The Invisible Man

No one is asking what happened to all the homeless. No one cares, because it's easier to get on the subway and not be accosted. ~Richard Linklater

I would do anything for my Mother. That is how I became aware of the invisible man. Last July Mama got sick. Now Mama hates hospitals almost as much as I do and had never been admitted to one except for the times she was there to have babies. She doesn't count those eight times. This time though Mama wasn't going to come home with a bundle of joy. I wasn't sure Mama was going to come home at all. But for now she and her sick heart were upstairs under the attention of her other seven children and her first Non baby toting nurse. I was leaning against the ashtray outside. I was trying to get me a few more puffs in before I had to return to the sterile heart ward to guard my Mother through the night.

I watched him walk past me and then come back and ask for a light. I shared my lighter and small talk as he lit a half smoked cool and propped up there beside me near the ashtray stands. He wore jeans slung low on a skinny butt. Much too thin for my taste even had I been in the market for a man. His hair could have used a trim but wasn't unfashionably long. It appeared clean. He had a tattered gray backpack hanging from one Bony shoulder. His green eyes smiled as he stood laughing as I related to this stranger how the ambulance driver had scared me on the sixty mile ride from My Tiny town to this bigger, better equipped for sick people, City. He agreed that they could be scary behind the wheel. I was sure he was a Doctor or at the very least a medical student. He wished me luck as I turned to go back inside. I did look back once as I walked away. He was tucking something into the side pocket of his Backpack.

Morning finally came peaking through the clouds.. A light rain was falling as My sisters came quietly into the room. They were glad to take over the guarding of our mama and allow me to get some coffee and a smoke. I rode the elevator to the lobby amazed at the early morning bustle of the large City Hospital. Our own tiny hospital only a forth the size, if that, of the one where they had sent my Mama. Congestive heart failure meant Mama had to be moved. And I knew Mama wouldn't go alone. So I had come with her. I would do anything for my mama..She would do anything for me.

I followed my nose to the coffee shop once I reached the ground floor. Just as I went in I saw my stranger friend from the night before cut across the lobby. He was again carrying his back pack. On the way to learn more about Doctoring I thought Watching him hurry to catch the elevator.

I was glad to see others near the ashtrays this morning. I like people in general and like to listen as other people talk to each other. Some call me nosy. I just think I'm curious. I had found me a spot on a ledge near the stands and was enjoying the vacation planning of a couple near me when I first heard the angry yell. "Who took my coffee?' the man yelled looking around at the rest of us. No One answered as he continued to look around for his missing cup. I looked around too, now fully alert and on the look out for a thief with a coffee cup. I only saw the young man from last night as he turned the corner heading away from the pack of early smokers. Just as he turned his profile was turned to me and I saw him drinking from a large coffee. He almost seemed to be laughing as he hurried away into the parking garage. Something about him stuck with me as I walked back to the elevator. I didn't know what yet but I was nosy. I would figure it out.

The rains came hard and fast that afternoon as Mama slept a drugged sleep. I decided a cup of soup from the cafeteria would sooth me. As I walked down the hall towards the elevator I caught a glimpse of the young man again. He was hurrying away from the trash can; Near the snack machines in the Lobby; right beside the nurses station. He had His back pack off and was stuffing it with packages half full of crackers and some sandwiches that they had taken out of the machine earlier that day. Out of date food and two past their prime apples. It was then that I realized that the man I had thought was a doctor was Homeless. It broke my heart. He seemed to be totally invisible to everyone else there. I even for a second wondered if I had seen a ghost. But as he turned and smiled I knew he was really there. He commented on the storm and then said he had to go.. he walked along to the elevator with me. We got on and he pressed the Button to get off one floor down. I guess he was checking the lobby's on all the floors. Filling his pack. His version of buying groceries.

I stayed with Mama a whole week in the big Hospital. I spent a lot of my time watching her sleep or talking quietly with her when she was awake. I knitted things that I gave to the nurses who cared for her so sweetly and some doll dresses for my Granddaughter But mostly I worried about the invisible young man. I watched as he moved about the hospital unseen by anyone but me. He would take coffee from under the nose of people smoking outside and I even saw him walk past a table in the cafeteria once and after he passed the woman was looking all around on the floor for a banana. He could have taken some ones purse or wallet or other important things but he didn't. I watched him fill his cigarette pack from the ashtrays every morning and every night. Yet I never saw him ask for a cigarette. I felt as if I was as invisible while watching him as he was to the world that moved around the hospital. I wanted to offer him something. Maybe a meal or a few dollars but for some reason I felt that he would be embarrassed by my offer. I started buying a sandwich from the machine late at night and leaving it sitting on top of the trash can. Hoping he would find it still fresh for his breakfast. I left whole cigarettes for him in the ashtrays. I'd smoke one and leave one. I even put a clean Tee shirt in the lobby trash can and was pleased to see him wearing it the next morning.

It must be awful to be invisible out by the ashtrays. Where people plan extravagant dates and dinner parties and discuss new clothes and expensive pleasure trips. Never looking at the less fortunate ones around them.
I pray for my invisible friend every night now. Him and the many others like him. I pray that he has found a safe place to dream and a dream that will take him away from the streets!
Have a good night, remember to count your blessings; though they may seem to sometimes be few.
Patsy

The Phone Call

Tonight I was doing my very best to get my supper dishes all washed up when My phone rang. I dried my hands and ran to the living room grabbed the phone and said "Hello!" The response I got was "Teeheehee" then a buzz as they hung up. I checked the number. It was a number that seemed familiar and yet not one that I really knew. It was listed as Unknown name but the number I knew from the first three digits to be a cell. Honestly I thought it was either a child playing with a parents phone or just a prank caller since they were giggling like crazy.

