Randy Riggs

It will soon be a full week since Randy Riggs was kicked out of the Refuge. I can’t say how long he’d been staying here but I know that he’d been drinking heavily for at least the last week and a half that he held residence.

The Refuge is a shelter primarily for those recovering from substance abuse problems. As such it is a major no-no to be walking around the joint clearly and regularly intoxicated. Having never suffered a chemical dependency greater that that of nicotine and soda pop I do not know, but must imagine, the strain put upon those in recovery by those flagrantly abusing.

The Refuge gave Randy more than a fair shake (at least by man’s standards) before kicking him to the curb. I stood by one night for a blow-test or PBT - an alcohol breath-test that the Refuge has begun administering once a week – wherein Randy blew a number high enough to make one of the shelter’s primary caregivers turn to the person standing next to her, raise eyebrows and let out one of those “damn!” sort-of exhalations. Then she half-whispered to the person keeping record, “Write down ‘mouthwash’ next to it.”

It was no more than four days later that Randy was asked to pack his bags and go.

I wasn’t around for any sort of coming-to-a-head that led to his ousting. I suspect that there wasn’t really a confrontation moment with Randy. Randy is a California beach bum in full scale, perfect replica, and unopened box; Bleach blonde hair, blue eyes, shoeless, and bouncy. Mostly he’s a ‘peacenik,’ a non-confrontationalist, and a happy, happy drunk. Therefore I’d guess it was simply his steady disrespect for the rules and inability to get his alcohol dependency under control which led to a considered decision to remove him from the premises.

I was however around for the exile and it seemed relatively amicable. The Refuge peoples had their noses turned up quite a bit that day, and a few of them made plain their contempt for Randy telling him to essentially, ‘get his shit and go.’ But the folks in charge, at least, had enough compassion left for Randy to invite him to dinner.

Now, as any of my friends in Michigan could tell you, I’m not a man who is very comfortable with physical expressions of friendship; hugs and the like are not my forte. In fact, when I was rounding the circuit in Michigan before my departure, making my goodbyes, I’m sure I appeared quite cold at some of those last meetings; due my awkward attempts to either satisfy or avoid the need for a grand physical outro to the many long and fruitful relationships that I would now place on-hold.

But I tell you this: when I saw Randy Riggs that day, plodding aimlessly behind the TV area, seemingly without a friend in the world, I walked right up to the man with a great big grin saying, “Hey buddy. You headin’ out? Well give us a hug!” And I wrapped my arms around him with a comfort and sincerity that I’ve rarely known whilst holding another man to my chest.

What’s especially curious is that at this point I didn’t know Randy Riggs from God; to turn a phrase. I may have had one or two brief conversations with him on the patio while smoking a cigarette, but I hadn’t developed any report or relationship with this guy. Nonetheless, here I am embracing him happily in a way that made me mostly uncomfortable even among my closest friends.

It was a moment for me. There was something especially pure, so pure it felt almost foreign, that poured out from deep within me in that instant, and I looked upon this mere acquaintance as a true brother.

When I let go of him he took a long pause and began to say in a slow, broken, and overwhelmed tongue, “You don’t know how much that means to me, man. Everyone here is just treating me so… They all just … Could you… Could you give me another one of those?”

I hugged him again and we chatted about how unwelcome and generally hated he now felt. I tried to tell him that even as they were kicking him to the curb now, they would be down on their knees praying for him that night. But he disagreed fervently reiterating how openly spiteful some of the residents had spoken to him throughout the day.

Now, as much as I love the Refuge House and respect the people running the show here, I must say that Randy is not entirely unfounded in his opinion. Each day, it seems, I am witness to another double-standard and a new hypocrisy coming from those same who sat next to me in church just hours earlier shouting ‘Amen’ to the ideals of the Gospel in charity and forgiveness.

Just one of the many instances I could cite, wherein the people here fell unashamedly short of the godliness they espouse, came a little less than a week ago. There is a couple that has been dropping by the Refuge irregularly, shaking-down the residents for food, cigarettes, and what have you: A boy who is around eighteen years old and a woman who I’ve been told is thirty-six. Considering the age difference they make something of an ‘odd couple,’ though in appearance the woman could pass for mid-to-late twenties. It seems clear to me that they are ‘users’ of some kind, and apparently they are not welcome on the property; even to visit.

Now, just days before the incident I’m about to describe, we all sat in the church with pastor Dan Anderson studying one of the many passages of the Bible where we, as Christians, are beseeched of God to “bless and not curse” our enemies; to pile kindness and charity upon those we find to be our adversaries, that in so doing we are lumping “heaps of coal” upon their heads.

