The Hobo
There he is, just sitting there has he had been for the last week or so. Sitting there with, presumably, all of his worldly possessions in that little green backpack. He seems deep in thought, or more likely, lost in delusion or coming out of a drunken stupor. I decide that tomorrow is going to be different; I will make a change in my behavior and therefore benefit someone else. It won’t be a real problem for me because I have tomorrow off anyway. As I pass him in my car I give a little wave and smile to myself the way one does before they do something great for another.
I decide to walk the half-mile to the park on the crisp spring morning. It seems rather novel when I am so used to driving everywhere, but it is a nice change. I am relieved to find that my future protégé is sitting on the same bench after the chilly night. It is almost as if he is waiting for the hand of some supernatural spirit to come down and push him in a direction that will be fulfilling and satisfying to him. A life that not only he will benefit from but also one in which he will also benefit society.
I hesitate for a moment when I realize that shaking hands is the proper greeting, but then who knows what kind of diseases or germs a bum might have. I take a chance and approach him holding out my hand and say, “Hello, how are you doing today?”
“Fine, and yourself?” He takes my hand in his own and I notice that it is not what I expect. It is not dirty, there is hardly dirt under the nails, in fact, it seems that he is not dirty at all. He is rather unkempt, hair a bit too long, beard a little scruffy; the clothes are wrinkled and look as if they have been worn many days in a row. Although he has a definite odor to him, it is rather mild like what I would expect from someone who has been camping for a few days, not one that lives on the street.
“I came to ask if you know why are you sitting here?” I can see by his expression that some thought has been provoked.
“I am sitting here because this is where I stayed last night,” he says. The thought was not as deep as I had hoped.
“No, no, no… I mean why you are sitting here,” I use a broad gesture as one might to help a foreigner to understand what here meant; he may be awakening from sleeping one off.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…” he reaches for his pack and starts to stand. “There aren’t any signs posted or anything. I know, I looked; I always check for signs so I make sure I am not breaking any laws or anything.”
“No, it’s not that either,” I say to him with a reassuring smile. “You are fine here,” I say pointing to the ground to indicate exactly what I meant. “Although, I must admit that the neighbors and I have had a few cross glances and a few whispered conversations about you. After all, we are not accustomed to having people of the street,” I pause a moment and wonder if I said it correctly in “PC” terms, “in our neck of the woods.
“People of the street,” he asks of me with an awkward glance and I knew that I had blown it.
“I didn’t know what to say, a person of the street,” I awkwardly look off and mumble, “a bum?” I had offended him.
“A person of the street… a street person … a bum, is that what you think I am?”
“I’m sorry. I met no offence. I was just trying…” it suddenly occurs to me I didn’t know how to approach this. Although I know what I want my goal to ultimately be, for him to be an upstanding citizen like myself, I didn’t know how I was going to go about causing this transformation for him. The pause goes on a moment too long. “What are you then?”
“I am a hobo.”
“What is a hobo if not a bum,” I ask.
“A bum is someone who begs for money in the cities. Someone who lives in allies or under overpasses drunk on cheap wine or even cheaper booze and lets life happen to them because they no longer believe that they have any control over their own life. A person who scrounges for change just so they can get their next fix, or their next drink. They have let themselves become victims of this world and of this society.”
He looks me straight in the eye with every word he speaks. There is not the slightest twinge of doubt or a blink of uncertainty in any of it. “You are…” my puzzled voice hangs in the air.
“I am a hobo. I am someone who has chosen to not have a home. I live life as a philosophy. I choose what happens to me and where I am when it happens. I can wander the world or if I find a place I like I can stay for as long as I like.”
“Oh, I see,” I say eyeing him. This is a strange individual I have encountered.
“I was once like you. Worked too many hours at a job I hated, for too little money for too many years. It was shortly after my wife told me that she was leaving me because she never got to see me anymore and when she did see me I was tired and grumpy all the time; so she left me for a good friend of mine, in fact, we worked together. So, I gave it all up. Got a divorce, quite my job, gave the house to my wife…ex-wife to sell and left.”
