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He was lying on the grass, gazing through his pair of sunglasses at all the people quickly passing by, with his boyfriend sleeping on his lap. His shirt and pants were torn and holey. His constant humming of a ditty from the 1990s seemed peculiar and quite out of place in the park, with young children laughing on the playground, naughty dogs barking and chasing after balls, young couples sitting on benches murmuring into each other’s ears. It was just like a roll of thumping drums breaking the peace in an elegant classic musical.
Before I met Schaz, I had never thought that I would ever learn something from homeless people. *** I went to San Francisco on a Wednesday with my friends from journalism summer camp to interview people in the. I walked around in a little park, having conversations with different people and taking photos of them. At a moment, I saw a gang of homeless guys lying in the shade of trees. Before our day in the park, we were advised by our camp teachers to interview some poor people, and I came up with a list of questions, but I felt like any talking would just look like I was teasing them. For the most part, I believed that I would get punched in the head if I dared to make eye contact with these people on the streets. It wasn’t until my teacher reminded me about interviewing homeless people, seeing that I was lingering near their spot and could not make up my mind, that I summoned up my courage and walked to their territory. They noticed my approaching immediately. Two of them stood up and went away, but the other two stayed: a blonde guy in deep sleep and a guy with sunglasses. “Oh, hey… I am student journalist and I was wondering if you could spare a minute or two.” I tried to lower my voice and speak in a discreet tone; instead, my voice just turned out to be very phony. I could feel that my face was burning red, just like the sun. “Yes of course! Ask me anything.” The guy almost shouted. His eyes were glaring even when they were hiding behind the sunglasses. Sensing that he didn’t have the tendency to attack me, I became more confident and began to chat with him. He said his name was Schaz, and he was 31. “Do you get scared sometimes?” “No. Not even at night,” Schaz replied in a very proud tone.“ I have a reputation of people saying that my stuff never gets stolen.” “Can you share with us your happiest childhood memory?” “Well… I thought about my mom and how warm her body was.” He scratched his face and patted the guy lying on his lap lightly. “ If I was crying, I would squeeze my mom really hard like she was the hardest pillow. My mom only yelled at me once.” Somehow, a mixed feeling of sympathy and guilt swarmed into my body, and I felt that my face was blushing again, but this time not because I was afraid of being too pretentious. He smiled wildly, as if he was one of the celebrities being interviewed, and began the monologue of his life. He got his first job at Burger King and had lived in San Francisco for three years. He liked Amy Lee and was a huge fan of Avril Lavigne. I learned that the sleeping blonde guy was actually his boyfriend. “Do you still work?” I asked curiously. “I feel like I would lose money if I had a job.” He shook his head and grinned, “I did escorting, which did provide me a bunch of money, but I would always squander it overnight.” I sat silently for a while; I felt like my head was struck by his words instead of his fists. I was surprised that I wasn’t terrified by the responses he gave. Rather, I was deeply captivated. Had I never approached him, I would never have thought about the life of a penniless guy on street, a life so different from mine, yet at the same time so real. Somehow, I was ashamed by myself, ashamed that I didn’t realize at the start that he had a life and he was once as young and innocent as any child. After recovering from my thoughts, I asked if I could snap a photo of him. He said yes and took off his sunglasses. My eyes met his. They were dark brown, just like any normal human being’s. |
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