I remember pastor Dan taking a moment to talk about that phrase in and of itself, which might seem to suggest that in our kindness we are damning our enemies to even worse fates than they might have coming. So interpreted it would imply that a person should do good even as they sit ringing their hands, cackling evilly, imagining the man before them burning in the fires of hell.

The pastor favors (as do I) an interpretation that focuses on the discomfort of having coals on your head. As we do unrelenting good upon those who despise us they find themselves more and more uncomfortable in the judgments they’ve rendered upon us. They are made uneasy. Lacking a solid explanation for why an enemy should do them favor after favor, it is perhaps through this love and charity that we will earn, eventually, their respect and friendship. God willing, they may even some day seek to know how it is that we have come to have such inner peace and outward giving even unto aliens and rivals; therein granting us the opportunity to share what truth of the Almighty we have ourselves gleamed.

These are the teachings of the Bible, part of the overall message of Christ, and the words heard just days earlier in the chapel at the Refuge; these and more, all on the idea of blessing your enemies; being good and kindhearted, generous and long-suffering.

Apparently these teachings did not bubble to the surface of the Refuge staff’s consciousness when the ‘odd couple’ came moseying up the loading dock ramp last week. As soon as one of the staff became aware of the pair’s presence, the charity and compassion hit the floor and the verbal throw-down began. And for a full two minutes, all that could be heard was a cacophony of overlapping curse words. There were shouts, threats of violence, and all manner of angry, human posturing. Thankfully the incident was ended without physical altercation.

As one of the female staff members walked by me, returning from the festival of name-calling, I interjected to remind her, “bless and not curse.” But she just turned away from me leveling a hateful stare at these two, her enemy’s backs, as they walked away lobbing profanities over their shoulders as they went.

The teachings of God are not easy, especially to beings whose nature is in sin and petulance, but an effort must be made; and in failure there is regret and atonement. But I have not seen much in the way of ‘walking the path’ around here. Yes, the fervor of this flock is brimming over with zeal toward God, and indeed moreso Jesus Christ, come Sunday afternoon, but throughout the week confrontations are met with hostility; charities run dry when certain people come around; and the daily conversations are more oft set to the tune of ex-wives, money, and sex than any godly notion.

So when Randy says “Bull-shit!” to my suggestion that many prayers will go up on the eve of his departure, I cannot say with any certainty that he is wrong. Herein I face the truths of the scriptures teachings: To live and act in a way that leaves you blameless; without evidenced or meaningful challenge to your baptism in the ways and means of the Lord. If only my brothers in the Refuge were doers of these teachings, and not merely hearers of them, neither I nor Randy would then find room to question the sincerity of their conviction.

The afternoon of Randy’s departure I found myself split between heart and mind. He had been out on a quick walk-about looking for somewhere else to stay, and he had returned empty-handed. He wasn’t asking for another night’s stay at the Refuge, but simply wandering about the building morosely, gathering his personal items and, no doubt, fretting for where he would sleep.

The winds were strong that evening and the sky was overcast. It was, in fact, the coldest eve I’ve yet experienced here in Joplin. I had begun to worry for Randy. I had also begun to ask myself whether it was good for me, by Godly mete, to intervene.

I could, after all, send him down to Tony’s house. Surely, he would accept Randy, if only for this night. Since I’ve been here I know Tony to have already put up another vagrant in my stead; a man who slept on his couch for two nights, at the last ‘borrowing’ his bicycle – never to return with it.

But should I send this mere acquaintance, who even now finds himself kicked out of a homeless shelter; this alcoholic beach bum, upon my good friend Tony who has done so much to cover and spiritually uplift me? Should I risk the friendship and mutual trust we have built by asking him to accept Randy, a man in whom I have shared no more than a conversation and a hug? And what of Randy’s alcoholism? How might it feed Tony’s? Or what if Randy just starts sucking through all the beer, leaving Tony to foot the bill for both their addictions? Might Tony eventually, and rightly, level the finger at me as the harbinger of a mooching houseguest?

All these questions, and more, assailed me. Further there was my concern of doing right and good and well by the Lord. What are my obligations here as a man of God? This person Randy Riggs, nomatter the cause, is in need of something; Something I have the means to provide him. Is my uncertainty as to his character enough to exempt me from the call to charity which Paul writes of so often throughout the New Testament? Is it morally ‘okay’ to let a man sleep under a bridge when a sofa lies empty? And the biggest whopper of them all: Might it be God’s will that Randy should meet the gutter this night, physically ‘hitting bottom;’ that on the morrow he should choose a new ascent?

