The Gift

It was a Wednesday afternoon, not that I carried a hone or calendar to know this, it was chili day – or at least a warm soup reddened with tomato and meat that resembled what I remember as chili. I knew because I stood in a line which nearly circled the building. I watched as the boy in front of me squeezed his eyes closed, as another gust of wind ran across his face. His beading eyes now facing mine to avoid the northwest winds, drawing my otherwise remiss attention. So much went unnoticed in those days.

My face was stiff, dark brown eyes planted in a scowl, unmoved by the running winds which carried their stories, making the air thin, chilling like pins in my chest and hardening the skin on my bottom lip. The tip of my tongue outlines the edge of the cracked skin, encountering the familiar salt of blood.

Three hours after entering the line, my strained muscles relax as the beams of heat hit while crossing the threshold inside. The Kitchen also served as a warming center, letting the first 50 sleep here and the rest of us defrost for up to 4 hours. I grabbed my bowl and passed on the desert of the day finding my way to the bench tables. Paul, a newer volunteer server was taking his break, scoping out the room and making his way towards me. After only three weeks, he had made a point to talk to almost all of us. Actually talk, not just enter and exit through the back doors like most volunteers, avoiding close contact as if homelessness were contagious. Like you, I didn’t trust it. My eyes squinted down watching him feign interest. But why, I wondered. To feel better about his mundane middle-class life, to tell jokes around the water cooler at our expense, to reduce guilt like penance for hidden sins, or as a mandated consequence for a DUI. My skepticism kept me from speaking to him but that day he just sat there, eating his food between long gazes at the bowl. He caught me staring at him as he came out oh his trance and tried to shake it asking in his soft voice, “so you okay, need anything?”

“Fine,” I forced, but he returned to being entranced by his food. “You?”

“Yeah, yeah…thanks” he nodded. “Uh what bring you here,” he added.

“Food,” I glared, as my face returned to the ever-watchful scowl.

He nodded in acknowledgement and said again in that distinctive voice, “I guess that brings us all here.” As I rolled my eyes, he added “well, food and cancer brought me here.” “I didn’t want to die knowing I never directly did anything significant outside of myself.”

Instantly, I thought, penance but not for sin, and sunk as my feelings of guilt washed over me.

“Sorry, man,” I grumbled.

“Not your fault,” he smirked understandingly.

Needing to fill the pregnant pause, I uttered, “I guess getting out with nowhere to go…that’s what brought me here.” The silence grew again as he focused on me, taking in the youth he now noticed under the eyelids which darkened prematurely along with the furrows on my head which now formed wrinkles. We talked some more, and I soon told him about the night that landed me in prison. I explained how my mom was dating a jerk, which was nothing new, but liquor swirled this one into a ferocious tornado destroying whatever crossed its path. During one of those storms the category enhanced, and before long I came out of a blue and red blur, with hands tightly cuffed behind my back. I spared him the details. I have told story enough to know that the reception is better without the details which time tends to blur.

I was seventeen when arrested and though I couldn’t smoke, play slots, or take a shot, I was old enough for the state to charge me as an adult. The disinterested judge sentenced me to serve ten years in prison and after eight years I was released for my behavior.

Paul chimed, “why didn’t you go back home?”

“I did, but so much time had passed, and my mom was remarried so I just tried to make it on my own. I didn’t know that my history and unemployment gap would shut so many doors.”

“How many places did you apply to?”

“At least fifty”

“And no one hired you?” Paul felt the way the words ran upwards disparagingly, and I felt the descending sting.

“It’s not that simple,” I said shaking my head and exhaling, as my eyes shut just long enough release exhaustion. “After a while with no home or phone, how would they notify me that I got the job? How would I iron my uniform? Where would I wash clothes or change outfits? How would I stay well groomed?” The list could go on and on, but I stopped there.

I hated recounting faults, hated displaying them for patrons to peruse as they determined whether they added or decreased my value as a person.

Paul was quiet, his eyes shifted considering what was stated. “What type of job would you want to do?”

“I want to help people going through this, let them know that they are significant and still have a purpose, despite being treated as less than, that there’s more to life than constant struggles” I paused. “Why are you hiring?” I laughed gently.

Paul smiled and reached into his shoulder bag pulling out a small black book, he jotted something down and asked, “how do you spell your last name Ben?”

I answered hesitantly. His hand shook the table as he scribbled on another piece of paper.

“I was blessed to live a life without those struggles. I have never had to go without nor been treated with anything other than respect and dignity other than the reckless foolishness of my youth. I can’t undue you experiences, nor would I want to because they have formed you into the person that you are. I can however, show you what its like to have a bit of a leg up but you’ll still have to put in work to stay that way. Like I said, I don’t have much time left but I do want to make an impact in peoples lives, just like you.” He folded the paper and slid it across the table.

I opened it, looking over both shoulders to make sure there were no onlookers. I opened it and saw a check written out to me for $20,000.00. My eyes widened and I shook my head thinking this can’t be right.

Paul smiled and said “an education will aid you to help others. Don’t waist this or any of the other gifts that you have been given. There is so much more to your life.”

“That did not happen,” said the short woman with a blanket wrapped over her coat and hand clinging to the cart holding all her possessions.

I smiled, “how do you think we were able to add the resource center here and work readiness program?”

“I don’t know, government grants,” she said as she walked away.

I did not share the story with many initially. The few I did tell did not believe me and I soon found myself gravitating to different crowds. I enrolled in community college and transferred after two years. I worked during school and graduated with honors. The Kitchen was what I knew, so eventually I went back to help other that needed it most. From an assistant I grew to the director of the facility. I never saw Paul again, but he forever changed my life. What he gave was not just monetary but lifted a weight and encouraged me where I was, changing my outlook on the world. I have already tripled the value of his gifts and mine and plan to continue to share them with others throughout my life.