part 12 of ongoing post I don’t know if I’m drifting ever father from the final and inevitable conclusion of this post - a thought, a possibility, even a pressing concern or something other – or if, as I hope, I’m circling around a certain core, and gaining strength in my winds as I do. I know as I am about to again seemingly stray away from my incipient subject, as I write about my what has concerned me over the past two days, that there is a common core still: the intersection of reason and intuition in my decision making and the hope of marrying the two better. I wrote early on in this thread of my friend Monica’s watching her horse get hit by a car, and in an incident very similar which happened to me, watching two dogs get ran over, which I’d just let out of their pen, and intended on taking for a walk. The consequences of my actions that day, which resulted in the death of one of the dogs, made me question the core of my decision making; somehow I felt I was capable of doing better, of finding a better balance, of having better outcomes from my choices…somewhere I was askew of my truer aims and intents…whatever they were. John, “Helmet” got angry with me yesterday. I’d come into the Bookstore to discover the door not fully open and two new books on the floor being used to keep it where it was. John was seated nearby, wedged in an isle, between a bookshelf and a wire revolving bookrack. I knew it was John that had placed the books on the floor and adjusted the door for some reason. I picked the books up and opened the door fully. I’d left and returned later, to again notice John had put the book back on the floor and again adjusted the door, and he was still seated in the same place, sitting in the same plastic chair. I said hello to Valerie, asked her where Bob was and commented on how hot it was in the bookstore. Then I went and opened the side door to the bookstore, so that the store could have a cross breeze. I knew though that a cross breeze will slam the front door if it isn’t fully open, and the thin book John had place on the floor wouldn’t be enough to keep it from closing. So I went over and picked the book up off the floor and opened the door. As I walked past the John on the way back toward the coffee bar, John kicked his boot off at me and started yelling at me. He cursed at me, accused me of being a CIA hit man, with 72 kills to my name. How he knows the exact number of people, concerns me. I asked Cindy Lee if she thought he was KGB, but she says he’s NSA; so he’s just jealous. John yelling can be a little intimidating, especially when he’s holding an iron bar in his hand. I argued with him for a moment. I tried to calm my fears, when in a moment we were both outside, I bet down to pick up a piece of trash at his feet; he wasn’t going to club me over the head, even if he did just kick a boot at me. I felt I could have been more courteous to John; at least made an attempt to ask him if he minded me opening the door further, and explained to him, that new books shouldn’t be set on the floor where they can be damaged. John, like a lot of people, my self included, wants to treat Godfather’s like it’s his living room. And John, being a homeless schizophrenic, particularly needs a place to feel he belongs, and treated as if be belongs, and managed in a manner that doesn’t make him feel managed. I don’t know why he felt the need to have the door the particular way he had it. My first thought was it was for shade, but he was too far in to be shaded by the door. He does spend a lot of time, presently, holding a big piece of flat wood up to the side of his head, as if he’s using it to hide from someone or block something. I suspect he may have been using the thick wooded Dutch door of Godfather’s for the same purpose, something like the classic image of a schizophrenic’s use of aluminum foil to block satellite rays. But my disagreement with John hasn’t bothered me much; it’s not the first or last time I’ll anger him, and I haven’t really jeopardized his welfare. However, there is another homeless man whose welfare I feel neglectful of. A homeless young black man has been frequenting the bookstore. The first time he came in, after looking through a stack of graphic novels, he spent the rest of the day sleeping in a chair. Since then, he just comes in a grabs a stack of graphic novels and sittings looking through them. I worried a little about his handling of the graphic novels, because they are not comic books; they don’t cost a few bucks, they cost 20 to 30 dollars, and need to be in fairly pristine condition to sell at those prices. About the fourth time he came in and left, I looked at the graphic novel he’d been looking at, and it was too damaged to get full price for. I didn’t think he alone degraded its value, but I thought to mention to Connie, that he should be asked not to look through anymore of the graphic novels because they need to be able to be sold as new, and they’re somewhat easily damaged. I saw that same young man at Three Cups the next morning looking through the books for their coffee customers. He wore the same dingy light grey sweatshirt I’ve always seen him in. He didn’t, I don’t think, actually pull any of the books off the shelf; he merely glanced at them. Then he went and sat in the seat that hangs from the high ceiling. I was amused by his boyish playfulness. There was a small crowd of people at the counter so I thought I’d wait a moment before I offered to purchase something for him, but when I looked up again, he was gone. When I got to Godfather’s later that morning, Connie informed me that she’d told him, he couldn’t look at the graphic novels anymore. She felt bad about it, and told me, she explained it was only the graphic novels he couldn’t look at, because they couldn’t be handled too frequently and still sell as new. We both wonder how well he reads. I asked Connie what he said, and told me, he said, “okay,” and got up and left, which worried me, and made me feel guilty. I didn’t want to make him feel unwelcome, and if I hadn’t said anything to Connie, she wouldn’t have said anything to him. This was the same day I wrote and posted about finding the ten dollars on Facebook, and serendipitously, Bruce came into the bookstore, and pressed an unexpected $20 into my hands. So I soon went looking for the young man, to give him some money, and explain to him that he was welcome in the bookstore. I also wanted to find out a little about him, which is what I should have done in the first place, instead of just being concerned about him damaging the merchandise. I rode all over town, and to most of the places I thought he might be, but couldn’t find him. I did though, run into another young homeless guy, sleeping on his stuff, that I’ve spoken too before, and so gave him some money. I now worry that I made a really poor choice. That I put profit before people, and honestly, a profit the owner doesn’t much care about. Charlie runs the store with a huge give and take, and the store is more than profitable enough for him presently, that he wouldn’t mind some homeless guy degrading the value of his graphic novels by looking through them all, repeatedly. Anyways, I don’t feel I was listening to my intuition with the young man, which requires one to surrender a lot of petty ego and value judgments, and I now worry that the opportunity to do whatever little good I could have done for this young man is lost, and perhaps mostly because I didn’t have the courage to just ask him some questions about himself, but other reasons as well… Always circling trying to stay true to our core. To be continued
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 19:10:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015