Of no effect?

He met me on the sidewalk. His crazily trashed, perfect hair, was swaying in drunken time, as was the rest of his body. Even his eyes rolled.

His soul windows were red, but somehow gentle also . He was crying, instead of screaming. He wanted to yell. But he was too tired of being lonely and incarcerated to do it anymore.

He said he’d been a punk rocker, in a famous 80’s band I won’t mention here. The point is that he was built to scream. Born that way, made to, or so he thought.

When I heard more of his story, I couldn’t easily disagree.

The reason I didn’t send him on his way (even though I was in quite a hurry) was because of his tears and lonely moaning. He was so much more sad than angry. You don’t get that from most “bums”.

He was crazy for sure. But somehow God kept a canvas of tenderness wrapped on top of him. Even in the midst of his demon attacks.

He was probably a lover, of who knows how many people. Maybe men, maybe women. Most likely, all of the above.

In fact, part of his story (and you can never know how to gauge 1st stories in these sorts of encounters) was that he was sold. At a young age (and he didn’t go into all of the details), he was sold to a man who took him to California. His parents were “strung up” with so many devils of their own, they just sold him. For what purpose? To what end? Only God remembers. For this fellow had likely blacked it out with liquor and smoke reeds and enough bangs to the head to maek him a poor historian of his own life.

Within a few minutes he had my hand feeling through his rock star hair and onto the contours of his broken and deformed skull. Which you wouldn’t have known was in such a condition otherwise. He had taken a dive into traffick, off a pedestrian’s bridge, and had been quite angry to wake 7 months later to learn of another unsuccess.

We sat on the porch and mulled his story.

He didn’t ask for a thing. He just yearned for company. A place to rest for a moment. Those are the ones you want to help.

He kept trying to show me his id. Kept wanting to tell me about jail. Kept wanting to describe some hot girl he’d met the night before when he’d thrown a bowling ball six or seven lanes over in the wrong direction. Because he additionally had not paid for any of those lanes it was another ripe chance to go back to “the can” right after he’d just gotten out from a seven year stint.

Somehow he had originally gone to those places where they lock men down, all because he had honored a father’s wishes. Or so he said.

His dad had passed away in recent years. And oh how, amidst all the rebellion and hardship, he still loved that man. He amore’d him with an ancient gentleness and a rockhard sense of honor. His father had told him never to cremate him, or even to bury him. He wanted—or so the son was convinced—to have his body sent over the side of a very tall bridge, overlooking a certain beloved river. And so the wayward latin punker had done it. Covered in grief and honor, he had broken his arm, carrying the body as long as he could muster, and had finally deposited his father, down to the drink, far below. And then the angry police had come for him.

When thinking of the policia, he recalled that in some parts, you could ask a cop for a couple of dollars to go peaceably drink your darker shames away. To drown your ghosts. And in those places “the kinder pigs” would do it.

But in L.A. and in Arizona, all he got were handcuffs and rides to very unpleasant, cramped places.

His soul was tired. His eyes, which shouldn’t have had another drop to bleed, produced a precious tear or two, to corroborate his story. And then he would hide his head between his knees a while.

He was impossible to not believe. His arm was swollen red and purple, from the weight of a patriarch he couldn’t carry. He didn’t rattle a story that way a liar would do. He was too forlorn.

He did eventually begin to ask for things. Never money. Just some some more minutes to rest and talk. To tell his story. He couldn’t keep it together though. He was like those people from movies who have had their brains washed (or better to say clamped down and poisoned and drained of the truth) and they want to remember some very important detail, but they get on the verge of it, and a giant explosion of sound, which only they hear, comes and steals away the rest of the story. Like Mel Gibson’s character in “Conspiracy Theory”.

He also needed some shoes. He’d stepped on a nail. And all he had were prison slippers. He was convinced Bob Barker had made all of the clothes he was currently wearing. Who was I to correct him? Bob Barker likely, did many things I never knew of. He kept holding up his moccasin, wanting me to sniff it, as if that would prove the former “Price is Right” host had tailored the shoe.

We didn’t have the same size feet. But that mattered little to him. He needed a sweater to stay warm in the rain. I parted with these things easily. I bought my clothes cheap, and had so much more than I needed. Plus Christ insisted these people were Him anyways. And I should never forget that enigma and charge.

Lastly he wanted some jeans. He was embarrassed to ask for these. He had jeans of his own. But there was the sad, gross tale, about why he needed to part with those. It is the sort of tale any such sojourner could likely share with you.

He had been walking the alleys, to think his thoughts, to stay clear from trouble, to find what you can sometimes find. And there on the ground he’d spotted a bag of uneaten Cheetohs. Or so he thought.

When he picked up the plastic aluminum container in question, he had been “Cheeted” alright. For out dripped the collection of another man’s comsumption and bodily processed dinner from who knew how many nights before. And he was stained with the horrors of the prodigal son’s slop.

I was more than ready to give him my jeans also.

We sat and talked some more. I gave him my number. I have no idea what I’ll do if he calls. He couldn’t decide if his next step was Circle K or the shelter. I pointed him in both directions. He didn’t want to leave. But I had to go.

I gave him that money he never asked for. He just stared at the amount of it and shed more tears. Repeating the size of the donation. It was ridiculous that such a small amount touched his heart. It was more than they normally get. But to regular joes like me, it was nothing. At a different time in his life, it would have been less than nothing. An insult even. But here it was a king’s ransom. And so he wept some more dry tears.

I put my hand on his broken head and I prayed for him. It was the most and the least I could offer. In some regards it was nothing. In others it was powerful beyond description. I don’t even know the value of the small pocket of time I offered him.

When we were done. He did a really long goodbye. Trying to remember if there was something else he could ask me for. In the end, he departed for the convenience store. He wanted to get something to eat, and to maybe share the booty he’d landed on with another stray soul he assessed could use the help.

I don’t know how these things work.

Perhaps I should have let him in my house. Had him stay.

Who can say in these times we live in.

His whole story could be a lie? Or it could all mostly be true.

I could be lying to you. If I mentioned the name of his old band, maybe you could look it all up and substantiate the whole thing.

But in the end, it is God I hope who will do something about it. I only act out a small silly role. Sometimes performing it when it is most inconvenient. Hoping that this will woo Him to intervene and to save our crashing planet. I know He’s already done that. On two planks of wood, not carved very good, when He sent His own son, to go over a bridge and into the dirty water for us.

But a lot has happened since then.

And I need to participate in his redemption more powerfully now than ever.

The world has become, a very cold and disheartening place. Warmth’s flame must be guarded at every cold draft we meet.