“I’m sorry,” I said showing my support of him and his loss.
“I’m
not. We weren’t in love; hadn’t been in a
couple of years. We didn’t have any
kids. It was more of a relief than
anything. One of the things that
attracted me to her initially was the fact that we always said we weren’t going
to let our lives get complicated. We
were going to enjoy our lives, have fun and not become our parents. Sure we would have careers but our number one
priority would always be to have enough.
Just enough; maybe a little extra.
Enough to go to
Suddenly I was intrigued by his story. This hobo, his story sounded so familiar; like a book that I’ve read or a dream that I had, or maybe a movie that I watched one evening. “So, what happened?”
“We graduated from college, got married and entered into the real world. We started hanging out with our neighbors in suburbia that were near our same age and suddenly we had other desires and other wants. She wanted designer clothes like the ones her friends were wearing and I wanted a fishing boat that was just a little bit longer than my neighbors. One day we heard that someone put a screened-in-porch on the back of their house, so within a month, we were building one of our own. The biggest problem was, I didn’t make as much money as the people around me, and my ex didn’t make enough to cover the difference.
“So, did you lose all of your money?” I think I have discovered the problem. Surely, this will be easy enough to rectify the fact that he did not have the desire to work hard. He was lazy… just needed to be motivated.
“No,” he said, once again looking me straight in the eye, his confidence was almost unnerving; especially for someone who is a bum… hobo. He continues, “I actually just worked harder. More hours, and made more money. But that is what started the true problem.” He looks at me directly and waits for me to return his look. It is as if he wants to impress upon me the importance of this statement. “I wasn’t even content with my life any more. In fact, I hated it. I made money to buy stuff that I didn’t really want. I wasn’t enjoying myself… I had stopped having fun.”
I fight hard to maintain composer and escape with only a small chuckle. “Fun!” Then I actually become a little upset. “Fun, since when was life all about having fun. Life is about work and supporting those you love and yourself, and paying taxes. It is about being a contributing member of society and doing what is right for your fellow man. And having a house and possessions. And having those things. That is what makes you happy and then maybe you think about having fun.” I look him over. I felt strange, I don’t usually get worked up over simple conversations especially with someone who is less of a… well let’s just say not has high on the totem pole as myself.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says to me. It occurs to me that I was worried about upsetting him, and now it appears that I am the one getting riled up. “Maybe what I need out of life differs greatly from what other people need. I have just come to discover that what I need is very simple. I need air to breath, I need food to eat, but even that can be dramatically reduced from what it was, I need water to drink, I need shelter from the weather occasionally, but usually I can even just get a long with the clothes that I have for that.”
“Clothes, what do you do when it snows?” his passion was beginning to bother me.
“I follow the birds south to where it is warmer. When it gets too hot, I follow the birds back north. When it rains I try to find a shelter or maybe a tree to be under. When I get hot or dirty, I find a stream or lake to jump in and maybe wash my clothes.”
“So, what car do you drive or how do you pay for a ticket to get north and south?”
“Usually I walk most of the way. Or hitch hike. You’d be surprised how easy it is to actually travel on foot, if you have no deadline. You can take your time and enjoy the sights. Enjoy the air.”
“How do you eat, where do you sleep?”
“I eat what I can find: nuts and berries. People can be very generous, too. There have been many times when somebody has bought me a meal for no other reason than just a nice conversation. Do you know how many people just want to talk, or just want to be listened to? Nobody listens anymore. Or I have done chores for people and they have given me food or money to purchase food.”
“So you do have money?”
“No, not really. I usually just purchase what I need and hold on to the rest for food later, but I don’t keep money on me.”
“You are mad,” I said with certainty. “What if you couldn’t find any food, and no one would give you any? What would you do then?” I had him there. He would see the holes in his plan.
“Go hungry I guess. There is always something that you can find to eat though. I have kept a book with me that show all sorts of edible nuts and berries. It is one of the few things that I have kept with me since I left.”
