Jeff

I’ve considered leaving Jeff’s story out because we had quite the interruption, but the narrative is authentic to the experience of those people who can’t take shelter from an angry world.

I was wary of Jeff from the outset because he looked older than anyone else I had interviewed previously.

He sat cross-legged in front of the McDonalds on Cornmarket in a denim jacket and jeans. He had a swollen nose and weathered features completed by sunken, wonky eyes. I went so far as asking someone in the McDonald’s who talked to him on the curb about him,

“Is he friendly?” The guy, probably in his early twenties, in glasses and black t-shirt didn’t understand.

“Is the guy out on the corner friendly?” I repeated. He furrowed his eyebrows at me.

“No, I’m not friends with him,” he said, with an accent I guessed was German.

“Never mind.”

As it turns out, Jeff was one of the friendliest and most incoherent guys I’ve had the pleasure of sitting with. It wasn’t minutes after we had lit our cigarettes that he started giving me shit.

“What are you doing here in Oxford?”

“Ah, I’m studying English at the university.”

“Tell me, don’t they speak English in the States?”

“Yeah, Jeff, they do.” I said smiling. He laughed,

“So what’d you need to come over here for?”

“Oh, you know, the story, the authenticity, the clout.” I didn’t think he was really interested in the credit system, and me graduating with exception and all that.

“Sounds like a big waste,” he laughs good-naturedly.

It was at about this time that a dark-haired kid of maybe seventeen, if that, with a scraggly mustache and a carolina blue sweatshirt with the hood hugging his face sat down next to me, motioning to the cigarettes in our hands,

“Would you give me cigarette?” He pulled his wallet from the back of his pants, leafing through it while asking again with his thick accent, “For one pound, would you give me a cigarette?”

“Sure dude. Give me the pound.” The kid placed the pound in my open palm and I immediately slid it to Jeff who said,

“I knew you were going to do that. You’re a good guy, mate,” leaning into me with a smile. We continue smoking, but before I can start talking to Jeff again Blue Hood has decided to launch into our discussion,

“Do you support Israel?” Me and Jeff look at each other. This already isn’t starting off on the right foot. Jeff decides the diversion.

“What’s your name, mate?” Blue Hood looks at us with his eyes tightly closed,

“My name? My name is,” and he reaches down on the sidewalk scratching out the shape of each letter with the ash of his cigarette, “A-M-I-R.”

“So, Amir?” I say, knowing that we’re on a funny coaster, but I’ve come this far and already burnt three cigarettes so I’ll be damned if I’m getting off. Jeff hands him a lighter to relight his now crumpled butt. Amir relights his cigarette and then immediately begins drumming his fingers through the flame.

“Look at what Israel does to me. Look at what Israel did to me today.” He pulls up his arm revealing what are either faded bruises or old burns, without explaining the correlation. It’s when he launches in to his talk about, “the good and the bad way” that me and Jeff begin ignoring Amir and continuing our conversation. Jeff starts telling me about the vacation he’s planning.

“Yeah, I’m sailing to Cambodia in about a month’s time.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have a boat?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a little thing to sail with. I made a bunch of money this Christmas, near five thousand pounds, and I’m taking a trip with it along with one of my mates who has never left the country.” Amir is drawing figure eights on the side-walk and rallying on about a snake of some sort. His eyes still aren’t open.

“Yeah, you know you can’t beg anymore. The cops are really cracking down. They’ll hit you with a hundred pound fine,” the irony of laying a fine on someone who is begging for money to get them to stop begging for money isn’t lost on me.

“But this Christmas I dressed up and picked some holly and mistletoe and went around selling it, with a boom-box and Christmas music playing. Everybody loved it.”             Amir cuts in at this point, “Do you agree with David Cameron? Do you love ‘big papa’? I’m a slave in this country because of big papa.” Jeff’s got the honest-to-goodness not knowing tone of a long-time drunk.

“I don’t know his politics. I don’t agree with everything he says.”

