Tempting

His ragged cardboard sign read, “NEED FOOD – PLEASE HELP.” He indeed looked hungry—dirty, skinny, even feeble. I had seen him—or others like him—many times at this intersection under an overpass. I never give anything to those beggars. I have been suckered too many times. A recent neighborhood chat room proclaimed that these people are not truly homeless. “They just don’t have jobs. It is more profitable for them to beg than to labor all day. At the end of the day, they get into their cars and drive home.” I suspect there is no data to substantiate such a claim; it is simply the complainer’s own contempt and wishful thinking. Still, I always feel a tinge of guilt and try not to look them in the eye while I wait for the light to change so I can drive away.

But this time something struck me, a face devoid of emotion, a bleak mood that somehow affected me. I was tempted—not to hand over cash, but perhaps to at least to talk to this man and see if he would share his story. I rolled down my window and he limped over. “Are you really hungry?” I asked.

He nodded, deadpan. “Yeah, I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”

“I’ll tell you what. ‘You see that restaurant over there on the corner? If you meet me there, I’ll buy you lunch.”

He hesitated, looked over at the restaurant, observed the empty seat next to me, shrugged, said “Okay,” and walked away.

It took me a couple minutes to get parked and to find him standing with a backpack near the restaurant’s door. The receptionist looked suspiciously at us, but she led us both to a booth. “Order whatever you want,” I told him.

After placing our orders (his was not extravagant), I got down to business. “If you don’t mind sharing, I would like to know a little bit about you. My name’s Bob, by the way. I’ve seen you around this neighborhood before. I promise I won’t share anything you tell me with police or anybody else you don’t want to know.”

He hesitated, but told me his name. (I’ll call him Max – not his real name.) Max didn’t seem to want to talk.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to tell me anything, but I really do want to understand how we’ve come to be facing each other today. I’m not here to judge you. I only want to understand you.” His distrust seemed to dial down a notch.

“What do you want to know?”

“Feel free to tell me – or not tell me—anything. Like, how old are you?”

He looked at me for almost a minute, silently evaluating, and then apparently trusting me enough to say, “Thirty-two.”

“Are you homeless? Where do you sleep?”

Again, a moment of hesitation. “I try to sleep where nobody can see me, usually outside.”

“Do you have a tent?”

“Nope. Too much trouble. I only have what I can carry.” His weathered backpack sat on the seat next to him.

“Where are you from?”

Another narrowing of the eyes and a deliberate lowering of his head. “You mean recently?”

“You tell me.”

Now he looked up and closed his eyes, as though remembering. “I was born in a little town in west Texas. I don’t remember much about it. My mom and me, we moved a lot. I don’t remember nothin’ about my father. There were a lot of men in my life. Every time things got tough with one of ‘em, my mom would pack me up and we’d move to the next place. So, I guess you’d say, I’m from Texas.”

He had revealed more than I had expected. I had to choose my next words carefully to keep this door open. “Your mom must have loved you a lot.”

His face hardened and he stared directly at me. I was certain I had overstepped.

“No,” he said, and shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t say that at all. She was stuck with me, is all. I was nothin’ but a burden to her, especially when she was courting some guy.”

This time I was uncomfortable and not sure what to say next. “Do you still keep in touch?”

He studied his plate. “Nope. I ran away when I was sixteen. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I don’t care.”

Uncomfortable silence. “Where did you go?”

“No place particular. I had friends. I was still in school, and I wanted to finish. I can’t remember how many schools I’d been in. My friends would help me stay with them or with other people.”

“Friends are always good.” Empty platitudes.

His expression darkened. “Not always.”

Okay, should I follow up on this, or let it be? “Like how?” I finally asked.

Again, that stare. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough. Did you finish high school?”

“Barely. Nobody came to see me graduate. I enlisted in the army the next day.” He winced and pulled his hand down to his belly. Maybe that had brought back a bad memory.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Max dabbled at his lasagna. “It’s just a pain that I live with. Sometimes it reminds me it’s still there.”

“What’s still there? Do you have cancer or something?”

“Nothing like that. I have this piece of shrapnel that they couldn’t take out, so every once in a while, it stabs me.”

Awkward moment. “Well, thank you for your service.” Another platitude until I could think of what to say next. “You were injured in Afghanistan?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I let the topic go. “Do you have any other family?”

Max stopped chewing and looked past me. “Yeah” he said. “Sorta.”

“Sort of?”

He pursed his lips and avoided looking at me. “I was married once. I met Annie while I was in the army and fell in love. It was great, even though army life is tough. I have a little girl.” Max’s eyes watered. He closed them and he stopped eating or talking.

