This is my favorite holiday story…
To tell this properly I need to give you some history.
When I was nineteen, I went to work in a warehouse cutting laminated tabs for personal organizers. Just standing for hours in front of a die cutter, smashing tabs out of stacks of paper. I worked there for a couple of years. It was a family run business and they paid weekly, so I always had a little cash. At some point I decided to run away to college in Southern Utah.
After some time there, I came back to Salt Lake and worked in a coffee shop/used bookstore. I slept in the attic and sometimes a broken down VW bus. I had a great time. This was at a point in my life when I still thought depression was cureable. As an older person, still immature by any standard, I have come to know that depression is at best, manageable.
But, with the ignorance and exuberance of a young twenty-three year old man I tried everything to feel better. It is important to state again that I had a great time. I was free in almost every sense of the word.
Sometime later in the summer, I went to visit the warehouse. In retrospect I can see what my boss Brian saw. A skinny young man with long hair. A girlfriend had braided in some string with shells and beads in it.
If it was summer, I know I was wearing a black wife-beater, long denim cut-offs, combat boots and red socks. I would’ve had a light flannel shirt tied around my waist, bracelets probably mostly made out of broken shoe laces. Maybe not the same guy who had quit to go to college. But, way more fun.
I visited for just a few minutes, saying ‘hi’ to friends. As an afterthought I mentioned to Brian I'd be up for any kind of temp work they had. Just thinking that occasionally they had big jobs and might want to pay somebody to come in for a day or two. I could help them out and a little extra cash might be good. I left him the number of the bookstore as this was pre-cell phone times.
I forgot all about it until much later.
Thanksgiving that year a friend of mine had spent weeks gathering donations to put on an event for homeless teens. She had tons of food and piles of warm clothes. A TV station was going to send a crew down to do a story.
My own plans were to make my way out to the suburbs and spend the day with my family. I ate that morning at Dee’s Family Restaurant on 4th South. I had the Lumberjack Breakfast which was an insane amount of food. 2 eggs over hash browns, a thick slice of ham, 2 strips of bacon, two sausages, with your choice of pancakes, toast, or English muffin. My friend Ted taught me a trick though, if you order toast, when they ask you what kind you say pancakes. They always bring you toast, then you say “I ordered pancakes.” They remember you doing that and bring you pancakes too.
I sat at the counter and enjoyed my toast and pancakes. While I was there I eavesdropped on a guy using the payphone to call his mother. The guy had been digging up part of the street with a backhoe and just took a break to tell her he missed her and wished he was wherever she was.
I walked up the street to the bookstore to drink coffee and wait for my ride to Sandy City. While I was there I got a call from my friend, she was freaked out because the news was on the way and no homeless teens were on the premises.
Recalling my acting bonafides, I said I would stop by. I had recently been a featured extra in an episode of ‘America’s Most Wanted’. I was pretty sure I could nail ‘homeless teen on the 6 o'clock news’. I didn't even have to bring up my role as drug addict number two, in a cautionary video that was shown in high school health classes all over Utah.
I walked over to the onion domed church that used to sit on 4th East, and my friend showed me around. The TV crew was setting up. There were a couple of crusty old men that had been pulled off the street and a handful of bored volunteers.
My friend insisted I eat something. I wasn't hungry at all, but I let her walk me through the line. Then she sat down across from me. She told me a story about her own time as a homeless teen. Leaning over the table and resting a caring hand on mine. She took me to the pile of clothes and insisted I take something.
I dug through the donations and found a pair of knit gloves. She located a matching hat and placed it on my head before giving me a tender hug.
The whole thing was odd.
Later that night, my loving siblings laughed and showed me the news piece they had gleefully committed to VHS, as well as the 5 clips that had preceded it as the program went to commercials.
There I was, a homeless teen, receiving food, clothing, and compassionate counseling as well as a tender hug and a hat. All underscored by a melancholy piano tinkling in a mist of sadness over my forgotten soul.
I thought it was hilarious.
I continued to live my life. The bookstore eventually closed. Things got a little dark for a while. Eventually I had to move into my parents garage for a bit.
By the time summer came around a friend from the warehouse tracked me down. He told me Brian had been looking for me and wanted to offer me a job.
So, I went to work. They made me a machine operator. I worked on big laminators that pumped out thousands of day planner pages and hour.
That year the work Christmas party was held at the Jordan River Queen, a restaurant made to look like one of those big steam powered paddle boats. I had invited a girl I was interested in as my date. I dressed up in a suit and tie and she was a vision in a black evening gown.
The night was going pretty good, the woman I was with seemed to be finding me charming, I got a decent sized bonus check. There was a highly inappropriate dance number where the owners’ nieces did a teasing ‘Santa Baby' (family operated business, so who else was going to do it?). All of the managers were giving speeches and Brian had come over and asked me if it would be okay if he mentioned me in his.
I thought, ‘why not?’ assuming he would talk about what a great machine operator I was, thus impressing my date even more.
Everyone else had talked about productivity and the future planning for their departments. Brian's speech was slightly more personal.
“Tonight, I want to talk to you about a success story.”
He started off his story the same way I started this one. Well, almost the same,
“…Jimmy came in looking just terrible. His clothes were torn and looked like they'd been slept in…”
Well yeah, when you party every night like a rockstar but still have to open the bookstore in the morning, sometimes you don't have time for pajamas. And torn? My clothes weren't torn, they were worn. Awesomely, I might add.
“...his hair was dirty with sticks and leaves in it…”
Woah… beads and shells brother! Yes I sometimes had to resort to washing up in the bathroom sink, but I kept myself plenty clean.
My date was wearing a frozen smile. One that did not respond to my attempts to distract her from Brian's incredible lies and exaggerations.
“...he looked stoned…”
That part might have been true.
“He begged me for a job and I turned him away…”
Watching my date sort of wilt, I imagined the worst was over. Now he would talk about what a great machine operator I was. Ten to twelve hour shifts. Doing greasy repair jobs with my big wrenches and bulging muscles. Then I heard the words,
“It was Thanksgiving…”
Oh. no.
Brian had been happily watching football in his cozy den waiting for dinner when the news came on…
“...that was the worst Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had.”
Brian was now crying. Choking back tears trying to tell the story.
“Jimmy looked even worse than he had when I turned him away from our door.”
‘turned him away?’ like a Bible character. I noticed my date had scooched her chair a little bit ‘turned away’.
“He was frozen and starving…”
Brian could barely get the words out; he was so overwhelmed by his manly emotions.
I wanted to shout,
“I was full of toast and pancakes!”
But, I wasn't sure if that would help or hurt my case.
She had stopped looking at me by the time he got to the part where I was searching for warm clothes because the ones I had were so worn.
“...I tried to find him but because he was homeless there was no way to track him down…”
I left him my number, good grief. To help him out.
I noticed the magnificently low cut evening gown now had a shapeless winter coat zipped over it.
Our different yarns re-converged as I was found and hired. I might have edited the part where I pulled my horrible misspent life together with the support of Brian and the company. But, it wouldn't have changed the very quiet drive to her house and her amazing sprint from the car to the front door.
Over the next couple of years I thought about telling Brian my version of his story. I never did. I hope he never reads this. He was a decent guy, and even if it was misguided, he acted in a kind way.
When I think about kindness, I feel like I have been on the receiving end far too often and not enough on the giving side. From Mike, the owner of the bookstore, who has supported me in my bohemian epochs multiple times. To my parents taking their childish adult back in, (more times than I care to remember). To all the friends and family that have put up with my outrageous life ‘experiments’. Even to Brian who did his best to save a homeless teen like me.
Merry Christmas.
