At the coffee shop after work, I was finishing a bowl of soup in the late day sun, when an old friend walked in. I waved and she sat down. We were catching up on things when a white-haired fellow sat down at the next table and proceeded to scratch his back. Not with his hand. He inserted a back scratcher under his coat and methodically worked it around. This was a rare sight, and I silently pointed so Cindy might turn and see it. My “homeless” light was lit and blinking. Cindy does more than observe. She reaches over and gives him a hand. She doesn’t just scratch but digs in through his coat, and since she works with horses, she works him over pretty good. The man doesn’t react. He sits transfixed by the unknown hand. After awhile, he groans. There is something marvelous in the way he never turns, the way they only communicate through her silent hand.

My cell phone rings. It’s my daughter. We talk about her first day at a new job, my attention only vaguely on Cindy and the man. She stops and they launch into an animated conversation while I’m still on the phone. When my call ends, I sit and listen, impatient that Cindy, who I haven’t seen for months, is not talking to me. Then I hear something. The man says his name is Ivan. He tells her he got evicted from his apartment because his clothes caught fire in the oven. He was trying to dry some socks and undershorts that were wet. This is Ivan the Terrible! The one who tried to burn Pineview down. He was evicted right after Beetle’s eviction. Now he was Ivan the Itchy, chatting with Cindy as he sipped his coffee; Ivan the Homeless staying at the shelter. He said he didn’t have enough money for a deposit on an apartment. He didn’t have that and the first month’s rent, although he later mentioned having $2,000 in the bank. He was also looking into something called Section 8.

My interest in Ivan is kindled. After Cindy leaves, he turns and remarks what a nice girl she is. We start to talk. I am curious about just how terrible Ivan might be. I’m also having fun with my invisibility, knowing more about him than he knows I know. He sounds to be from New York City, and I tell him so. Yea, he says. He grew up in the Bronx. He lists a whole series of jobs he held: welder, waiter, teacher, engineer. He never became rich and famous, he chuckles, changed jobs too often. He seems to have a wry sense of humor, grinning out of a pugnacious face, lined and deeply tan. His brown eyes are a bit intense. All in all he reminds me of Michaelangelo’s self-portrait.

He had trouble working, he said, because of pain in his hip and leg. How had that happened? Weightlifting. Fifty years earlier he had tried to lift too much weight, and it fell on him. Ivan the Tough. He said it took him to a place where the thing he liked best in life was to sit with a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette. “You don’t make a lot of money like that,” he said with a snort, then added, “I learned that hell is a real place.”

He said something about an angel appearing to him when he was born, a very big angel. But the talk turned to me and what I was doing here with all these papers. I said I was looking for someone to publish a book I was writing. Ivan was interested in that. Did I write much? Whenever I could. He said he was writer. Did I want to hear a poem he’d written? Okay. Suddenly I was at a poetry reading. He knew it by heart and spoke the words urgently, but through the clatter of dishes and talk, I couldn’t get all of it. Something about the Lone Ranger with lots of solid rhymes. He asked if I would publish his poem, said he would like that. I might put it in my book, I said. We arranged to meet on Friday, and he would bring a written copy of the poem, maybe bring another one too.

Our conversation wandered into the world’s troubles, easy in these days of Iraq and the whole Middle East seeming ready to catch fire. Ivan said the Jews were the problem. It all began when they failed to recognize Jesus as the prophet they were waiting for. He said they preferred to keep arguing about it rather than accept love as the answer. That was the message of Jesus, he said. Ivan was very clear about this. I hadn’t heard anyone say anything like that for a long time.

I responded that the Jews had been wandering around homeless for quite awhile, and this had caused problems all over, though nothing like the problems it caused the Jews. I said we’d all have trouble until they found a home that nobody would dispute and that would be hard. Real estate was tight.

“New York City,” chuckled Ivan, but he was firm that Jews were trouble and deserved what they got. They had killed one of their own and he was special. On a hunch I asked him if he was Jewish. He shot me a look. “How’d you know that? Yea, but don’t tell anybody. People think I’m Italian. I look Italian.”

He did look Italian, but I persisted that Jews were a talented and creative group who had given a lot to the world. Ivan grudgingly admitted they were intelligent. We checked the time, and he realized he had to catch the “booze cruise” up to the shelter before it closed for the night. He stood up, and I helped him put on his layers of clothes, feeling awkward at this intimate assistance to someone I barely knew, surprised at his willingness to accept it. His only real problem was a need for smokes. He was out. I offered him a few dollars, but he turned me down. No, he would bum one tomorrow morning at the shelter. That’s when he would need it. What he wanted from me was to be here Friday to get the copy of his poem. Was I sure to be here? Yes. Maybe bring a poem of my own to share. He looked at me intently. “Good,” he said. I helped him stretch a wool cap over his bald dome, then pull the hood of his sweatshirt up over the cap. He picked up his bag, then squinted at me as he spoke, “Don’t tell everybody I’m Jewish. They think I’m Italian. I like it that way.”

“Sure,” I said. Ivan the Terrible propped a crutch under one arm and moved toward the door. I saw him on Friday and he gave two poems. Here is the conclusion of the one he quoted. It is used here with his name and his permission.

Untold Wonders

Who was that masked man

Long ago, who rode upon a horse?

And had a code of honest ethics,

But wore a mask of course.

Why was it so you might have asked,

That superb men must wear a mask?

While of all things you might believe are good,

The greatest would be being the Lone Ranger or maybe Robin Hood?

Well, Robin hid in forests and the Ranger hid his face,

For only just one reason and one you can’t erase.

You see, my boy, it’s like the Good Book says:

Life is good and life is truth

And only he who loves knows Truth,

And when the world knows you know Truth

And sees you running free,

They simply want to kill you

Or, as it was in Jesus’ case,

Just hang you on a tree. Ivan Newman, 1996

Selection from a book in progress titled, Living in the HUD:The Amazing and Perilous Lives of People in Public Housing by Tom deMers Copyright 2007.