Sunday, November 30, 2008

Good Intentions

This story is longer than I thought it would be. I had a single line in mind when I sat down to write it and I had no time to go back through. I enjoyed it, but it probably has more than a few places to be fixed up at some point in life. I hope you like it for what it is. It is called "Good Intentions". It is kind of like the movie "Cruel Intentions" except not at all.

"My life has been paved with good intentions," the man said to me. This type of statement caught me off guard, literally made me stop in my tracks. I am sure he wished I had stopped the first time he had spoken to me. Though I guess when your opening line of dialogue with strangers is "you have have any spare change?" you get used to the politely cliche responses of pedestrians who rarely slow down and even more rarely look at you.

I turned around slowly. I felt like Dorothy landing in Oz for the first time: the land of concrete I trod daily was not composed from a monochromatic palate of grays. The city had gone to great length to bring earth tones to our concrete jungle to make it feel like nature. The wall to my right was originally a brownish-red brick but was now covered with graffiti that looked like a mash-up of a Jackson Pollock original and one of my third grade doodles. The trash can was an earthy green, freshly painted in the past month, and, from the acrid smell emitting from its depths, was currently in need of a diaper change. Everywhere around me were shades of brown and green where I had only seen gray. And where I had not seen a body, let alone a face, I saw a canvas only God could love.

His beard was speckled with the vibrant red of past nosebleeds and the brooding black of dirt and filth from the city's trash heaps. His face was aged like an old ball glove, dark brown with intermittent black or yellow spots that followed the cracks of wrinkles to his hauntingly gray eyes. It was at the moment I met his eyes that my heart sank.

He followed me after that for five blocks. I turned around to check on his progress twice. He had the gait of a man who had long ago been forsaken by everything in his life but his feet. No matter how tired he was his feet would take him there.

I entered the coffee shop, ordered a sandwich and a tall water, paid, got my change and sat down to wait for my food. He stood outside the window and stared at me. I waved him inside. It had been my intention when I told him I would buy him a sandwich to figure out his comment on the way to the deli. Then I could hand him the food, maybe some change, and then walk right back past his life like I had planned on doing so when I had informed him "Sorry, I don't have any money." That all changed when I looked at those eyes. I had offered him the food and then didn't know what to say. I guess he hung back because he thought I was uncomfortable. He was right.

He sat down and chuckled the slow, sad laugh of a man with nothing to laugh about. "I thought you said you didn't have any money" he said with a toothy grin. I replied with as much composure as I could.

"Ummm." He enjoyed this and laughed some more. Seeing him laugh made me feel even worse. All my planned elegance of conversation turned into a blurted "what happened then?"

He stopped his laugh like an ocean goes out to tide. Like he had to focus on rolling it back and knowing it was only a matter of time before it returned. "You know how they say you can only get better when you hit rock bottom?" he asked. "Well, what happens if instead of falling in a hole you step in quicksand? You die before you hit rock bottom." The tide rolled back in and his low guffaw filled our table again.

"Boy grows up. Loving parents. Public schooling, apartment living. Not rich, but we knew where our next meal was coming from. In high school my mom got sick. Those meals became more questionable by the week but we managed. My dad refused to let me drop out and get a job to help him.

"For my sixteenth birthday my dad took me out to learn how to drive. Not so I could take little Mary to the sock hop, but so I could get a job as a valet. He figured if I could work weekend nights, save money by not going out, and I would stay out of trouble.

"Our neighbor owned his cab and lent it to us one Sunday morning while he recovered from the Saturday night shift. My dad drove us out away from most of the traffic before finally relenting to my requests to take over. I hadn't driven more than 100 yards when a little old lady flagged me down. We stopped to tell her we were not really a cab but ended up deciding to drive her the two blocks to her church. Turned out she had an arthritic hip and hadn't missed a week of Church in her life. It was such a short drive that we felt it couldn't hurt.

"I came to the only stop light between where we picked her up and the church. It was red, so I stopped. As I entered the intersection I felt myself thrown against the door of the car. I awoke as the paramedics were running to the car. They asked me if I was okay and then moved on to check on the others. I knew right away they had gotten back to me too quickly.

