In Which a Notable Plan Is Acted On and a Homeless Man Gets the Beef

Last Wednesday I found myself leaning out the window of an SUV yelling to a homeless man who was walking down the street. How often does that happen? I would venture to say not very, and in my case it was a first, and it all started in church.

For the last several weeks our pastor has been preaching this series he calls revolutionary love. I missed most of the Sundays, and the one Sunday I did catch was made up predominately of people’s testimonies of how they had gone out and shown “revolutionary love.” It’s a very simple concept. The church had all these cards made up that said something like, “you have just been shown revolutionary love, a no strings attached act of kindness,” Jesus was mentioned in there somewhere and I think our church name was on it somewhere. The point being you just did something nice to some random person and then you give them a card and walk away. Our Wednesday night group leader was, of course, very excited about the concept; so we dedicated an entire evening to the endeavor.

“I am going to be going to some of the shadier restaurants in town and asking the managers if I can clean their bathrooms; and anybody who wants to join me you’re more than welcome.” That was our leader. He was really gung-ho. I think some people did help him; I certainly wasn’t one of them. Me and three friends of mine piled into one of their SUV’s and took off for Food Lion with a vague plan involving cookies and Gatorade.

We split up the purchases; I bought the eight pack of Gatorade, Melissa, Steve and Abbie all bought boxes of those fresh baked cookies. As we were standing in line Abbie had a sudden stroke of inspiration.

“I got an idear,” she has a heavy southern accent, “I’m goin back there and puttin’ five dollar on one of them milk cartons and leave a card.”

Melissa echoed her excitement, “yeah let’s go.”

“I think I’ll leave it on soy milk cause I like that best.”

Steve and I just stood there somewhat bewildered.

We made our purchases, the girls came running out a minute later and we made our way to Fort Bragg. (It is at this point I should point out that the driver of this caravan was Melissa who, by no fault of her gender, was a terrible driver. I had been in the car maybe five seconds before I found myself gripping the side door so hard I am quite positive I left permanent fingerprints in the plastic)

Fort Bragg is one of the larger military bases in the US. Consequently there are numerous gates providing access to the base and these gates have to be manned 24/7. Our idea was to go in and out of four the gates and give cookies and Gatorades to the guards who stay out there all night along. It seemed like a really good idea at the time, but driving up to the gate I began to ponder.

“Hey is it legal for them to take gifts from people?” I looked at Steve

Steve just shrugged his shoulders.

Melissa provided the voice of logic. “We’re going to give them the cookies and their going to take them and that’s that.”

I couldn’t argue with her logic.

We slowly pulled up to the gate and handed the guard our ID’s. Melissa had opted to talk first.

“Sir we’re from Mana Church and we know ya’ll get bored and hungry out here so we brought you some cookies and some Gatorade.”

I crossed my fingers.

The guard looked at the cookies and the Gatorade and his eyes lit up.

“Well thank you.” He said with a smile

I handed him a couple extra Gatorades, “You can give these to the other guys.” The man smiled again and thanked us; I could tell we made his night. It wasn’t until we pulled away that I realized my heart was pounding. Strange that a simple act of kindness could get me riled up like that. We received similar reactions at all four gates, and with each one our confidence rose. That was the extent of our plans, but there wasn’t a one of us who was ready to call it a night (plus we still had some cards left).

It was Steve who came up with the idea, “Hey you know that homeless guy who panhandles the corner of Skibo and Cliffdale, let’ go give him some food.”

“Yeah”, we all chimed in, “What should we get him?”

“Let’s drive up and ask him what he wants.” We all agreed that this was an excellent idea. Melissa pulled what amounted to a J turn causing me to once again leave prints in the plastic molding and we sped off for the intersection.

“I hope he’s there.” Melissa said as we neared the intersection. The tone of her voice suggested that if he wasn’t there she might start crying, and I thought to myself that this was a really good night.

“There he is.” I pointed to the lonely figure at the intersection holding the cardboard sign. He was pretty standard bum; deep tan on his face and hands mixed with dirt, long scraggly hair and beard. He wore an Army jacket and I’m sure if you asked him he’d tell you he spent time in the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Peace Corps and the Society for the Consumption of Steak; whatever it takes to get some money or some food. As we neared Steve stuck his head out the back window,

“Hey man you hungry?”

“Yeah man I’m starving you got some food?”

“No but we’ll go get you something, what do you want?”

“I’ll take a hamburger if you can get one.” He sounded sarcastic, I was a little surprised.

“Alright we’ll be back.” And we drove off. I commented first.

“He sounded like he didn’t believe us.”

“Yeah I think they get that a lot,” Steve said, “I know some guys who would ask them what they wanted and then drive by later with the burger and laugh at them.”

“That’s just terrible.” Abbie said in her deep southern accent.

We drove to McDonald’s and I ordered the Big Mac Super Heart clogging meal for the bum and a grilled chicken sandwich for myself (It was delicious). Abbie decided she wanted to get him a gift card so he could come back whenever. With our food in tow we drove back to the intersection only to find the bum had left. Melissa and Abbie were noticeably upset.

“He didn’t believe us.” Melissa said, “He thinks we were making fun of him.” I could tell she might lose it soon.

“Well just drive down the road here maybe we can find him.” I said. And sure enough about a quarter mile down the road we found him. Melissa swung the car into the median, threw on her blinkers and yelled,

“Hey, Hey!” I tried to hide my face as the traffic was passing. “We didn’t forget, we came back, we’ve got your burger.” She held it out the window

The guy looked at us quizzically for a few moments; then ran across the street toward us.

He came up grabbed the bag and said,

“You guys are the first ones who have ever come back, no one else has ever done this for me, thank you.”

Abbie held the card out the back window, “We got you a gift card too so you can go back, we’re from Mana Church we hope you have a good night.” The man thanked us several more times and then walked off holding the bag with both hands. As we drove off we were all feeling pretty good, and then Melissa gasped,

“We forgot to give him his soda!” She whipped the vehicle around so hard for a second I thought we were on two wheels. I leaned out the window holding the soda.

“Hey, Hey dude! We forgot to give you your soda.” The guy ran up with a smile took the soda thanked us again and then walked off. I wonder if we made any difference in his life; maybe for a moment. Tomorrow he’ll be back on the corner. I wondered why people like that don’t get help, get a job, do something. It is America. A few days later we were studying behavioral disorders in class and our instructor made a comment that somewhere around 80 percent of all panhandlers suffer from some form of mental disorder. Somebody asked the instructor why they don’t make these guys get help.

“America is a free country. You can’t force somebody to get help if they don’t want it. And they don’t. You can bring them in clean them up give them a shower, but tomorrow they’ll go right back to the street.”

Sad? Yeah, but what can you do.