How do You Take Your Coffee?

“How do you take your coffee?”

I said it rather quickly, maybe sharply.  I was almost embarrassed to be asking.  Maybe he wouldn’t answer me, anyway.  Maybe I did not really want him to answer me. 

I had been buying him cups of coffee and the occasional muffin or sandwich on and off for about a year.  He rarely acknowledged these gifts, and I did not press for any more interaction than it took to transfer the drink and/or food from my hands to his, or my hands to the ground near him.  Maybe I would mumble something, or he would mumble something, but we never really talked.  I pretty much winged it on what I bought.  I did made sure to get cream and real sugar in the coffee – I figured he probably needed the calories.  But, that was about as far as my concern had gone.  I swooped in with my unsolicited food gifts and was gone.  Like giving bread crumbs to ducks.

I waited another minute, then repeated my question to him.  Softer this time.

“So, how do you take your coffee?”

He slowly looked up, looked beyond me, then looked right into my eyes.  He seemed surprised.

“No one has ever asked me that, ma’am,” he said.  I felt my face go hot.  His voice was soft and low.  He thought for a minute.  “I like my coffee hot with milk.  Not too much sweet.  Real hot.”

I nodded and turned towards the coffee shop.  I thought of all of the obviously not right cups of coffee I had gotten him in the past.  Why hadn’t I asked him before?  Wouldn’t I want someone to give me a cup of coffee the way I wanted it, not the way they wanted to give it to me.  It stabbed at me that my coffee buying in the past had been more about the gesture of me giving coffee to him, and not so much about giving him what he wanted or needed.  It had been about me, and it should have been about him.

He was a street person, a homeless person, a bum.  This city has their share of them.  You find them downtown clustered around subways, coffee shops, parks.  Anywhere there might be a quick handout, some extra spare change, a bench to sleep on.  Shortly after I took this job downtown, he had started spending his time around the outside of our building.  In hot  weather, he spent time in the shaded basement stairwell or the damp alley.  In nice weather, he was frequently at the park near our building, or sitting on the curb in front of the building.  When it was cold, he wandered around an area a couple of block or so around the building during the day, then hunkered down for the night in front of our building’s doors, in the vestibule.  The vestibule is slanted, rubber-carpeted, and somewhat protected from rain.  When he went to sleep for the night, he would press up as close to our glass lobby doors as possible, under layers of whatever he had – cardboard, fabric, newspaper.

I remember noticing him for the first time one winter night when I had worked late.  He was stretched out across the three sets of double doors, and I remember trying to figure our what door to go through and how best to step over him.  I don’t remember that night precisely, but I was probably in a hurry and irritated about having to make the effort to get by him and go on my way.

I am deeply ashamed to say that I stepped over him or around him for the next year.

One random day the next winter, I impulsively bought him a cup of coffee when I went down to the corner for my expensive cup of designer coffee.  I don’t usually do that kind of thing, and not for strangers.  Certainly not for street people.  But, it was a cold day.  Even though it was not nightfall yet, he was sitting in the vestibule, trying to keep warm.  I brought the cup and sat it down near him.  He did not say anything or move or even pick up the cup.  I did not say anything either, just walked around him and back into the building.  Later, when I left for the evening, I saw the empty cup sitting on the step.  He was asleep in front of the doors as ususal.  I picked up the empty cup and threw it away.

We went on that way for quite a while.  Me, bestowing my random gifts of coffee and food.  Him, silently accepting them.

So, why had I chosen to speak with him on that particular day?  Why then, after ignoring him as a person for so long?   Hard to know.  I know I had heard a sermon on Mephibosheth that resonated with me a while back. Maybe that was in my mind.  I had done cancer treatment again, which is pretty depersonalizing.  Maybe I was feeling the need to connect.  And, as I said, it was cold.  Maybe I just did it because the weather was particularly brutal that day.  I wish I could claim a personal epiphany of sorts – that I had suddenly become a better person and that is why I did it.  I would probably feel less badly about all that time I spent just stepping over him like he was a log or a rock or something.  No, I cannot claim any personal profit or karma gain here. 

In retrospect, I think it was probably a God thing – that God whispered in my ear what to do.  In truth, he had probably whispered it to me LOTS and LOTS of times before, but I was too busy being irritated by my own schedule, or the effort required to get out of our building, or my own sense of self entitlement, to listen.  But, for whatever reason, I listened this time.

So, I got my coffee, and his extra-hot cup made with milk, and walked back to my office.  He was sitting in the vestibule, looking down when I walked up.  I stood there in front of him, hoping he could see the tips of my shoes, hoping I would not have to make the first move, uncertain of what I would do or say.  He raised his head and looked at me.  I smiled.  “Hi,” I said, quickly before I could lose my courage. “Here’s your coffee.  Hot with milk.  My name is Judy.” I am sure I sounded like an idiot.  A nervous idiot.

He smiled back, and took the cup.  “I’m Robert, they call me Robert, ma’am,” he said.

I remember walking back into work with a convicting thought ringing in my head – you feed animals, you talk to people.  Even though I had been feeding Robert off and on, I was not treating him like a person.  Guilty as charged.  That one small exchange had shifted him from a nameless door obstacle to Robert, the person.  Robert, who liked his coffee hot with milk.

Robert and I formed a – well if it was not really a friendship – kind of a nodding relationship, I guess.  I made sure to greet him by name, and he always responded, unless he was asleep.  In truth, he was asleep a lot, as it was very clear that he had a major alcohol problem.  In fact, one of the reasons I had bought coffee and food was because I did not want to give him money.  Money could be used for booze; I figured food had a better chance of being actually eaten and doing him some good. Still, we spoke politely whenever we crossed paths with each other.

