Emmanuel’s House

Eastern Oregon 

     It was a hot Saturday morning, 80 degrees at seven. I could see the thermometer on the side of my shop from where I stood barefoot on the carpet in front of the air conditioner, talking on the phone to my wife. 

     She had headed out a half hour before to work on a fire a hundred miles from our snug, cool little home and jerked me out of dreamworld to report spotting a strange sight. Fifteen miles to the south of our house, a man was pushing a shopping cart full of plastic sacks down the edge of the highway, in the middle of nowhere, Wheatsville, USA.  I allowed that, yeah, it was uncommon to see a homeless person ten miles from the closest possible home and went back to bed.

     It was just as hot the next morning when she called to say that she had waved at the same guy, pushing the same cart, who was now at milepost 14, 12 miles north of yesterday. What did I want to do about it? I would be forced to put on my shoes if I was going to help push a shopping cart, that my preference was to do nothing about it and to go back to dreaming of chocolate cherry cheesecake.

    On the way out to the highway, I stopped at Edna’s store and bought a bottle of Mountain Dew, the official drink of homeless guys pushing shopping carts through the treeless void. I also bought a tin of Copenhagen, the official chaw of the freelance rescue worker. 

     Sure enough, a mile south of town, walking north toward traffic was a small black guy, forty-or-so, missing front teeth, torn windbreaker, dirty chino pants, pulling a standard grocery store cart along the breakdown lane.  I guided my little red truck to a whoa in front of him and stepped out. He walked to the rear of the cart, keeping it between us, just in case. 

     “Yassuh. What can I do for you, Suh?”

     “I don’t know. I just stopped to see if you were alright.”

     “Oh, Yassuh. I’m fine. Little warm, little thirsty, but just fine, thanks for asking.”

     “Where are you headed?”

     “I’m going to California someday. Right now I am going to Washington State, I don’t know, maybe Spokane or somewhere like that.”

     “Want a ride? I can get you to the Washington state line. Twenty miles north.”

    “That would be more than just fine. Please help me lift my house onto your truck and we’ll be on our way.”

     Once we loaded his stuff, including a large rock, we shook hands and introduced ourselves. His name was Emmanuel and his hand was wet. I passed him the bottle of Dew and he pointed to the circle in my shirt pocket. “Now that wouldn’t be Copenhagen by any chance would it? Surely would enjoy a dip of chew, Suh.” I passed him the can, spun a u-turn, and we headed north.

     We didn’t talk about the politics of homelessness. Emmanuel was not a talkative guy but neither did he seem tweaked, demented, or wounded, just solitary. I doubt that he talks even to himself, but I did learn a few things about his life in the forty-five minutes I rode with him. 

      He was originally from Magnolia, Mississippi, which explained the Yazzuh stuff.  He had been on the road, homeless, for 16 years and three months.  He was on his fifth shopping cart house, the one in the back of my truck given to him by an Albertson’s employee in Mountain Home, Idaho. The worst place he had been was Butte, Montana, where he had done 14 days in county jail for vagrancy with “some real nasty white boys.”  The best place he had been was “in the trees, any kind of trees, where I can hunker and read the Bible.”

    As we hit the edge of civilization a few miles south of the Washington line, I got a few interesting insights into living out of a shopping cart when he began a running critique of the American marketplace.

     “Now, there is a Zip Trip. Very good dumpsters. Folks buy that lightbulb corndog nacho burrito stuff and don’t like it, toss it away. Plus, it is always poor folks working in convenience stores and poor folks are more generous than the rich. Pappa Murphy’s pizza place. You get there late at night, just before they close, and those kids working in there they give you all the raw pizza you can eat. Display models. Used car lots. Now you find a big busy one on a late Saturday night, where people been getting in and out of those cars all day, and there’s bound to be pocket change on the ground. And they have good night lights that make those dimes shine. Mr. McDonald’s? Stay afar unless you can afford a cup of coffee. They have a company policy to chase you away from every one of those in the world, and they even call in the police.”

     While we unloaded his house below the sign reading “Welcome to Washington, the Evergreen State,” Emmanuel’s rock dropped from the pickup bed. I asked why he was carrying a rock around the world. He said “You always should have a rock, in case the wind blows hard or the dog is terrible big. You’d be surprised how many places that you cannot find a rock.”  Wise words. I gave him the can of chew, we shook hands, and I drove back home.

     Three hours later, my son decided we should head for the hills and murder some tin cans with a .22 rifle. He wanted to drive. When I got in the passenger side, I found an almost full pack of Marlboro cigarettes that Emmanuel dropped. We headed back for Washington and found him just south of Walla Walla, two miles north of where I left him, head down, pushing his cart. When I handed him the pack of smokes he said “Yazzuh. I been looking all through my house for those. Figured I must’ve left them in your automobile. Thank you and the Lord, Brother,” smiled and flashed the peace sign. He was lighting up as we drove away. 

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