The Bum

He walked with a slight limp, dragging his feet largely unnoticed until he stopped. It isn't that he stopped his walking, it was where he stopped. Wearing a pair of dirty pants and work boots without shoe strings, sweat soaked his undershirt and open shirt flapped open in the light breeze. His look was of a man who had neither showered or shaved in days. Carrying a worn canvas bag, he stopped in front of a bench on the sidewalk just outside the gated courtyard of a beer garden where the early evening crowd gathered for drinks before going home, maybe waiting for a reservation at the restaurant inside. Dropping his bag on the bench the once invisible man became the focus of the well dressed crowd gathered inside the waist high iron fence, at once he became the focus of a few.

"Oh my God, what in the world?" I heard a young attractive lady say to her companions at the table behind me.

The unknown man stood unsteadily, swayed on weak knees while staring with an unfocused look into the group on the other side of the fence. The barrier between the welcome and unwelcome.

"What's he doing?"

Two young men, suit jackets hanging on the backs of their chairs sat, ties loosened, relaxed with legs outstretched, stopped conversation for a moment as they glanced at the new show outside of the arena of the acceptable. Only for a moment were they distracted as they both looked back quickly to their phones and iPads, slowly sipping their cold bottles, beads of water slipped from their drinks.

The sound of two patio chairs made the harsh sound of scraping against concrete as a couple turned their chairs so that they couldn't see the invisible man, still staring at the gathered crowd. Most went back to the casual conversation that was in play before the dirty stranger made his appearance making only casual glances toward him as his eyes were fixed beyond the crowd.

"What's he looking at?"

"What in the hell is his problem?"

"Is he drunk?"

The chatter continued, casual glances were exchanged. The iron fence was the one object that separated the clean and the unclean. He pulled off his hat as his matted gray hair fell past his shoulders, first sitting on the bench before lying down and putting his brimmed hat over his face. He lay still and silent, arms crossed across his body, legs curled up on the bench turned to makeshift bed. Amazement continued as if some heinous act had just occurred in the brick street a few yards away. The invisible man gained recognition, he was a bum... a nothing. A no one, interrupting the enjoyment of those drinking ten dollar drinks at umbrella covered tables.

"Oh God, I think I can smell him!" said a painfully thin tanned young lady with her Daddy's credit card a look of disgust on her face.

A few minutes later a tall thick man clad in black pants and a fashionably untucked shirt walked outside the restaurant to the nothingman asleep on the bench. He first spoke without trying to alert any patrons inside the garden.

"Sir. Sir. Mr. You can't stay here," the large man said in most quiet voice that his booming frame would allow.

Stillness. Not a move. Not even a flinch.

"Hey. Mr! You can't stay here," the man said more forcefully.

Finally, shaking him from slumber, the man slowly reached with one hand and pulled the sweat stained hat from his face to his chest and glared the same dead stare at the man towering over him, eyes squinted, expressionless. He mumbled something to the man in black and pulled his hat back over his face.

Trying once more, with no success to wake the unwanted visitor the man walked back indoors.

"He's calling the cops," a man said to another at a group gathered that looked as if they had finished an afternoon of golf. "Let's help him out."

"What the hell are we supposed to do? Let a sleeping dog lie," shot back another at the table between gulps from a large mug.

"C'mon, Jeff," he replied as two of the men stood from the table and strolled toward the gate, obviously wondering what they were going to do. Approaching the man one reached out hesitantly and shook the man again firmly.

"Dude, get up. The cops are going to be here soon. Get up."

Without moving the hat from his face, refusing to give up his only shade came another mumbling response. The two looked at one another and then at the intruder. The barbarian who stole the space of a four foot wooden bench. After more discussion out of ear-shot the one wearing a visor with, "Titleist," emblazoned across the front grabbed the mans arm and forced him into a sitting position.

"Get the _____ off! You not shelf at... off my ________!" The silent man speaks, slowly and almost incoherently. Invoking the Lord's name in ways no way resembling a prayerful tone.

As one of the guys reached for his filthy bag that may have contained everything he called his own, the man stumbled to grab what had been his pillow. The men caught him before he fell and each put one of his arms over a shoulder and walked, often dragging the feet of the man across the brick street while their buddies peppered them with insults disguised as jokes.

"Hey! Wonder Woman and Bat Girl! Where are you taking your side-kick?"

"Good job guys! Your place or his?" shouted one of the men at the table probably nearly as drunk as the formerly quiet and strange neighbor to the host of the courtyard.

"Hurry up! We ain't got all night!" called another, as if anything productive was going to happen for the remainder of the groups day.

By the time the threesome crossed the street, the attention of the entire crowd gathered in the sun and evening breeze was rapt in the banal drama being performed before their very eyes. At the corner the three turned north and crossed the street to a store front with an awning once occupied by a sports bar, now vacant. The Samaritans helped the man sit down next to his bag on the shaded concrete sidewalk. They were talking, but no one knew what was being said.