Once we had spoken to each other, I really began to see him, to relate to him as a person, to see more things about him.  He was not young, but probably not really old, either.  It was hard to tell.  His hair was partly grey.  He was not a small man, but not really large, either.  Homeless people tend to dress in layer upon layer, a necessity given variable weather and lack of storage space for possessions.  In our small verbal exchanges, Robert spoke softly, respectfully.  He sounded Southern.  Although, he also frequently sounded drunk. Sometimes, very drunk.  I brought him coffee, food, some socks, a used rolling suitcase, water bottles in the summer, baked potatoes for his pockets in the winter.  I worried if I did not see him for a few days. 

The really funny – odd – thing about meeting Robert and really noticing him and speaking to him was that now I noticed EVERYONE around me.  ALL the Roberts.  Where the neighborhood’s street population had occupied the corners of my mind and the periphery of my vision before, now I could not NOT see them.  No matter how hard I tried.  My one cup of coffee was sometime four or five now, and I felt guilty that I was not doing more.  However, I still mostly limited my small efforts to Robert.

When cold weather came, I would warn him about the forecast.  I bought a couple of used sleeping bags and a mattress pad and made a quilted roll for him to use to sleep on.  A couple of times, when the weather was brutal, he let me call the city’s tip line for someone to come and get him to a shelter.  He rarely wanted to go – he said that he would lose his suitcase and stuff there.  Sometimes, he would say he would go and then change his mind when the van came.  But, a couple of times, it got so bad that he did go.  When the weather would break, he always came back, never gone more than a day or two.

This past autumn into winter, he was not well.  I could hear him coughing, he said he had been sick.  He did not always drink his coffee or eat his food anymore.  He did not move around much, either.  He smelled more strongly of alcohol in the morning, sometimes he was still sleeping long after the work day had begun.  I nagged him about eating.  I nagged him about going to a shelter.  He turned me down dozens of times to try and get him some help.  The tip line people would not come out if he did not want to go.  He disappeared for days at a time.  He finally reappeared in mid December with a younger man; he said he needed the young man’s help to get around.  One night, shortly before Christmas, the younger man disappeared and took all of Robert’s stuff with him. 

That next day, Robert was sitting up in the vestibule when I got to work.  He did not want the coffee or breakfast I had brought.  He was still sick, maybe more so than before.  He sure sounded pretty bad.  It was really cold out.  He did not have his bed roll or suitcase or extra clothes any more.  He did not have the hat and gloves I had brought a couple of days ago.  I worried that he would not survive more nights on the street like this.  By afternoon, he had still not eaten anything and he seemed even worse.  He did not argue with me when I said I was calling for someone to come and get him.  I sat on the steps with him and waited for the van to come.  It took a long time for them to get there.  I asked where they would take him, with him being so sick.  They said maybe the shelter, maybe the hospital, they were not sure, but not back on the street right away in any case.  At least that was somewhat promising.

I called the shelter the next day, and was told that he was in the hospital.  They said he was a vet, but the person I spoke with did not know where he was or much of anything about him.  I did not have his last name, and a search for random Roberts at local hospitals was not yielding any information.  I was just glad that I was not seeing him on the street in the cold anymore.  I did not hear anything from him or about him, but I looked for him as I drove in and out of the city every day.  I would drive around on weekends I was in the city, just to see if I could spot him.  I never did spot him, though.

Until he came to find me.

He was standing outside my building when I left last night.  I would not have recognized him, I don’t think.  He is smaller and younger than I thought.  He recognized me though.  He smiled shyly and said he was leaving, getting on a bus and going home.  Home, it turns out, is Georgia.  He said that he was going to the bus station, but he wanted to stop by and say thanks before he left.  I don’t know that he understood what I meant, but I said that I should thank him.  I asked how he was getting to the bus station, and offered a ride.  He had a little time before the bus, so we talked a little.  He had been on the streets for about ten years.  He had been drinking for longer than that.  The hospital helped him find his family.  His mom had died, but his sister was still there.  That is who he was going home to.  She had told him that she wanted him home.  He seemed surprised that she had said that.

I asked if he was hungry; he said he could do with a sandwich or something and some coffee.  I had to ask what he wanted to eat, but I already knew how he took his coffee. 

I asked him if I could pray for him before we ate.  He said that he went to church as a kid, but had not gone in a long, long time.  He did let me pray for his safe journey and homecoming with his sister. We talked about church a bit, we talked about God a bit.  He let me give him my small, pocket Bible (How grateful I was that my travel Bible was in my tote bag!)  He said that he would start to read it on the bus, it would be a long ride home.  I gave him a couple of bucks for the bus ride, too, so he could get coffee or a soda if he wanted to when the bus stopped for gas.

I gave him my contact information and said I would love to know he got home and was doing well.  Then, it was time for his bus to leave.  We hugged a bit, and I whispered to him that God never leaves you, even when you are doing your best to leave God.  He nodded.  He said that he thought he would not ever come back up this way again, he would probably stay close to home.  He looked me in the eyes and said “Thank you.” Then, he got on the bus.  I waved once, and walked away.

It was odd walking through the vestibule today.  I am a little sad, in a purely selfish way, to know that I will not see Robert again.  Of course, not being in the vestibule means that he is not on the street and that he has been given the opportunity to go home, and I am very happy and glad of that.  I hope he does well.