Terry Warren

In May of 2007 I made some awesomely uneducated decisions

That earned me a seat in a crown Victoria sitting on my own wrists

And I wasn’t confined longer than 48 hours …so not enough time to build a rap career around but

I did meet Terry

Terry was a homeless man who I annoyed the fuck out of for 48 hours

I started off nervous…I had already made the decision I wasn’t going to sleep

And seeing is how I’m a people person I figured I might as well spark a conversation and make friends

I said “what’s up”

Terry so politely replied “fuck off”

I was quiet for the next hour

I mustered up a bit of courage and later continued

“What they get you for?”

He stared back at me with eyes that seemed to say “I can’t believe you’re not shutting up”

To took a deep breath and replied…”I threw a bottle of simply lemonade into the window of a moving cop car”

Then smirked…

Then fell an awkward silence…because I wasn’t sure if that was a joke…

Or slang for something…

I was quiet because I was nervous

And he was quiet, because Terry Warren likes when it’s quiet…

A few minutes pass “well, why would you do that?”

He replied… as he shook the paper-thin excuse for something to sleep on ”there’s a mattress here…”

I asked him “how long the keep you…for… lemonade?”

He didn’t respond…I assume after life has been hard for a while jokes don’t taste like they used to…

And I have to say

Terry Warren has a way of making everything you have ever complained about seem pretty stupid…

He was dressed like Charlie Chaplin…only it wasn’t for your entertainment

And he wasn’t sad…or didn’t look needy

He just looked like he was thinking

Plotting

Crushing the numbers…you know?

Figuring the details out of his thought bubbles

Trying to figure out, which parts were memories…which parts were nightmares

Who old friends were, and who he stared at too long on the bus.

Which girl was the love of his life…and which girl breathed life into his love

I assumed that when someone erases the details off your chalk board

It’s much easier to think.

Although a disastrous side effect of that is…it’s much easier to think.

He had a pin… on his jacket

Not a purple heart like on TV…

But there was an eagle

At least that’s what it looked like

One wing was sanded down and he has been flying in circles ever since

Sanded down from leaning against the side of buildings too long

Buildings he went over there to make sure no one knocks down

And now that he’s home

He stands guard besides these buildings every night

See no one told terry his tour of duty was over

And since he isn’t the type to half ass a job…Terry Warren is still at war.

He had been sitting there…in the corner… leaning against our lion cage since…

Well since I looked up and noticed him… I think

But after a while he looked up at me, tired of the silence probably bored and said…”what about you?”

I replied…”I’m not a good listener…”

“People tell me stuff…and I often go do other stuff”…

He smirked…as if to say I don’t know how good I got it.

And that this whole…no one understands me bullshit is easy to pull off when your mother pays the bills…

You see guys like me aren’t built for crime or being “bad” for lack of a better term

Were nice…we smile at strangers, we hold the door unless you take advantage and signal to all your friends to hurry up … come along through…some moron is holding the door.

When you ask us for the time…we tell you in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you asked us for a kidney…we just smile and go “7:51”

But sometimes…we confuse being a man, for being a taker

Men don’t take…men earn

And it’s not our fault

It’s a common mistake

But there will come a day

Where reality slides underneath your footsteps like a land mine.

There comes an age…where you don’t get to use the reset button any more

And although he was a man of few words.

Terry Warren helped me see that sometimes

Your plans are a joke

And your future is a ghost story

Haunted by ideas…of what you think you deserve

But your character…who you are

No one can ever take that from you…