Reggie

I was on my way to my daily washing and breakfast at the local Subway on Broadway and listening to the book of James on my CD player when I was hailed down for some change by a short man sitting in a little alcove. As I pulled out my earphones and responded to him, I noticed he had a sore, bleeding spot on the top of his forehead. He told me he had Aids and was hungry, and continued to share more of his story as I sat down next to him. I asked him about why he had rolled up peices of toilet paper in his ears, and he calmly told me that it was to keep the evil voices out of his head--voices telling him to be angry and upset with the way people sometimes ignored him, denying him even a single penny for food. I remember the way I have felt a similar angst when I've gone door to door raising money for a shelter and was rejected after finally barganning down from $150 to a cent. He shared more, how he was rejected by his family after the AIDS became full blown--I asked him if it was because they were scared of him, and he acknowledged the fact, putting his head in his face as he cried about his mother abandoning him only seven months ago. He had grown up always wanting to be a good kid, he said, and tried to pray hard and go to church and do all the right things, but his feelings for other guys wouldn't go away. He was told by church people that he would go to hell for feeling that way, but he just couldn't change.