Foreword
Day 1. I am walking down the street. I pass by a bench. Someone is sitting on it. I keep walking.
Day 2. I am walking down the street. I pass by a bench. Someone is sitting on it. I keep walking.
Day 20. I am walking down the street. I pass by a bench. Someone is sitting on it. It’s Paul. I keep walking.
Day 261. I am walking down the street. I pass by a bench. Someone is sitting on it. It’s Paul. "Hello Paul!" I nod to him in greeting. I keep walking.
Paul, or Paul the bum, has been in this town longer than I have. He has been sitting on this bench every single day - day after day and year after year; only God knows how many years in a row. Paul just sits and observes his surroundings. Paul knows I am new in this town. He looks right into my eyes. No fame, no shame. Paul’s face is old and swollen; he looks like he has had too much booze, but I have never seen him drinking and never smelled alcohol on him. His clothes look like they have been through war – old and worn – but they are clean. He looks like a bum, but he is clean and shaved. He is not fresh as a daisy, don’t get me wrong, but he smells just like any other 80-year-old man! That is what he looks like, even though his actual age is 62. He has long, gray, messy hair and he is quite tall and skinny. Paul is always reserved, and the only emotion he shows is joy. He interacts with people in the crowd, small children, and animals. He feeds the pigeons. He laughs. He never gets into trouble, and people whom he interacts with like him. This is Paul, who likes to sit on this bench during the day, but during the night, he lives in an abandoned place – so in our termination, he is homeless.
Paul is half Dutch, half Irish. Most of his young life, he lived in Amsterdam, but after his mom died, he moved to Ireland with his dad. Paul was very happy in Ireland; he was a well-known artist – one of his paintings sold for 100,000 euros. He was married to the prettiest girl in the world. He was about to become a dad.
On the day he was supposed to become one of the proudest dads in the world, Paul’s world came to a stop the second time - the first time was when his mom died. He went to the hospital the morning after his wife went into labor and was rushed into the hospital. At that time, he was sent back home and told to come back the next morning. Paul rushed to the hospital first thing in the morning with his fresh painting and flowers. He went into a mental coma - his wife had died giving birth to their son Oscar – he was stillborn.
That day, Paul was in the start of becoming Paul the bum. He did not know it himself where this chosen path would take him, but he also did not know how to bear his pain differently, and so he drank himself to sleep every night. His only companion was a bottle of whiskey. He only came out of the house during the night to go to the pub to drink and buy more booze for home. It took him decades to run out of money, lose the house, health, status in the art world, his willingness to paint. He was a ruin of a human being – a really sad story, but no one was there to help, and he would not let anyone either.
One night, he walked home from the pub drunk as a skunk and saw the bench on the street. He felt anger and started kicking the bench as hard as he could – but the bench won. Day found him curled up on this bench. He woke up to the noise of the street cleaner sweeping the street. He looked at the sky and saw this beautiful sunrise. It was THE bench, the bench he and his wife used to sit on. He liked how the sun was warming his body, and he felt joy. Since that morning, Paul comes to sit on the bench every day, regardless of the weather. He had started to open once again to the world, but he still had his whiskey and did not care about anything or anyone beside it. In the beginning, people sat next to him, but they could not bear the smell of the alcohol and his dirty, unclean clothes, so they left quickly. Husbands said to wives and mothers said to children to leave this bench right away and not to sit next to the old drunkard; he smells. So they used to leave Paul alone. It was his, and in his opinion, his wife’s bench.
So the day I met Paul, he probably had been sitting on this bench for at least 15 years, if not more. He had changed a bit as he was clean, and he had one woman and state to take care of her, but he never opened his heart again to anyone!
He looks like he does not belong to this town, but yet the town can’t imagine its life without him. He is Paul the bum after all!
Epilogue
Day 462. I am walking down the street. I pass by a bench. No one is sitting on it. Paul? I keep walking.
Day 463. I am walking on the street. I pass by a bench. No one is sitting on it. Where is Paul? I keep walking.
Day 483. I am walking on the street. I pass by a bench. No one is sitting on it. What happened to Paul? I keep walking.
Day 644. I am walking on the street. I pass by a bench. No one is sitting on it. I am carrying Paul’s story with me. God Bless your Soul, Paul! I keep walking.
The End
There are many people like Paul – young, old, drinkers, drug addicts. They need help, but they can only help themselves. I recently read a story on Facebook about a young lady buying clothes and shoes for a homeless person. She called him "my homeless," and he inspired me to write this story. The bench is still there in this town, and Paul was real, but his story is a compilation of bits and pieces I heard about him from other people. Don’t you ever wonder what is the story behind all those homeless people you see? I do!
