Beneath the Interstate

This Week's Song - Will The Circle Be Unbroken - Many have recorded this gem, but I prefer any bluegrass version. The Johnny Cash/Nitty Gritty Dirt Band/Ricky Skaggs version is hard to beat. I sang it walking home from the underpass a couple of weeks ago. Its precious lyrics echo in my soul.

Sunset in my town

When the youngest of our four moved into the dorm at UT last month, Nancy and I became empty nesters. She wanted to try downtown living. So, we moved to Gay Street with our Golden Retriever. We love it. Sophie is still making up her mind.

I saw him for the first time in years. He was on Gay Street in late July. He was at a good distance, but I recognized him immediately.  The sight of his face revived great memories from my teenage years. His appearance, however, brought me great sadness. Charlie (not his real name) had been my friend.

The memories all led to a poker table at Jimmy Johnston's house in the early years of high school. Those memories always come complete with visions of dealing cards and throwing money in the pot, all of us joking and laughing, and watching football or Caddyshack on weekend nights. It was on one of those many nights in the mid-1980’s that I drank my first beer at Jimmy's house in the company of friends. Charlie was always there. We’d pass money back and forth and sip on Goebels Light, an absolutely terrible beer, acting as though we’d been drinking it for years. We were a group of walking hormones trying to find the pathway to cool.

Those great friends, many of which I still talk to regularly, would gather wherever we could freely pursue adulthood. It was usually in situations where parents were out of town and someone's older sibling could buy us alcohol.  We were growing up, a bunch of west-Knoxville kids doing our best to be good boys while pursuing manhood.  It was a great time and place to come of age. We saw the first video on MTV and wore Member's Only jackets. Our hair was worn in glorious mullets, our necks adorned with a single gold chain, and Madonna, in all of her “Like-a-Virgin” wonder, and older girls from school made their way into our dreams. We didn't have cell phones. If you wanted to talk to a girl, you had to call her from a phone attached to the wall or, heaven forbid, walk right up to her and talk face-to-face. Charlie’s shy nature and piercing eyes, the color of the Gulf of Mexico, made him popular among members of the fairer sex.  He loved to gamble and play golf and possessed a swing touched by angels. It was a swing that provided a ticket to college and could have led him even further. Charlie spoke very few words, but always made us laugh. He and I visited our first ATM together and joked about how the new invention wouldn’t last. I can place myself inside so many teenage memories and often find Charlie there - throwing cards, drinking a beer, laughing, making me laugh. He was a good friend.

I lost touch with him. I didn't know if he finished college, but I heard he joined the Army, and moved to Hawaii. He got married. Then, just like that, nothing. As I was marrying, going to law school and starting a family, I began to hear through friends that he had developed some mental problems - that he was perhaps bi-polar, even schizophrenic - and then, somewhere along the way, a rumor emerged that he was homeless. When I saw him on Gay Street at the end of July, I had my confirmation - Charlie was homeless, or at least it seemed so. He wore a dirty football jersey that was too big, pants that were too long and he was filthy. I knew I’d need to talk to him, but I didn’t know how. With me living downtown, my running into him would be inevitable. Would he know me? Would he ask for money? I just didn’t know. Why was I so uncomfortable? I think I was worried about embarrassing him. I was overcome with sadness and pity.

When Nancy told me we were going to McGhee Avenue to serve the homeless, I was hesitant. In our remarkable marriage I have learned when to lead and when to follow. I have expanded my horizons and enriched my life whenever I agreed to simply follow. However, I knew Charlie would likely show up. He did. When we arrived, he was already there - working.  The sweltering summer day was giving way to a pleasant evening beneath I-40. He was wearing the same clothes from a month earlier. I watched him, and to my surprise, he was helping to set up. I told Nancy that I was going to talk to him as soon as we received our volunteer assignments, putting the meeting off to the last possible moment. Charlie didn’t wait.

“Robbie,” he said. Just the simple tone of a voice long lost to the years can thrust nostalgia back into your life in a heartbeat. I jumped at the name that very few still call me. He stared right thru me with those eyes. I asked how he was doing. "Great," he replied without hesitation. We talked. He was animated and seemed happy. He discussed how he loved Wednesday nights, the food was always good and the coffee was great. "I help out down here," he said, as though the event wouldn't take place without him. He was proud. He loved to help. I’d watched him set up tables, carry clothes and unfold chairs. I asked if I could hug him. He tilted his head, as if to question whether I was serious, and extended his hand, a move I took as a rejection of any pity I was about to unload. He didn’t need it or want it. I had money in my pocket and would’ve handed it all to him, but he didn’t ask. I got the feeling that had I offered, the gesture would prove hurtful, even seem ridiculous to him. I thought I would feel broken-hearted, that my pity would be in abundance, and that I’d worry about my friend, but I got a different feeling altogether. He was in his element. He was in a place of comfort, a place where he fit in. He had a role and was comfortable playing it. I felt this despite what I’d heard of his rumored mental problems. He wasn't drunk nor did he seem to be influenced by drugs. He spoke clearly and with purpose. Perhaps he was sad and I missed it. But, just perhaps, the life he led was the simple life he needed or even desired. How could that be? I couldn't grasp it. It was supposed to be sad. Wasn't it? Anytime his name was brought up among my friends, they all used the same statement. "It's so sad." I didn't sense sadness in him.

The conversation ended quickly as duty called. He left me speechless, with an open invitation to have some coffee with him. I was left with more questions than answers. I watched as he continued to serve others. Instead of lining up early for free clothes, he went to the back of the line, allowing others to go before him, a gesture that ensured he would not get any new clothes since his sizes were the most popular and first to go. A woman who serves there every Wednesday said, "Boy, would I love to know his story." When I told her that he'd been one of my good friends at Farragut High, she almost fell down. She quizzed me and I filled in the blanks. Then, she went on to tell me that Charlie was always the hardest worker, that he was quiet, lacked presumption or self-pity, and that he always liked to get a book from the stack of donations. She suggested that my friend was the most selfless person under the interstate. Then, I stood back and simply watched.  

The servers and the served mingled, laughed, bumped fists, shook hands, hugged and broke bread together. I don’t know what I had expected, but it wasn't the sense of joy now overwhelming me. Money had no place, either on the lips or in the hands of those gathered. Any misperceptions, discomfort, pity, or fear that accompanied me down Broadway before I arrived melted away in the welcomed shade of elevated concrete as a sense of community took over. I continued to watch Charlie, and I was overwhelmed by a sense that I was encroaching, that I represented a life he never wanted, that I represented pity and judgment, and that until I got a proper hold of the real meaning of that place, I didn't need to be there. I felt shame for judging him, for judging any of those gathered in the summer-evening heat. Who was I to judge? What right did I have to offer pity? 

As I watched my old friend move among the homeless and the volunteers, a quiet peace settled beneath the sounds of cars traveling on the interstate above. The trappings of the busy world were stripped away so that things like a good cup of coffee and a used pair of jeans took on an elevated and rightful place among the simple joys of life. In that instance the previously invisible bond of humanity revealed itself, and I realized that inner peace, that thing sought by all of humanity - in Sunday church pews, among the pages of self-help manuscripts, or inside the walls of great temples and cathedrals - was perhaps something my old friend had tucked away in his oversized back pocket. I stood next to the railroad tracks and smiled, humbled by the moment and wondering why it was that Envy was upon me.