Invisible at Christmas

Christmas carolers serenade the sidewalks. Dickens adds to the joy with a happy ending. Christmas is love that bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

For the homeless, Christmas bears, hopes and tries love but the economy holds promises like a sieve, splashing through a man's hands even as he prays to the manger for a drink of water to parse his dry mouth, to wash down his daily bread. Homelessness carries all of life's possessions in a backpack.

On a street corner the homeless man asks for a dollar. A second homeless man takes the gift. Throughout Iowa the behavior repeats.

'Thanks, man. I'll pay you back.” The payback is unlikely. Good luck, the second man offers as he ponders the snow.

The normal people frown on lending and borrowing. There is something of Ben Franklin in the street code, although Christmas releases some of the stinginess.

Homeless people frown on lots of things but empathy is not among them. Empathy is as unusual as money falling from the sky. They don't look for big-hearted working people waltzing on the sidewalks. In front of Dubuque's Rescue Mission where the men stand outside for a break from the sameness of living without comfort, the wealthy walk in front of them, shining in London Fog coats and colored scarves, wearing shoes worth more than a poor man's weekly wage. Their detachment tells the homeless man he's been abandoned.

'I heard there's work at the temp agency,” a man tells the others outside the shelter.

'Yeah, and you need good credit, right,” a man in the middle says.

'Well, yeah, but once you get in ...”

'Once you get in you're promised nothing but you do get to work for a wage that ends in three months or three weeks or days. Then off to another job. The employer doesn't know you, you're like cattle loaded onto a truck. Come on man, a job with a stable paycheck. Know what that is?”

Later in the day a man drives by and yells, 'Get a job!” to the miserable people at the curb. None of them return the insult.

Capitalism creates scarcity. Profits increase through gutting the labor costs to the company: no insurance, liability, worries. Poor man falls, call the ambulance then call the temp agent. We need a replacement. The company supervisors don't even have to remember the names of the part-time temporaries.

Identification is needed for work. Many do not have it. The obstacles to a simple job are like climbing barbed fences.

The cloud rains on your head every day. Need transportation. Need clothes. Need an address. Need a heart, a hand, a table and Tiny Tim.

The rules at a shelter prohibit bad language and bad attitude. Every day someone is evicted for a bad attitude.

'It wasn't simply that she defied our help,” said the local women's shelter manager. 'It was the many things she refused.”

Even the freedom to talk about pain, even if you are not good at it, is not a freedom enjoyed by the homeless. Somewhere in the list of class privileges, the privileged have been given authority to interpret others experiences.

Outside the shelter the men stand in the chilling frost. 'Did you order the snow?” One says and the others smile, as grim as the gray clouds and dirty streets.

They will stand to talk every day until the poverty steers its last survivor beyond Christmas. Work is not a want. Blaming them is as easy as looking away. Dickens was wrong. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, but there is no happy ending.

' Tim Trenkle of Dubuque teaches psychology and writing at Northeast Iowa Community College and is a freelance writer. Comments: trenklet@nicc.edu