"I was barely well enough to attend the funerals. The wreck killed four that day. My dad, the old lady, the driver of the other car, and my mother. It wasn't long after receiving the news that she stopped fighting and just let death take her. The only thought in my head for the next few years was "what color was the light?"

"The community rallied behind me. I knew where my meals were coming from: the Martins in 203B or the Jennings in 116A more than likely. My dad's boss paid the rent on our old place so I could finish out school. I was told over and over that I couldn't be a dropout.

"I graduated high school. With no way to afford college I got a job with a mechanic in my neighborhood. I didn't know anything about cars, but he figured I deserved a break and could learn on the job. It was then, two days after graduating high school that I became a pariah. Invitations to dinner slowed to halt by the end of the month, but since I had a job I could grab a bite out with no problem. At the end of the month my dad's boss informed me he would only pay one more month of rent since I was a "working man" now. I didn't know how much trouble I was in until the next month ended.

"All of a sudden I had to find a new place to live. I couldn't afford my old apartment on a beginner mechanic's wage. I grabbed the first place that seemed reasonable, way across town from work.

"I had never learned to cook. Or clean. Or make a budget. Within six months I was flat broke. I lost my job because my trek across town to work caused me to be late to work and when I was there I had no idea what I was doing.

"Once you get on the streets it is hard to get off of them. Though they sure do ease your transition. I was able to get a bunch of crappy jobs to try and pay bills but its hard to mop floors when you don't know how to clean your own house. I ate at the diner everyday, all three meals because I couldn't cook. I generally owed my buddy ten bucks before each pay day.

"One day they moved me to register and a homeless man walked in and begged for some food. No one was around so I handed him a burger. My boss fired me on the spot. It was payday, but I was so upset I didn't pick up my check. My friend asked for his money and I didn't have it. He owed a bookie. The bookie was with my friend. The bookie walked away. My friend and I could not say the same.

"So now I had no job but I had a hospital bill. I couldn't pay my rent. I could hardly feed myself. I went to unemployment and began getting checks. Those ran out so I got on welfare. That ended and eventually here I am. My life has been filled with people intending to help others. All that help left me unable to help myself. I try to be a good guy and end up fired. My friend lends me money to help and when I can't pay five dollars we both get our legs broken. All unemployment and welfare did was to help me sink slower and not realize completely how bad I was until it was too late.

"So that ... is what happened. My life has been paved with good intentions, but that doesn't mean they were the best things for me. I was repeatedly tossed out a flotation device when I needed to be taught how to swim. By the time I realized I couldn't swim there was no one left to teach me and I had never learned to teach myself anything. So here I am, homeless and alone. But I still smile."

I looked around me. The sandwich was uneaten, the cafe was empty, and the sun was slowly heading to its slumber. I shook my head, "How?"

"Because I deserve this. Every second of my life is my penance for being too absent minded, too thick headed, too ... too dumb. I never paid attention to the world around me. I learned early on not to look too far in advance. That it was better to just be happy with what was going on around you, that everything would work out for the best. If I didn't need to do something I could ignore it better than most people ignore me when I ask them for change."

Without thinking I blurted out "How can you even think that?"

His laugh again broke lazily across table. "I finally answered my question. It only took me twenty years to figure it out."

"What question?" I asked.

"What color was the light?" he replied, face still beaming. He chuckled again. "I have been in a car once in my life. As a child everything I wanted was within two blocks and my family didn't even own a car. I was late all the time to work because I was afraid of cars and buses. Never in my life had I ever looked at a stop light before I stopped at that light. Never in my life had I ever looked again until five years ago. Normally I walk with everyone else on the streets. When they cross, I cross. I never looked around, no one wanted to make eye contact with me.

"One day a woman tapped me on the shoulder at a cross-stop. She handed me a dollar. For no reason. I looked her in the eye and felt a tear forming. She smiled and said, "You can cross now, the light is red." I asked her "what does that have to do with anything right now?" She just laughed and walked away. Then I looked at a stop light for the second time in my life.

"My dad told me red meant stop and green means you can go right through the light. He said there was a yellow but that it didn't matter for my lesson since I was just driving to be a valet. He told me about the signs that were important for me test drive. I knew to stop at a stop sign before I could go, no matter what.

