We All Need Jesus

Names have been changed to protect the identities of described persons.

“Excuse me, ladies,” he started, his hands shaking, “I was wondering if I could bother you for a minute.”

The women, sipping coffee from ceramic mugs, looked up at the man speaking to them, confused. He continued, “My name is Thomas, I was wondering if I could ask you for some change.”

I wasn’t listening to the women sitting across from me before this, but I had heard them discussing Africa and Christianity before Thomas approached them. One woman reached into her purse, searching for money to give the man. The other kindly told him, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.”

“I just got out of jail.” he told them, and immediately the woman looking for cash to give them man froze. “Where are you from?” she asked.

“Louisville, ma’am.”
“Oh that’s nice, my husband is from there.”
“That’s very nice, ma’am, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Where are you staying?”
“Nowhere right now, miss, I really am sorry to bother you.”

Thomas was an older man, probably my height, with salt colored hair. His eyes were tired, and he looked physically worn…just like a lot of homeless men in this area, of which there were plenty.

“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
“Thomas, ma’am, my name’s Thomas.”
“I’m Christina, Thomas, it’s nice to meet you.”

By this point, she had pulled at least ten dollars in ones out of her purse, and was now looking for something else.

“My husband,” she started, “is the pastor of a church around here.”
“That’s great, ma’am, where at?”
“Just down the street!” she exclaimed, finally pulling out what she was looking for.

Christina handed Thomas cash and a business card.

“If you go to that address, my husband can help you with food and maybe a place to stay for a little while.”
“What about a job, ma’am, can he help with that?”
“I’m sure he could — he knows a lot of people around here.”
“Bless you, miss, thank you so much.”
“We all need Jesus, right Thomas?”
“Yes ma’am, I’m sorry, thank you.”

With that, Thomas was on his way. Christina and her friend, Sarah, watched him walk away. I was preparing myself for Thomas to come to me next, but instead he walked away. “Do you really think he’s homeless?” asked Sarah. The two of them were on opposite sides of the spectrum, something I discovered after Thomas had left. Sarah was a cynic, someone who believed the problems of the homeless were both their own fault and their own responsibility — the fortunate should not have to aide them. Christina, though wary, believed helping others was her mission in life — something she discovered on her previous trip to Africa.

“I don’t know, but Ben’s trying to help people around here. That’s why we made those cards.”
“He smelled funky.”
“He did smell a little weird, so I don’t know if what he said was true.”
“So why did you give him money?”

Christina shrugged, “Just doing good, I guess.”

The Reader

Unlike everyone else in the store, he’s sitting at the counter. Two binders, both red, spread out on either side of him, dozens of cluttered papers between them. He flips pages back and forth, eyeing over one sheet and returning to another. A ballpoint pen dances between his fingers. He’s in uniform, Air Force it appears, and he’s obviously studying for something. I can’t imagine he’d be looking over classified documents in a place as public as Starbucks, though from the amount of black on his papers he very well may be doing just that. 

The man is of some type of Asian descent, but he has no discernable foreign accent — if anything, he speaks with a heavy Brooklyn accent instead. I hear him probably three times while I’m there: Once to ask for his first cup of tea, once to ask for a Black Eye (dripped coffee with two shots of espresso, so it’s safe to say the man’ll be up for a few more hours), and a final time to say goodnight to the employees upon closing time. When the barista hands him his Black Eye, he pounds it back like a champion. The barista is impressed, something I gauge from the way her eyes open wide and her audible “Wow!”

His pen scribbles on several sheets of paper, sometimes dotting the same location while his eyes scan back and forth. His left knee bounces up and down like a sewing machine while he goes over this mass of information. Maybe he’s studying for a promotion, or maybe he’s just going over information that he’s taking home from work. 

He keeps to himself, sometimes moving papers away from other people if the store gets a little crowded. I can’t tell if that’s out of courtesy or out of privacy — perhaps it’s out of both. Perhaps it’s just one. My mind bounces; on one hand he could simply be studying for something, on the other hand…

On the other, he might be a super secret intelligence officer going over classified documents of a pending alien invasion. What if. That’s what I enjoy about people watching — it’s as much focusing on real details as it is about letting your mind wander. 

The Artist

He’s sitting maybe ten feet in front of me, eyes buried in his Moleskine sketchbook, hands inching up and down with graphite in hand. I walked past him on my way in, and he was sketching out a contorted looking figure — a skinless man, it appeared, muscular system twisted about in unimaginable ways.

His right ankle rests over his left knee, but his right foot remains restless with a steady, relentless bounce. To his left lies a tall paper cup, empty and kicked over by a breeze. At least eight people walk past him, each slowing to look down at his drawing as they pass. At least eight people are unnoticed, or at the very least ignored, by the man. A tune, one not recognizable to myself, faintly wanders from his iPhone.

Whenever he finishes, his foot stops shaking and he looks up. He takes in his surroundings — I imagine that the man hasn’t bothered to look up since the sun was last up, and it’s been at least two hours since it went down.

What’s he wearing? Black loafers, khaki pants, a white collared shirt and a grey casual vest. The “artiste” look I think he’s striving for is simultaneously pushed forward and held back by his black rim glasses and his cleanly shaven face. One cannot possibly be a starving artist with a clean face…doesn’t he know the rules?

Upon his noticing of the empty coffee cup, he binds his book and struts inside for a refill before returning to his seat. He puts away the graphite and replaces it with an ink pen and reopens his sketchbook. For a brief moment, he closes his eyes and rolls his shoulders back, and then starts his work again.

