The Man with the Broken Shoes

I was not expecting to see a man walking sock-footed through my neighborhood in the rain the other day. Not because I am not aware that unhoused people walk sock-footed through my city sometimes, but because my particular neighborhood is incredibly insular. Nothing about my neighborhood is welcoming to a sock-footed, unhoused Black man carrying giant shoes that have been completely decimated by whatever life has thrown at him.

I wish I could say that I stopped immediately. I did not. I drove past twice before I worked up the courage to roll down my window and talk to him. I asked if he needed help, and he asked if I could take him to a gas station. He got in, put his backpack and his tattered shoes in my backseat, and we drove in relative silence for a few miles. He asked me if I had ever smoked weed. I honestly answered that I hadn’t, yet, but that some of my friends had and it had really helped them. Then he asked if I could take him to a certain intersection, miles south of where I live.

I wish I could say that I agreed immediately. I did not. I gave a lame excuse about needing to get to my Uber deliveries (how’s that for a privileged job?) and pulled into the gas station nearer to my house. He asked if I had a phone, and I asked what he wanted to use it for, and he said, “Never mind,” and that was it. He got out of my car and limped away, still sock-footed, still holding useless giant shoes, still unhoused, and probably still hungry.

I wish I could say that I went after him, offered to take him to Ross and bought him new shoes. I wish I could say that I ran into the gas station and bought him some beef jerky or a sandwich, so he didn’t leave empty-handed. I wish I could say that I did more.

I did not.

Instead, I sat there in my car, staring at my roof and the rain, feeling about as low as those shoes he was carrying away. I was so ashamed of my own discomfort, of my own incompetency and inability to help, and so, so very angry. Angry at myself for not doing more. Angry at my state for its criminalization of people who look like him. Angry at the world, for unfolding in such a way that he was walking sock-footed through a neighborhood full of other human beings that didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died. Angry that I didn’t know whom to call, where to take him, or what to do to help him. Angry at the knowledge that were I to call the police, they would be more likely to arrest him and throw him in jail for marijuana possession than to get him the help he needed. I left him at that gas station, no better off than the unwelcoming neighborhood where I found him. I went on with my night, did my deliveries, listened to my podcasts, and made some money.

Then I went home.

My life has sucked recently. I got shingles to start the year, which I later learned is brought on by “incredible stress,” mostly related to my job at the time. Because my job did not pay me enough to go to Urgent Care and had not bothered to send me my medical insurance information, I sat at home, applying calamine lotion and downing ibuprofen, missed a week of work, and then went back to work while still in significant pain because I needed to pay my bills. For various reasons, mostly the terrible way in which they treat their employees and their active efforts to pay them as little as possible for the work they provide, I left that job soon after, excited to get out of that industry and to use my actual skills (writing, storytelling). Then the job I really wanted, which would have integrated those skills incredibly, didn’t work out. I got depressed. I dragged myself through several weeks, playing video games and delivering food, attempting to muster the energy to apply for new jobs and usually failing to do so, not sure what I had to offer the world at this point and wondering if I would ever find something meaningful to do with my life and my gift.

But throughout the misery that has been the beginning of 2022, I always had something that millions of people do not have.

I could always go home.

As I think back on that interaction with the sock-footed man, I am struck by something that did not occur to me in the moment. At no point throughout our brief interaction did I ever once feel the slightest bit of anger toward the person who was in need. How could I? How could anyone see this person standing alone in the rain without shoes and feel anything by empathy, compassion, and sadness? Granted, I do not know what this man’s life has been, or what choices, his and more likely, others’, that led him to that moment in time. But I also don’t really care. No one should be forced to walk through the rain sock-footed and hungry. Its not like we’re short on shoes. Or food.

Having been through my own brief unemployment period recently, struggling to find any motivation to apply for new jobs, even though I know that would be the adult, responsible thing to do, I cannot imagine trying to drag yourself out of the literal gutter. I wouldn’t last a day on the streets. I wouldn’t make it a week without a home. I can’t imagine life without, at the very least, somewhere warm to lie down and sleep. So the idea that anyone could see this man, abandoned by an uncaring society, and have any thought other than, “I want to help,” is foreign to me. Maybe you, like me, feel incapable of helping or don’t know what to do. I can understand that feeling of helplessness. But the thought that someone could look at that guy and have their first reaction be, “Get a job, loser,” makes me want to fistfight. It’s difficult for me to imagine that level of callousness.

My life has been filled with disappointment, especially recently. Almost none of my dreams have come true, at least not yet. I have often questioned whether life is actually worth it, if the things I long for in the deepest parts of my being will ever actually happen, or if I’m one of those people who is destined to remain forever unfulfilled, washed, unsuccessful, and burned out. This has been my experience of life. But I can also acknowledge that my life has been incredibly easy. Compared to what this man in the rain has had to endure, I’ve never really struggled. I may not have gotten the job I wanted or found the love of my life, but I’ve always had shoes.

The first step (and the only appropriate response) in addressing any issue is acknowledging that it exists. I will be the first to admit that I am not the most practical person in the world. I did not major in logistics. But I do know that at a base, scientific level, that man and I are made of the same stuff. There is no separation between us at a quantum level. To view him as an “other” is to rend my own soul, to shear myself into pieces. And that separation can only lead to suffering. The world doesn’t need more suffering. It needs more connection.

When a man without shoes walks past dozens of houses, something has gone terribly wrong at a spiritual level. This cannot be the way we are destined to live. This cannot be the best we can do. Whatever allocation of resources has led to that man having nothing while I can spend $70 on the new LEGO Star Wars, it’s not justice. It is not the story the universe is trying to tell. There has to be more to us as a species than throwing out food to manufacture artificial scarcity while people starve and stumble through the rain.

There are so many creative solutions to problems. So many brilliant alternatives to poverty. So many fascinating avenues forking away from the boring, cynical street called “this is the way it’s always been.” But it’s not. Life is endlessly evolving. Love is endlessly expanding. The universe has grown since I started writing this essay. It will grow by the time you read it.

But when an entire population of people is more interested in screaming that there is no problem, in arguing that certain people actually deserve to suffer, and in calling their opponents names for even suggesting that the system, the laws, or the imagining of society could be even a little bit different or better, it makes it really hard to find a solution. I have met some of those people in my life, who cared more about the structures that allowed them to flourish than the people whom those structures had trampled or ignored. I have been that person in my life. But I want to be better. I want us to be better. Maybe the first step is rolling down your window and listening.

I have many failings as a person. I’ve said lots of ignorant and hurtful things in my life out of my own insecurities and shortcomings. I’ve been insensitive and overly sensitive and senseless in my interactions with other, both directly and indirectly. But the one thing I’ve always had going for me is a willingness to be wrong and to change. When presented with new information, I try to listen. Even from a young age, I was possessed by an incurable desire to be the best version of myself, even if it meant letting go of that which I previously held dear. I have always been open to the idea that maybe there is a better way. I don’t want to live in a world where sock-footed men with broken shoes have nowhere to call home. So even if it means I have to sacrifice something in my own life, I am willing to try something new, to find a better way, to create a more decent world.

After all, how many pairs of shoes do I actually need?