A Window into a Life
By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft
"I've gotten used to the cold," he said, as if he wanted to comfort me, the person with plenty of heat in her apartment.
Yes, I've kept loose tabs on Mr. Kosher.
He lives under a canopy of three layers of plastic tarps just outside of Brooklyn's Prospect Park. His campsite is a 20-minute walk from my place.
It's now the last week of February, and he has managed to avoid going into a homeless shelter all winter.
He's managed to do that in spite of my best efforts.
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| The homeless man I'm writing about has lived outdoors outside the B and Q subway station, near this spot in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, all winter, at least so far. |
In my previous post (see below), I described what happened when I took him a hot--well, warm--ham dinner. He turned down the dinner because he's Jewish and eats kosher.
I couldn't stop thinking about him. One bitter cold Saturday morning soon after, I felt that I just had to do something to give him some bit of comfort. Reluctantly I walked up to the three layers of plastic sheets that covered him in his wheelchair and that partially covered the three or four shopping carts jammed with stuff that surround him.
I called a hello, to warn him, and found a small slit in all the plastic sheets. There he was, in hat and jacket.
"Hi, would you like a hot cup of coffee or tea?" I asked.
"No, thank you," he said, politely enough. "But would you get me a plate of chicken wings and fries? From the deli right here?"
Since it was close by, I said I'd to it.
"And a two-liter bottle of ginger ale?"
"Okay."
"Tell the cook I want the wings cooked extra brown and the fries very lightly."
This guy had been sitting in his wheelchair outdoors for months. All spring, summer, autumn, and now all winter, in the cold day and night, hour after hour. He needed something hot. I said I'd do it.
As I walked towards the deli, I heard more instructions coming from under the tarps. "Chicken cooked real well," he said.
I went into the deli and placed the order.
"The fryer is being cleaned. I can't make french fries," the short-order cook, a Bangladeshi man, said.
"OK, make it rice." I hoped Mr. Kosher wouldn't complain--I didn't want to hear it. "And cook the chicken wings really well."
"Is this for the guy outside?"
I nodded.
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When the order was ready, I took it back to Mr. Kosher, planning to get his real name for the receipt in case the IRS ever asked. I handed the plastic container of food and the giant bottle of ginger ale through the crack between tarps.
"Thank you," he said sweetly.
"What's your name?"
"Hosea, like in the Bible."
He started talking about his life. The homeless say that one of their greatest hardships is that they're invisible, nobody talks with them. So I listened.
He told me he only has one leg (I couldn't see that because his lap was covered by blankets and another tarp). He told me that he's used to the cold, as if to comfort me. He spoke longingly, just for a moment, of wanting to take a shower. He smiled at me and asked me if I didn't have a place for him. He didn't know that the part of me that's like Don Quixote had thought of it, and the part of me that's practical had brought me to my senses.
I managed to break in to his flow of words for a moment to ask why he didn't go to a shelter to get out of the cold. That really set him off on a diatribe about the police being the enemy, stealing the drums he sold for a living; about the shelters housing people doing crack and ecstasy while he only smoked weed (he delivered that line with a sidelong glance at me and a little smile); and that the last time he was in a shelter, the previous winter, someone had stolen his two leather jackets.
Leather jackets? I don't feel I can afford a leather jacket (and it wouldn't look good on me : ). What was he doing living outdoors in the rain with two of them?
He said he had to get his stuff into storage, and then he'd go live with his son in the Bronx. Well, the weed explained why he hadn't managed to get his mind wrapped around his storage situation.
I broke into his flow of words to say that I had to go.
"Would you exchange this Seagram's ginger ale for some Schweppes?"
"No, I can't." I really had to go, and I had no desire to hunt for a store that sold Schweppes.
"That's okay, I'll get somebody else to do it."
I've kept my eye on the overnight forecast for weeks. Twice, when the forecast was for overnight lows in the 20s, I called Department of Homeless Services. They checked on him and emailed me that he had refused services. When the temperature actually descends below 32, the DHS refers my calls to the police, who respond under "Code Blue." Code Blue allows them to take homeless people to local shelters, even if they don't want to go.
But Hosea had talked to me with such hatred of the police, I was sure that, when I called for them to help him, he was showering them with abusive speech.
I called Code Blue three or four times. And I'd walk by his campsite the next morning on my way to work hoping he was gone, hoping he was finally warm, sitting in a hot shower for the first time in maybe a year, with a chance to stretch out full length on a bed.
Hosea was still there.
He's still there today. He's made it through a New York City winter so far, into late February. He's still there after two nights in a row when it went down to 14 degrees. Maybe he'll make it outdoors year-round. Is this a case of incredible human endurance against the odds? Isn't it also a case of incredible human stubbornness? Can the shelters really be worse than living for months in the cold, day and night?
I know he's getting help -- his campsite is littered with chicken wing bones, empty ginger ale bottles, plastic forks. When I brought him that plastic container of food, he placed it in his lap on top of another one.
What do I do about calling DHS and the police to help him? He's probably abusive to them. Do I keep calling and sending these public servants into an abusive situation?
I've gone back my previous position, thinking to myself, "Hosea, you're on your own, kid. I'm not meddling any more."
But I say a prayer or two for him.
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