The Things We Find…

After leaving the Reb’s house, I stopped at the synagogue, seeking information on the original building back in the 1940s.

“That might be in our files,” a woman had told me over the phone.

I didn’t know there were files, I’d said.

“We have files on everything. We have a file on you.”

You’re kidding. Can I see it?

“You can have it if you want.”

Now I walked into the foyer. The religious school was still in session, and there were kids everywhere. The preteen girls loped with awkward self-awareness, and the boys ran the halls and grabbed their heads to keep their yarmulkes from falling off.

Nothing had changed, I thought. Usually, this would make me feel superior. I had soared away while the poor hometown kids were doing the same old thing. But this time, I don’t know why, all I felt was empty distance.

Hi, I said to a woman behind the desk. My name is-

“Come on, we know you. Here’s the file.”

I blinked. I almost forgot that my family had been part of this place for four decades.

Thanks, I said.

“Sure thing.”

I took the file on me and headed home, or to the place I called home now.

On the plane I leaned back and undid a rubber band that held the file’s contents. I reflected on my life since New Jersey. My plans as a young man-my “citizen of the world” dreams-had come true, to a degree. I had friends in different time zones. I’d had books published in foreign languages. I’d had many addresses over the years.

But you can touch everything and be connected to nothing. I knew airports better than I knew local neighborhoods. I knew more names in other area codes than I did on my block. The “community” I had joined was the community of the workplace. Friends were through work. Conversation was about work. Most of my socialization came through work.

And in recent months, those workplace pillars had been falling down. Friends were laid off. Downsized. They took buyouts. Offices closed. People who were always in one place were no longer there when you called. They sent e-mails saying they were exploring “exciting new options.” I never believed the “exciting” part.

And without the work connection, the human ties released, like magnets losing their attraction. We promised to keep up, but the promises were not kept. Some people behaved as if unemployment were contagious. Anyhow, without the commonality of work-the complaints, the gossip-how much was there to talk about?

When I dumped the contents of my personal file onto the tray table, I found report cards, old papers, even a religious school play I wrote in fourth grade on Queen Esther:

MORDECHI: Esther!

ESTHER: Yes, Uncle?

MORDECHI: Go to the castle.

ESTHER: But I have nothing to wear!

There were also copies of congratulatory letters from the Reb-some handwritten-on getting into college, on my engagement. I felt ashamed. He had tried to stay in touch with these notes. And I didn’t even remember receiving them.

I thought about my connections in life. I thought about workplace friends who were fired, or had quit due to illness. Who comforted them? Where did they go? Not to me. Not to their former bosses.

Often, it seemed, they were helped by their churches or temples. Members took up collections. They cooked meals. They gave money to pay bills. They did it with love, empathy, and the knowledge that it was part of the supportive undercarriage of a “sacred community,” like the ones the Reb spoke about, like the one I guess I had once belonged to, even if I didn’t realize it.

The plane landed. I collected the papers, wrapped them back in the rubber band, and felt a small grief, like a person who discovers, upon returning from a trip, that something has been left behind and there is no way now to retrieve it.

Thanksgiving

Fall surrendered quickly in Detroit, and in what seemed like minutes, the trees were bare and the color siphoned out of the city, leaving it a barren and concrete place, under milky skies and early snowfalls. We rolled up the car windows. We took out the heavy coats. Our jobless rate was soaring. People couldn’t afford their homes. Some just packed up and walked out, left their whole world behind to bankers or scavengers. It was still November. A long winter lay ahead.

On a Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I came by the I Am My Brother’s Keeper Ministry to see firsthand the homeless program it operated. I still wasn’t totally at ease with Pastor Henry. Everything about his church was different-at least to me. But what the Reb had said resonated, that you can embrace your own faith’s authenticity and still accept that others believe in something else.

Besides, that whole thing about a community-well, Detroit was my city. So I put my toe in the water. I helped Henry purchase a blue tarp for his ceiling, which stretched over the leaking section, so at least the sanctuary would not be flooded. Fixing the roof was a much bigger job, maybe eighty thousand dollars, according to a contractor.

“Whoo,” Henry had gushed, when we heard the estimate. Eighty thousand dollars was more than his church had seen in years. I felt badly for him. But that would have to come from some more committed source. A tarp-a toe in the water-was enough from me.

I got out of the car and a freezing wind smacked my cheeks. With the homeless program operating, the side street was populated with men bundled against the cold. A couple of them smoked. I noticed a slight man holding a child, but as I stepped closer I realized that, under the ski cap, it was a woman. I held the door open and she passed in front of me, the child on her shoulder.

Inside, I heard loud grinding hums, like small engines, then a screaming voice. I turned into the catwalk that overlooked the gym. The floor was covered in fold-out tables, and there were maybe eighty homeless men and women sitting around them. They wore old coats and hooded sweatshirts. A few had parkas; one wore a Detroit Lions jacket.

In the middle of the floor, Henry, in a blue sweatshirt and a heavy coat, moved between the tables, shifting his weight from one foot to the next.

“I am somebody!” he yelled.

“I am somebody!” the crowd repeated.

“I am somebody,” he yelled again.

“I am somebody,” they repeated in kind.

“Because God loves me!”

“Because God loves me!”

A few people clapped. Henry exhaled and nodded. One by one, many of the homeless stood up, came into a circle, and held hands. A prayer was recited.

Then, as if on cue, the circle broke and a line formed, leading to the kitchen and something hot to eat.

I tugged on my coat. It felt unusually cold.

“Evenin’, Mister Mitch.”

I looked over and saw Cass, the one-legged church elder, sitting on the catwalk, holding a clipboard. The way he greeted me with that lilt in his voice-“Evenin’, Mister Mitch”-I half-expected him to tip his cap. I had learned that he’d lost the leg a few years ago, to complications from diabetes and heart surgery. Still, he was always so upbeat.

Hi, Cass.

“Pastor’s down there.”

Henry looked up, gave a small wave. Cass watched me wave back.

“When you gonna hear my story, Mister Mitch?”

You’ve got a story, too?

“I got a story you need to hear.”

Sounds like it could take a few days.

He laughed. “Naw, naw. But you oughta hear it. It’s important.”

All right, Cass. We’ll figure something out.

That seemed to appease him and, thankfully, he dropped the subject. I shivered and pulled my coat tighter.