Recently, I passed the threshold into one of those forbidden zones where these downtrodden creatures dwell, and where no respectable individual cares to go. I was attentive to my duty, but at the same time aware of my surroundings keeping an ear and an eye on guard against a possible attack. As I was engaged at my work I became aware of a presence lurking in the shadows near me. As it was near dark I adjusted my eyes somewhat and noticed two forms, a man and a woman, and when they had observed that I had detected them and acknowledged their presence with a "hows it going," decided that it was safe to pass into my circle of defense. As I was squatting down engaged in watching a voltmeter I decided that it would be best if I made myself a little less vulnerable to a possible attack so i stood up and received the wretched pair who were approaching me in a way that I did not take as being hostile. In fact, it was a cautious approach, as if they perceived a danger from me.
Daniel Quilp
The man was 50ish kind of tall and stooped with a hollow face and worried looking eyes. Overall he projected the image of a person that had seen tough times, had survived, but still regarded the future with trepidation. The woman was one of those individuals that was hard to determine an age. She might have been 30 or 50, it was hard to say. She was razor thin, and I noticed that when she smiled she was missing one of her front teeth. She seemed a little more confident than her companion, and less world weary. She too, it was obvious, had been through the mill of life and had taken the hard road somewhere along the way. The man was pushing an old grocery cart that I assumed was full of their world belongings, or at least his. I noticed an old pair of rubber boots in the cart, similar to ones that a person might use while working in the snow. The rest of the carts contents had been jammed into trash bags. The woman was the first to speak, in fact, the whole time that I was in the presence of these two cast offs of American society the woman did 90% of the talking. The man only occasionally chiming in, usually reafirming something that the woman had said. The woman was a quick talker and I immediately knew what it was they were looking for. I have seen their kind many times before, however, before I gave them their monetary reward for being homeless I let the woman tell her story, for I felt that it would have been rude to discard them with haste. Why she felt she needed to explain her penurious condition to me I do not know, for I would have given them a few dollars anyway without her much abbreviated and probably somewhat fabricated tale. She spoke in an uneducated, but somewhat forceful southern drawl. When she made a point, or pinned the blame for her current state on some real or imagined villain, her eyes would get real wide, almost ferrell like. From what I could gather, the woman claimed to have been booted from her house by a landlord, whom, after hearing her tale I was almost convinced ranked up there with some of histories and literatures most heinous and despised cutthroats. Indeed, if she were to be believed this man would make Daniel Quilp and Caligula look tame!
I wondered where the man fit into this picture. He was obviously not her husband, and without getting too inquisitive, for in truth it mattered not, I came to believe that he was merely an expedient. Perhaps he was some other unfortunate like herself whom she had latched on to for some reason or other, security perhaps. Obviously, he too had a tale to tell, but unlike her, he kept his hidden within the cavity of his mind. The man's worried and moth eaten face merely glared at me as if he knew what I was thinking, and dared me to ask him to relate his story too. However, some things are better left hidden, and I felt that was the case with him. After the woman had related her rather ambiguous and somewhat sketchy tale she hesitated before coming forth with the real reason for their visit with me. After receiving their reward and a "god bless" (as if god has blessed them) they took leave of me and I watched them scurry away down the sidewalk like a pair of hungry rats that have just been fed.
It is terrible in this day and age when some people have so much, there are others that have so little. Why is this? I cannot say. It seems to be the nature of things. There have always been rich and there have always been poor. Where there is a winner there has to be a loser, unfortunate as it may seem. There seems to be no remedy to this age old problem. Long after the writer of this post, and those who might read it are relegated to dust there will be people walking this planet in the same condition as the two hungry rats previously mentioned. I have heard some judgemental people make ignorant comments like "go get a job" without first reflecting on what might have been the cause of the unfortunates slide into the abyss. "Not my problem" is what people might say when taken to task for their comment. Ah! but it is your problem! It is humanities problem. Until human nature can evolve to a point where it becomes human nature to "give," the problem will continue to rear it's ugly head.
Back in the 1990s I read two good books on the wretched conditions of the poor, Jack London's People of the Abyss, and George Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London. Although both books are dated, they are excellent reads for a subject that is timeless and therefore still relevant.
No comments:
Post a Comment