His name was Neal Squitieri. I met him and talked with him on and off for 16 years. I liked him, and I know he liked me too. It would be accurate to say that we were friends. We were unlikely friends, however, because our roles in life at the time were a great distance apart.
I was pastor of a church in the Washington D.C. area where Neal mainly lived. He was a “homeless man” or “unhoused man” or “displaced person” or “street-involved individual” or whatever term is now politically correct. Privately I sometimes referred to Neal as “my favorite bum.”
I dealt with quite a few bums in those days. Our church had a room for donated clothing, and one for donated food, and a budget for cash assistance to the needy that I was in charge of. Neal came to me over time for assistance with each of these needs, but he began to linger for conversation. This contrasted with most other assistance-seekers who would get what they came for and then were out the door.
I remember one man who was hungry and wanted food. I took him upstairs, and what he selected was a large can of peaches with a pull top. He followed me to the elevator and when we arrived on the main floor and I turned to speak with him, I found that unknown to me he had opened the peaches and eaten the entire can on the way down. Including the syrup. I showed him to a waste basket to throw away the can. This man was a regular and I could tell other stories about him, but I will always remember the experience with the peaches.
Every of these occasions tended to be different. I remember a younger man who was likely drunk or high on something and who demanded a large quantity of money. When I refused, he promised to return and burn down my church. I had experienced people being mad at me on enough occasions, but not the threat of church burning. After I finally got him out the door, we advised the police and provided a description. But nothing ever came of it.
Neal Squitieri was a different case. He liked to sit with me in my study and talk. We talked of many things, some casual and some otherwise. Philosophy was of particular interest to Neal. Philosophy and some theology and some history and some politics and current affairs. Neal was intelligent, despite his unkept appearance. I looked forward to our conversations and I know he did too.
Neal was a Vietnam War veteran, honorably discharged. I know this because after some years he one day handed me his discharge papers and asked me to keep them safe for him. I was honored to do so.
There were many Vietnam veterans who, like Neal, became homeless in their own land after their return home. Many struggled to return to a normal life after the war. Issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and societal rejection complicated their reintegration. It is estimated that 15-30% of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD at some point, with many of them never fully recovering. By the mid-1990s, it is estimated that one in four homeless men in America was a Vietnam veteran.
We now know that societal rejection was a great blow for many. The country was tired of the war and angry about the political deceptions that had stretched it out for so long. Losing the war was an added humiliation. People wanted to forget about it and move on. There were remembered images of soldiers as baby killers and looters and village burners. Although most of the soldiers were there by force of the draft and not by choice, they got the blame.
One cold winter day I got a phone call at the church. It was Neal. It was the first time he had ever called me on the phone. He was in jail and needed help. It turned out that he had entered the basement furnace room of a nearby Presbyterian church to sleep and keep warm. The police had arrested him for trespassing. The pastor of that church was a good friend, and I called him and accused him of involvement in this disgrace.
“Jesus tells us to care for the hungry and the homeless, and you have them arrested,” I complained (not an exact quote, okay, but something like it). It turned out that he was unaware of the arrest, had helped Neal in the past, and wanted us to work together to fix this.
So together we drove to the county jail, identified ourselves with our ministerial faces on, and demanded Neal’s immediate release. The stern-faced lady in charge was used to such demands, and immediately told us no. It was something like a f—k off. I remember the Presbyterian pastor argueing that this was his church building, and they would not press charges, and he wanted them dropped. The lady replied that it was the police who had charged the man, not the church, and the case must run its course. Despite our protests and best efforts, it took three weeks for Neal to be freed.
Neal was the type of homeless person who liked to be alone and on his own, as opposed to spending time in a homeless shelter with groups of people. There were numerous shelters in the area that served meals and provided a place to sleep. Some were in church buildings, and I had done volunteer work with one of those. I had slept on the floor in my sleeping bag among those men. I had observed the comradery among them and the informal but effective group self-discipline among them. One of the men told me to just let him know if anyone got out of line and he would take care of it. But Neal lived on his own and avoided groups like that, even when it could have made life easier.
On one of our trips to the jail, my pastor friend and I discussed what to do next. We decided to try to help Neal really get back on his feet. We would get him a place to live and the stuff he would need to keep house. And we would get him a job that would start him toward self-sufficiency. We would pay his deposit and rent for some time until he was able to pay for himself. We had it all worked out, Neal’s future and better life.
We presented our plan to Neal. He listened and nodded his head and seemed to appreciate our efforts. We were eager for him to agree, and we thought he did. We proceeded to find and rent an apartment, buy stuff to furnish it, take him there and get him settled, and get him a job. The job was working at a local landfill which could be reached by public transportation. We had everything in place for Neal to begin a new and normal life. Everything we could think of. It was an exciting time for us. We had done well, we thought.
But Neal never went to the job, and he disappeared from the apartment in a short time.
Thinking back on this, I am reminded of two great movie roles where the characters faced a similar effort by others to help them leave their old lives and begin a new and “better” one. That would be Francis McDormand in “Nomadland” and Jack Nicholson in “Ironweed.” Both finally chose to reject the offered life upgrades and return to their old and accustomed ways. Just as Neal did.
It was a long time, perhaps a year, before Neal came back to the church. When he did, he said nothing about our past efforts, nor did I. I gave him whatever he asked for and we sat and talked as before.
When I finally resigned and left the church, Neal was nowhere around. I carefully gave the church office his military discharge papers with instructions to give them back whenever he appeared again.
You can email Ed Briggs HERE
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