On The Streets

Recently I’ve been running into a homeless guy; he’s about 45 years old. He is a black guy that has very few teeth and an arm and a leg on opposite sides that don’t work very well. Every time I see him he asks me for money. I never give it to him.

He is always outside a restaurant that I’m leaving; about five different places. I don’t think to buy him a meal. I just lie to him and tell him that I don’t have any money and walk away. I kind of feel bad about it but then again I don’t know what to feel.

I don’t know if he remembers me but about four or five months ago a friend and I tried to help him in a tangible way. He was well on his way down from a crack high and really wanted to kick the crap. So we got him into a shelter that specializes in helping people kick these kinds of habits.

I talked to his mom on the phone to let her know what we were doing. I could hear the caring in her voice underneath the melancholy attitude. The guy’s dad was the one I was to discuss any issues regarding the welfare of the homeless son and he “couldn’t” come to the phone. So the homeless guy was off to the shelter.

The shelter is in Dayton, over forty miles from the area he knows. He had some real serious withdraw issues that night. The shelter wasn’t equipped to handle this guy’s issues so they got him admitted into a medical rehab clinic. His issues were pretty bad, bad enough to kind of scare the folks at the shelter. He didn’t make it through the night in the clinic. The homeless guy refused treatment and left the clinic in the early hours of the morning, around four or five I believe. I’m sure he was off to get the fix his body so sorely craved.

No one heard from him until I started seeing him back in Cincinnati again. Every time I see him I wonder what I should do but I always do nothing. I don’t know why God has this guy back in my life.