Seven Seeds for Happy People

Cigarettes and Booze

Today I slept in. Yesterday was my last exam day and I wasn’t sure if I should wait to come home or not. That apartment, heck, Wilmington for that matter, can be a lonely place. I’m really beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t find a way to get some color up on the walls in that room of mine. After a semester of slightly off-white bouncing into my retinas I fear my mind is going slightly off-sane. Obviously, I decided to stay.

My roommate left Thursday. Empty, empty. My morning was a bit surreal. I slept and then my alarm went off. I shut it off and quickly realized that I had no obligation to get up. For a moment I wobbled on one elbow and then let it collapse beneath me.

More sleep.

Sleep has been good to me lately, though my sleeping habits have changed a startling amount this semester. I no longer sleep without waking in the early morning. Every morning my imaginary alarm goes off around 8:30 or 9:00. I usually breath a deep breath, look at the light coming through the window and roll over. For thirty seconds I’ll think the same thing I do every morning. I thank God that I’m alive, I wonder if I should get up. These thirty or so seconds are wonderful, then it hits me. I remember.

This morning I slept again. It was good. I woke up and repeated the process twice before finally stumbling to my feet. It was a very lazy morning. I took a shower and packed everything I knew, or thought I might need. Cameras, cloths, borrowed books and pet projects all found their place in my “college” luggage, (duffle bag and milk crate)It all went inside the mean green-splorer and I came up for one last look around. You know what I’m talking about, the “better not have left my cell charger or toothbrush” round. It felt weird leaving. No one was in the building that I knew, but I felt like I was leaving someone. I didn’t like it at all. I said goodbye to the ladybug on the stairwell window as I walked down, then drove off.

That sun was something else.

It was nearly 70 degrees today! I have a bad feeling about this kind of weather less than 10 days before Christmas. People should not be able to tan in North Carolina on the 16th of December. Who am I kidding, I loved it. Maybe the world is overheating but at least I get to wear short sleeves when I’m outside. When I pulled out of the lot I noticed that everything looked golden, totally washed by the December summer sun. It was pretty.

I pulled up to a pump at the BP next to campus. That is where I met Grover.

“Hey hey hey, my man!”

I couldn’t see him yet but I knew instantly it was a homeless man. Why do they all have the same opening line? I stepped back and looked around the pump. A man, wearing a yellow UNCW shirt just like one of mine, was walking diagonally closer to me with that nervous shuffle step; a step that could so instantly turn into retreat if I told him to buzz off. He wasn’t looking at me but there was no one else around.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked.

“Yeah, man. I’m talking to you. I was wondering, could you help me out?”

I stood in silence for a moment.
“I’m just a homeless man,” he said, “I live back here behind Hardees in a shack with one other man. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them that, I do though. I’ll take you back there to see it if you want to.”

“Nah, that's ok.” I said sheepishly.

He asked me if I was leaving town and told me how he’d like to. He was from Charlotte and had no way of heading back to see his family. I asked him how he ended up in Wilmington and he told me that he just got out of the penitentiary. He couldn’t get a job but was hoping to get some work painting in a couple of weeks. We talked for a while about this, then the pump clicked off in my hand. I gave it a couple of squeezes to the next dollar.

I wanted, for a moment, to take him over to Hardees and get him a burger, but then I decided not to. I didn’t want to insult him, I know there are people out there that really want to get their lives straight after they get out, so I pulled out my wallet.

“I’m a college student,” I said, “I don’t have much money, will three dollars help?”

“Oh yeah, it all helps. Three dollars, that’ll get me, lets see, couple burgers off the 99 cent menu and...Thanks, thank you. You have a good time at home, now.”

He had already stared to turn away when I told him I’d be praying for him and that I hoped it could find a job soon. He nodded his head and told me to do that. His hand had gone into his pocket for something. As he made his way past the front of my car I wished him well once more. He turned his head just enough for me to see the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“You too man,” he said with his back to me, “ And don’t forget to say that prayer for me.”

It was the way he said it. He was laughing at me. He had what he wanted and he didn’t even wait for me to leave before disappearing behind the station door.

I went home.

There was something beautifully wrong with the light from the sun today. It was like snowflakes drifting through a desert sky. Sure it’s not right, but it would still be beautiful. The closer I got to home the more brightly the world around me glowed. I got on 95 and was heading due east, the sun hung low directly behind me. A tractor-trailer passed and the sharp reflection off it’s chrome-like gate caught me off guard. I blinked a few times and took a look around. It was like I was in an old brown photograph that moved. Through the rear-view I saw little flecks of stone in the river of pavement behind me that sparkled like Christmas lights.

Christmas is coming soon. It’s good to be home.