Al
Cougars and Rabbits
The call came to my cell phone; it was a nurse from the Royal Jubilee Hospital calling. She was asking if it would be possible for me to pick up Jim Shaw a well-known homeless man that had broken his ankle and was now in a cast. I immediately headed to the hospital When I arrived there he was standing against the stark red brick wall, his head hanging towards the ground. As I called out his name he raised his head, a major laceration over his swollen shut eye was quite evident, set against the black and blue colour of his face. As he raised his head from the ground, seeing me, a big smile came over his face. “Rev. you are the only one that would come and pick up this worn-out old rounder like me”.
I first had to drive him to see his parole officer as he had missed his appointment. Then I drove him to his corner, where he lives, sleeping just a half a block away in the alley there for the last 10 years. He spends most of his time standing on the corner of Blanchard and Fort holding out his hat panhandling for change. No he is not on welfare, he is not on disability, nor is he on any pension, he is too proud of a man for that. He panhandles four days a week and collects pop cans two days a week. He never works on Sunday, that's how he survives.
That morning I'm not sure why but he shared in a powerful way this personal story with me. It is always an honour to listen to one's personal life story and hold it in my hands, as it were a precious piece of crystal almost too hot to handle, fresh from the fire of life that has created it. His father and mother both were professionals, his dad a doctor, his mother a teacher. His older brother became an accountant his older sister a doctor. “Then I came along, they had all the brains and I had all good looks. I know it's hard to believe, looking at me now but I was really a good-looking man in my youth.”
If one really looked without eyes of judgment, contempt or discuss, if one really looked beneath his blacks swollen eye, his nose broken several times, his weather beaten face and the deep furrows of his wrinkled; only then one can see his brilliant bright light blue eyes equally spaced on a distinctively perfectly shaped skull, his high cheek bones, suddenly like the frog turned into the prince the handsome man of his youth could be seen.
“I was in my first alcohol treatment center at age 17 at a private exclusive center paid for from my Dad. “I swear it was the most beautiful place on earth. In front of us a fresh water lake set in the mountains with their snow-covered caps all around us.
A serious of treatment centers followed for the next 10 years all paid for by my family. I met a woman in the last treatment center. We were married a month later. We fought like cougars and made love like rabbits but there was nothing in between, we were either fighting or making love. Then one night I came home after a three-day drunk and spending the nights in the drunk tank, she was gone and so are the two kids. Rev I never looked for them”, tears rolled down his face. “No I didn't even pick up the phone” after a moment of silence he continued “but I damn well look for the bottle, she gave me a good excuse to climb in again. Tears now streaming down his face, “I have no one to blame but myself I am alone my greatest enemy. There is no return for me, I have not got another recovery within me now at age 57 I'm an old man that I pissed away the many opportunities that were given, a good family, financial backing, a wild love affair, all for the bottle, in the end my abusive lover. I can say that now but to be truthful most of my life I blame the other, whoever and for whatever, one excuse after the other, one lie after another lies that I even believe myself. The bottle in my deformed sick mind became justified”. He whipped his nose with the arm of his dirty sleeve and continued.
“Rev the questions of why hunt me now at the end of my life, all those years running away from one city to the next, from one shelter to the next from one alley to another.
I swear I have seen every drunk tank across Canada, I've woken up in dumpsters rat's knawing at my boots.. One cannot run away from themselves! My lover the bottle was always waiting for me whatever the destination, there always was another bottle to crack open there was always another dead soldier's to throw into the bush.
“Why, why, was It that I was plain stupid, was it genetic, was I just dam lazy, was I an addict when I was born, was God punishing me for being me?”.... The questions lingered in the air the silence that we both sat with screamed out for answers. At that moment I wish I was a fundamentalist; one with all the answers“Jesus is the answer the way the truth and the light, trust in Jesus and all will be well” Alas all will not be well, the truth for him; is his broken ankle, just out of the hospital with only the clothes on his back, hungry and dirty, a ragged sleeping bag awaits, in at the back of the smelly alley behind the dumpster he will sleep alone! This is the truth.
Somewhere from within my faith the words came from out of my mouth. “The harder questions are important to wrestle with at the end of our lives. They are like demons buried deep within the magma of our past selves. “Rev, he asked, What if I cannot go there and the questions come with me to the casket?
There was a silence before my faith came to my conscious mind and words from within my own magma came out of my mouth. “You will be in good company for Jesus himself bathing in his own blood, his question still not answered cried out in anguish “Take this cup from me”
Silence filled the air once again as the sun casting a beam of light on his weather beaten face like the artist brush stroking his cheeks, the handsome man of his youth spoke “O lord have mercy” his words like magma spewing from deep within his pain, distorting the silence and all in its path “have mercy on us” have mercy on us indeed. A/Tysick/5/18/2012
