Jesus the homeless gnome
There is a homeless guy that lives under the porch of a dilapitated home at the end of the alley next to work. The owner of this home is an old man who has not given in to spread of luxury cars and gut rehabbed homes that have long ago closed in on him. His home is crooked and sinking, his backyard looks like a scene from Alfred Hitchcocks Birds. A fake owl stares at me from over the wooden fence every morning as I make my death march into work. His front door has one of those no solicitor stickers on it although if i were selling girl scout cookies I wouldn't go within a mile of that place anyway. Why he allows a homeless man to live under his porch has always intrigued me. Are they relatives? If so, why can't he live inside? Are they friends? If so, same question along with how did they meet? I've seen them converse but not often. Rarely do you see the owner of the house. One of the few times I've spotted him was one afternoon on the way back to my car from work. In Wizard of Oz fashion I spied a pair of old fashioned white patent leather men's dress shoes sticking out from under a garage door. It looked like the garage had fallen on him, his feet were even twitching a bit. On second glance, I realized he must have been laying on the garage floor fixing something but it was an odd sight for sure. Back to the homeless man. I have worked at the corner of XXXX and XXXX for over six years and he has lived under (formerly ON the porch) for that whole time. I walk past him every morning so I know him a bit. His name is Jesus and he is Puerto Rican. He has really bad arthritis on his hands that hurt him in the cold. He is diabetic. He says he served in the armed forces at one point.He wears a bright yellow rain jacket in the spring. He rides a bicycle with a big reflector at the end of a pole. He has a beautiful singing voice, I kid you not. He seranaded me one day and I honestly thought someone had turned on a radio. He doesn't really ask for money unless you are already engaged in a conversation with him about something else. He knows I don't carry cash on me after I explained that I only use an ATM card to which he exclaimed how he wouldn't even know how to use one of those if he had one. I thought that was pretty cute. One day, years ago, he dumpster dived at the neighborhood Pier One and offered to sell me a candle holder he found. It had dragonflies on it and at the time I was into them so I bought it for two dollars. He proceeded to tell me how I could put colored tissue paper over the frosted glass under the iron dragonflies so that when you lit the candle the colors would glow. He's creative too, thats another thing I know about him. On another occasion, it was raining out and the puddles at the end of the alley tend to turn into mini-ponds because the sewer doesn't work very well. I saw Jesus peering into the big puddle mumbling something. As I got closer I heard him say "I am looking for that which is not there". I thought to myself, arent we all?
Over the years I've learned his patterns. In the morning he sits outside the dunkin' donuts where he is generally VERY well fed. He has a particulary area he walks where I'm sure he gets his lunch and dinner taken care of as well. As homeless people go, Jesus does very well here in Lakeview. Its the only reason I don't worry about him as much as I normally would. Just this week I noticed something that I realized has been going on for a long time. In the alleyways on top of the garbage cans of the fancy houses there are presents to Jesus. Discarded sweatshirts, boots, shower curtains... items clearly useful to someone living outside. Those people could put those things into bags and throw them away but they don't. They don't because they, like me, know Jesus. I'm sure they see their old shower curtain providing his rainproofed cardboard roof and figure its better to help someone than let it go to waste. They see him tooling around town on their like-new schwinn 10-speed and think about what other "trash" they will leave propped up next to their garbage cans next week. This morning, I saw the box of warm clothes next to the nice house exactly across from Jesus' cardboard "house". I smiled to myself because although I often shake my head at the excess these people flaunt, today I chose to believe there is a little bit of good in everyone.
Jesus teaches me a lot and he doesn't even know it. I almost love that odd little old man so I thought I'd share him with you.
Over the years I've learned his patterns. In the morning he sits outside the dunkin' donuts where he is generally VERY well fed. He has a particulary area he walks where I'm sure he gets his lunch and dinner taken care of as well. As homeless people go, Jesus does very well here in Lakeview. Its the only reason I don't worry about him as much as I normally would. Just this week I noticed something that I realized has been going on for a long time. In the alleyways on top of the garbage cans of the fancy houses there are presents to Jesus. Discarded sweatshirts, boots, shower curtains... items clearly useful to someone living outside. Those people could put those things into bags and throw them away but they don't. They don't because they, like me, know Jesus. I'm sure they see their old shower curtain providing his rainproofed cardboard roof and figure its better to help someone than let it go to waste. They see him tooling around town on their like-new schwinn 10-speed and think about what other "trash" they will leave propped up next to their garbage cans next week. This morning, I saw the box of warm clothes next to the nice house exactly across from Jesus' cardboard "house". I smiled to myself because although I often shake my head at the excess these people flaunt, today I chose to believe there is a little bit of good in everyone.
Jesus teaches me a lot and he doesn't even know it. I almost love that odd little old man so I thought I'd share him with you.