Organizer: So can you stand in front of Jesus, hand out tickets and help control the crowds?
Me: That or handle trash?
Organizer: Pretty much
Me: I’ll hand out tickets
Volunteering is something I do with some consistency. It’s just a habit I developed when I was young. I was always volunteering for stuff, first to get into college then to network while in college, then to apply to graduate school. Now I just do it because I don’t know how not to.
So when a Muse (W) asked me to volunteer at a soup kitchen along with her and several friends I accepted without thinking much of it.
I found a spot near my partner at a table; who said her name was Nomi.
“Oh, like Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls”
She did not know what I was talking about. I wanted to hide.
She immediately forced three distinct thoughts into one sentence. I went for a walk looking for the huge Jesus statue I would be standing in front of.
None was in sight.
At this point a 6ft 7in Puerto Rican with a pony tail walked up to me and said “Hello, I’m JEE-ZUS”
“Oh, like HEY-ZEUS”
“No, like JEE-ZUS” he countered with mild annoyance.
I found the muses and let them know I would be a bouncer working the door.
Muse (J): Is that necessary?
Me: Apparently, things get out of control out there
The muses excitedly told me about their job. They had been assigned to collect trays from folks who were done eating. I suggested that it would be rude to collect a tray before the others at the table were done eating. Muse (J) laughed heartily, thinking I was joking, I joined in, feigning laughter but feeling a little bit conscious. I was being quite serious.
Outside, I froze my butt off as Nomi took here name quite literally. Here is a list of things we covered while she spoke to keep warm
- The racism her father faced as a Sephardic Jew when he moved to Israel in the 1950s
- Her desire to go to Grad School for (something) and her inability to do well on the GREs, which I argued would happen if you did not know what you wanted a masters in
- Growing up in Rural Pennsylvania
- The day she lost her virginity
- Her problems with her boss at work
- Some vast conspiracy that protects the moral hypocrisy of the socially conservative right wing of the party by targeting gays. The first guy in line, a homeless gay meth head got really pumped about this little tirade pumping his fist and saying “yeah”
- The expenses one incurs trying to eat organic food only
Not to be outdone, Jesus would stalk out into the cold occasionally. Primarily to lecture us for being too polite about letting people out through the entrance but occasionally he would tell us about his life
- He should have been President
- He served in Vietnam for two tours, totally six years
- He had a 35 year old son who was unemployed and played xbox all day
- One fellow who was eating at the kitchen, and was very savy about getting food several times, was actually Jesus’ son. He and his wife are jammed up a bit and staying in a shelter nearby
- He is a part time bounty hunter, his military training makes this possible
- The chubbier of the two janitors has the good weed
Here is a list of things I volunteered about myself
- I was cold
As I watched Jesus and the chubbier of the two janitors smoke, I befriended a schizophrenic waiting for the exact ticket number needed to come up so he could go in and get a cup of tea. We talked a bit about his list of numbers and how he comes by the list of numbers he uses to manage his life. He smoked, laughed and hardly made any sense. It was best conversation I had all day.
As a thank you I sifted through the tickets and handed him a numeric palindrome and showed him why I thought it was really neat. After some convincing he agreed and thanked me for the number in a barely comprehensible way.
The day ended rather uneventfully. I sought out the muses. They were doing quite well. Muse (S) was positively giddy which made no sense. I was sort of upset. I was cold and had just spent an hour befriending a homeless schizophrenic whose life, it was dawning on me, I had just further complicated by sending him on an entirely unproductive search for numeric palindromes. You can’t hold it against her though; she strikes me as a good person to have at a party.
As we parted ways, Nomi turned back and said “Thank you for letting me talk about myself” in a very awkward tone.
I had no response...
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