Broken

 The other day, Tim took himself to McDonalds to eat. I had a couple appointments, but I was also going to take advantage of the day to get some groceries for Christmas, and pick up a few odds and ends that we needed from various stores, pick up some pictures I'd gotten printed off, things like that. 

Anyway, later he told me about something that really bothered him a lot. There was a man sitting at a table in the corner with a cup of coffee. He was thin and tired looking, but he was quiet. Tim watched him curiously as he ate. The man dozed off. 

An indignant woman came up to the table and in a harsh voice, woke him up. "Get out of here! Kelly doesn't want you here! Go on. Get out!" 

The man quietly got up and left with his coffee. 

It bothered Tim a lot. "She wasn't anybody," he said. "She didn't work there. She was just another customer, and the guy was not hurting anyone, sitting quietly." 

We do have a homeless guy who sleeps outside. I'm not going to say where he is, because some high school boys found his sleeping place and took all of his things, his sleeping bag and his rucksack and threw it all in the river some time back, which I found horrifying. 

Anyways, today we drywalled the ceiling in the front hall at the rehab. It was kind of tricky because it is a small tight place with stairs on one side so it makes the work space even tighter, but we got it done with a minimum of problems. In fact, I think it is the first time that we've ever done a drywall job and got all the pieces to fit perfectly on the first cut. No trimming or rasping required. Maybe we'll be professionals by the time that this job is done. 

When we were done, we headed out. Tim said, "I want to go to McDonalds and grab lunch." I had an idea he was still thinking about that fellow from last week. 

We placed our order and sat down to wait. The place was hopping busy. I'm not sure what the hold up was, but we waited for a half hour. The table next to us had a snappish mother and two young children who were hungry and fretful. A small group of door dash delivery people stood at the pick up, waiting for their orders, talking loudly. people came walked in. People walked out. An elderly man sat at a table with a small cup of coffee, dozing quietly. 

I said to Tim, "Is that the guy you saw the other day?" Tim looked behind him. "Yep," he said. "That's him." We sat in that noisy place, waiting for our food, discussing what to do, and making our plan. In spite of that noise, the man dozed, his white head, bobbing just the slightest bit.

A lot of people would see a broken man sitting quietly in the corner, trying not to draw attention to himself because it is cold outside. But as we eat, we watch the people coming and going, walking past him with their large bags of food to go, or the people dumping their partially eaten food in the trash, or the people sitting together talking merrily as Christmas carols play in the background. I think they must be broken too, that they cannot see, that they do not notice, that they are not moved at the sight.