Conversations With Eddie

Twelve months is a long time to go without seeing your best friend, and seeing Eddie Washington walk through the door of St. Arbuck’s was like, well, seeing Eddie Washington walk through the door...by which I mean that no one can pull it off quite like him.

It’s the entrance, followed by the dramatic pause to survey the landscape—more like surveying his domain, if you want to know the truth—then it’s the slow rhythmic stroll that most people would call a “walk.” However, what Eddie does is more like gliding to a subtle, slow groove that only he can hear.

The occasion of his return was to attend the wedding of a friend. Eddie, being Eddie, found a way to stretch it into a long weekend.

His eyes finally focused on me causing his handsome face to light up in a pure Eddie smile. Now, if you’ve never experienced the full force of an “Eddie smile,” well, let me tell you about it: Guileless, joyful, completely transparent and genuine that carries with it the sense that it’s a smile reserved only for a select few.

“RG,” said he in that deeply burnished urban brogue of his, which, for the record, he turns on and off as the occasion demands.

“Brother,” came my reply as I stood to embrace my friend.

We probably hugged longer than is socially acceptable for two straight males, but we don’t really care about stuff like that.

Let ‘em talk.

Heck, let ‘em eat cake, whatever that means.

“Good to see you, RG.”

“You too, man,” I replied as we sat down at our usual corner table. “It’s been way, way too long.”

“Indeed it has.”

“So,” I said. “What’s new?”

He laughed. “You mean since three days ago?”

It’s not like there was a lot to catch up on, for we talk several times a week, but there’s just something that happens face-to-face that can never happen over the phone or even through video chat.

“Well, yeah.”

A married couple we both knew came in, saw us and came over to offer hugs and greetings, which then led to several minutes of pleasant chatter.

After they left to order their coffee he said, “Dude, I got to tell you about something that happened a few weeks ago on the subway.”

“You get mugged, or something?”

“No, no, no...nothing like that.”

He lives in a really good part of the city, but still...it’s New York! I mean, come on.

He said, “Nah, man. I was taking the subway home after work; it was about two a.m. and, as usual, the train was full. We came to a scheduled stop, the doors opened and this homeless guy got on.”

“That’s unusual?” I inquired.

“By itself, no, because there are thousands of homeless people in the city. But this guy was huge! Like six-five and probably three hundred pounds. And old! Maybe, mid-sixties.”

While I didn’t say it, I thought to myself that someone in his mid-sixties just doesn’t sound that old to me anymore.

“And the strangest thing happened,” he continued. “All the people in his end of the car got up and moved down to the other end where I was sitting.”

“Why? Was he violent or something?”

“No, man. He just...he wasn’t doing anything offensive. All those people were acting like him being alive and breathing was offensive—like he didn’t belong in their world.”

“Man, that’s harsh.”

“Did I mention that it was snowing?”

“No.”

“Yeah, it was snowing. And whenever it rains or snows, homeless people get on the train and ride it out to Coney Island and back, staying on as long as they can until the cops kick them off.”

“And that’s what he was doing?”

He said, “That was my guess. But you have to picture the scene: Here’s this one old, huge homeless guy down at one end of the car and about forty people all crammed together down at the other end and all of them staring at him. It was surreal!”

“He stare back?

“Nah, man. He just kept to himself. Sort of staring at the floor. I looked down at his feet and, dude, he didn’t have any shoes on! Snowing outside and the boy didn’t have shoes!”

“So, he was barefoot?”

“No, he had newspapers wrapped around his feet. And his ankles...it looked like elephant skin; like, I don’t know, maybe something you’d see after frostbite, or something.”

All I could do was shake my head as I tried to picture this man’s condition while imagining all of the thousands of people in this country who would fall into the same category.

He continued, “Eventually everyone got off except me. So there I am at one end, and the dude at the other. So I got up and moved down to his end and sat across from him.”

“And you started up a conversation, didn’t you?”

“You know me well,” he chuckled. “Yeah, man. I just started asking him questions. He was almost, like, I don’t know, either he suffered from some mental handicap or had done a lot of drugs or something. I didn’t learn much about his history because he just wasn’t very conversant. But the more we talked I just couldn’t get past the fact that the man had newspapers wrapped around his feet...and there was snow on the ground! And it just broke my heart.”

“Pretty graphic witness to the strength of the human spirit when it comes to survival. Crazy what people will do.”

He was silent for a minute as if trying to control his emotions. “We were getting close to my stop and I looked at his feet; looked at my feet with my brand new Puma’s that I had looked all over New York City to find; felt my dress shoes in my backpack and asked him what size shoe he wore. He said that he wore a size thirteen. Same size as me.”

“So, you gave him your new shoes?” I said with a knowing smile.

He nodded his head in silence. “I mean, what else could I do? I took them off and told him to try them on. He kind of stared at me like, ‘Really?’ He put them on and they fit. I put my dress shoes on, stood, shook his hand and got off at my stop. When the train left he was kind of turned around staring out the window at me, gave me a little wave and then he was gone.”

“That was an extraordinary thing to do,” I said.

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had an extra pair of shoes in my backpack.”

“So?”

“What if I hadn’t had that extra pair? Would I have still given him my new shoes and walked home in my socks?”

“That doesn’t seem—“

“Relevant?” he said, completing my sentence. “I beg to differ. It is entirely relevant because it’s all about what we’re really willing to give up when faced with overwhelming need.”

I thought about that for a few seconds and realized he was right. Here in the land of plenty, where so many have so much, there are still people, just like this man on the subway, who have little or nothing with absolutely no way to better their situation; desperation and hopelessness their constant companions.

“Still,” I said. “There aren’t many people who would’ve done what you did. I mean, come on, there wasn’t even anyone willing to occupy the same space as the guy.”

“True, true,” he replied slowly. “But I should’ve done more.”

“You did what you could.” Then, after a brief pause I added, “You most likely did more than you knew.”

A couple more friends dropped by to say hi and then Eddie had to go.

As we walked toward the parking lot, making plans to meet up for dinner later on that evening, I thought about what Eddie said about not having done enough. And what is enough? And when is too little? I must confess, I had no answers.

“See you about seven?” I said as we shook hands in parting. I mean, come on, we hugged once. Twice would’ve been pushing it.

“Yeah, man. Looking forward to hanging with you and that pretty lady you live with.”

And it started to rain.

I looked down at Eddie’s feet. He was sporting new Nikes.

I love Nikes.

“Forget it! I ain’t giving you my shoes,” he said with a smile as he turned to go.

“But—“

“No way, Jack!”

Sometimes the man can be downright selfish.