"He's probably asking for money."

"Jason owes me fifty bucks after missing that putt on sixteen. He better not give 'im my money!" another of the burly goatee wearing golf buddies said to the table. With lips lubricated enough that his volume control was turned off so all could hear his boisterous talk.

"Is he drunk or stoned? How do homeless people buy stuff anyway?"

"Are you stupid? Of course he's drunk. He buys, 'his stuff,' from guys like those two morons helping him."

The prattle continued as many turned their attention back to gossip, business talk, laments of the sliced tee shot on the eighteenth green, and the Rangers' three game losing streak. Some continued to monitor the situation from afar. The golf buddies decided to wager which one would give the man money, gambling, money on the table about which sucker would buy the man his next, "hit."

"It'll be Jason. He's always been a ________. That worthless piece blah blah blah blah."

Finally, there came a loud cheer from the table as the winners gathered the pot when one of the crosswalkers reached into his pocket and put some money in the man's bag. Walking slowly away to arrive back to their drinks, feeling good about themselves for removing a nuisance from the presence of the scrubbed, washed, and shaven crew while doing a good deed to make up for their poor behaviors of the day.

"He better have my __________ fifty when he gets back to this table!"

All attention was diverted by most as the man lay sleeping on the sidewalk, out of sight, out of mind. With his hat over his face, deep in the slumber of one unconscious to the world around him in so many ways. Only looking over once again as two police cars pulled to the curb and arrested the man, putting his bag in the trunk of the car, they drove away. All distractions were gone.

"How can someone live that way? What a waste of space."

"He lives off us. His bed and dinner are compliments of our taxes ladies," said one of the men who had accompanied the group of co-eds most appalled at the bums unappreciated intrusion to the beginning of the weekend.

"How could you be happy? If y'all are all truly my friends you'd shoot me if you ever saw me like that."

"I will!"

Laughter. Another round. The night is young.

I wondered about that man from the moment he walked to the bench. What was he seeing as he stared beyond the crowd? Where did he come from? Where was he going, did he even know? Was he drunk, stoned, crazy, all of it? Did it matter? Was anyone looking for him? Did he care? When would he get his bag back and sleep on the ground?

He could've been anyone. He was surely someone's son, maybe a father. What was hidden beneath that matted hair and ragged clothing? Was he a genius? Was his childhood filled with joy or sorrow? Was he running away from someone, something, or himself? How could he be happy? Was he more at peace than some who sat on the patio drowning in a sea of debt, depression, and deception?

He looked to be my father's age, although his weathered look could've been intensified by years of living the life he lived now. Was he a veteran? Did he go to Vietnam as my Father-In-Law had. What broke him to the point of finding solace only confined to a locked cell? What would he do with the twenty poked into his duffel bag when he was free to find his way?

What was his name?

I couldn't answer that question, nor could anyone else around me for that matter. Could I even answer all of those questions about myself? For most his name was, "Nobody." Most wouldn't remember him tomorrow, others would spin the tale of how two fella's dragged the violent crazy across the street for the police to apprehend. What was his name?

I had been thinking for days on a very familiar Psalm written by David. The Twenty-Third Psalm. Word by word, phrase by phrase, forward and backward, I recited the verses to myself as a meditation for the last two weeks.

"The Lord is my Shepherd."
"He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul."
"I will fear no evil for You are with me."
"I will live in the house of the Lord forever."

There is definitely a difference between resting in the comfort and safety of a lush green pasture and passing out on a hot side-walk. His parched lips could not mask his physical and emotional thirst, he was not near quiet waters that refresh and cool him. Was he afraid or oblivious? I didn't know. Where was he going? Who or what was he following?

What was his name?

I'll never know his name. I'll never know where he is or where he came from. I'll never know what he saw looking through the group tucked away on that warm early evening.

I did know one thing. Although it wasn't clear what name he was given at his birth, or the name he answered to now. But one thing was crystal clear to me. His God-given name was, "Beloved." He may not have been following the Shepherd, but next to him on that hot sidewalk, in the back of the police car, at the jail house, the Shepherd was with him. His name was the same as mine.

My clothes were clean, his were not. I wasn't drunk on a bench waiting for a night in jail, but neither of us were without blemish or stain. None of us were. Some of our sins and faults are more easily hidden inside our homes and hearts. The silent secrets that invade our minds slashing like daggers through the heart. Although I may have turned my back and forged my own path through the treacherous valley time and time again, always ending in peril, the Shepherd was, is, and always be with me. Relentlessly, lovingly, following.

Both of us were creations of God. Both of us grew weary and tired. Both were filled with heart and soul. He wasn't a bum. His name wasn't, "No Body." He and I had the same name, "Beloved."

I am the bum, the bum is me. Wherever we are, green pastures, still waters, valleys of death and fear, so is the Shepherd. Searching and calling the name, "Beloved!"

Follow. Stumble. Stagger. Fall. Repeat.