I watched my grandchildren for a couple hours and when I left, stopped at Foster’s Freeze to buy a strawberry shake for my cheat day. I used to stop at the Foster’s Freeze when I walked the three miles from elementary school to my home. I had a paper route at the time and had money to buy it. Of course I was young and the three mile walk pretty much burned off the milkshake. I’ve only had a couple since then, maybe three so wanted to treat myself.
I was headed in and a young man who I later figured might be in his early 20’s asked me if I’d take him into Foster’s Freeze to buy him food. I didn’t understand him at first and thought he was asking for money. I offered it to him, but he was insistent on going inside and that I should take the time to buy it for him.
My milkshake was ordered while I explained the why behind it and then asked him what he wanted. He appeared to want to know what he could get. I told him, “Get anything you want.” He ordered something and it cost $10, which I figured was way overpriced and told the people that we could go to a restaurant at that price. I turned to my new acquaintance and told him I hated to go back on my word, but he’d have to go down one which came to about $7. The total bill came to $10+. He looked disappointed, but what could he say. He was very polite to me and to the servers. Once the order arrived, I turned to him and told him the price he had to pay me was he had to sit down with me and tell me a little about himself. I explained I was a writer, but he didn’t seem to care.
We sat down and I began to look at him more closely. He had a small backpack, a jacket that may have been a tan color at one time, but was now dark, fairly long hair, a scruffy growth of hair on his face, and very dirty hands. He ate slowly, savoring each bite of his hamburger and then dipping his hands into the bag to get a French Fry. It was then I noticed his dirty hands and finger nails that had black following the edge of each.
He did not appear to be on drugs, although his movements were very slow. Getting information out of his was hard. I could write the dialogue here, but will quickly summarize because I’m too lazy to write it all.
He said he’d been in Santa Cruz for 3 or 4 years and that he was 17. So I said, “You must have left home when you were 14.” He appeared to realize he’d been caught in a lie and said that maybe he hadn’t been gone that long.
He was from Shasta County, up where I live. (He could have seen the license plate on my truck.) I said, “Your home life must have been pretty terrible to leave home so young.” He neither agreed or disagreed, but took the time to revise the time he’d been in Santa Cruz to a year or so. It occurred to me that he told me he was 17 in case I was a pervert and wouldn’t want to seduce a boy under 18. I’m not sure of that, but I can’t think of any other reason for a boy who looked like he’d been on the streets for awhile to say he was 17, when he appeared to be older. He may have been on the street for three years, but he may actually have left home when he was 17 or 18.
I asked him if he’d been to the homeless shelter and he said it was full. While I would have liked to offer him a place to stay, I didn’t even though Jesus said we should do such things. But I did give him a meal and spent some time getting to know him. I finished my milkshake and said, “Gotta go. God bless. you.”
“God bless you too,” he said as I got in my truck and drove off wondering what was going to happen to him and where he was going to sleep that night. I remember thinking, I wonder if that was Jesus in disguise and smiled at the thought.
I’m not sure, but as I drove past Foster’s Freeze yesterday (Thursday), a little over a week since I talked to him, I could have sworn I saw him at the window ordering something.
The problem is that there are so many homeless her in this beach town. I was hit up by two pairs of people that same day and was rude to them and felt guilty. But they didn’t seem to have the same needs at the young man who asked me to buy him a meal. I padded by guilty by reflecting on the scene in Jesus Christ Superstar, where Jesus is so overwhelmed by people wanting something from him all at one time. I’ll give again and will always give and try to give when I feel I’m being spurred on to do it.
