I met a stranger today; his name is Jay.  If you’ve been in downtown Chicago along State St. in the past two weeks, you’ve probably walked past him.  Today he was standing at the corner of State and Washington in front of the Old Navy, holding a plain brown cardboard sign that reads in big, black block letters:

LOST JOB
LOST HOME
LOST HOPE
CAN YOU HELP ME?

Jay can get lost in the crowd sometimes.  People hardly notice he’s there.  At first glance, he looks like so many others whom I — and possibly you — walk past each and every day.  A used Chipotle cup in his hand with roughly $2.50.  A scruffy face.  But his voice is one that isn’t easily toned out.  There is a sense of despair, sorrow as he speaks.  “Can you spare some change so I can eat?” he pleads.  “Can anyone help me out?”

As I think about it more intentionally, I saw Jay standing in that same spot last Wednesday at the same afternoon hour.  I walked right past him then.  This time the light was red.  Cars were whizzing past.  Maybe its because I had to stop.  Maybe its because I was still futzing with my iPhone to pick just the right mix for my bus ride back to my apartment.  I don’t know what it was, but I simply turned to Jay.  I looked at him and I said, “Hi.”

I think I confused him.  Maybe, if one is feeling extra generous that day, one might reach into their pocket and pull out some change to throw in his cup.  No eye contact is necessary, an exchange of words even less.  The “professionals,” if I might call them that, have it down to an art form.  Watch along Michigan Ave. some weekend.  These people will deftly move from pocket or purse to cup without even breaking their stride or even their ongoing conversation.  Its a combination of art form and a mental coping mechanism.  One can walk away from the situation with the good feeling that they helped, without investing too much of themselves or drawing the attention of anyone else.

I certainly confused the people around me.  A man catty corner from me, in front of me, turned around and looked at me with an expression that asked, “Are you talking to me?”  He didn’t even look in Jay’s direction.  A man who stands taller than six feet, even while leaning against the light post, was simply invisible to him.  A woman next to me on the other side briefly paused her cell phone conversation to look at me with an equally puzzled response.  Jay was in his zone, though, and it took a moment for him to register that I was speaking to him.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Can I take you somewhere around here to get some food?” I responded.  “What’s good?  What do you want?”

As I spoke to him, Jay’s eyes brightened.  I looked closer at him.  He couldn’t be much older than me — late 20′s, tops.  His face was showing signs of someone who regularly gets food, but not nearly enough to keep the skin off the jaw bone.  His clothes, while neat, were visibly worn out and used.  His shirt was a gray tee, his blue jeans tattered and torn.  He didn’t carry a backpack or have anything else on him.

Jay looked sad.  There’s nothing else to describe him.  Over my year in Chicago and two years in Milwaukee, I’ve seen a number of expressions among the destitute: lonely, discouraged, angry, frustrated, tired — oh, so many tired.  Rare is the person who simply looks sad.  I’m sure Jay was all of those other attributes, too, but above all he was sad.

I have always imagined sadness is dangerous on the streets.  Its vulnerable.  Its unprotected.  Sadness is raw and powerful.  Unlike anger and frustration — which, I imagine, are the galvanized, second-generation children of sadness — it is exploitable.  As a society, as a human race, we see that over and over again throughout our history and our interactions with others.

In any event, Jay began to talk back to me.  It was apparent as he spoke that he is a good person, with a warm soul.  He had a lively personality, his eyes came to life as he began to get more animated.  I don’t imagine that part of Jay gets to come out much.

“Truthfully, I don’t want to screw with you,” he began.  In an instant, I began to regress to the skeptical thoughts that I have been conditioned with as I live as an educated, white man in an urban society.  He’s going to tell me he wants beer, I thought.  He wants cash to support his drug addiction.

“Truthfully, I don’t want to screw with you, but I could really use a CTA pass.  See, I sleep on the trains at night,” he continued.  He told me how he’ll ride the Red Line just so he can sleep, but that “really the Blue Line is a lot safer.”  Jay told me he was held up at knifepoint on the Red Line, that someone stole his wallet that didn’t have any money in it, just his CTA pass and an ID card.  That happened “a few days ago.”

I hadn’t noticed that the light hadn’t gone through its cycle yet.  The confused man catty corner from me spoke up, just as the light was turning.  “Psh,” he scoffed.  “Yeah, right.”  As he began walking, his call was clear, “Go get a job, freeloader!”

