Abandoned Jesus

Abandoned Jesus, why? The years visited me, one by one — each one generous in giving and taking. They left my sins and took his name, it’s gone. All I have is an image of his face after I pulled him out of a thorny mesquite bush. A memory that’s like a withered thorn, festering deep in the soul — a memory that still makes me cry.

Selling Drugs to Earn Money

I was earning my dollars by trafficking cocaine between Roswell and Las Cruces. That day started with a deluge in Rowell, a storm that caused long lines of cars to form along the highway. They were prudent and wouldn’t cross the gushing water flooding over the asphalt in torrents. Impatient, I angled my Toyota as much as I possibly could, crossed the first one, and ran into several more washouts before the rain-soaked Roswellians vanished from my rear-view.

He stood by the highway in a soft drizzle, a crusty-looking, homeless creature with a tattered backpack. I stopped and he smiled with big, perfect, dingy teeth. He packed his gear in my car and we set off. His feral odor was dank so I cracked my window a little and offered him a beer. His eyes got big. “Hell yeah,” he muttered and we toasted a drink as I got back on the road. He pulled out a joint and asked if I smoked. I usually don’t, but to mask his smell, I was quick to spit back my own “Hell yeah” and that’s how our dialogue began. White lines followed the weed and alcohol, and I laughed when he chocked after snorting a line of cocaine.

I was naive to the ways of the world back then. Arrogance asked why he was homeless — why did he choose to live like that? This dirty vagrant took a while to answer, and I don’t recall hearing anything reasonable. Just that he didn’t “fit in” anymore. When I asked him where he was going, he said T or C. I asked if he had family there and he told me no. He mentioned an ex-wife and a son, but he was on his way there to die. It turns out his body was cancer-ridden and he only had a few months left to live.

I asked him his age and when he told me, without thinking, I called him a liar. He flashed a knowing smile. He’d seen it coming way before I said it. I gave him another look over and stared at his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding me; the guy sitting next to me looked much older than he claimed to be. He pulled a worn ID out of a tin-can he stashed in his pack and showed it to me. I apologized. He nodded and told me he was a veteran of the Vietnam War. Soon, the mangy vermin opened up and spilled undiluted heartbreak into my ears. He gave me his story, a tiny bit of it, and it’s seared forever like hieroglyphics, unto the hollow walls of my restless heart.

He’d been a scout or something in the Vietnam War. While on a mission with another soldier, they were captured and systematically tortured. He spread out the fingers on both of his hands and showed me that every single one of his fingernails had been peeled off. He didn’t take off his shoes, but he claimed they’d taken his toenails too.

He rolled up the sleeves on his shirt to expose his forearms. They were textured with scars, long slices in a cross-hatch pattern that wrapped around each side. He unbuttoned his shirt and revealed those same scars littered across his chest and abdomen. It looked like a game of pick-up sticks had been melted onto him. I was dumbfounded. He explained that his captors would slice him with a knife and pour salt on his cuts.

Lastly, the worn-out hitchhiker spat out his perfect set of dingy, plastic teeth. It turns out that every single tooth in his jaw and skull had either been pulled out or broken. I didn’t know what to say, I was stupefied. I wanted to feel sorry for him, but he wouldn’t allow that. He came close to tears a few times but he kept them away with a matter-of-fact burst, “But I never gave them shit!” He smiled more to himself every time he said it. “Those mother-fuckers never got shit from me or my partner…”

I told him I was sorry — sorry for what he’d been through. I told him about my little brother and his lost battle to cancer. For a while, we were friends. I told him he could stay and my house in Cruces overnight and I’d get him to T or C the next day, but I was wrong. I ruined our plans and the wonderful camaraderie after a brief stop in Ruidoso for food.

I got back into my car and noticed the cloth on his seat was dark. I asked what happened and he didn’t answer, just mumbled something incoherent. He was really fucked up. I felt the seat and it and it was wet and cold. I took a whiff and realized it was urine. My Hitchhiker friend had pissed on himself in my car. I remember calling him by name. repeatedly, I vehemently scolded him and demanded an explanation. From within a haze, he apologized and offered up, “I’m sorry man, I’m fucked up.” I couldn’t let it go. Materialism and gold can have a hold.

I was to blame for his intoxication but I didn’t see it back then. I held him accountable, 100%. He sat quietly thereafter, quiet with my frigid resentment. Our conversation died thereafter, and I’m sure I got in line behind all those other reasons as to why he was homeless.

Abruptly, in Alamogordo, he asked me to drop him off. I tried to explain that T or C was closer to Las Cruces than Alamogordo, but he insisted. I should have apologized and kept him with me until I made it to Cruces, but I didn’t argue. I pulled over on the side of the road and he got out of my car. As he was getting his things out, he took one or two steps backward and disappeared.

He’d lost his balance and fallen down the steep embankment on the side of the road. I jumped out and ran around my car to help him get up. I found him laying on his back, tangled up in thorns. Drunkenly, he fought the thorns and they dug deeper. I calmed him down and slowly set him free. I pulled him into the light of passing cars for inspection and saw Jesus. He gasped for air and wobbled in my arms, blood running down his yellow skin in the glow of passing headlights. I cussed and repeated his name, a name that’s been long forgotten…

I lost my faith and my religion in prison long ago, but that night — for a brief moment just outside of the Alamogordo desert — I swear, I held Jesus in my arms. I thought about the men he saved in his company, and the torture he endured, for others… Yet here he stood — homeless, abandoned by a highway — in the arms of a selfish, petulant child.

He thanked me for helping him get back up and turned to get his gear. I was tired and wanted to get home, but I was responsible for his condition. There was no way I was going to leave him like that. I hustled him back into my car and doubled back into Alamogordo. I wanted to take him to a hospital but he insisted he was fine. I didn’t know what to do with him until he suggested a VFW. I quickly agreed and managed to locate one for him, miraculously, right down the same road.

In the VFW, there was a group of guys at the bar that readily came out and helped me with the dying war veteran. My worries vanished when they pulled his slender frame out of my car with ease. They carried him indoors between two of them. The hitchhiker was in good hands. Another burly man got his property from me, looked me in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got him now.”

It’s been a lifetime since that noble, homeless veteran shared his story with me. I veered off into the state’s prison system for many years and occasionally talk about him, but I never did anything else beyond that.

Recently, while chasing a dream, I met a dynamic group of impressive people. Their ambitious endeavor is to provide small sustainable dwellings, viable income opportunities and a sanctuary where veterans can heal their emotional afflictions and PTSD. That’s what motivated me to regurgitate this memory. Years of crazy living have left their afflictions with me. But unlike this hitchhiker, Jesus, I’m not alone. My beautiful kids are sleeping comfortably while I write.

Ted Brinegar asked for my help, so this weekend, I’ll ferry my kids with me to work in Alamogordo. I’d love to have a few other volunteers tag along, so we can get this Foxhole Earthship finished…

The Fourth of July is a painful holiday for me. People are celebrating supposed freedom, while carefully managed with media and fear. Year after year, millions of dollars are traded for fireworks and beer, while organizations like Foxhole Homes wrestle for funding. I don’t know who it was, but this month, someone made a large anonymous donation after reading something I wrote. I cried at the bar in front of a beer, reeling with gratitude. I really can’t recall the name of this Vietnam veteran I mistreated. So in the name of Jesus, I ask that you do something for them smelly, demented veterans… visit Foxhole Homes.