I went back to the kitchen and again began cleaning up. No sooner than I got my hands good and wet again than I heard the ring ring of the phone once more. I stopped what I was doing and came again to the phone answering with an annoyed Hellooo! This time I only got a half of a giggle and again the buzz. I looked on the box and it was again the same number. Now I was really annoyed. I looked at the number again and looked in my own cell phone to see if it was someone I knew.. Nope. That number wasn't in my phone. I was standing there trying to think of who it could be when It rang again.. this time I was ready. I was standing beside the table and I grabbed it on the first ring. "Do NOT hang up on me again!" I yelled into the receiver. Silence.. Not a sound could I here in return for my yell. "Now" I said taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down.. "Who is this?"
"Oh I can't tell you that" she answered with a giggle following her words.
"What number are you trying to call" I asked.
"Yours" she replied.

OK I'm now ready to choke this person who I am relatively sure is female and not very old. Not from the sound of things to me right then did she appear very bright. But Being the kindly; ( Hack hack) Wonderful; ( I'm choking myself here with these lies.) Grandmotherly ( OK so I am a grandma!) type of person that I am. I decided to play along with her for a minute or two.

"So now that you have me on the phone, Do you know my name?" I asked.
"Yea!" She said."Well then who am I? What is my name?" I asked.
"You know your name! I know you know your own name!" She answered.
Deciding to take a different tactic I said " And then do I know your Name?"
"Yea" she said "I think you do but I can't tell you who I am right now."
"OK" says I, "But I was busy so I'm hanging up now since we don't even know who each other are." I had really had enough and still had dishes to wash.
"No wait Miss Patsy" she said "I gotta ask you some stuff!"

OK Now we were getting somewhere. She does appear to know my name and since she's calling me Miss Patsy she is most likely a friend of one of my children. Or she is one of the children I kept in daycare. OK, She could still be anybody. But we have now established that she knows me.

I was just about to ask her what stuff she needed to ask me when she suddenly blurted out. " Does Cooper love me, I called him before but he said I was too young to call him and Now my baby daddy is gone and I was wondering if you think He might love me now that I'm a woman. I have a cute baby boy. 'Cept he cries all the time." I was really floored. Cooper is my son But hasn't lived here in a while now. He has been on the other side of the country since November training for a new Job there. And even though this young girl knew me... I was clueless as to who she was. I was pretty sure that he wasn't the Baby daddy as she called it so that was at least a worry off my mind.

So we talked for a while this woman child and I. I assured her that I didn't want to hurt her feelings but that If a boy didn't like her It was nothing wrong with her it was just that sometimes people didn't match like that. And that if a young man told her she was too young to be calling him it was probably because he was actually too old to date her.
"Oh" she said "so it don't mean I'm ugly or nothing like that? Cause I ain't fat since I had the baby."
"And how old are you?" I asked still trying to gather a clue as to who she was. "And have you ever been to my House?"
"I'm fourteen, and No Mam I ain't never been to your house but I know where you stay because I used to love your son. But he said I was too young to call him so I called somebody else and now I have this baby, he's cute and I love him, But
He.. " and as if the child knew she was talking about him I could hear him crying in the background.

I listened as she went to get her baby and cooed to him telling him she loved him and I sat here and held my phone and almost cried. I wanted to weep for her; fourteen and already a Mother. I wanted to weep for the baby I pray he will have everything he needs to grow up strong and wonderful Like my son who is not his Father. I am thankful that My son turned away this young woman who was not old enough to date him. I am thankful that he didn't take advantage of her youth and innocence. And I am sad even for the young man who left her to deal with all these things alone because he will miss so much. Babies are very special gifts.

Finally she returned to the phone and told me she had to hang up and feed her Boy. I asked her again to tell me her name and she refused. Saying that she was sorry to have bothered me. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her and she said That she had read my MYSPACE blog and that she had seen a poem I wrote for one of Cooper's friends and that she would like for me to write her one too. One that would let her know she was important she said. After I hung up from her I sobbed. I still don't know who she was. Maybe next time she calls she will tell me. I doubt that my son would know. Girls have been calling him since he was too young to even be interested in them. I used to fuss and tell him girls weren't supposed to call little boys. I often heard him tell girls that he was dating someone when he wasn't or tell the young ones not to call him again. But he was always kind about it. Always gentle with the girls feelings. He used to say he hated to hurt anyone. I told her to call me if she needed anything and she said she would. She giggled and said she might just call to talk and I told her she could. I did write her a poem. I have included it here as well.
Have a wonderful night!
Patsy


Young Mother

Oh Young Mother
You have barely learned
to live yourself and yet
I hear the great love
in your voice as you
calm your tiny son's fears.
You are his everything.
Love him freely and he will
return your wonderful love.
You are important to him as
he is to you. The love you share
will grow as the two of you grow.
Let your Love be your guide.
For Motherhood does not come
with age. Motherhood Comes with
the love we hold for a child!



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