I'd been sitting, reading my book
probably fifteen minutes before they came in the door. I looked up at
the sound of the bell announcing an arrival mostly out of habit, but
I immediately recognized them, the same faces that had popped out the
window of an RV parked along the road as I was walking home from the
laundromat the other day.
“Did you just do laundry? You have
any spare change, brother?”
I nodded quickly in assent and dug into
my pocket, finding a dollar in quarters, resolving that I'd done my
part as I placed the money in his grimy hand.
“Thanks, God bless ya, brother!” he
said, as I began to walk away.
“No problem at all,” I told him.
I remember thinking, “One dollar
isn't even enough for one load in the washer. Did I really help at
all?”
And here they are again, in the
laundromat, and he recognizes me immediately and beelines in my
direction.
“Hey brother! Any chance you gonna
have any change left over today?”
Smiling, but buying time, I said, “I
don't know. Let me switch mine over to the dryer and I'll let you
know.”
So he plopped down on the next bench
over from me, her following, and I could already smell the reek. I
got up to check the washer. Still 10 minutes left.
I sat back down and resubmitted myself
to my reading as I tried to feel how much money I had left in my
pocket. I pulled out my phone to text a friend. Then I left it, clearly visible, on my
lap.
It wasn't even a minute before the
voice was back, coming from that bench just to my right.
“You got a cell phone, brother? Any
chance I could use it to make a call?”
A little off guard, I asked, “Yeah,
who do you need to call?”
I don't know why I asked that. It's not
like it mattered to me. I guess you feel a right to ask that question
when someone is borrowing your phone, but it still felt like a jerk
move.
“My sister.”
“Oh sure!” I said, as if excited
about his answer, and I handed the phone over.
I watched as he pulled out a crumpled
piece of paper from his pocket and strained to decipher the numbers
he'd written on it. He passed it off to her (maybe it was her
handwriting), and together they pieced together the numbers, dialed,
and pressed call.
I can't pretend to have heard the whole
conversation, but I could hear the voice on the other end, and it
wasn't happy for this interruption in their morning. His sister was
not pleased to have heard from him. The conversation was almost over
immediately, with him pleading and apologizing from the get-go. Other
customers in the laundromat looked over.
I lifted my book a little higher in
front of my face.
“Just a couple hundred bucks, that'll
get us through May,” he is saying. “We've got a guy that will let
us park the RV on his land for cheap, stupid cheap.” And apparently
in May, from some sort of settlement, his lawyer has him expecting
over a million dollars. “I'll buy you anything in June, sis.
Something you've always wanted, something stupid.”
This went on for what felt like
eternity. Him pleading, begging for help, and that voice on the other
end sounding annoyed, disappointed, trapped. I listened as his voice
started to rise, crack, gain desperation.
I wondered if I should have ever given
him my phone. What if he has an anger problem?
Finally, the voice on the other end has
had enough, and hangs up. He sits there for a second, fuming, while
his friend tries to calm him down.
“Bitch!” he emits, not exactly in a
yell, but in a voice that could be heard throughout the laundromat.
I avoided making eye contact with
anyone else around. I stood back up to check the laundry again,
walking past them on the way. Spin cycle, almost done. I glance at
him, to see if he looks ready to give the phone back to me. Nope.
He's looking through his pockets again. And she's looking through
hers. Who are they going to call now?
I wait as my laundry finishes in the
washer, then transfer my clothes to a dryer. I put in all the
quarters I need, then carefully transfer the $1.75 required for a
load in the washer to a separate pocket, for when he asks for it. At
least I can help them do some laundry today.
I sit back down to my book as they find
the scrap of paper they were looking for, another number. I realize
how uncomfortable I am, just four feet away, and they smell bad. I
wonder about my phone. I'll have to disinfect it before I use it
again. Can a phone retain a smell?
I try to read again, but once again I'm
listening as his second phone call goes through. The voice on the
other end of this one is male, and may be the caller's brother.
“Brother! How are you doing?” the
caller has his winning voice back on, once again launching into sales
mode to try to find money to survive. But he doesn't need to. The
voice on the other end of this line is excited, overjoyed to hear
from this man. The call lasts only minutes. The voice retains its
enthusiasm throughout, and I watch as the caller transforms from a
desperate, scared soul, to one with hope. Whoever this person is that
they've called has agreed to play some role in changing their lives.
He hangs up, a smile across his dirty,
scarred face. His teeth don't look healthy either. He looks over at
me and hands the phone back,
“Thanks so much, brother.”
I smile in return, and while I'm
reaching into my pocket to give them some laundry money, they're
already out the door, walking down the street, I presume, to their
RV. Now they have hope, there's no point in waiting around. They have
purpose anew.
As I walked home that day, I couldn't
help but compare the differences in the two phone calls. Perhaps the
first person was someone who'd helped these folks before, too many
times, and was tired of their charity being thrown away. Perhaps they
just held a grudge against this couple. Perhaps they had nothing
extra to give. But whenever I thought about that second person, I
couldn't help but think of the parable of the prodigal son. This was
the humiliating return, that part of the story where the desperate
son returns home, hoping only for survival by any means, even as a
servant, but instead is greeted with warmth and love. An equal.
Suddenly I felt shamed and judgmental
in my interactions. So “have” and “have not.” Unequal. What
if my first reaction, like the second voice on the phone, was one of
joy and excitement? What if I had treated these folks like beloved
family, not someone to give a dollar of laundry money to, but someone
to share the experience of laundry with? I had time. I could have sat
with them, shared stories with them. Yet I was doing what I could to:
a) get rid of them, preferably as
quickly as possible
b) assuage my conscience that I'd done
enough to help.
Sometimes, we need a little kick in
the butt to remind us who we're truly called to be.
