Some of the Men in My Life and What They Mean to Me

It's not what you think.

Photo by Sebastian Muller on Unsplash

One afternoon a few weeks ago, when I arrived at my favorite Dairy Queen for my usual large vanilla cone, I saw a man I know from the day shelter for homeless men where I volunteer a few times a week. George was sitting at a table inside with his back to the parking lot. I noticed him through the window as I parked my car.

At first I wasn’t sure that it was George. But once I’d parked and come inside, I saw that it was. George is a big, quiet man, reserved, private, somewhere in middle age. He is a regular at the shelter, coming in a few days a week to get his mail or take a shower or just something like a bottle of water or a pair of socks.

Now and then I help out in the shelter’s laundry room, washing towels that the men use to take showers and handing out any toiletries they may need for their showers or freshening up in general. Each time George comes by for a shower, he always asks me for a “step-on” towel.

The first time he asked me for this, I didn’t understand what he was talking about. But then George gestured with his hands as if to spread something, and I figured out what he meant. Now every time George comes by for a shower, he doesn’t need to ask me for a step-on towel—I’ve got it ready for him along with a wash cloth and a bathing towel, as well as the two small cups of the liquid soap that he likes to use.

This afternoon at Dairy Queen, after I had gotten my cone, I sat in one of the booths where I usually sit, reading, but after I got a chill from my ice cream I moved to a table near George that was getting some sun. I said hi to George. He nodded at me. “Taking a break?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, and opened my book and began reading again.

I noticed that George had the backpack that he usually carries. It sat between his feet on the floor. He wore a pair of jeans and a light jacket. I also noticed that the Styrofoam cup on his table was not a Dairy Queen cup but marked with the name of the gas station across the street. When I finished my cone, I closed my book, said good-bye to George, and left.

Soon after I began volunteering at the shelter, I began seeing some of the men who go there as I went about the usual business of my life. I would see them at bus stops, in Walgreens, sidewalks, working as a cashier at the grocery. I guess I should say that I now recognized them. I have always seen them. Now I knew them—their names, some of their needs, some of the stories that brought them to where they are.

But seeing George this afternoon at Dairy Queen felt different. It wasn’t that I was surprised to see him there. It was that I saw his circumstances in a whole different way, as if a new lens had been slotted into my glasses. The realities of his life became more immediate, starker, harsher.

It was coming on six in the evening. At this Dairy Queen, out by a highway interchange near big-box stores like Costco and Wal-mart, alongside other fast-food places like McDonald’s and Rally’s, George was far from any shelter. Where would he be going when he left? I knew where I would be going—home, where I am every night.

George may have known where he would be going, too. Maybe he would make his way to a shelter later. But having to figure that out every day, as well as having to figure out where to get food, get clothes, get clean—I can’t imagine, and seeing George this afternoon, doing something so ordinary as having a soda at a restaurant, brought into focus the extraordinary, exhausting, unending challenges of his day-to-day life in a way that seeing him at the shelter had not.

Probably the next time I see George at the shelter, I will think of seeing him at Dairy Queen, and when I am at Dairy Queen I may think of him sitting at the table in the late-afternoon sun. It's just just one of the ways my time at the shelter has looped itself through my life, cinched itself up snug inside me.

Here is another. A few months ago when I was helping out in the laundry room one morning, a man named Stephen came by for some toiletries. I introduced myself, saying, “I’m Polly, like ‘Polly want a cracker.’” Stephen laughed and went on to get a cup of coffee. He came back a few minutes later.

“So, I gotta know,” he said, “what else does Polly want?” I was stumped. No one had ever asked me that before, in all the times I’d introduced myself that way, of which there are many. I just shrugged and said, “I don’t know—everything?” “Okay,” Stephen said, smiling, “good enough.”

I often still introduce myself to people that way, and every time I do that exchange with Stephen comes to mind. But not too long ago that exchange began to resonate in my life in another way.

One morning at the shelter when I was doing sign-in, the phone rang. A staff member answered. Whoever was calling told her that Stephen had been shot and killed in an altercation with another man.

Already Stephen’s life had woven into mine with our introductory exchange, and now the end of it is there, too, in a way that I did not expect and will probably always feel, his words following my own—“So, I gotta know, what else does Polly want?”

If you would like to read more about my experiences at the shelter, please see Angels, Fire Here, Angels, Fire Everywhere, It's Cold Outside and Crowded in the Shelter, and The Lives Behind the Line at the Shelter.

You may also support my work at Buy Me a Coffee.