“There are no nuts. No berries. Let’s say you are in a big city.”
“Well, I don’t usually go into cities… they make me… Closter phobic.”
“Cities make you Closter phobic,” I ask him in disbelief.
“Pretty much ever since I left my former life. It is mostly the people. They are just so hurried, so rushed, so… completely oblivious to everything that is going on. Constantly looking at their watches, their cell phones, their computers, their palm top computers, anything and everything to make sure that they are on time and sticking to their schedules and ignoring the people and the world around them.”
I just sit back on the bench a little bit. I survey him. Look him over. “I don’t understand. What do you mean? People have things they need to do. They have things that help them do what they need to do.”
“No, they have excuses to help them not engage in the world that surrounds them.”
“But people engage in the world. Their jobs, their families, their houses, computers, PDAs and phones which you seem to complain about so much.”
“Ok.
People engage in the world as a formality, but for the most part, they are
looking for reasons to remove themselves from the situation. Take restaurants for instance. Sports bars have become the most popular and
most abundant restaurants in
I stared at him for a moment. “Usually the food is not bad and it is for a decent price.” This was not the answer he was looking for.
“It is glorified drive-through dinning. The food is prepared at some factory then shipped frozen to the restaurant to be warmed up then served and then you get charged as if it was a semi-gourmet meal. Try again.”
“Ok.” I was starting to get a little nervous with his eyes staring at me, “Because of the atmosphere. The TVs and décor… they make you feel at home.”
“I’ll agree with you on part of that answer, but why would people, let’s say a family for instance, get ready, all pile into a car, leave their home and drive 15 minutes to a half an hour, to go to a sports bar where they can feel at home?”
“To spend quality time with their together,” I could not see where he was going. “My own family has done this many times.”
“To spend quality time together? Maybe our definitions vary, but sitting in a place where it is too loud to have a real conversation and typically people sit and watch one of the fifty TVs that align the walls is not my idea of quality time.”
“Sometimes my family goes to a movie first. We have a family night.”
“So, you go and sit in a place, all facing the same direction, where not only do you not speak to one another, but you aren’t supposed to talk to one another, it’s dark so you can’t see each other, and there is something playing to entertain you all, keeping you distracted from each other. Then, you go to a place to eat food that has been prepared with out care where you still can’t talk because it is too loud. That is some family night.”
“But we are together.”
“You are together, but what is the point if there is no interaction? If you are constantly distracted from each other? If you don’t engage in conversation about each other’s lives and find out what is important to each individual.”
“We used to have dinner at home once a week. A big nice meal with no TV and no distractions. But who has time anymore. I work, my wife works, the kids have school and sports practices.” I was beginning to see his point, on this anyway.
“I know and that is my point. People stop engaging in each other. They lose sight of what is important to themselves, to those who are around them that are important.”
“You and your wife split up, you just told me that. If you know all of this stuff, then what happened to you and her?”
“That was what happened to my ex and me. We stopped making time for what mattered to us and cared more about what other people had.”
“So, what is the answer? Are we all supposed to just quit our lives and start walking around with out money or possessions, being ‘hobos’ of some sort?”
“No. I don’t think that is the answer for everyone. It is what I had to do. I was to a point where I had to leave; had to change.”
“You had to escape. You could not handle life. The life that everybody leads.” I need to show him that he is just weak, but he can do it.
“But is it the life that people should lead? It was not the life that I wanted.”
“Well, it is the life they lead?” I think that maybe I am finally starting to make headway. He breaks for the first time and looks off into the distance as if trying to remember something.
“But should they?” he emphasizes each of the three words to make his point. I am here now. I am walking around by myself. I found that since I didn’t have any responsibilities that I needed to go; I needed to find myself, or more importantly I needed to lose that person I once was. This is where I am now.” He made a gesture around his temples then around his heart then paused for a long moment, he did not seem uncomfortable by the silence, but after a moment I became uncomfortable. Then he spoke again.
