09/25/2005: "Crazy People Need Love Too..."

music: Movie Soundtracks
mood: Somber for a Sunday

In the Last few weeks as fall has been cozying up to the city I have been noticing our lovely population downtown of local homeless folk coming out to enjoy the last warm days of the season. They are a fascinating bunch that I may have shared my thought about before, but I’d like to give you a run down of a few of my favorites and give them the notoriety they deserve for their contribution to the character of the great city of San Jose.

I have long thought that in an effort to return some dignity to these citizens, a weekly article in a paper to put a name and a story to these faces would be a worthwhile effort. I wish I could put real names to these folks instead of descriptive labels at this time, but perhaps this will serve as the impetus needed to delve in further to these people. Imagine how much it could make someone’s day if instead of passing them by with maybe not so much as a smile, you stopped and said, “How are you hanging in there today Jim?” Maybe the exposure of how they came to be where and who they are doesn’t gain them a job, a free trip to rehab, a home, a bath and it may not net them an extra dollar of panhandling, but maybe for a moment, it gives them peace of mind. Gives them hope. Allows them to breathe one deep satisfactory breath for being a survivor. There may be a coffee table book with the proceeds going to a local shelter in the works yet. Enjoy.

Voodoo Sweeper lady: You’ll see her mostly around the Santa Clara and 2nd street area in her thick dark green, plaid, terry cloth bathrobe and slippers. She’s a dark black woman with an impressive set of 2 inch long dreadlocks with bright colored rubber bands about them. She is older but not old and yet certainly an old soul, seemingly focused and content to be where she is. I have never seen her still, she is in constant motion, eyes to the curbs and local sidewalks, hunched over, sweeping ever so intently god only knows what with her very small hearth broom worn almost to the handle. I wonder just how long she’s been at it. For Christmas I would like to get her a new broom that is better for her back. She does so seem to be serious on eradicating the dust that plagues between cars and curbs. He job will never end, and I have no doubt she will pass on to the next life with broom in hand.

Trombone Man: The world is full of street musicians. Trombone man may have talent playing the trombone, but we will never really know, because the corner on 1st and Santa Clara witnesses mostly his talent of CLEANING the trombone. Can we say obsessive compulsive? Yes, yes we can. His little plastic spritzer bottle of water is hard at work whenever I see him. Damn. That is one spoiled instrument. Yo Yo Ma doesn’t love his cello half so much as Trombone man loves his big brass lover. A rail thing doppelganger of Jimmy Durante, he has a song in his head, even if the rest of the world can’t hear it.


Belligerent Blind Woman: I may have mentioned this lady before. She cracks me up. Never met a person SO bitter over their disability and so unwilling to take help offered to them. I have seen this woman nearly get hit by cars on numerous occasions and clock a man for trying to politely assist her in getting back on the sidewalk as she charges with her white cane into oncoming traffic. She seems to be adamant she knows where she is going, but I wager she has never known. Think crazy cat lady from The Simpson’s. Almost a dead ringer. I thought at one time maybe she was faking for attention, but the jury is still out on that particular conspiracy theory. Most of the homeless population is benign; this woman is the exception to the rule. She is NASTY. Mean spirited and just a bad seed. I can say I blame her, but still, she’s the kind of lady that prevents other people from helping out.

Worn and Worried Man: This man breaks my heart daily and intrigues me more than any face around these parts. His full beard and wild brown hair cover the majority of his face and with it no doubt a lifetime of stories in a man who has lived only half his life. What is not covered with hair is caked with dirt but his intense blue eyes penetrate deep each time I see him. Lanky and lost he wanders the streets with no possessions. His jeans are shreds, barely covering him, providing decency in small doses but no warmth. My imagination pushes the needle off the scale when I pass by him. Lazlo Hollyfeld from Real Genius, Parry from the Fisher King, his wisdom, and experience show as he glides ghostlike, the presence of a former spring in his step undetectable. He has not embraced his situation which for me is the saddest part. There is no fight in him, to proud or discouraged to ask for help verbally, he keeps moving I think for fear he will simply break his own heart over the state of affairs. He screams of silent embarrassment, ashamed of his state and it pierces me on ever level. He is raw, the burden heavy in his demeanor. I have a pair of jeans and some toiletries in my car to pass off to him the next time I happen to cross paths. I hope there is no offense and the attention doesn’t shame him. He needs if for no other reason then to serve as a reminder of how easy it can be to have fate turn against you, to remain a fixture and make it through the winter. He’s a photo journalists dream, expressing a world of emotions in a single look and a kind hearted persons haunting daily tragedy. And you wonder if he’s a victim, and if so of what. Life, himself, the master plan? He could be god or Satan, or one of a million just like him. And the words Why almost escape my lips, but his stare says it doesn’t matter why, it just is. Life goes on regardless.


Fat Coke Man: He’s our seemingly typical icon of sloth. Large, and ornery, he sits with his cart full of various and sundry street treasures asking for change. He bickers at other panhandlers for stealing his “customers” by standing on the opposite corner and I wonder just what “service” he is providing to qualify the passerbyers as customers. If you are singing, or dancing, or telling jokes, or even CLEANING a trombone, fine, your art can be justified as entertainment worthy of paying customers, sitting on your ass and asking for change…not so much. Not until you are clearly starving can I



Bean Stalk Smoker Man: He sits and smokes and talks to himself. He’s like the tall thin giant that you find at the end of a magical beanstalk. But he’s fallen from that castle in the sky and perhaps a bit from grace. I don’t know what he says, I don’t know what it means, it may be just to pass the time, or I may be missing predictions worthy of Notradomus. It’s never directed at anyone specific. The other day when it rained, the boy from the coffee shop across from the bench where Beanstalk smoker man sits most days all day, brought him an umbrella. He sat there as usual with it and it made a dangerous picture. The little things help, and sometime mean the world, and yet, I don’t know if it’s enough. I don’t know, and that’s probably the most frustrating bit. How can we assuage our own guilt, or is it gratitude that it’s them and not us. Or acknowledgement that it could be us. Fragility’s a bitch no?

And so, we go on going just as they do, no different really. Maybe these people are crazy, maybe they are miles away, ahead of their time, maybe they “get it” better than we think we do, and maybe they warrant ever snicker and headshake we give them. Of course on the days when I walk out to grab lunch in my tiara and slippers I imagine some of the more “sane” folks smile and think, what a lovely character I am, gotta love those crazy people. Peace.