I met Jesse today. He was asleep under a tree outside my apartment this morning as we were leaving to have breakfast, curled up on my old shag rug I had put outside for the garbage men to pick up (as they do here in Los Feliz). He was brown from the sun and the many layers of dirt that coated his skin, hair and clothes, and his face was shiny from the heat. He couldn't have been a day over 20, but could very easily have been significantly younger. When I asked him, he wasn't sure how old he was, or how long he had been out on his own, far away from his family and home in Monterey.
After a great deal of persuasion, he finally agreed to come inside so he could shower and escape the heat. After looking around in amazement and my apartment (which, believe me, isn't much to look at), I led him to the shower and he said "Thanks, sweetie...I wont be long."
An hour or so later he emerged, smelling of vanilla and Herbal Escence, and looking like any other attractive young guy, aside from the draping clothes that he borrowed from Dave to wear while we washed his. After we started talking with him a little, it became aparent that he had some mental development problems. He was almost childlike, as though he had stopped developing mentally past a certain age, but was still exposed to the desperation and confusion of being homeless in a city where he knew no one. He eventually told us that his parents - who were Christian - had thrown him out of the house during his high school years because they found out that he was gay. He hasn't spoken to them since, and had no real comprehension of how long it had been since he had left home. He told us that he had met a man who had told him that he was 26, but then said that he didn't feel that old and believed he was about 19. He didn't know what month it was, but somehow knew that it was Sunday. "My parents are probably in church," he said. We asked him if HE was Christian and he paused, looked down and said: "I try to be."
Aside from his fascination with my birds -(he would stop mid-conversation from time to time to stare at them and then start laughing out loud) - the most child-like quality he had was his blatant and honest innocence. He told us very matter-of-factly about how he would meet men on the street, do drugs with them and then have sex with them. This seemed fairly normal to him, as he really had no reaction to the notion of it when he told us, and it became clear that he had probably been taken advantage of numerous times, never really knowing that it could potentially be harmful to him. He was intrigued by the fact that Dave and I were a couple. He made several comments about how we "talk to each other so much," and he even asked us if we had sex, although he quickly started laughing histerically out of embarrassment before we could answer. It seemed as though he had never had any real relationships in his entire life. His parents had kicked him out when he was very young, and all of his human encounters since had been with people on the street with whom he either had sex or did drugs. He said he hadn't been inside a home in years.
He carried with him a small backpack. Inside it were a magazine, a toothbrush, a pair of shoes, and 2 CDs, both Dave Matthews Band. When I commented on the music, he quickly jumped towards his bag and asked if he could listen to one song, the way a child would ask for just ONE more piece of candy. I put the CD in, and turned it to the track number he requested, and "Crash" started to play in the background. As if he were hypnotized by the music, he crawled over to the speaker and went into a trance, listening intently to the song. Tears started running down his face, and Dave and I sat there in complete silence, both moved and at a loss. Once the song ended, he looked up and started chatting as though nothing had happened.
He sat only on the floor, perched up on his feet, and talked constantly as he ate a bowl of soup, a bowl of cherios, 2 more turkey sandwhiches and an entire box of crackers. I brought up his clean clothes from the wash, and he sat there smelling them with a huge smile on his face. He told us about his friend Michael who taught him about yoga, and about "Dave the Mexican," who he was surprised we didn't know. It hit me then how we literally lived in 2 very different worlds. The only difference was that he had no concept of the world we live in whatsoever. He's never known the luxury of having an apartment, grocery shopping, movies, stereos, iPods, laptops, digital cable...friendship, trust, love.
When we started putting things into a bag for him (food, soap, water) he got confused. "That's a lot of stuff to carry, sweetie," he said. He took a few selected items from the pile of stuff we made for him, and sat on the floor trying to fit as much as he could into his tiny backpack. I asked him if he had a CD player to listen to his music, and he looked at me with a blank stare. I handed him my discman and headphones, and he looked as though he was about to cry. "I can't take this. This is too nice," he said. I insisted, and he crammed it into the last remaining space in his bag.
After a few minutes of somewhat awkward silence, I think it began to hit him that he was going to have to leave at some point. I sat there cringing inside, trying to think of every possibly scenario in which I wouldn't have to send him on his way eventually. Then, almost as though it physically hit him, he quickly stood up and said "I have to go!" and rushed out the door. I caught a glimpse of his face as he was closing the gate behind him, and it was possibly one of the most painful facial contortions I've ever seen on a human...filled with a child-like sadness and fear...and it hit me then that everything we had done for him was almost in vain. We had sat there listening to the story of this stranger, this kid, who had never experienced any real love in his life. He has never had a human relationship with anyone who didn't expect something from him, or take advantage of him in some way. Everyone in Jesse's life has thrown him out like a peice of trash...and we had just done the same. I felt a lump start to form in my throat as I heard a sobbing voice yell out "Thank you!" as he ran off. I jumped up and ran outside after him, but he was already halfway to the main road.
The last glimpse I caught of Jesse was him walking quickly down Franklin, his now filled backpack weighing him down to the right a bit, and his new headphones on...back into the world alone.
Somehow it made me feel empty inside.