I struggled greatly with these thoughts, at last finding the right hand path. I know now that there is no bottom to charity. Save for man, there is nothing in the world of any true value and therefore nothing to withhold from one another’s purpose. We must all give and give and give without restraint and even unto our own destitute. And should any come to us seeking when we are then without, there will be found no blame in what we lack; for all was offered and given in the Lord’s good charity.

That night I escorted Randy to Tony’s house, where he was received wholeheartedly. There I left him happily, knowing that Randy Riggs would sleep with a pillow beneath his head and a blanket o’er his body, at least this one night more.

From Tony’s I walked to the YMCA, taking a shower and returning to the Refuge. Having at long last made the right decision and completing the Lord’s work for the evening, the winds died down and the night warmed up. So much so that I am convicted of the Almighty’s hand in holding low the temperatures; forcing my personal confrontation with this lesson of bottomless charity, without which Mr. Riggs may never have graced the sofa at Saint Anthony’s ‘A street’ flophouse; without which I may not have soon learned the purity of grace.

-

Around 5pm the next day I am speaking to the senior resident / director of the Refuge, informing him that there may soon be something in the shelter’s mail for me, when out of the south comes walking a man drenched in blood.

His t-shirt runs red from collar to belt, and down each leg of his pants a spike of crimson discoloration is pooling, painting the denim darkly. Someone runs inside, returning with a few pair of the thin plastic, disposable gloves used to serve dinner, a bundle of towels, and the telephone.

In the interim, our walk-up bleeder is bounding back and forth in a hand and thigh slapping rage as a man on a bike persistently berates him for the knowledge of, ‘who done it.’

“A nigger!” he shouts as the blood continues to sop through his clothing. Upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that the blood is coming from his neck, just a bit under his right ear.

Someone grabs a chair and sits him down. 9-1-1 is on the line. The Refuge director takes one of the towels and holds it firmly against his neck. The bleeder reaches into his coat pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up; smoking, talking, and shouting as his neck spurts ever more plasma into the shelter director’s hand with each heartbeat. Someone slaps the cigarette away and tells him not to speak.

The questioner on the bike finally liberates the proper name of Mr. BP=90/60’s assailant and pedals off on a mission of vengeance. Within sixty seconds the first cop arrives on scene, followed immediately by the second. As soon as the sirens cease, this highly trained police force springs into action: Not by taking over the emergency care our shelter director is providing, but by bumbling about asking anyone and everyone, ‘who done it?’

Our director is left to manage whether or not this bleeder loses his last quart of blood for about another full minute before the paramedics arrive to take over.

Right behind the paramedics? The media approaches. A videographer for the local channel 7 news whips into a parking lot just across the street and has his camera tripod-ed and rolling in an instant. For what would we do if we weren’t busy watching the spectacle of humanities tragedies?

The paramedics bandage the man and put him in a neck brace, speeding away. The cops eventually track down the guy who sliced him open; throwing him in jail. And the Refuge Ministries shelter is mentioned on the TV that night in association with a stabbing assault that originated at the Soul’s Harbor shelter, five blocks from here. The fight purportedly started over a case of Dr. Pepper.

I didn’t even flinch.

-

For much of this week I had started to feel as though I was digging myself into a rut. Ever since becoming a ‘permanent’ resident at the Refuge I’ve been spending much of my time around the Refuge, at Tony’s house, or somewhere in between. Aside from removing myself of the greater unknown by locking into this to-and-from path, the great big synchronicities and guiding inspirations of God had seemed to dry up.

This isn’t to say that I’d been completely without aim or usefulness to the Lord; each day there are at least a few moments wherein I feel the presence of God putting me to His purpose in some small interpersonal way. But the magic of large experiential witness had gone mostly from me and I pained in its absence; even questioning whether or not I had missed some greater cue and had left the path the Lord would have me on. So much did I long for those earlier moments of spiritual grandeur that I began, even, to consider changing cities; thinking perhaps this relative uneventful-ness to be an indicator that it was time to leave.

On Thursday night, I recall sitting on my bed watching the end of the Fullmetal Alchemist movie on my laptop. (an anime series I adore which concludes in a made-for-theaters film) When the movie finished I rolled over and cried out from deep within my soul for the kind of big, showy miracles and displays of power that I’d just seen in the flicker of frames across this LCD. I put a strong and passionate plea out into the universe for wonders and sights and spiritual battles that I could be justified in fighting. Then I slept, imagining on the morrow to bring a new outward zeal to my doings in God.