His phone rudely interrupts the man, ringing out with a generic iPhone tune which forces the artist to pack up and retreat back to his silver car. From my point I cannot hear him talking, but his drawing hand rubs into his forehead in a response to this stressor. The man lights a cigarette, well out of distance from Starbucks’ new “no smoking within 25 feet of stores” policy (something this guy failed to comply with), before stepping into his vehicle and driving off.

I think I’ll see the artist again.

“I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.”

Well, Mr. President, at least you can still kind of do that via drones or satellites or NSA wiretapping. You’re not ~totally out of luck, but I feel your pain. Sort of.

One of the things I wish I had had the time to do when I was in New York recently was go to Central Park. I’ve walked up one of its sides, I’ve seen the inside of it, but I’ve never actually been inside of it. I can’t begin to imagine what kind of people watching possibilities are in that place, and I can’t wait to sit there and take notes someday.

I’ve gotten a fair amount of support for this blog since it began. While most of my time is spent at Starbucks or in class or in my own home, I’ve been able to watch a lot of people and gather a lot of great details and post a lot of great posts. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is as much an education as it is a hobby for me.

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t just go somewhere without thinking of a post. Obviously not every thought manifests as a post, but it’s hard for me to not go somewhere and write out an imaginary piece. Most people people watch when it’s convenient for them, they do it when they have nothing else to do — when they’re sitting in an airport terminal or waiting for the train or, you know, wherever — but for me it has literally become second nature, and I love that. I love actually noticing the details in things instead of passing them by, and I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so immensely busy that I lose out on time to simply exist; to simply sit and gather my thoughts and observe everything around me, to take it all in, you know?

That’s the kind of position Obama’s in. He’s busy running a country (although his methods of doing so and how well he’s doing are debatable) and attempting to manage a congress that’s tearing itself apart at the seams (again, how he’s handling that is debatable). It’s a hard job, being POTUS, and it shows in his hair color and in the wrinkles on his face. The man doesn’t have a lot of time to simply exist as a human being anymore, and I don’t ever want that to happen to me.

 

“You can observe a lot by just watching.”

On the dot, Yogi Berra, on the dot. 

There’s a difference between simply watching people and studying them, I’d argue. It’s a slight difference, noticeable only to some — perhaps only those who actually observe the people around them instead of simply notice them. Wow, look at my words getting all mixed up. 

So let’s say you’re at an airport. Let’s use Chicago Midway, for example, because I hate that airport with a burning passion unlike any other. So you’re at Midway and you’re waiting to board your flight to somewhere-or-another, and you’re surrounded by people. Hundreds of people surround you, pass you, brush up against you when they’re trying to fit through a crowd. The odds are high that you’ll notice things about these people; that guy’s wearing a red tie, that kid has on fake Nikes, or maybe that woman over there is carrying an alligator skin purse. You notice these things, but they pass you by. You shrug them off, as you should, because what do they mean to you? What should they mean to you? 

And then you have people that really observe these examples. He’s wearing a red tie, but his socks mismatch his shoes and his shirt is maybe just a size too large. He’s sweating profusely, so maybe he’s afraid of flying or — maybe — his necktie is just a tad bit too tight. His phone goes off but he can’t hear it because too many people around him, kids perhaps, are being too loud.

The kid with the fake Nikes has a bandage on his knee but you can still see some of his scrape, which he may have gotten on the playground running around with his friends who for all we know wear fake Nikes too. He’s wearing blue basketball shorts and a Batman t-shirt, so we decide he likes superheroes. 

The woman with the alligator skin purse is wearing velvet high heels and a brooch that doesn’t match the rest of her outfit. Her hair looks nice in the front but the backside is either too flat or too poofy, and one of her nails is broken as well. The stench of her perfume — strong enough to knock out a grizzly bear — wafts through the gate and you fear that once on the plane everyone will suffocate from the smell.

You observe. Instead of just watching people and letting the details pass you by, you take advantage of them. Sure your mind my get carried away and build imaginary backgrounds for these people, but that’s part of the fun of people watching — that’s part of the fun of character studies. Details, people, details are important! It’s a beautiful part of living!

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”

Thomas Jefferson, for his many, many faults, was a man of wise words. 

Most people I observe don’t act as though all the world were watching. Sometimes they hardly act like they themselves are even watching where they place their own feet, let alone bothering to consider whether or not those around them are watching where they place their feet. Sometimes I doubt if Jefferson even followed his own advice, and I have to wonder if he acted as though all the world were watching him have sex with his slaves. 

I doubt it.

But even in his probable hypocrisy, his words ring true. Do something as if the world were watching. I have an addition to make to that phrase, though. By all means, do things as though the world were watching you do them — but don’t expect the world to react. Your actions will not always make waves, nor should you always expect them to. You shouldn’t expect a reward when you do something that is in its most basic form the right thing to do, you know, you shouldn’t expect good things to happen to you just because you did something good yourself. It is for that reason that I don’t believe in karma.

Karma is in itself a selfish thing — “I’ll help this person out because it’ll come back to me in the future”. There’s nothing outwardly wrong about that ideal, but there’s a sort of sycophantic guilt in thinking that way. You help others to help yourself — however far down the line that help may be — even though you should simply be kind to others and help them as though you expect nothing, not even brownie points on St. Peter’s list of who gets in and who doesn’t. 

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching…but don’t expect applause.