playing cards with popcorn

Lenox, GA

We were approaching a church last night, wondering whether to go into the service late, when an older man called out to us from across the street. He had seen us walking around and wondered if we needed a place to stay for the night. We talked with him a bit, then accepted. It was funny, though, no matter what we said, Gaye held onto his assumption that we were simply homeless (which I guess is literally true at the moment) and kept giving us advice from times when he had been homeless. "I been there," he kept saying.

We got to take a much needed shower, then his neighbor brought over some sandwiches and pillows for us to use. And another neighbor, a black woman named Popcorn, came over and taught us how to play Deuces. None of them seemed far from poverty, but they were very hospitable to us. "It's what Jesus would do, right?" Gaye said. We slept safely and well on the floor of his one-room apartment, thanking him as he sent us off with a couple packs of crackers, which he was sure we would need. "I been there," he said.