. Empathizes with their condition. Sometime the condition only lasts for a few seconds, like if it's something that you've gone through, and you know without fault exactly what's happening. The condition, for him, never turned off, however. He learned more and more about people as he was without a home or enough money to do much. He had all the time in the world, and of course he had bibles, along whatever else people would give away that was free.
He always had bibles. The local churches always gave bibles away to homeless people. A throng of people following the pastor, priest, rabbi, minister, reverend, etc. would watch the leader of whatever church with the very churchy name give the bible and pray for a minute before leaving with his followers never to be seen again to follow up on what he started. The leader never seemed to have a plan. He/She always seemed to decide that the Bible alone was enough to get the job done. The bibles were holding up his rain cover/ heat insulator in his alley. That was really just syran rap and tin foil that he stole from the Mom and Pop sandwich shop. Stole, however, can be a relative term. They sent him out to get things all the time, and then they "forgot" to pay him back until he caught them with their checkbook out. Mom would go off on a rant about how maybe they should get rid of cable, or internet, or phone, or maybe they should just get rid of that giant TV and just get one that is decent and you can read subtitles if you need them.
He always thought of what a inconvenience that would be for a routine to be interrupted. His routine hold more of a not-existent role in life. It exists in theory, he likes to think the mind goes through things on a track and will be like any CD you've ever listened to - planned in advance. Each track is a chance, and he believes that he's been given chances. His old job was one chance he gave up. It wasn't his fault, that was the day he decided to read the Bible. He thought just maybe there's a reason people so blindly follow the leader of churches when they are just as much in fault as the followers, so he read. His reading ended in the bursting of a street lamp. Sudden, abrupt, and just off timing. Jesus' speeches often led him one way until you got to the end, when the light in his brain would suddenly burst.. The end can be just as the lamp burst: sudden and abrupt, but in contradiction to the lamp, has perfect timing. He read the part that said Jesus is without fault, and he keeps trying to understand the people who wrote the Bible, who are never supposed to change opinions with each other, at least not within the book collection that we call the Bible. That day, however, he just decided he would read, and try whatever it said. This time he read the part that said he must not do ten things. Specifically, he "shalt" not lie. Lying is some terrible sin he can never do, so he went to work with this new knowledge.
His Job was hard. Every day he dealt with people. A lot of them. The people were frustrated and bothered. He used to be a computer technician, when that kind of a thing was common. He went to one specific house, in which case a large, angry man was telling him that his computer is a stupid, heaping pile of crap, until our friend plugged the computer in and decided this large man was not worth a three hour drive.
There was another complaint in the area, however, and of course, he was already bothered by the point he reached the second house. He went to the apartment door of this new complainer, whom he now labeled as a whiny idiot who knew nothing about anything and needed to get a book and read for once. After he got frustrated that's how he saw everyone. When this whiny idiot asked how to bring up a game they had bought,the first thing that had to be asked was
"Have you tried to install it?"
"I thought I should just wait until you got here"
"Why?"
"You're a technici-"
He decided they deserved the truth, as the Bible intended.
"and I'm very busy, download it yourself you stupid, inconsiderate and clearly illiterate person who can't even read the directions because it would be inconvenient."
He lost it. The whiny idiot line came out a few times after this as well. A formal complaint, this time about customer service, was filed, and he was fired. Swiftly. He had to blame something, so the Bible was first on his list, after that it was the corporate system being flawed, but not until his butt hit the curb of 8th and king on June 19th, one of the hottest days on record in that city, did he realize it wasn't anyone's fault but his own. This man was finally humble, all it took was unfulfilled car payments, house payments, furniture payments, electric, heating, water, etc. Everything he needed compounded on the month after he was fired. His final paycheck made sure that he would be able to frantically search for a job during a month when there wasn't one to be found anywhere he's ever heard of. He had to go to the streets, and it was all their fault, right?
Somehow he got out of that thought process. He knows now that it was mostly his fault and that maybe if he read more than one verse he would have known that he needs to be humble and know that not everyone is as lucky as him. He learned that last one while he was actually on the streets. He knew that he could be in perfect health as soon as he died. Heaven holds not sickness nor pain, and he couldn't wait to get there.
Oh, his name is and was Greg.
