I woke up late by any standards, but in one of those restless moods you sometimes get when the air is charged with an almost palpable electricity and you feel that something needs to give. Something needs to change. But you can't quite tell what that something is, and so you start doing a million busy things to feel useful. I cracked open my Spanish textbook, worked for a while, started my laundry and realized I was out of fabric softener, then walked to Albertsons (the only grocery store you feel you can go to in your pajamas) to pick up some Downy.
It was on the return, after I hit the little crosswalk button, and I was thinking about how we all stand at crosswalks waiting for something, when I saw him. A curious individual who I almost didn't recognize, he blended in so well with the pavement. His outfit was various shreds of clothes in different shades of gray or graying, and he had a grizzled beard which hid his mouth. He had a hat pulled down over his eyes, as though to hide himself from the world. Or perhaps to shut the world out. In one hand he was holding a bag to his shoulder, worn from travel and with a couple of tin cans poking out. I couldn't read the labels. In the other hand, he held a pair of sneakers that matched the rest of him: graying, aged, and loaded with years of use. My eyes rested on the only sources of color on his person, which were his feet. I noticed with a start that they were bare. No socks, no sandals; just bare sun-burned feet, the heels hardened and cracked from the journey.
I didn't know this man. At once I felt a little uneasy, knowing that in a few moments our paths would cross. Should I acknowledge him? Offer him money? Look away? Selfish thoughts entered my mind, and though my heart wanted to go out to him my mind still did not understand him. If he had a pair of shoes, why didn't he wear them? Was he making a statement? Was he homeless? If he had no place to sleep, where was he going? What was he looking for?
Two things happened at once. The stoplights changed colors, making the little blinking "cross" figure light up opposite me. As I adjusted my load and prepared to take a step forward, the man looked up from under the shelter of his hat. His eyes pierced directly into mine, and in them there was such power of sorrow and accusation that it made me catch my breath. It was a look full of meaning and full of emotion, as though he were shouting at me: "what right do YOU have to own a place to sleep, and food to eat, and an opportunity for education within these rich walls, and I have nothing? What makes you think you can pity me-YOU-who has no idea where I've been? YOU are nothing."
After a moment I realized I had frozen midstep, and I put my foot down awkwardly. The man, his head bent forward once more, had chosen to cross the road opposite us rather than pass me. As though my very presence offended him too greatly to come within a few inches of each other and breathe the same air. The driver of the car in front of me, who had been waiting for the silly college girl to cross the road and now saw her wide eyed and staring into space, honked his horn impatiently. I snapped to, quickly skipping over the road until I was safe on the lawn in front of the dorms. I looked back and searched for the gray outline of the man, but saw only cars flashing past. He was gone.
What did it mean? Why such anger? Why such sorrow? The day seemed colder suddenly, and I shivered as I turned to go. Later, as I cranked up the heater in my room and looked around me at my bed, my little fridge full of leftovers from good meals in a safe campus, my new purchases on the desk, my laundry to be dried...I could have died. What right did i have to these things? In less than four years time I'd be graduated from here, my time in Caldwell spent. What could I possibly do in that time that would justify this comfort, while the man outside wandered without shoes and ate out of cans?
I'd like to think I do my part for humanity. I've given blood at every drive this year. I deliver meals to families in Nampa and Caldwell for the Food Bank. I slip dollar bills into the Salvation Army tins. When people drive me places, I offer to pay for gas. The tuition isn't cheap here, and I would never be where I am without my scholarships, which I work hard to maintain. Isn't that enough? Doesn't that count for something?
"What makes you think you can pity me-YOU-who has no idea where I've been?"...those words, which I remind myself were never actually uttered aloud, but which nevertheless were communicated, suggest that it's not enough. It counts for something perhaps, but it doesn't change that man's life one way or the other. My blood will not save his life. My meals will not reach his door. My dollar bills mean nothing to him. And my education? What does it matter to a man who will not benefit from my knowledge?
Tonight while on route for Food Bank, two families out of the ten asked to be removed from the program. One because they were doing so well financially they felt they didn't need it anymore, and one because they were doing so poorly and life had become so complicated they didn't want to add one more inconvenience. I've been helping with deliveries for months now, long enough to develop a love and sympathy for those we deliver to, and the two announcements came as blows to an already disappointing day. It was as if the wandering man was laughing at me: "your efforts are wasted...you are nothing..."
Upon reflection I realize that I was not the target of the man's anger. I just happened to represent the many things which he despised; I could stand there and take his silent accusation and not fight back. Along with the shame I feel at having so much while he has so little, there is also the burning desire to prove him wrong. The same desire, I think to some extent, that every college student on campus has. To prove that we are something. To prove that we deserve to be here and can do worthwhile things. Most of all, to prove that we don't forget the "wandering men" around the world.
