The Man Called Elroy: Part One

         This was in Madrid when I met Elroy, back in the days of my youth, when I was living haphazardly from one day to the next, open to any adventure during the bright afternoon hours and the love of many girls during the night. Elroy was much different than me, and together we made an almost unlikely pair. He was not ordinary; he lived nowhere, yet everywhere; he bought his meals with money made recycling cans and all types of other litter that people discarded in ditches; and, with his toothless grin, he'd rate the beauty of women who passed him by according to various names of others he claimed to have loved. He always seemed to be very much at ease as well, content with the simple life he led. But, from the start, I had only thought I had him tagged. As I came to know him more, I realized that Elroy was special, a century's man. So many passed him by because of his filthy hygiene and grotesque appearance. Behind it all was a man -- a mind -- so bewilderingly complex that I knew any prejudices that I had made and still did make as I began to know him were quite honestly just flaws in my own naivety, in the nurture that my parents and the world's parents, and the world itself brought us all up with. No matter what anyone would tell you, Elroy was special.

         I first met him during one summer, one summer when I had decided to rededicate myself to my writing and push the boundaries of my limits. They were days when I would buy a cold bottle of Coke and sit at my window desk with pencil and paper, drinking slowly until I thought of something to write. Many times, I would start by writing one simple introductory sentence. The story would flow from there. I wrote about what I knew, learned about what I didn't, and tried my best to convince myself that what I wrote was really any good. A short story a day became my goal, something I picked up from Hemingway, among many other things. When I would finish writing for the day, I would put aside what I wrote to edit it the next day, after sleeping on it, and I would go outside and read, or go to the library to get new books, or turn to something new and exciting.

         It was during one of these trips to the library when I met Elroy. Parked outside, I didn't much want to leave the car until he had passed by. He was walking -- no, pacing -- back and forth in front of the library. He seemed to me like one of those types you just knew would start a conversation when you passed by them, yet all you wanted to do was the opposite. I got out of my car anyway and, sure enough, as I walked towards the doors, he stepped in front of me. I ignored his appearance and looked him in the eyes, trying to be polite and respectful.

         "Boy, boy," he told me, "you look just like me when I was younger."

         That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I nodded, though, and smiled. I wasn't sure what to say. Thanks? I tried to keep walking, but he stopped me again.

         "Let me hear your voice, maybe it's the same, too."

         "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm in a bit of a hurry right now."

         "Yep! Can you hear the r'semblance?" he asked me. "Ah, but you're just like the rest of 'em, just walk me on by."

         Hearing that, I couldn't leave. I was mad that he was trying to manipulate pity from me, but I wanted to be polite, to think how I would want to be treated if I were him. And, they say you never know what shape or form God's messenger comes in.

         "I'm sorry," I told him. "I can spare some time for you, if that's what you want."

         "Isn't that what we all want?" he asked, rhetorically. He continued quickly, expecting no answer. "Will you sit down with me?"

         Feeling as if I was digging myself into an even deeper hole, I didn't want to. But, I wouldn't tell him no. We sat down on a nearby bench outside the front of the library.

         "So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked.

         "Boy, you have so much to learn yet," he said. "Your generation is all about haste. You've forgotten how to make simple conversation, too quick to bypass the straight and narrow for the shortcut out of everything."

         I felt that I was starting to get into an opinionated, philosophy lecture. Inside, I grimaced.

         "So, you're headed to the library, to get some books, huh?" he continued. He sighed and stretched himself out on the bench. "Books are good. Everything you ever need to know about life is in books. It's tough, though, to dig out the jewels inside them all. Sometimes, you find diamonds, and yet other times all you find are shards, fragments. Still, books are losing their value amongst young ones anymore. Well, that is to say, young ones are losing their values in books. Books will always be there, but the interest seems to be diminishing.

         "Even you, I assume, don't take books as seriously as you should," he said. "It's probably a contest for you to see how many books you can read, skimming through them as fast as you can in your hasty generation way."

         "Teddy Roosevelt read fast," I offered in defense.

         He seemed to think about it, saying nothing for a moment or two. I wondered if he even knew who Roosevelt was.

         "I suppose. But, he also read well," Elroy said. "He was a book-miner. He could spot the jewels with ease. These days, kids must have teachers pound the meaning into their heads, and sometimes it doesn't even stick!"

         I laughed. That was true, especially of me. My high school grades had been average, at best, and often below average. It wasn't until college when I began to consider studying advantageous and used my time of it well.

         "Maybe the world has some hope, though, if you're around," he told me. "You seem like a good kid, very solid, grounded."

         "You don't even know my name," I insisted.

         "At my age," he said, "I don't need to. I know a good man and a lousy man. I know which women are worth your time and which are going to crumble."

