by Joe Kowalski
In the autumn of 2016, my
car was double-booted because I had forged a single-day parking pass, and so I had
to take the RTA Blue Line transit to Tower City in order to walk from there to
Cleveland State University. Along the way, I stopped at the corner store
formerly known as For Goodness Jake’s. There was an older man inside, beard
peppered and scattershot against his pale skin. His clothes looked like they
had been found outside of Goodwill. The dude bought a candy bar and struck up
an energetic conversation with another man sitting outside on a bike.
The shabby man was speaking
intensely, so I stopped to make sure that he wasn’t harassing the poor cyclist.
He was clearly drunk, but the cyclist didn’t seem threatened by him. The
conversation turned to politics. Eventually the man turned to me, his pupils
swirling a bit before focusing.
“Your name?”
“Joe.”
“You’re voting for Trump,
right?”
“Not a chance,” I said.
“I was a steelyard worker
for years. Trump is for the workers.”
“As far as I can tell,
Trump is only for himself.”
Although class would begin
shortly, the man and I continued our lively conversation on my way to campus.
He was homeless, he said, mostly because he couldn’t afford to pay off any more
DUIs and had become estranged from his daughter. He was bothered that I hated
Trump, but he liked that I was in school because “It’s important to learn how
to think, and at least you’re thinking. There’s not enough of that these days.”
We passed another homeless
man. They knew each other and struck up a conversation. My walking companion gave
him a generous five-dollar bill and ended up giving away the candy bar he had
bought too, saying, “I don’t need the sugar anyway.” He also joked around for a
minute with a construction worker. I made sure we stayed on the busy sidewalks
of Euclid Avenue, so that there was little chance that anything dangerous could
happen.
He
didn’t. The further we walked, the more I interpreted him as lonely rather than
hostile, although I imagine a big factor in my subsiding fear came from the
unearned privilege of my being a white guy.
I was subjected to stories about his time in jail. How he had been
“reformed.” He said that he changed because of a “little book called The Bible”
and with the help of a well-known individual ... I thought I knew where this
was headed.
“You
ever heard of Jack Kerouac?” he slurred, taking me by surprise.
“The
writer? Yeah.” We crossed the street.
“Thought
you might. He was a mastermind of words. You got an address? I’ll mail you
something amazing.”
“I’d
prefer not to tell you that. Sorry, man.”
“I
think maybe you deserve it. No one ever talks to me like this. Plus, you’re a
smart kid.”
“What
is it?”
He
scratched his beard. “When I was in jail, I read his poetry daily. Jack’s.
Memorized it. It said a lot to me. Made me rethink everything. Made me see how
we’re all connected. Genius. Taught me how you didn’t need a whole lot of words
to say a lot. ‘I’m merely exploring
souls and cities,’ etc. etc. See, Jack Kerouac used to write on this weird,
long paper stock. Almost like a scroll. His notebooks were wild. You’d never
believe it, but I found one of his original manuscripts in a crate at a flea
market.” He looked at me expectantly, arms raised upward.
“...
Huh.”
The
man nodded vigorously, smile growing. “I don’t think they understood what it
was. But I read those words a million times in prison and had to have it. Since
then, I’ve had this thing at every important moment of my life. It’s back at
the shelter as we speak. Kid, I want you
to have it now.” He clapped me on the back.
“I
appreciate that,” I said. “But I don’t feel comfortable giving you my address.”
We were rapidly approaching the school.
The
man blinked for a minute and then pointed at the trash can outside of the Law
Building, all while attempting the feat of standing steady. “Hm ... see that
right there, Jim? It was Jim, right?”
“Joe.”
“Okay. I’m going to leave
the manuscript in there tomorrow. That way you can have your life changed too.
Look for it there tomorrow after 10 a.m.”
“What
if the trash gets emptied?”
“Okay,
okay…” He swung around, still off-kilter. The next target was the sparse
foliage that lined the grey brick of the building. “There then. Right in those
bushes. 10 a.m. Priceless manuscript.”
“I’ll
check for sure.” We shook hands and he was off, singing a song I didn’t know.
I
know it was stupid, but I had to check the next day. Wouldn’t you? I felt a bit
silly combing among the mulch, but I had to be thorough. It was the time of
year when the temperatures were starting to dip and people scurried by,
ignoring me just to get inside. I wondered if they weren’t attempting to ignore
me in a similar manner that people ignored my drunk acquaintance the day
before.
Nope. Nothing. Of course.
Although, it’s quite possible that maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Maybe you
should check the shrubs outside the Cleveland State University Law Building
when you are in town in case I missed it years ago and it’s still there, water
damaged and concealed in mulch, just waiting to change your life.
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