I don’t know if Jay heard it.  He’s probably immune to it by now.  But I heard it.  I don’t know if Jay was telling the truth or not, but — human being to human being — he seemed authentic.  I hadn’t even had much of a conversation with Jay yet, and I wanted to go punch the other guy simply for being a rude waste of oxygen.

Since Jay leveled with me, I leveled with him: I rarely carry cash, but I’d go run down to the Red Line station and get him a transit card if that’s what he wanted.  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” he responded.  “I know you’re busy.”

That sealed it.  I had nothing to do.  If I missed the #6 bus that was a minute away, according to BusTracker, then I simply caught the next one.  “No, its OK,” I said.  “I’ll be back in like three minutes.”

Jay’s eyes brightened up even more.  It was like life was pouring back into him, from some far-off place that he doesn’t reach anymore.  “Really?” he asked.  I told him yes, and started walking down to the subway station.

As I walked, my higher reasoning started kicking in.  You idiot, it told me.  You haven’t paid your phone bill, your credit card is getting a lot more use these days, you still have assessments for the church to pay for, books for the semester are going to need to be ordered soon, and you overdrew your checking account this morning. I told my brain to shut up.  I have a phone, I have a credit card full of fond memories (if even its maxxed out), I have the ability to serve in the church, I can always use the myriad libraries for books, and a quick transfer from my small savings will cover the overdraft.

I could have bought Jay a day pass; I could have even bought him just a one-use card.  Either would have been the cheapest options, and both were definitely what he was thinking of.  But I didn’t.  I bought him a 7-day pass.  That’s $23 more on my credit card.  Practically and logically, that’s way too much.  After all, Jay was and still is a stranger.  But something made me press that button on the screen, and I don’t regret it.  If he had walked away by then, I had a 7-day pass for myself.  If he was still there, he has seven days of being able to stay dry at night when its expected to rain, of being able to enjoy air conditioning on warm, humid summer days.  He can even go to some other neighborhood and beg for all I care.

He thought it was too much, too.  I came back and handed him the card and the receipt.  “Here you go,” I said.  “I hope this works out for you.”

At first he was going to ball up the receipt and hand it back to me, “I trust you,” he said.  Then he looked at the card and saw the big 7 on it.  “Is this really a 7-day pass?  Are you sure?”

I told him I was sure.  He thanked me profusely, and that’s when he told me his name was Jay.  Part of me felt guilty for not asking him his name earlier.  I stood there and chatted with him for a couple minutes more; I learned that neither of us like to drink beer, that he finished high school and took some college classes before deciding to work in construction.  The downturn meant layoffs for his company, and he ended up getting evicted because he couldn’t pay the rent.  He’s always wanted to finish college, but he doesn’t know what he wants to study.  His family doesn’t live around here, and so now he’s all alone and stuck in Chicago.  Homeless.  Riding on the L at night, hoping he can get some sleep.

After I left him and got on my bus (ending up getting on a #10, with an extra couple of blocks to walk) I realized how similar we are.  Sure, I write letters to folks to ask for money for my education, but in the end its just like begging.  Sure, I receive food stamps from the state, but maintaining them is definitely begging for basic nourishment.  All my life I’ve been conditioned to believe I’m “above” begging, but when it gets right down to it that’s how I’ve been able to get along for much of my short adult life.

If I lost my job, menial and low-paying as it may be, I’d have to stand next to Jay and I’d have a lot more invisible baggage: $50,000 in student loan debt, $7,000 outstanding on my car note, the expectation of having food and shelter and health insurance.  I’m a strand of a thread away from Jay.

And then as I began my walk home from the bus stop, I felt myself begin to cry.  Of course Jay is sad — I’m sad for him.  To endure the rudeness of people in such a way on a daily — probably hourly, or even more frequently — basis.  And how sad am I that I continue to believe I’m better than those invisible people I pass on a regular basis.

I pray for Jay tonight.  I believe his story to be true, and whether it is or not is really of no circumstance.  I know he’ll have seven days of being able to travel the city, no matter what the reason.

And I hope I don’t see Jay again; I hope that his situation turns around, that he finds stable housing, an opportunity to work.  But if I do see him again, I’m going to look at him, I’m going to recognize him.

I’m going to say hi, and ask him if I can buy him another bus pass.