Little Baby Jesus. December 1999

“…Each person is responsible for the circumstances in which he finds himself.
He is not the innocent victim of his environment, he is simply meeting self.”

-Mary Ann Woodward, Edgar Cayce’s Story of Karma.

There seems to be something about me that causes people to become more open,
revealing their inner truths, without provocation, in situations where they
normally would not. This also held true for Little Baby Jesus. Don was his
name, but I gave him the nickname because his birthday fell on December 25th.
So beautiful, so sad, so many strikes early in life, he might not ever recover.
But others saw only his arrogance and superficialities, as this was his usual
posture.

I gave him a ride home once, after a night shift, in the winter. He had taken
some GHB right before the end of his shift, and became incapacitated. After
helping him with his closing duties and checkout, I got him out of the
restaurant quickly before he lost all motor coordination. I’d had no direct
encounters with anyone on GHB before and wasn’t sure what to expect on the ride
home.

After I got him in the car, he was relaxed to limp, and slumped against the
passenger window. His energy level was low, but he became rather chatty,
telling me an overview of his life, the traumas, the neglect, the rootless ness
of his existence, his little head pressed up against the glass. His tone was
calm as he told me his parents were cokeheads that had fully abandoned him by
age 13. He lived on the streets of Downtown Atlanta for several years,
sometimes staying with others, sometimes not, and no real where to go. Doing
whatever for money. There was no one to trust. He moved to other cities,
repeating the same behaviors, surviving the only way he knew. Now he lived in
Denver.

He was staying with a drug dealer at the time, he said. He thought I should
know, in case I’d like to come inside with him later. I thanked him for telling
me and said I’d think about it. The dealer also had cancer, and Don was charged
with tending to some of his needs. Their dynamic seemed rather complex. He
inferred a somewhat paternal relationship at times, and other times he talked as
if he were the Kept Boyfriend of the dealer.

He’d been in and out of jail. He was tough. He had to be. But the soft inner
core remained. Damaged, he opened himself to me anyway, because, I think he
knew I would not harm him.

Don had a lot of friends who, at the time of their friendship(s), had been in
worse circumstances than he. He always did what he could to help them, as much
as one teen-age street person could help another. Sometimes he did help,
sometimes not. He’d seen more than enough hardship for someone so young. His
casual, dreamy monotone related horrors, sadness, and utter hopelessness. He
had no one to take care of him, and he needed that someone so desperately. This
maybe-permanent emotional wound allowed him to live, but he was “walking
wounded.”

I took a longer route to his home so he could talk, but by the time we drove
through the park, he was spent. I stroke his shaved head, still against the
glass, and he closed his eyes but did not sleep. I kept my hand on his head the
rest of the way there. Neither of us spoke. He so needed someone to take care
of him. For a moment, a few blocks from his house, he opened one eye, smiled a
grateful smile, looked at me, and then closed his eye again.

When we got to his destination, he became more energized. Returning to the old
persona, changing back to his normal behavior, but not fully. “I’m gonna act
different inside,” he said. In which he did. The moment we passed through the
doors, he became cocky, exhibitionistic, and hyperactive.

The Dealer regarded me as suspicious almost immediately, interrogating me in a
circular fashion about my intentions with Don, while Don proceeded to open all
the cabinet doors in the kitchen. Not finding anything edible and losing
interest, he headed toward the remote on the sofa, leaving all the doors in
their new place, in various degree angles from the others. After switching the
channels a few seconds, he grabbed some pornography that was on the coffee
table. He told me he liked the penetration shots best and everything else
wasn’t worth a shit. The dealer smiled at me, black eyes still cold, when I
looked over at him.

A little before two a.m., the phone began ringing, one call after another.
People were getting out of the clubs and headed here for more of whatever they
were doing. Don said that I should probably go now, as he didn’t want me to see
how he’d be behaving in a few minutes. He looked sincere and sad. His eyes
were soft, moist, and resigned to whatever it was he would be doing soon. So I
told him goodbye and that I’d see him at work. He watched me walk out to the
car from the front door. He turned and went out of view as I pulled onto the
street.

He got fired shortly thereafter, and I haven’t seen him since. I heard he got
arrested and sent to jail. I don’t know. I hope not. When I think of him, I
hear this prayer that’s really a question. “Little Baby Jesus, will you be all
right?”

I think of him often. Poor little Capricorn, all alone….