I stayed silent, afraid to disturb this moment. Finally, I asked quietly, “Where is she?”

“Annie? She died.” He said this dispassionately, as though telling me the temperature.

More awkward pause. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Max shrugged. “It is what it is.”

I asked the next obvious—but risky—question. “Where is your little girl?”

I wasn’t ready for his response. He set his silverware down, faced over his shoulder toward the ceiling, as big tears ran down his cheeks. “I don’t know.” He began to sob. He put his face in his hands and blubbered for about a minute while I waited, not knowing how to react. Finally, through sniffles, he continued.

“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I love that little girl. And I don’t know where they’ve taken her.”

“Who?”

“You know, CPS or whatever they call the foster organization.”

“She’s in a foster home? What is her name?”

“I don’t know if she’s in a home or an institution or what. I only know what I don’t know.” His tears were still flowing, and his eyes were red. “Her name’s Maxie.”

I felt uncertain about whether or how to comfort this man. I could only wait and listen.

“I’m sorry,” Max said again. “I didn’t mean to dump on you.”

“It’s alright. I asked for it. I want to hear your story. Please continue if you want to.”

It didn’t seem like Max wanted to continue. He had stopped eating and stopped talking, apparently lost in thought. Finally, he said, “I don’t know how to find her.”

I searched for something reassuring to say. “Maybe they’re trying to find you too. How would they find you?”

The question seemed to sober him. “I don’t know. They can’t find me. Nobody can find me. I don’t exist anymore.”

I smiled. “You do exist. I see you right here, a grown man loving his little girl.”

He almost smiled but didn’t say anything.

“There are organizations that can help you. Have you asked VA or anybody to assist you?”

“VA doesn’t want to help me much.”

“Really? Why is that? You’re a wounded veteran. I would think they would want to help you.”

He grimaced again, looking at my plate but seeing something else in his mind. After a long pause he said, “I have a ‘less than honorable discharge.’ That makes me less than human.”

My turn to be silent for a while. Finally, I said, “Is that something you can talk about?”

He shrugged. “I got in a fight with a guy. Hurt him pretty bad. He went to the brig. I got discharged.”

“He went to the brig? Did he start the fight?”

“Nope. He didn’t go there for fighting. He went for what he did. To Annie.”

I was stunned. My mind sizzled with all sorts of possibilities, and I was afraid to touch any of them. In the end, I simply waited for what seemed an awfully long time. Max had tears in his eyes again. Finally, he said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Fine.” I was grateful to change the subject and keep the conversation going, even though I really wanted to know what had happened to Annie. “So, after you got out, were you able to get a job?”

“Sometimes. Usually part-time, nothing permanent. I learned to be a pretty good mechanic in the army, but I had other issues.”

“Issues?”

“Yeah. One was all the pain meds the army had given me. Opioids. I couldn’t kick them. I still need them.” He winced again.

“What else?”

“Another was stability. I had jobs, but they didn’t pay enough for me to rent a place. Or if I did, I didn’t have money left over for anything else. After I missed the rent and got evicted a couple of times, nobody would rent to me again.

“The other was the bad conduct discharge. Not many people want to help somebody with a record like that, especially for a record of violence.”

I felt an involuntary fear pop up. I hoped my next words would sound gentle and not shaky. “Are you violent?”

He shrugged. “I guess you could say I have anger management issues.”

“Lots of people do. So do I, sometimes. Have you tried counseling?”

Max looked at me as though trying to remain patient with an inattentive child. “Have you? Do you know what those costs? Who’s going to pay for it. I already told you VA doesn’t care about me anymore.”

“I’m not so sure about that. VA helps a lot of vets with PTSD and drug dependency issues. Even some with felony prison records. You deserve assistance. What if I could direct you to somebody who could take your case to the VA? And, maybe even to Child Protective Services?

His face brightened slightly, hope and distrust conflicting in his mind. “Could you?”

“Yeah. I know an organization with an outreach program that could get you on a housing list, get you some medical help, some food, and guide you through the government maze.” I gave him a couple of minutes to digest this information, his struggle to trust and distrust.

“Would you?”

“Sure. Would you like me to take you there today?” The devil on my shoulder was shouting in my ear: Are you nuts? You’re going to let this vagrant get in the car with you? Alone? He already told you he gets violent! You’re tempting danger!

Max pondered some more, then said. “Okay” he smiled. And so did I.

An hour later I introduced Max to the folks at the assistance center, and left with the promise to check in on him from time to time.

His last words before I left: “Thank you for listening to me.”

Driving home, I couldn’t help feeling selfishly good about having given into the temptation to listen to another person. Temptation is not so bad.