Oh, The Places You Will Go

An excerpt from my forthcoming book—I think it’s a book—We Found the Vacuum Cleaner.

Every third Saturday afternoon, My First Wife Chancie and I go to The Big City and distribute hot meals to homeless people. It’s something we wildly love to do.

For four hours we ride in a van with a small team of folks and stop here and there to offer a hot meal to anyone—that’s right, anyone—who would like one. The van has all kinds of Jesus information painted on it. It’s got to be the second-ugliest van in town.

First, we set up at a city park for awhile and serve up to small crowds of wanderers. We play loud Gospel music to attract people in the neighborhood. Its a festive hour, what with us greeting old friends and those old friends hanging out under a tree for a few minutes. Everybody gets a plate of spaghetti with salad and dessert.

After the people get tired of the music and drift away from the park, we leave to drive through alleyways and up and down narrow downtown streets. We wander among skyscrapers and cruise alongside railroad cars.

“Hey! You hungry?” we yell. “You want something to eat?” Sometimes we’ll give away a pair of socks, too.

We park next to freeway overpasses that crack and thunder above us with every passing vehicle. We could park underneath in the shade, but this is someone’s home, you know.

We wait outside turquoise motels and faceless hotels for prostitutes, addicts, criminals and tiny children to slip out for some spaghetti and a cup of iced tea.

“Can I have another plate to take to my momma? She don’t want no salad—just spaghetti and dessert. And some bread.”

“Two plates? Be careful, honey. Don’t spill it.”

“I won’t. I’ll be careful. I’m big and I get stuff for my mama all the time.”

“How old are you, honey?”

“I’m four.”

As soon as they all slip away, we go to the basketball courts and feed dozens of children who always say “Thank you” and always clean up their plates.

Our van goes to some halfway houses and day-labor hangouts to feed people who couldn’t get work today—and maybe yesterday—and probably haven’t eaten the last three days. Some of these people are grateful new immigrants who speak only Spanish. So our ugly van has Jesus information painted in Spanish, too. I love these Mexican people. Serving them a little meal lets me practice mi Español. Once in awhile a Mexican person will snicker at me while I try to pray in Spanish. I’ll giggle, too, but we both get the message.

“Gracias, amigo. Haste...” And the guy walks away grinning, shaking his head.

Pretty soon we ride slowly past liquor stores and churches where we often find one or two people hoping for something tasty and satisfying. Down by the river bed there are people in shanties. Some folks have tents among rats and mosquitoes in thick stands of woods. Under the railroad trestles, other folks are tucked into stripped, rusty, abandoned cars.

People without houses build the most creative places to live. They stand up mattresses, sheets of plywood, bright blue tarps, wide cardboard—whatever they can find to block the wind and the rain. They have cozy homes, outfitted to please just themselves. They have a few personal items behind their walls. A mattress—there’s always a mattress—an aluminum lawn chair and several candles are on the “floor.” They ingeniously hide their drugs and paraphernalia, but booze is out in the open. Many homeless homes have a picture of Jesus on display.

Jesus was homeless. Jesus no tiene hogar. Jesus loves the homeless. Jesús tiene amor para la gente sin hogar.

Floyd lives under a quiet, abandoned railroad bridge where the wind howls and the dust swirls. There’s been no sunshine or water on his barren little homestead since the 1920s. Nothing has grown there for nearly a century. He jammed a little sign in his dirt yard: “Keep Off the Grass.”

Part of our serving is tracts. We give everyone a Christian tract with their meal. If we don’t, they grumble, “I didn’t get a tract.”

A prostitute with only three upper teeth once refused a tract from me. “Give me another one. I already have that one.”

She was followed by an enormous addict. “Hey, man, you got something I can read?” He was a huge man.

“You want another tract?”

“No, man. I mean like a book or something.”

“I can give you a Bible.”

“Okay.”

I rummaged in a box and found a new, unopened, donated Bible. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, man. You got any socks?”

“Sure. Here, have a couple of pairs.”

“Thanks, man. Gimme a refill of this tea. You got any cigarettes?”

In the wintertime these people politely ask for coats, blankets, socks, tarps, gloves and cigarettes. Not necessarily in that order. We give them what we have—including twine that eventually becomes a belt—but no tobacco.

I don’t like it when young people come to our van, but they do. I wonder if their parents know where they are? Are their parents crying right now like My First Wife and I would be? Are they sick in the heart like I would be? What about brothers and sisters? Where do these kids come from? Where do they go? Can they go home? Do they want to go home?

Adam Phillips went home…

This story will be continued.