A Gift of Sunglasses

I am sitting at picnic table outside a dive bar in my neighborhood. I am writing this in real time as I sip a local IPA.

It’s Sunday, noon, and 75 degrees.

Across the street a young shirtless homeless man with a leashed black dog pulls a grocery cart laden with bags of cans and possessions. He stops to check out the menu of a popular breakfast joint that is packed inside and out. A waitress gives him the evil eye. Homeless people don’t order to go…

…until they do. I see it all the time.

The man peruses the menu and then sets it on a table. No order. He pulls his cart through an intersection. The dog helps him pull.

Farther down the street, on a slice of concrete abutting the wall of a convenience store, an elderly homeless Hispanic man is asleep or passed out, He has been that way since 6:30 in the morning when Elmer and I passed him on the way to the dog park. He’s been this way for a week.

Next to the Hispanic man, another elderly homeless man is slumped over in his motorized scooter, apparently passed out.

Here comes a homeless Black man in his 20s carrying a bag of cans and smoking a cigarette. He is clad on all denim, including a cap. He’s not really walking, he’s strutting.

A block away, I see a Black homeless man approach a car stopped at red light. I see him talking to the driver. I see the driver’s hand extend sunglasses out the passenger-side window to the homeless man. He tries them on, nods, shouts, does a little James Brown shuffle, and skips away. I think it might be the most beautiful, subtle gesture of humanity I’ve ever witnessed in connection to the homeless.

I often get down writing about this subject. But when I see sunglasses as an improvised gift like that, well. I am not giving up hope. There was reciprocation in that exchange. That’s the key. That’s the only way we’re getting out of this. They both held out hands.