The Scholarly Indigent

Sitting outside of the Walgreens next to Neiman Marcus there is a thin African American in tattered pants, dirty business shirt, with a black sport coat and mercilessly bedraggled hat that may have once resembled a
Pork Pie hat or a Jazz hat. I see him there on the ground almost every day as I wait for the bus. In the evenings on my way there I pray no one will ask me for the change I have in my pocket so I can tip it into his hat. Why would I look forward to giving this man my change? Because he looks like he might have been a musician at one time. Because, at one point, his ill-fitting clothes were designed to be business attire. Before he lost the weight, before he lost his job, before he was on the street.
He never pesters anyone, he never asks for anything, most often I have seen him sitting there writing. With the sidewalk as his writing surface he writes on scrap paper with short (golf course) pencils or pens. I don’t know what he is writing. Maybe the mad ramblings in his head, maybe nothing, but the fact that he is writing lets me consider him. In thinking about him he has distracted me from whatever. To me, that’s totally worth the 64 cents in my pocket. So, okay, I’m a snob even about spangers (spare changers). Don’t just ask me for my money. I worked for it you should too. I’d like a little entertainment for my money: a good lie, some music, and the truth. But be careful, of the truth oh spangers (Speaking of course to those who have internet, a computer, and my blog site). Some gullible person may take a sign as the truth. The last time I saw a guy with a sign saying, “I’m just hungry” I happened to be on my way to the grocery store to get lunch. It was such a simple sign. I believed it. So I brought him back a sandwich, an orange and plenty of napkins. He blessed me, for all I know maybe he really was just hungry. But the next day someone else had his sign.

Anyway back to my main man Mississippi John Hurt.
But I guess it should be Michigan Ave. John Hurt

So I was walking through the little park on my way to work following Michigan Ave. John, although I didn't realize it was he. Sports coat casually thrown over his shoulder, Miriam Webster and some other book under his arm. When a young guy comes running up to him and stops him, then I realize its my writer. How apropos, I think, I wonder where he got the Dictionary? But I soon realize he got it from the park bench where this absent-minded guy had apparently left them. Politely John gave the books to the young man. I dunno, maybe I would have just taken my books and gone too. But, the kid left them. Walked away. That was lost and found buddy. Shouldn’t John get something, even just a thank you as he handed the books back without questioning that this guy was indeed the owner of these books. Is it wrong to be disappointed that the kid (20 something) couldn’t appreciate that someone had found his books, appreciate that he got them back with no fuss, appreciate that John might benefit from a trade of money and part with the $1.75 he would later spend in the Starbucks I watched him walk into?

It made me want to go buy John a dictionary, notebook and pen. Does he actually wants those things? Am I doing it because I want to support the image I have of him? I guess he probably would rather have what I would have spent on that.
It’s a tough call.
Michigan Ave. John Hurt, I have a pocket full of change and a notebook from the supply room and I’m headed home.