“Since I left my former life I have become more content and happier with life. I found that my possessions were beginning to consume me. I always needed more. I always needed to spend more money. I was living here,” and he used a gesture to suggest a man’s wallet. “I wasn’t in debt, because I was making the money but always just enough to cover myself.” Again I began to identify with his story; I began to realize that it sounded so similar to my own. “I began to have problems breathing a few months before my wife left me. It was like I was suffering from emphysema for no reason, I didn’t smoke, I ate reasonably well, I exercised not every day, but often enough. My breathing started to get harder and harder. I went and saw a doctor about it even, and he could find nothing wrong with me. When my wife told me she was leaving me for my friend it was the hardest. I spent that entire evening walking through my house filled with all of these things that I had purchased. Some of them I didn’t even remember buying, but that entire night my breathing became more and more forced. I had to concentrate in order to breath. Finally I collapsed.
“What happened, did you have a heart attack or something?”
“No. Well, not in the literal sense. In the sense that my wife had just left me, whom I thought I was still in love with, and all that I had around me… my possessions, were empty. They had no emotion that they could give, they provided no comfort to me when I was upset. They did nothing but sit there. They were nothing.” He looked at me when he said this, his direct look that seemed to bore into me. It was almost frightening. “All of those things that I had accumulated and all the work that I put into purchasing them, they had become my life. I realized that they meant nothing. So, what did my life mean?” He took another one of his long pauses. I began to wonder if I should say something or do something. If I should try to comfort him in some way, but he just sat there with a slight look of anguish on his face as if he were reliving the whole thing again. An ever so slight smile turned the corner of his lips and he look at me with kind eyes and began to speak.
“When I woke up in the morning I knew that I had to leave, I had to get away from it all forever or it would kill me. Just a few clothes, a couple books, and for some reason I have always held onto my ATM card.” He pulled it out and showed it to me. It was a little ratty, but you could still see the holographic bird on it. “It is more to remind me of that life and to stay away.”
I began to see why this man had left his life. It seems very strange to me, but there did seem to be a reason why he was here. It also seems strange why he is who he is. But when the two come together and I look at him here and now, there does seem some method to it. I even have to admit that he has taught me something even though I was the one who set out to teach him something.
“I guess the point is,” he goes on, “that people have to find a balance. A way to hold on to what has now become the normal day-to-day life.” He brushes some hair off of his forehead. “I had gone so far to one extreme that in order to balance myself, or to regain balance, I had to become what I am now.”
“So, this is where you are? This is what you are for the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that is part of what I learned. Do I want my life, my presence to define me, or do I want to define my life.”
“Is there a difference?” I asked getting ready to go on another one of his tangents.
“Yes, one is external: your life,” he shifts his weight from one side to the other. “Your possessions, what you do, where you do it. If your life defines you, or who you really are, then there is no hope for real change. When you do try and change it is always through acquiring something else, as if buying a new car will have some revolutionary change to your personality. You will remain where you are and doing what you are doing because it defines you. That is how I used to live. But now I define my life. Now I can change at will, because the change can occur purely here,” he motions to his temple with his finger.
“Isn’t that really just a semantic difference though?”
“No, it’s not. If my life defines me and I have nothing, if I am a hobo wandering the streets, then I am nothing. I have nothing to give and nothing to offer. If I am nothing then there is no chance for me to change and become something different.” He looks over at me again with that look that lets me know I need to pay attention. “On the other hand, if I define my life, if I am always me, then no matter what I own, what I do, I will always be something, I a will always have worth and I can always change my definition of myself. I can get a job and become,” he finger quotes himself,” respectable, or I can remain a hobo, but I will still be the same person.”
I just stare at him for a moment pondering what he has just told me. “you won’t be the same person through. One has substance in his life, the other doesn’t.”
“But I will. All of those things that I found no comfort in when my wife left: the house, the fishing boat, the screened-in-porch, I thought they all defined me, but they didn’t. I thought that they were who I was, but they weren’t. When I looked around and didn’t find any comfort in them I realized that I had counted on putting a little piece of my soul into each of the things that I had purchased. When I walked around and discovered that there was nothing there…” he just shrugs.
