The only thing Chico was guilty of was seeing too much.

[KB.]

“Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes”

~Victor Hugo

Several years ago, mid to late 90’s, I was working as a courier of sorts for a law firm. I delivered and retrieved documents. This was in Jackson, TN. I spent most of my time driving from place to place listening to old R and B and Bob Seger CDs. I met a man outside of the courthouse there one afternoon. I never knew his real name, I called him Chico.

Chico was an older black gentleman in his late 50’s to early 60’s. He was a Vietnam Veteran, and he had been “homeless” for twenty years he figured. Chico didn’t really have much use for the concept of “years”; he preferred the day to day measurements of time. We talked for awhile, he had asked me for a smoke and I wanted one as well so I sat down beside him and we fed the squirrels and smoked our Camel’s. We talked about the weather, how good the burgers smelled that were cooking at Liberty Street Grill; we talked about how loud his belly rumbled when we smelled those burgers cooking.

I told him to come on with me and we would go have us one of those burgers, my treat. He refused, said he was in no kind of shape to go sit in a public place and eat. He said he didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I told him they could kiss our asses, but he just shook his head. So I gave him another cigarette and told him to stay put and I would be right back. I asked if he liked bacon on his burgers, he told me that he didn’t eat swine, but that bacon would be great. I laughed and he smiled big.

So I walked down to the grill and waved at my Mom and her friends as they were eating, when they made room for me I told them I was getting mine to go that day. I got Chico and me three burgers, I figured if he didn’t want the extra I would have no problem taking care of it. I ordered some fries and two large drinks.

Chico and I ate like kings and he told me stories for a good hour and a half. He told me stories about the war and some about seeing Marvin Gaye in concert when he lived in Detroit. Some of those war stories were rough to listen to. Chico wasn’t always the sanest person when he told those stories. You could tell he was looking way back into the deep dark places of his head when he talked about the war.

Chico and I met two or three times a week at Hardees to have breakfast. He got a free meal and I got stories. Some days if I knew I would be out and about for awhile before I went back to the office I would pick him up and let him ride with me. I would play Teddy Pendergrass, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Marvin, Bill Withers, and some Dylan now and then. He loved Dylan as much as he loved Marvin.

Chico never bemoaned the fact he slept outside in rain, snow, ice, or 90 degree weather. He didn’t complain when his shoes were so thin his socks got holes in their soles. He did complain when I brought him and old pair of my tennis shoes and a three pair of socks. He still said thank you. If I had been more than 19 years old and had my own place I would have let him move in.



He missed a breakfast one morning and I got worried. It has been cold the night before and he hadn’t been well. He refused to go to the clinic. I called the cops and told them I figured he was dead and told them his usual spots that he would sleep. I went looking myself. It was the first time I saw someone dead, and the only time outside of a funeral home. He had those new to him shoes on and all three pair of socks. He looked so damn cold. Alone. Nobody as human as he was should have had to die like that. I’m sure he didn’t care. I did though.

He was born in Detroit, but he couldn’t remember exactly when. He said he was 25 or 26 when he went to Vietnam in 1968 so he figured he was born in the early 40’s. He said he knew for sure he was 20 when he left Detroit to move to Memphis because he had met a woman at that Marvin Gaye concert. He told me how he had met this beautiful woman, he never used her name, and that he was so in love that he picked everything up and left the next day and followed her home. He smiled a little when he first told me this story and said he figured it was the music more than it was the two of them. He said Marvin made people fall in love.

He had to leave his love and go to Vietnam, and when he got back three years later after being shot in the shoulder and arm, she was gone. She was there when he got home, but she was gone. “Strung out and half crazy” were the words he used. She blew her head off two days after he got home, and she waited until he walked in the door to do it.

He told me he was so used to seeing people get “their ****ing crazy heads” blown off that he didn’t even think about it until weeks later when it hit him that she was gone. He buried her and he left to go to Georgia. He had an older brother there and he stayed with him for awhile and worked at a factory. He got stuck in a bottle for a few years as so many of us do and when his brother died of cancer Chico decided to just disappear.

He ended up back in Memphis for a couple of years, but he had dreams about his dead wife with her face missing. He told me how pretty she had been, how she had hazel eyes, and big, perfect, white teeth. He told me how when he got back from the war that those teeth were falling out and blackened from the tar heroin she was smoking. So he left Memphis and came to Jackson.

I told Chico I should call him Curtis Lowe, and when he looked confused I played that old song for him. He liked it.

Some people would look at a hungry, lonely, and cold person then look at some mangy mutt in the same situation and they would feel a deep pain in their hearts for that dog. They wouldn’t give Chico a second glance. They would take the dog home and feed it Alpo, buy it warm blankets, and expensive flea collars. They would sneer at Chico and tell him to get a job. They would let the dog **** in the floor. I have had a couple damn good dogs, and not once have they told me a story worth a damn.

Don’t get me wrong, I think people who spend time and money to save and adopt, or see that abandoned animals get a home are great; just quit turning your nose up at the person who slept beside the dumpster outside of your apartment last night. By the grace of God it is not you.

The only thing Chico was guilty of was seeing too much.

KB

[JacksDad]

I never thought of a computer keyboard as a musical instrument before.

Nice blues, K.

[KB.]

I've got to rewrite it. I used too many he's and such. It is my distaste for dialogue. I might work on it tonight, but I may have a new one.



Thanks as always JD. As long as you like em that is enough for me.

[sunny104]

very cool, we think alike in a lot of ways. :-6