Soup Kitchen

I accompanied my roommate to a soup kitchen at his church, and here's what I learned.

1. Not all soup kitchens serve soup: some serve pizzas. We got 18 free ones donated from the place across the street.

2. One guy likes to put salad dressing in his coffee every week.

3. The patrons who chose to stay for an art class afterwards got to make snowflakes out of paper plates, and it occurred to me, do these guys really want to think about snow when they have no shelter and a harsh Chicago winter right around the corner? Maybe we can make some suns or something.

4. But, I shouldn't make fun of this lady because she was doing a really great job and doing an extremely nice thing with her time. I'd really like to start a blog page where I post compositions of some of these guys, helping them edit, type, or whatever, crafting their stories. You know these guys have some great stories to tell, and I could share my gift of writing . . . Or I could just hand out slices of pizza every couple of weeks.

5. Why don't homeless guys in Chicago take all that money they beg and save for and buy a plane ticket to go somewhere warmer? I can't stand being outside for more than a half hour when it's cold - how do these guys stand it all day out there? It's so sad, but so strange that they don't get the hell out of here.

6. My roomy told me that at an art and poetry exposition of these guys recently, they had their biographies. I was wondering if it would be better to include the circumstances that led them to homelessness, how long they've been on the streets, where they sleep, and things like that, or would it be better to not touch on that at all to focus on who they are as human beings. Or, would ignoring the fact that they're homeless be not mindful of their situation, and is reminding people of it important to their plight?

Anyone ever work with the homeless? Any thoughts?

Jesus (Pronounced with a HEY-ZEUS)

Jesus (pronounced HEY-ZEUS) was the homeless man that lived under the porch of the guy who lives a few doors down from me. Very rarely do I see the guy who lives INSIDE the building, but I know he’s really old, even older than Jesus, who appeared to be the better part of 60 or 70. Apparently the resident had some kind of agreement with Jesus, whereby Jesus got to sleep under the front porch, and the resident got . . . a lot of Jesus’ junk all over his front yard? I’m not sure how the guy benefited from the agreement, but the residents on the 1500 block of west Nelson street benefitted from seeing Jesus’ smiling face as he rode SLOWLY by on his bicycle. I liked saying hello to him as I walked by, even when the conversation would go like this:

Me: ‘Morning Jesus. How you doing?
Jesus: I’m broke, man.

Damn, Jesus! I know this! I guess I can’t blame him. “How you doing?” is kind of a dumb question when it’s asked of a guy living under a porch, but come on!! His other annoying thing was turning down food. My roommate gave him a patty melt once and he’s all, “I don’t like patty melts.” Yeah, okay, but I’ve seen you rooting through the garbage in the alleys for a snack, so where do you come off being so God damned picky?

I’m speaking of him in the past tense because I don’t know what happened to him. A couple months ago he disappeared. If winter were approaching I would say he went south like a bird, but summer is coming. Summer in Chicago is beautiful, even if you’re a bum, hell, especially if you’re a bum. Well, whether Jesus is dead, relocated, or whatever, he’s more than a bum. I’m not sure what else he’s about, but I know he was a human being and a fixture of our neighborhood for who knows how long. Jesus, wherever you are, may you never sleep in the cold, may you forever have a dollar in your pocket, and may your sandwiches NEVER be patty melts.