2001-06-21 - 9:01 p.m.

Announcer: Let�s all sit back and relax, and get ready for another episode of� Hangin� With the Homeless, starring Pants LaRuey!

(Wild applause from studio audience. Spotlight on Pants LaRuey, who walks in from offstage, waving to audience as he comes. He sits down on a comfortable chair next to the host, who is sipping coffee.)

Host: Well, Pants, looks like you�ve been a busy beaver.

Pants: Yeah, well, I like to keep the ball rolling, you know.

Host: Now, the last time we heard from you, I believe Johnson Crouton was giving you quite a hard time over your encounter with that homeless woman.

Pants: Yeah, well, that Johnson Crouton, he takes me to task. He�s always the skeptic.

Host: Now, for the benefit of our new viewers, can you tell us just how you got to know this Johnson Crouton?

Pants: Well, it all started back a year or so ago, after I had been living with my roommate Nate for a while. I guess I have different personalities at different times, so he decided to make them characters and attach names to each one. Johnson Crouton�s the sarcastic, skeptical one, another guy named Toothy McGee�s the existential ponderer, and me, I�m the active go-getter who wants to make things happen.

Host: So which one is the real personality?

Pants (with a wink): Why, me, of course.

Host: Yes, of course. And what brings you here today?

Pants: Well, I guess it was just time to shake it up a bit. The usual way of telling a story was getting a bit laborious. I could sense that our readers were yawning a bit, what with the 30-second sound bite and all, so maybe I could keep some of them around if I played with different formats. You know, I�ve always got to be reinventing myself. Plus, I could tell Johnson Crouton was dying to get out. He felt stifled under the one-narrator structure. So we let him speak his piece. But I�m in charge again.

I don�t need Johnson Crouton telling me what to do. I�m Pants LaRuey, after all. I can do whatever I want. I can forget about this interview structure if I want, just go back to old-fashioned prose. I don�t need to pretend like I�m the star of some show to keep your attention, I don�t need a host baiting me with questions; I can pose my own questions and answer them myself if I want. In fact, you can go home now, Mister Host. You�ve brought the audience in; I can take it from here.

Host: Sorry I couldn�t be of more service to you, Pants. Good luck in your travels.

(Host folds up his table, packs it into his suitcase and exits)

And you, audience, you can leave now, too, if you want. I promise not to be offended. I can�t promise much, just me sitting here telling you about my life. I�ve tried to come up with an interesting life so far, but it�s hard. It�s fun to have these grand ideas, but it�s not easy to carry them through to their logical conclusion. It�s easy to look down on these people I�m living among and think how nice it would be to connect with them. Then you�ve got to go do it, and when you do, it�s not as fun as it seems. For example, a few days ago, I decide I�d better go out there and just do it. So I head outside after work, planning to go to a local bar because it seems so forbidding, like I should be too intimidated to even go inside.

But as I�m walking down Lawrence Avenue toward the bar, I�m waved at by these two guys standing behind a few bushes. They�re asking for a cigarette. I�ve brought some along for just such an occasion, so I reach into my pocket and produce. One guy comes over to get his, I help him light it, he thanks me and goes. This other guy, he�s trying to get me to go over to him behind the bush, but for some reason I don�t like that I idea. I comes over and I see that he�s holding a crutch.

�Sorry. I didn�t realize�� I say.

�That�s okay,� he says, taking his cigarette. �I�m Dennis the Menace.�

I�ve seen this guy around, and he�s told me his name. He barked at the cars in the street one day, and he said, �I�m Dennis the Menace.� Another time, he called to me as I was walking over to JJ Peppers. He said, �You know me, I�m Dennis the Menace,� and then tried to get me to follow him over to where the sidewalk was dark.

Now he�s huddling up to me, trying to get his cigarette, trying to keep me from leaving.

�You see this wall? I helped paint it,� he tells me. He�s talking about the mural painted on the concrete wall under the elevated train. I�ve looked at this wall many time before, vaguely wondering what all the images and symbols meant.

He tells me he�ll explain it to me in a minute. First, he puts his arm around me. Then he says to me,

�I�m gonna ask you to look into your heart, see if you can find your way to helping a poor guy like me get a sandwich.�

I tell him I don�t know about that, I don�t have much money myself. He backs off for a minute, looking offended. He tells me he wants to be my friend. He tells me I�m a college student. I tell him I�m not, but he doesn�t believe me.

�Here. I want to give you something. I made this myself.� He produces a friendship bracelet, inscribed with little black markings. I act touched, but don�t take it.

�I want you to have this, to be my friend.� And then he asks me to look into my heart again, and give him some money.

I try to tell him that maybe I could give him a couple dollars now, but I can�t make a regular thing of it. I want to be able to come over to Dennis and talk to him sometimes without him asking me for money all the time. Because if he asks me for money every time, I won�t be able to talk to him any more. I don�t have enough money to be a benefactor; I would rather be his friend.

He doesn�t let me get out the words. He interrupts me, acts offended, looks to the sky and tells me about Jesus.

I tell him, okay, maybe I can buy this friendship bracelet from him.

�No. This is a gift from me to you. You can�t buy it.�

Okay. I�ll take it and give him five bucks. Only this once. I produce the money and put it in his front pocket, so the police won�t be able to do anything.

Then he starts to tell me about the mural. It starts off with a face looking off in the distance; that�s the black man looking off into the world of possibilities, down the train track south into the city. Behind it is brain, swirling with ideas and connections, representing all the knowledge the black man has accumulated. Behind that is a restaurant sign that reads �Eats,� that�s the hunger of the man, the base needs and desires that influence him. Beneath that is a cave, the rib cage, another part is the hunger, and inside it a man flexing his muscles, the place from which the man draws his strength. Dennis says that musclebound man is actually himself. And beyond all that is a picture of Jesus and the Last Supper, and somewhere beyond it is woman, and both represent the salvation of mankind. And if you were to go all the way down to the end and understand everything, you wouldn�t need no more answers.

He puts his arm on me and motions to one image on the mural or another and says, �Look at that.� I look and nod, saying, �Yeah, that�s great.� And then he bursts into song, his face just inches from mine, singing, �Imagine all the people, living for to-day��

He goes on like that for a minute or so, me looking at the mural, feeling slightly uncomfortable, wondering what�s going through his head. Does he really want to connect with me? Or is he just angling his arm around so he can grab my wallet? I try to make sure, as he�s singing �Imagine� to me, that my back pocket is out of reach.

People come by, and he smiles and shouts a comment at them as they go.

�You�re looking good, ladies,� he tells two young girls.

�Hey, brother, Jesus loves you,� he says to an older man.

To me, he asks more money. He offers to tell me all about another mural, the one on the other side of the train. I can�t. I�m sure this whole thing about painting this mural is just a scam anyway. So he asks me about myself.

I hesitate, then think, what the heck. I want him to understand me, to tell him about what I�ve learned on my journey. I start off, �Well, I�m 24 years old��

�No! Tell me from the beginning! And keep your eyes on that picture, right up there,� he says, pointing to the mural.

I don�t know what picture he�s talking about, but I start to tell him about my family, how I grew up in the suburbs of Boston�

�All right, you�d better go ahead, so the cops don�t know our business.�

Our business? I don�t know what he means. But I say okay, as a man walks up to greet him. He doesn�t care to know about me, of course. And maybe I don�t want him to know too much about me. I take the wrong way home so he won�t know where I live.

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