“No, you love big papa. I kill for Palestine.” I decide it’s a good time to start moving this conversation forward,

“Jeff, you see people every day,”

“Israel is the bad way.” Amir is lighting a scrap of paper on fire.

“Have you forgotten your question?”

“You see people every day.”

“I will burn Israel. Look at me. Look at me,” Amir imposes, eyes still squinted.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, mate,” Jeff responds, and Amir’s eyes open at this.

“What language do you speak?”

“English.  It’s my only language.”

“English? Why you no understand me, my English no good?”

“No, your English is fine. You just aren’t making any sense.” This puts Amir back on the scrap of paper demonstration, moving them in an intersecting figure-eight, adamant that it’s so clear to him that he can see the vicious snake of Israel and the U.K. right now, at midnight, in the neon lighting of the McDonalds. Jeff isn’t paying attention; he’s still hinged on the English conversation.

“I only know English. But it’s the only language I need to know. They speak it all over the world.” I think Amir has run out of gas for me to squeeze in my question. He’s sitting with his head in his hands pulling back his hood and rubbing his palms over his short black hair.

“So, Jeff.”

“Yeah, your question. What is it?”

“You see people, people see you. What’s one thing you would want to tell those people who walk past you?”

“One thing. Like what do you mean?”

“Anything. Advice or just your story, something that you’d want to say if you could guarantee that you’d have their attention.”

“Okay, one thing. I’ve been drinking today, not a lot, but give me a minute.”

“Take your time.” Amir is starting to stir again, frustrated with being ignored. Without looking over, without any ceremony Jeff says,

“Don’t judge people.”

“Don’t judge people?”

“Because I don’t judge people.”

“So you just want to be treated with the same courtesy?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’d say.” I start bundling my things, the international symbol for I’m about to be on my way and Jeff asks if we can walk together. I tell him it’s no problem, but Amir is determined we stay.

“I need you to give me back my pound,” he declares looking at me. I shake my head.

“I need you to give me back my pound, or show me that you gave it to him.”

“I already gave it to him, Amir. You watched me do it.” Me and Jeff get up, Jeff grabbing his cart, and we start heading up the street. Amir follows, circling us and continuing his demands,

“I need my pound back. I believe you have a good heart.” He’s stumbling around with his eyes closed. I’m eager for any way to diffuse the situation.

“Think if I slide him a pound he’ll go away?” Jeff shakes his head,

“Not a chance.”

Amir is now giving the finger while walking around us, “One pound, for one life. Give me my pound or I take his life,” and he gestures toward Jeff. I know his threat is hollow; the echo of an angry child, but I can feel the violence stirring in my stomach. I’m about out of patience with the whole thing. He enters into an altercation with other homeless guys on the street, one ready and willing to get in his face. He decides he doesn’t want to push those guys and keeps on after us. It’s when he comes up behind me, wrapping his arm around my neck like we’re friends that I consider grabbing his wrist, slipping his arm over my head, and slamming him face down onto the pavement where I can use my leverage to dislocate his shoulder. He can cry out for Palestine, Allah, or whomever else he thinks is going to save him. I swear I’m not violent, but I don’t take well to being fucked with, and I despise tough guys. I shrug him off, and lean into Jeff.

“I’m thinking about jawing him; Just one good sucker punch and running.”

“Leave it go, we’ll lose him.” Amir is walking in front of us band-standing his bad nature to anyone that will listen,

“I am Superman. I am very very dangerous. I will still kill.” He crosses the George Street intersection from Cornmarket, threatening an English couple in a convertible BMW.

Jeff turns to me,

“Are you headed that way?” he says motioning up the road to our escort. I would be, but I lie and motion right.

“No, I turn here.”

“Yeah, I’m headed left.” We split with Amir about half a block up from us. I get across the street before looking back at Jeff who is also looking in my direction and he calls, “Take care of yourself!”

“You too, Jeff!” I go further up the road thinking about how I hope he makes it to Cambodia. I watch from down the road as Amir turns around realizing he’s lost his audience. He stalks back down toward Cornmarket looking for someone new to bother.

 

 

Next Interview: Matthew