         I didn't believe him when he talked about women. It's hard to take such a greasy-haired, scrubby-bearded, and hunched-over old man seriously when he muses about women. Then again, Bukowski was a lover.

         "Let me tell you a story," he said to me. "One that is much better than half them books you'll find in there."

         I shifted around uncomfortably. I didn't want to get into a long, overdrawn story with this guy. The sun was still high in the sky, I could still do something with this nice day. Hoping it would be short, though, I decided it would be all right.

         "Go on," I said.

         He looked up, staring out at some distanced point as if it was going to help him remember his story. His beard and mustache brushed crisply against each other while he pursed his lips, and he licked them before speaking.

         "Let me tell you about life not contained within walls," he began. "Living out here, under bridges, docks, in alleyways...you see and hear some crazy things, things so crazy that even you start to doubt whether or not they happened. But, I know. I know these things really happened. Life can get wild when you have nothing to restrain God from coming in.

         "This particular instance I'm thinking of, it must've been five, six years since it happened. Maybe ten? That's not important, though. It began as I was walking out in the countryside, scouring the landscape for cans, and I was having little luck. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get my meal for the night; see, I collect these cans and sell them for cash. You might be amazed at how much I can make, though maybe not so much by how many cans I pick up that people have tossed away.

         "Anyway, as I said, I wasn't finding many cans on this evening. It wasn't a place I had been to recently, so I had thought that the source would be replenished, as is usual. I continued trying for a few hours until I looked in my bag and saw that I had barely filled a quarter of it. I had decided to call it a night and began my walk home, studying the stars all the while. I saw a shooting star fly by, which awed me, and I knew about the superstition with them. I've never thought much of those, but I gave it a shot anyway. I closed my eyes, and I wished for...

         "Well, what I wished for was a way out of my constant scavenging, or at least a sure meal everyday. I said that on the shooting star, but I addressed it to God. I told Him that I didn't want money, because I couldn't handle more than sufficient money if I had it, and prayed that I would be forever grateful for some biscuits and gravy, coffee, eggs, beer, fried chicken...

         "The days passed by and I discovered that I was finding cans much easier than usual. Of course, as should be expected with such blessing, I fell to my knees and began praising God immediately. I thanked him every day that I received meals, and I was soon getting three in a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In all my longing for food, I realized that I had asked God to have humans litter the planet even more.

         "One day, I finally had saved up enough spare money to get a shave and a haircut, and the barber even threw in a free shampooing when I told him I didn't have the money for it. My, that was a mistake, one of the biggest I've ever made. I was so cold at nights, without all my hair, and I couldn't get used to the missing beard. My face itched constantly and I felt boyish again.

         "But in all these welcomed blessings from God, I once stumbled upon a lottery ticket which had been blown into the mud, where it had gotten stuck until I found it. I'll admit, when I saw it, I thought of many things: God's help, having money for all the biscuits and gravy meals in the world, and the odds that this ticket itself was even a winner at all. I picked it up and kept it with me, though. At first, I wasn't sure what I should do with it.

         "I know you may be thinking, 'Go! Check and see if it will win you anything, or if it's even eligible anymore!' But, that wasn't on my mind. I figured that it might be a test from God -- or even the devil -- seeing if I would forget my humble lifestyle in all of the wealth, or take the gamble on an uncertain chance. It doesn't mean much to people whether or not we check the value of such things, but to God, it must mean a lack of trust in Him that he will take care of us. I didn't want to fall victim to such an easy trap, so I didn't look into the lottery ticket.

         "Instead, I thought I would do the next best thing: Offer it to someone else. It isn't the same as passing my test onto someone else. Rather, if it turned out to be a winner, I would be giving a fortune to another. And," Elroy said, smiling, "this wouldn't be as good a story if it wasn't, and it was a winner. That lucky man, living in such remarkably similar circumstances as me, never slept on the streets again. I saw his face in a newspaper, and it made me happy -- not angry -- that he had gotten the money."

         "And you're proud of that?" I asked. His smile faded. "You're proud that you gave away that ticket which you think God 'blessed' you with, while you're still living the same life as before?"

         "I am grateful," he answered. "Grateful and blessed. Money would've probably changed me for the worst. At the very least, I would've died of overeating biscuits and gravy."

         "Okay," I said, "well, then, do you know what happened to that guy? How do you know money didn't change him?"

         "Yes," he told me, "I do know what happened with him. He was able to get into school and get a degree, and the man died a poor death before he could do anything with that degree. But, he had accomplished his goal, and all of the money that he could've so easily hoarded away in his death was given back to the community."

         Elroy turned to me, smiling yet again. He pointed to the library.

         "See this library? 'Biblioteca Memorial de Delgado.' It is his creation, his will," Elroy told me. "The man valued education above all else. I don't know the circumstances that held him back from that goal in the first place, but I do not regret giving him that money at all."