"The light was red. I stopped. Then I drove through it like it was a stop sign and killed three people, four if you count my mom. It took me thirty seconds to realize how stoplights work. I knew in an instant that I killed through my stupidity. All of a sudden things in my life changed. I stopped feeling bad for myself, something I had done since the wreck. I realized I might have deserved all of this.

"More importantly, I learned to pay attention to everything in my life. I used to sit in the library of museums in order to stay warm or dry. Now I stare at paintings and read books ... until I get kicked out. I people watch now and make up stories about their lives and can pass days laughing to myself instead of living in solitary fear and bitterness. Life has meaning. It is in the details of everything."

I looked at him and those eyes grabbed me again. The eyes belonged to a young child, still enthralled with the world. Taking things in for the first time in their life. I asked him if I could do something for him. He replied that he was done with good intentions, but I made him take me up on it anyway.

I live a block and a half from one of his favorite public art museums. I knew they were always looking for people to work as curators. Not much money. My offer was this: the use of my shower and old business clothes, I would feed him and pay rent for a month, and I would pay for a subway pass with the hope he could get and keep a job there. He declined everything. At first. He relented to the showers and clothing.

Getting the job once he was cleaned up was easy since he had spent countless hours studying each painting for the past few years and he was little more than a basic guide. He continued living on the street and I would leave my door unlocked for him to come and go as he needed. He would leave the work clothes behind and I would get them cleaned for him each week.

He was finally able to get an apartment for himself nearby through a service for the homeless. A week before he was to move in someone figured out our scheme and robbed me. They cleaned me out. I was sitting in the middle of my disheveled apartment when he walked in. Slowly that laugh rolled out of him as it so often did. "What the hell is so funny?" I yelled. "Good intentions my friend .... good intentions" he said with a twinkle in that those youthful eyes. He actually had me laughing when the cops showed.

The next few years passed slowly. He was happy with his job and his apartment near by. I met a woman, got married, had a kid, and moved out of the city. But he happily stayed. We talked on the phone daily and met infrequently for dinner. He became a bit of a local celebrity when his story began to circulate and he agreed to only mention me as "a friend".

I was late on my way to meet him one day. I knew he would be standing there smiling when I walked up no matter how late I was. As I made my last turn I saw the flashing lights of cop cars and ambulances. I sprinted down the street. A little girl was clinging tightly to her mom, eyes bloodshot from crying, as she tried to talk to a police office. A single car with a dented hood and windshield sat in the middle of the road. The presumptive driver explaining with his hands how something had darted out in front of him. He pointed at the girl. Then he pointed right at me.

Confused, I slowly turned around. It was then I heard that laugh.

There he was, right behind me, in an ambulance. Eyes barely open, but that laugh was still there. "Many years too late this has come," he said with a smile.

"Don't talk like that? What happened?"

His laughed crashed upon my ears for the last time before rolling away. He opened his eyes up as wide as he could and smiled that toothy grin of his and spoke. "My life has been paved with good intentions ... and finally they have been worth it."

With that the doors were shut and the ambulance pulled away. By the time I arrived at the hospital he was dead. The newspaper retold the story in graphic detail the next day. How he had saved the girl and been hit. The day after that they told his story in graphic detail. From his childhood to me to his death. His funeral became a public event and as I took to the pulpit to give his eulogy I still had no idea what to talk about. There was so much to say and yet what could I say.

"My friends," I began, "I feel sorry for almost all of you. The few of you in this building that truly knew this man know that you can inspire many by his story, but you cannot know him by hearing someone talk about him or reading about him in the paper. A movie of his life would be justified, but not satisfactory. The only way to understand anything about this man is simple. You cannot read about it. You cannot hear me say it. You had to experience it for yourself.

"When people ask me when I near death what my biggest regret in life was I now know what I will say. For the first time since I met Charles I have gone more than a day without speaking with him. I regret that I do not have a video of Charlie with his smile. His soothing laugh. That twinkle in his eye just after something has not gone his or anyone else's way. When he made everything seem perfectly right but saying "My life has been paved with good intentions...."

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