Homeless Dancer

Having lost all shame, we now shower with industrial sized water bottles wherever we feel like showering. We wear ridiculous bandannas with our shirts off and moccasins on our feet because they’re comfortable. We are infallible, indestructible, shameless and proud. We do what we want, when we want-- because what we want to do is usually what we need to do. 

People avoid making eye contact with us…   I think they’re mostly scared that we’ll ask for spare change. Other people offer to sell us drugs, because we appear to be desperate, but we’re not. We’re comfortable, happy and fulfilled in our routine. We’re the coolest people we know of.

One night, after I play my set, after we change into our pajamas, after the van is packed and all the people have left, Tony and I go looking for dinner.  A real dinner.

We’re in Memphis, and we heard of a place called Beale St.  It’s already two in the morning, but we were told by a knowledgeable source that this street doesn’t sleep.  And as we drive downtown, things come alive.   The closer we get, the less we fit in with our white skin and white van.  Memphis is a black town, and if you don’t believe it, you’ve never been downtown at two in the morning.

Neon lights play off of platinum rims as thunderous bass rolls towards us from every direction. The culture shock sets in like a high, and my blood starts dancing through my veins. We park the van, and having been told that it would be stolen and we’d be mugged, we take with us those things which we wish to part with in person, and leave the rest to be stolen in private.

We don’t know where Beale St. is, but as we walk, the density of dark bodies increases. I start to forget that I’m white.  Taking advantage of my new found blackness, I talk to the first person I see. He’s a malnourished homeless man, skeletal and withered like a dried weed. 

“Some change?” he asks with a hopeful tone.

“Of course.” I say, reaching into my pocket. I extend my arm to the man, but he won’t take the coins.

“I need to earn it,” he says. And he starts dancing; at least, I think that’s what he was doing.  He crouches down on both knees, and gyrates his hips—slowly, tenderly. Then he stands again, and walks in place a bit. Tony and I let him know how impressed we are, and I ask him for some advice.

“What you need?” 

“We’re looking for some barbecue.”

“Bar-Bee-Coo?” he reiterates.

“Yes sir, Memphis barbecue.” 

A smile wiggles its way onto his face. I can see that his teeth are small and separated like a mouthful of stained and sea-battered shells.  His eyes are yellowish and set back into his oily black face the way cartoon eyes are when the screen goes dark. 

“That’s the best place in town,” he says, extending one long, boney finger.

“Then that’s our spot.” I say, and then ask if he’ll join us for dinner.

“Oh, I’d love to, but I can’t,” he says.

“Why not?”

“They’ll arrest me.”

“They won’t arrest you,” I say.

“They sure will.”

“You’re my guest,” I assure him, “They’re not going to arrest you.” 

I really don’t know whether or not they’ll try and arrest him, but I’m excited at the possibility of confrontation.  “Follow me,” I say, and he does.

We walk towards the restaurant, towards the neon signs, towards people, and more people.  It’s like an urban cornfield, and it’s a good crop; a river of black heads as far as the street stretches, rolling off of one another like greased ball bearings. This is Beale St.

I enter the restaurant with the homeless man; Tony follows closely with a camcorder clutched nervously in his hand. Time seems to slow as we enter the restaurant. Laughter outside fades under the brassy moans of an old jukebox.  This is not Beale St.

The dining room is still and removed from its active surroundings, like an exhibit in a museum.  We seat ourselves near the window and wait for service.

The other customers look smug and settled; they’re regulars.  I can feel their eyes on us-- hateful eyes-- not looking to understand.  Just looking.  Judging.  The homeless man feels it, too.

“I’m jus’ a bum,” he mumbles, looking down to his lap and folded hands.

“You’re not,” I tell him, “you’re a guy just like anybody else.”

“Naw, jus’ a dirty bum,” he insists. “Trash. No good for nothing or nobody.”

Tony stops filming. 

Our waiter approaches the table, his face twisted as if he were approaching a dead thing on the road. He’s white; everyone in this restaurant is, with the acceptation of our homeless friend. It seems that they’ve come here to get away from the black outside.  I can feel their hate.

Tony and I place our orders, and I ask our homeless man what he would like.

“What’ you think I want?” he smiles sarcastically. “The rack of ribs, Baby!”

“Rack of ribs,” the waiter recites, meeting my eye for confirmation, as if the homeless man were a small child who could not be trusted to order.

“Rack of ribs.” I confirm.

“And a Coke,” he adds.

“Yes, a coke, too” I say. 

We close our menus and wait for our food. A woman brings us drinks, and the homeless man complains about his Coke being watered down.

