A Generous Parable

Have you ever been hungry?
Really hungry?  Dead cold hungry? 

Sometimes a driver will throw me their left-over Taco Bell.  You eat the taco or whatever and you look at the hot sauce, you pocket it.  You can get a good day or two before that hot sauce starts to look like dinner.

Wendy’s… there you can get crackers and ketchup.  It’s not a bad meal, its kinda like cold pizza.  You can go a week or better. And its not as much work as dumpster diving.

Oh, don’t do that.  Nothing makes me feel more pitiful than pity.  This is life.  Some people got it all, fast cars, big houses, all that.  The ones who got it, get pretty good at keepin’ it. 

It’s just a role of the dice. Mom always said life’s a role of the dice.  “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”

Or at least that’s how I seen life till a couple weeks ago.

I was standin’ at my usual spot and my “see if you can hit me with a quarter” sign wasn’t pullin’ too well.  I was exhausted, but my belly wouldn’t shut up, so I sat on the guard rail.  Your stomach don’t rumble so bad when you hunch over.   The sun was runnin’ over sunset hills, and I was getting cold.  I had a little bag of crackers in one hand and a packet of ketchup in the other, and I’m about to start in to dinner when…
This guy pulls up.  Nice car…  but it was his eyes that got me.  Most folks look through ya, but He was looking right at me and his window was already down.  Like the guy knew I’d be there.  

He says, “Hungry?”

What?

He says, “Are you hungry?”

I think I must of nodded or something cause then the guy says, “Get in.”

I mumbled something and the guy repeated himself, “If you’re hungry, get in.”

Everything in my life...  Every car I’d ever gotten into before was yellin’ at me “Don’t get in.”  You don’t know this guy…  He wants something…  But that night my stomach was screaming louder.  I figured maybe he’d take me to a restaurant, so, I got in the car.

I’m looking around for the door handle, but this guy’s got his arm hanging out the window tapping his thumb on the wheel to the music.  We drove for a while and the guy was asking questions.  

“So, tell me your story,” he says.
I talked and the guy listened. I told him how I get by.  I dined –n-dashed once I said but it was horrible.  I never felt so alone… takin’ from good hard workin’ people.  So alone it made me sick.  

We turned a corner and pulled up to a big house.
I was shrinking in my seat, but he said, “Hey, it’s ok, you’re welcome here.”
We went inside, and I remember thinking the place was crazy, but somehow it felt like a real home too, you know.  No… that’s not it, I mean, it smelled like a real home… like someone had been cooking all day.

He invited me to sit down at a chair at the end of a massive oak table.  And he pulls up a chair to my left and asked, “So, How do you fill your days?”  I figured he wanted to know what I do, so I told him about how I used to lay carpet, did it for a good 2 years, but the markets gone south with hardwoods around Portland and all.  I’m telling him about the day my boss let me go, well, nearly killed me… I had to leave you know… 

and then I look down realize I’m about smashing those crackers and ketchup still in my hand. 

“What ya holding onto?” he says…

“Ahhhh…” I wanted to lie about it, tell him it was just some garbage, but I didn’t want to lie to this guy.  My face is turning flashing hot and I feel embarrassed, but I tell him anyway…

“It’s my dinner.”

“You mean our dinner,” he says with a half-smile.   

And then he reaches out his hand, “may I?”

I’m sitting there in that chair, but on the inside I’m already at the door and out onto the street. I don’t wanna give this guy my stuff, you know?  But again that night for reasons I don’t get… I give him “our dinner” and he starts to open those mangled crackers.  

He’s taking out these broken crackers, and a tidal wave of delicious smells washes over me.  This guy’s family has started to fill up the table with food.  Good food.  Somebody brings out this heaping dish of roasted vegetables and my stomach is singing to get a taste of the garlic mashed potatoes.  And then a pork roast and the apples and nutmeg from the roast are dancing in my head.

The guy takes one piece of cracker and squirts some of that warm ketchup on it, and then another which he gives to me.  He pops it in his mouth and says, “Hmmm, Not bad, kinda like pizza.”

The table is overflowing now with food and the room with people.  There’s people talking and one gal in the corner about to crumple onto the floor she’s laughin’ so hard.  

It’s like a party, but I don’t get why these people don’t see I don’t fit.

I was sinking in my chair again when the guy leans over and says, “I know a guy who might have some work for you, a couple days a week at first, no big deal… and no worries if it doesn’t work out.  I’ll give him a call in the morning.”

At that moment, the question hits me like a ton of bricks that I haven’t been able to shake for the last few weeks since.

“Who does this?” “Who opens their home to a broken, bottom of the barrel, bum like me?”

The guy let me stay at a rental house he owns until I can get a place.   

I started work last week at his friend’s shop, and man… it’s the best gig I ever had.

I guess “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit,” right?