A few moments pass by before he goes on. “I just knew it was time for me to go on. Those things that were such a reflection of my life were empty. There was no sentimental value to them to justify the life I was living in order to by them. I was empty. The next morning when I woke up I realized that none of it meant anything to me so I left. It’s been about three years now and I haven’t even really looked at going back.”
Three years living this life and he has not looked back. I sit there with my mouth slightly open, it somehow make is a little easier to breath. “So what now? Do you just keep wandering from place to place for the rest of your life?”
“Where ever the winds may blow me,” he says with a slight smile and a twinkle in his eye like some young, nomadic Santa Clause. “Maybe the winds will stop blowing me, or push me into a job. Who knows,” he says with a little laugh. “But I do think that my time here has been spent. Don’t get me wrong, you have a beautiful little town here, but there is so much to see out there in the world.”
“The winds are blowing,” I say with a smile.
“Yes, they are beginning to pick up.” He begins to role up the blanket that he had and strapping it to his pack. He looks at me with a smile. “it is time to move on. I enjoyed our little chat today, though.”
“As did I, although I must say that you were not what I expected.” I take a minute to reflect on everything that has transpired. Then, it suddenly strikes me that he is leaving. All of a sudden I feel almost… panicked.
“Wait a minute.” It is very hard to describe what I feel. Before I had encountered this man, everything in my life seemed to be going well and seemed to be in order. Now suddenly everything seems to be closing in around me.
“What does it all mean? I mean what do I do to find the balance?”
“He looks at me, a little surprised. “I can not answer that for you. You need to find your own way to achieve balance. We live in a society when the number one complaint people have about their jobs is that they do not get enough time to spend with their families and yet they put in more and more time at the office, skip lunches, work evenings and holidays more often every year. I guess I would say figure out what is truly most important to you, what you really truly want, and go after it. Do not let anything stand in your way.”
“But what is my way> I have a wife and a child on the way. I can not pick up and leave.”
“And I do not think that is the answer for you. Although I can not truly tell you in which direction you path lies, I can tell you this: I had gone so far in a direction that I did not want to be in that I nearly lost myself. I was so full of panic I did not know what to do. I could not function in that life that I had led.”
It has finally dawned on me what this man is saying, I think. I realize for the first time that he is not innately dysfunctional. “But how can I follow you.” Even as the words escape my lips I am shocked to hear them come from me.
“You do not need to follow me. That was my problem in my former life. I was always following someone else. I did not follow the life that I wanted to lead because it was the direction that I wanted to take my life. I followed it because that was the way that others had taken their lives, the direction I was expected to go in. I was trying to live a live that wasn’t mine.”
“Even if you chose to leave your current life and blindly leap into a life like mine, I doubt that you would find much contentment or satisfaction as you would still not be living a life that was true to you. You would be living a life that is true to me. Instead, look with in yourself to discover what you want and what you like about your life as well as what you don’t like and want to change about your life.”
What do I want to change? “I don’t know if I can. I am suddenly filled with so much doubt; I have never felt like this before.”
“I am sure you can find you way,” he says with a slight smile, “it is not something that will just come to you in your first minute of thought. I am sure that most people do not need to make as drastic of a change as I did and I do not see that for you. Just make sure that you make active choices in you life. Don’t let you life happen around you.”
We sit for a long moment in silence. My panic subsides a little, but I can still feel it settled in my stomach. I look toward the ground trying to gather my thoughts. “I am at a loss as to what to say.”
“Nothing needs to be said. Except maybe good bye as it is time for me to be moving on. He extends his hand and I once again shake it firmly.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. I am headed North, in general, as it is spring.”
“Well, could I interest you in a hot meal before you move on, or maybe a cool drink?”
“I would like that, “he says with a warm smile. “But won’t your neighbors talk about the bum who was in your house?”
“Yes, they will.” With that we stand up and head off toward my home.