“If it’s going to be watered down,” he tells her, “I may as well just have water.”

She brings him water. 

Then, just as she’s leaving the table, he changes his mind again and asks for an orange juice. I smile apologetically.  She sighs.

“We don’t have orange juice,” she says.

“Ya’ll can’t find any?” 

“No,“ and without another word, the woman walks away.

I start talking to the homeless man… I want to prove to him that he’s not a bum, and I soon find that he doesn’t think himself a bum anymore than I do. 

Underneath his act, he knows himself to be a dancer, an entertainer, and a lover to a nameless woman in Chicago. He says he hasn’t seen her in years, but he knows without a doubt that they’re still very much in love. He is also a hard worker, but as he says, “it’s work enough just looking for a job in this town”.

“There’s nothing you can do?” I ask him.

“Not without an I.D.”

“You don’t have ID?”

“Left everything up North,” he says.

“Well, why don’t you get a new I.D. card?”

“Costs $50, and I don’t have my birth certificate, anyway.” 

I’m quiet for a moment while I think about his situation.  The government has a way of complicating simple things; I know this from my own experience. This man has no money, and no identification. With no identification he can’t work, but without a job he can’t afford his ID. It’s a horrible catch, and I wonder how many others have found similar circumstances. Across the table, Tony’s face is drawn down. He doesn’t speak, so I keep talking.

“You can’t get I.D. because you don’t have a job, but you can’t get a job without I.D.?” 

“Now you’ got it,” he tells me, “Pops got to sleep on the streets.”

“We sleep in a van,” I confess.

“But you have money in your pocket, and a place to rest your head.”

“That’s true,” I admit, but I can’t help feeling like we’re both caught up in the same net at different places.  Everybody is filled with wanting-- eternal wanting.

The waiter walks out from the kitchen, and asks me if I’d like our food "to go". The homeless man had said that he wanted to eat elsewhere, but I deliberately ask for our food "to stay" with a smile.  The waiter walks off, and I turn back to our dancing friend.

His homeless face is as dark and oily as an olive, with scars and holes cut cleanly and healed perfectly like carvings on a tree trunk. He has been places, I imagine.  Beneath the shreds of tattered clothing and torn pride I see the unmistakable glow of stashed candor and confidence. He knows that he deserves better than the world has given him, but it seems that he keeps this knowledge hidden somewhere deep inside of himself… safe. He is as complicated a person as any other, and in need of love just as much. 

The waiter returns with our food, boxed up and bagged. “I brought it to go,” he announces, obviously pleased with what he thought to be a very cleaver way of asking us to leave. I don’t leave, only thank him and begin unpacking the boxes at the table. The waiter, feeling personally attacked, exchanges a glance with the manager who is now standing across the room.

“That’s the manager,” our homeless dancer tells us.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony assures him.

“Yeah, fuck that guy,” I agree.

We eat our ribs and gumbo, drink and talk. Our new friend, the dancing homeless man, shares his ribs with us. The feeling of warm food in a proper restaurant must have settled his nerves, because he seems to relax, and a sustained smile sticks to his face. Tony and I exchange our own smiles, both of us vicariously happy.

Eventually, we say our goodbyes. I make sure to personally deliver my gratitude and a generous tip to the waiter. At this, he looks slightly apologetic and ashamed. The homeless man, not at all ashamed, marches proudly off into the night.

Tony and I walk back to the van, and are happy to see that nothing has been stolen. Once inside, Tony starts recording me on the camera. Sometimes we film each other in an interview setting, and he thinks I should put a closing on the footage he’s collected. I realize that I never learned the homeless dancer’s name, and struggle to think of something better than “bum”. 

I could address him as “The Homeless Man”, but it still seems to have negative connotations. Maybe he would prefer to be known as a dancer, or perhaps a lover. I don’t know much about him, but I do know that him being homeless is probably one of the least interesting things I learned, and I didn’t even have to talk to him to figure it out. 

Maybe that's why people tend to choose words like “bum”, because it’s easy, obvious, and it says absolutely nothing about the humanity of the individual. Maybe it’s too hard for us to accept that there are millions of people around the world with dreams and feelings not at all different from our own-- people with no hope of ever realizing these dreams. Maybe it’s a reality most would rather ignore, but I feel fortunate for our encounter. 

Over a plate of ribs I had my first conversation with a new friend, we were black and white as any two things can be, but not at all different. The world walked by while we ate our ribs inside-- Tony, myself and our dancing friend all knowing something about ourselves, something secret, something great.