Mark the Matchmaker

Mark from the Old Crow Book Club sat on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store, reading a fat paperback, probably that damn Dune again.

Great! I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks and wanted an update so I slowed my vehicle down, found a parking spot, and walked toward him.

I said hello and Mark greeted me with his typical gusto. A can of Sprite and a container of fried chicken and roasted potatoes rested near him. It was the first time I’d ever see him drinking something other than alcohol. I took that as an encouraging sign.

An elderly Asian woman wearing a mask came up to Mark and handed him a couple of bucks. He thanked her.

I remarked about the Sprite and Mark said, “I’m trying to drink less and eat a little better.”

That was good to hear. I didn’t ask him about housing. Had he tried a fifth time to secure it and failed again?

“Matt,” said Mark, “there’s something I want to discuss with you.”

“Sure, what is it?” I said, figuring it was something in connection to the publication or distribution of The Old Crow Book Club.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” said Mark, “a woman in the neighborhood. I think you two would get along.”

WHAT?

“Are you setting me up on a date?” I said.

“Yes I am,” said Mark.

WHAT? A homeless man was playing matchmaker for me? Preposterous!

Mark said the woman was very attractive, in her 40s, and in some kind of social service field.

I asked if she’d read the book. Mark said he thought she had, or at least started it.

Jacob from the book club approached. I told him Mark was trying to set me up on a blind date. Jacob laughed and asked Mark who it was. Mark said her name.

“She’s hot!” said Jacob.

WHAT?

I thought about the proposition for a second and said, “Why not?”

And indeed, why not? One never knows where anything will lead when it comes to members of the book club but everything so far connected to them had enhanced my life almost beyond measure.

I gave Mark my business card and said to give it to the woman and we’d see what happens.

The Matchmaker smiled and I walked away.

Two days later I was walking home after having coffee with a prominent Oregon writer who had read The Old Crow Book Club. She had reached out via email to set up a meeting. She lived about a half mile from me and had discovered the book because a week ago Jacob gave her a copy in front of the grocery store and insisted she had to read it.

The meeting went spectacularly well. She told me how much she admired the book, asked questions about it, and we brainstormed various strategies to help the homeless in our neighborhood. On that point, we both agreed: there need s to be a lot more neighborhood grass roots action to alleviate the crisis and a lot less downtown bureaucracy.

I was crossing the street when I saw Jacob down the block. I waved him over and we struck up a conversation. He was still on the streets, still wanted off the streets, still wanted to work, but couldn’t see a way out at the moment. He said he’d just seen Mark a little tipsy in front of the grocery store and bought him some ice cream to sober him up.

Mark appeared. He sat down on the sidewalk. He said he needed more copies of the book to distribute. So did Jacob. I said I’d hit them up next time we met.

Mark said he hadn’t had a chance to give my card to the prospective match. He was actually on his way to a spot a few blocks away where he always ran into her. He extricated the card and twirled it like a sharper. There was good mischief in his eyes.

“C’mon Mark,” I said. “She’s not going to do anything.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

It was time to go. I said so, said goodbye, turned, and began walking away…

and then…

The song “Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof exploded into my consciousness and I found myself knowing all the lyrics! This was beyond otherworldly because I had never seen the movie and saw the play exactly one time, a high school production, 30 years ago. It wasn’t possible!

Then again, it was. I knew the song, and indeed every tune from the musical because my sister must have played the record of the movie soundtrack 200,000 times in my youth. And I loathe musicals!

I whipped around to Mark and began singing “Matchmaker” with full-on Broadway panache.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
Look through your book,
And make me a perfect match

Then Mark joined in! He knew the song, too!

We crooned a couple of verses and then I turned around, kicked up my heels, and walked away singing “If I Were a Rich Man.” Behind me, I could hear Mark and Jacob laughing.

At 8:00 that evening, I received a text from a number I didn’t recognize. It read:

Hi Matt,

This is **** and I’m a friend of Mark. I’m smiling. Oh those guys!

I responded.

We agreed to meet later that weekend.

I met the proposed match at a dog-themed coffee shop at ten in the morning.

We talked and talked, mostly about members of the Old Crow Book Club and their influence upon us. She had met them before I did, not long after moving into the neighborhood four years ago. She was walking a neighbor’s puppy down by the river, when the puppy broke loose and started running away. She flew into a panic and saw a gathering of homeless men. She ran up to them. One of them was Sean, a charter member of the club. She relayed the story and Sean took off running after the puppy without saying a word. He rescued it.

She met Mark not long afterward and they forged a friendship and talked on the streets on almost a weekly basis. It was exactly what had happened to me.

Fast forward to now. She had almost completed a two-week training/study program (not online) through a nonprofit organization to become certified as an outreach worker for the homeless in the Portland area. She had no previous social service experience. She did have a degree in psychology and it was finally time to put it to use after all these years. She was going to apply for a job through the nonprofit and wanted something out in the field. That’s where the need was greatest. Just look around us! There were so many unfilled positions of this type because the pay was so low. She didn’t care about the money, however, she had other means that I didn’t ask about. Oh, and she was writing a book, too.

This dramatic career change had come about because she’d met members of the book club, particularly Mark. She realized she wanted to get more involved in helping alleviate this crisis than just befriending homeless people, although that might be the best start all of us could undertake.

It occurred to me that stories such as hers (and mine) were happening all over Portland and Oregon and the nation.

The great Oregon poet William Stafford once wrote, “Justice will take a million intricate moves.”

Let me update that quote for the homeless crisis in America: solving it will take a million intricate moves by ordinary people. By those with housing, and those with not. A million moves every single day that are guided by competent officialdom or entirely devised by freelancers. It’s already happening.

As for the potential match set up by Mark the Matchmaker…I think I may have found something much better: a collaborator in the cause.