I awoke Friday and much of my soulful ache and sorrow had passed in the night. I got cleaned up and jumped back into the trench I’d dug between the Refuge and Tony’s house. I headed there to check in on Randy Riggs; to see if he was still perched on Tony’s sofa where I had found him the morning after I introduced the two; and the day after that; and the day after that.

By then I had developed a real relationship with Randy. I’d been coming around regularly to visit and when I did we would always find yet another similarity in our stories, tastes, or opinions. By Friday we had formed something of a meaningful bond with one another, finding ourselves the only two true pacifists in all of Joplin.

But when I spoke to Tony about Randy’s continued stay he had told me that Randy was just lying there, withering away. He didn’t shower, didn’t change his clothes; he didn’t look for work or another place to stay… He would just wake up, suck down another four or five beers over the course of a half-hour, roll over and go back to sleep. It seemed my prophecy of the unwanted houseguest was slowly but surely coming true; and Tony’s finger was beginning to bend in my direction.

Nonetheless, Randy’s presence on the couch had been good for Tony. Since Randy had started staying there I had heard Tony speak of giving up his alcohol addiction for the first time. He even told me that he was considering locking the doors on his apartment and checking into a ‘detox’ program for a week. I think Randy acted as a mirror held up to Tony’s own dependency; showing him a more extreme version of some of his own behaviors. Perhaps what Tony saw in Randy he didn’t like and didn’t want to be seen as himself.

When I arrived at Tony’s that Friday Randy was, of course, asleep. Tony and I sat outside to chat so we wouldn’t disturb him. Honestly, having a vagrant, alcoholic houseguest who refuses to shower doesn’t do anything good for the aroma of a studio apartment and I had want to remove myself from the plume.

As Tony and I stared at each other, asking “What are we going to do about him?” Randy fell out the front door onto his palms, lowering himself to his knees. He looked up at me with tears running down his cheeks; the whites of his eyes were so red he looked to be crying blood.

“Would you be willing to do me a favor,” he asked in a pitiful, high-pitched, cracking voice. “Will you get me to the hospital? I think I’m going insane.”

As I sat there holding Randy’s hand and rubbing his shoulder I felt the return of magnificence. The Lord had conspired to this moment. He softened my heart when I looked on Randy and He drew me to that spontaneous hug. He pushed me past my hesitance to lead Randy to a place of shelter. He drew me to Tony’s house all throughout the week in visitation, wherein I built a trusting relationship with this man. And even through Randy, He had done a good work upon Tony; showing him the true depth of his own addiction.

At the last, through each of us who touched him, the Lord brought Randy Riggs to his knees in desperation for something more; something better than the life he had made himself. And there he sat, begging me to take him to the Hawthorne center at St. John’s hospital; to the psych-ward and detox program.

I ran across the street to find a painter at work. Borrowing his cell phone I called a taxi, spending eight of my last ten dollars to put Randy where he now sought to be.

Now, before we left Randy had told me that he’d been to Hawthorne before and that it was very important to him which doctor was on duty. Apparently some of the doctors there had done well by him, in his estimation, and some had taken a general disliking to his demeanor and / or his repetitive appearance in the ward.

When we got to the hospital it became clear just how often Randy had visited Hawthorne. He was greeted by near half of the nurses and interns we passed as we shuffled through the various corridors entering the hospital; and this was only in the ER section. Who knows how well he is acquainted with those in the Hawthorne Center.

A man could take this as evidence of the unlikely chance for Randy’s recovery. One could say that this is simply the cycle of Randy Riggs. He goes into Hawthorne; gets stabilized; gets sober; comes out and starts working. He gets a few dollars in his wallet and, soon enough, turns those earnings over to the bottle. He bleeds it to his last penny and when he has no means of acquiring more booze he checks back into the hospital; and the cycle repeats.

In fact, there is every chance that this is exactly how it will proceed when Randy is released. Yet I do not think this way. I err, instead, with hope that Randy will find freedom from whatever demons ride his shoulders today. And if all is truly for naught; if Randy Riggs embraces his afflictions once more upon release from Hawthorne, I am still the happier to have been part of God’s work in giving him another chance to know peace. Whether it is his twenty-seventh chance at peace or not; whether it is his twenty-seventh failure or not.

And as I walked back toward Ast, from thirty blocks away, I was joyful in my burden. For as I had asked the Lord to deliver me great explosions of spirit and faith; symbols and sights confirming His presence with me… As I had asked to be removed from my rut of travels between 1st and 7th street: My prayers had been answered.

Joplin, Missouri - written 10.19,21,22.2007