Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mother began drinking. Years of poverty and trauma, pain, and street life ensued. Tony had
gotten himself into his fair share of trouble, but he had also tried time and time again to get
himself out of it.
I looked around at the other men as they nodded somberly at Tony's story. I knew that
these tales were far too common. Lives that were forever set on the wrong course before
the people involved could alter their own destinies. Their dreams had been dimmed so long
ago that they barely remembered what they were in the first place.
Tony and I started talking about helping others. “Why did you help me today?” I asked.
“I mean giving me a place to stay, inviting me here with your friends.”
He shrugged his shoulders and replied, “It's just a way of giving back. That's my philo-
sophy on life—giving is always good. Much better to give than receive. That's how I've
always felt.”
He laughed quietly, “Maybe that's why I'm poor.”
Later, Tony would give me some of the new clean clothes he had received at a shelter
because he was worried that I wouldn't have enough for my journey. I didn't know what to
say then, and I'm still not too sure I know what to say now. The small moments, the small
acts, they break the heart wide open.
As most of Tony's friends dispersed for the night, I couldn't quite believe that I was
about to sleep on the streets of Pittsburgh. Gus, the wise ice shaver, had told me that this
park was one of the most dangerous places in town, and I was sleeping on its sidewalk.
But, for some reason, I felt safe with Tony. Like Willy in Colorado, I had met a friend,
one I hoped to keep for a long time. Tony gave me some of the hamburgers another friend
had given him for dinner, offering me what little food he had. As we ate, I wondered what
Tony's dream had been. When he was a young boy, before his father died, before he found
himself here in this park, what had he hoped to become?
We prepared our “beds,” using cardboard and some old tattered blankets. Tony sugges-
ted that I sleep with my bag underneath my head so “it didn't walk off in the middle of
the night.” Amazingly, I managed to fall into a fitful sleep—that is, until I heard Richard
screaming. You remember that part, right? The little incident at the beginning of this story
that made me ask, “Why on earth am I doing this, again?”
Tony got up, and put his arm around his friend, which calmed him down. He offered him
a place to sit on his makeshift bed, and Richard was able to shake off his fear of the strange
man lurking in some other part of the park. Tony reassured me in the dark, “Don't worry.
