A Week With the Homeless: Jacob’s Story

This series was written after I talked with several homeless and previously homeless people. I wrote their experiences and tales into a story format because I felt that a formatted list or sterile article seemed too simple for the struggles and heartache these people go through. I have not actually lived as a homeless person, but I found it especially insightful to write as if I had. Names were changed. This is story one of three and will be followed by the story of Esther and Marty. Esther and Jacob were both strangers who agreed to talk with me, and Marty was one of the few homeless men in my hometown. I grew up hearing his story.

He was crying when I met him; crying through those sightless eyes as I approached him. If he knew that I was approaching him, he showed no sign as he let his tears drip off his unshaven chin. He was younger than I thought, but his lifestyle had weathered him, running deep crevices along the planes of his face.

“I’m sorry, but is this the back of the line?” I murmured, aware of the mistrusting, angry eyes and sharp ears at my back. It made me nervous. The man turned abruptly, his hands worrying the button less holes of his aged jacket. “I don’t know. I can’t see. You’re asking a blind man?” He chortled amiably, his head bobbing back and forth madly on a neck wrapped in dirty scarves. Someone snickered from behind me and I ducked my heated face. I felt like a fraud, an awful fraud making a mockery of a very serious occurrence as I stood there in line at the soup kitchen with dozens of people who hadn’t eaten. But I hadn’t eaten all day either. I’d actually been kicked out of McDonald’s that morning when I’d gone to eat. The shame had been numbing. Homeless people are humble. They can feel shame. They are aware of the way they must live. What am I doing here? Why am I playing this game? These people legitimately hurt. They want with an urgency you have never felt. You shouldn’t be here.

I wanted badly to speak with those around me, but the silence of the long, tired line was strangely deafening to my ears; ears that were so used to people speaking freely and openly. My ears were the sort that were used to voices that weren’t hungry, or cold or scared. But nobody had to talk to tell me that things were different here. Nobody here even wanted to talk at all. That was the hardest part about this project. I wanted to know what it was like on a truly personal level to be homeless, but approaching these sometimes broken strangers was difficult and intimidating. Many were ill or hurt and demanded money for their stories. Others were frightened and some could not fathom why I even cared. I spent most of my project standing and watching quietly on the sidelines.

Those of in line together ate our free meals quickly, eyes to our plates, focused on satisfying physical demands before we had to return to the sky as our roof and the concrete as our beds. The sightless man was seated across from me, moving his fork painstakingly across his plate, searching for nourishment, the tip of his tongue moving up and down in the corner of his mouth with his concentration. “Excuse me,” I tried again “I’m, uh, recently homeless. I don’t know where to go or what to do or anything. How long have you been here?” I was embarrassed again at the lack of eloquence and sensitivity on my part, but it was getting dark outside and I needed to trust the milky eyes of this stranger.

“Since I was eighteen.” The stranger replied, shoveling a few loose peas into his whisker-lined mouth. “My father ran me out. Didn’t go to school. Ended up with bleach in my eyes.” My naïveté was quickly crumbling in the reality of life on the streets. My quick “I’m so sorry” came almost without thinking and I wished I could stuff it back in my mouth with the congealed gravy and mashed potatoes. The man shook his head wildly, wielding off my pity with his matted hair.

“We all have a reason to be sorry.” He said cryptically before returning to my question. “How young are you? Most shelters will take the young women in if there’s room. Women with kids get in, too.” He paused to contemplate. “I sleep behind a dumpster some nights and under a bridge others. Sometimes the woods-and if I’m lucky, I can get a night in a shelter, too.” I nodded before I remembered he couldn’t see me. I had just the smallest level of his confidence, and I wanted to know more. I asked him his name and he answered easily, fleshing out his story with a surprising amount of ease, speaking his short sentences quietly in between bites.

“My name is Jacob and I grew up in Washington with my parents. I had an older brother and sister and enjoyed life as the baby of the family. As I got older, I hung out with the wilder kids in school and I didn't care much about anything. My father got strict and angry. He had a terrible temper and he lost his job when I was a Junior in high school. Money ran out. I left home the summer after graduating. There was no money for college and I didn’t have the grades anyway. One morning I just got up, packed a backpack and duffel bag and got on a bus. I thought I could get a job in another city, and I was lucky. I worked at a garage for several years, living in friend’s places and spending a couple nights a week on the street when I didn’t have enough for rent.”

“I was twenty three when I met a woman my age who’d lost her job and was desperate. The two of us had just enough to rent a dump of a place and moved in together, thinking things would be okay. We had two little girls and then the garage closed and one morning, she and the kids were gone. She came back a few days later to get a few last things and we got in a fight- I tried to stop her from leaving again. I went after her and she defended herself with the bleach. I’ve lived like this ever since. A blind man can’t do much.” His story was startling, and I struggled to fit the story of a once-violent man to his quiet, weary face. His hands trembled against the plastic table.

I had never felt so lost in my life as I did then, watching this weakened man quivering and blinking his empty eyes at me in sorrow. He was crying again and I wondered vaguely why I wasn’t crying with him. But then again, he didn’t need my tears. He didn’t want them. He’d finished his meal and was gathering his utensils and napkin together with slow precision, feeling out every movement with the tips of his well-worn fingers. He turned his lost look upon me one last time as he stood to leave. “Good luck. Stay safe.”

Jacob was the first homeless person I had talked to for this project, and the experience left me emotionally breathless, gasping for some sort of solid foundation among the shifting, tumultuous feelings that his story had created. What stuck out the most to me was that amongst all the trials in his life and his nomadic existence, he still took the time to wish me the best. He wasn’t hardened or sly or cruel- just sad and lonely and achingly accepting of his fate. Jacob was my first look into the life of the homeless, and the view from his window was simple, but dark. Esther’s view was very different…