Five Old Guys

By Donald H. Gean

The Five Old Guys are all dead now, as are most of the once homeless people in this book, but the long sad line, coming up behind them, hosts several million more of our neighbors, all so poor they cannot afford to go to that place we all go when the darkness comes—a home.

These are stories about a few of the thousands of homeless folks who found their way to the campus of the York County Shelter Programs, in an unlikely corner of New England during the end of the twentieth century, but forecast by Robert Frost earlier in the century:

Home, he mocked gently.

Yes, what else but home?

It all depends on what you mean by home.

Of course he’s nothing to us any more

Than was the hound that came a stranger to us

Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail’

Home is the place where, when you go there,

They have to take you in.

They are all real people with mothers and fathers, warts and halos, and not one of them ever dreamed that what they would become when they grew up—was homeless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648012723

Book preview

John, John, Louis, Louis, and Paul

In the beginning, there was John, John, Louis, Louis, and Paul. These five old guys came and went during those early years, always returning in worse shape than when they left. They’d each been in the shelter for from one to three years, came in their mid-to-late-sixties, each having numerous public intoxication arrests, and most having been hospitalized in the State Mental Health Institutes. All had been fully employed and housed for most of their lives within a thirty-five-mile radius of the shelter. That was an eternity ago.

Five old guys in their late sixties to early seventies, are sitting around an old wooden pedestal table, covered by sections of old newspapers, ashtrays, and mongrel coffee cups. There are no long butts in the ashtrays.

John One is about five foot eight, 280 pounds, mostly gathered around his belly. He has a blockhead, covered with greying black hair combed straight back, bushy eyebrows shading his dark brown eyes. He sits in an aggressive leaning forward, hands on his knees posture.

He has deep vertical creases along the sides of his mouth, accompanied by deep crow’s feet, radiating out from the corners of both eyes. His nose has been broken numerous times over the years, made obvious by its position a little left of center. He has been a violent man all his life, especially since coming home from the Korean War, which left him forever changed.

He usually wears a lined blue denim jacket, plaid shirt, blue jeans, and heavy leather boots. He is always neat, with hair combed, and his attire clean and not rumpled. Although he smiles most of the time, it is a smile that is more unsettling than just nice.

John Two is a bit over six feet tall, about 180 pounds, with a narrow and longish head covered by still mostly dark wavy hair. He was probably a handsome young man, but one who would never have carried his head high due to his skittish timidity belying his lack of self-confidence. He’s now in his mid-to-late seventies, has bushy graying eyebrows, stooped shoulders, large heavy hands with long gnarled fingers brutalized by decades of hard work in the woolen mills, and maintains a subtle smile designed to let people know he is a threat to nobody.

He’s usually pretty rumpled, not well groomed, with his hair mussed up, collar rolled under, and his jeans looking like he slept in them, which he often did. He’s not dirty, just rumpled. He’d be sitting back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other, with one hand cupping his chin, and its elbow resting on the other arm lying across his lap.

On his eighty-second birthday, he will begin crying almost uncontrollably when the staff surprises him with a birthday cake. When he’s finally able to explain what he’s crying about, he’ll miserably announce that the only other birthday cake he was ever given was from my dead wife. I miss her.

Louis One looks older than he is since his stroke. It left a little paralysis on his left side, causing him to drag that leg some, and he’s lost about half the use of his left arm. Consequently, that side of his face is paralyzed, causing him to slur his words, while a trickle of spittle endlessly courses down the side of his chin. He spends a lot of time dabbing at it with a handkerchief, which frustrates him a lot since he’d always been a bit of a dapper dresser as a young man, and now hates being forever