'Down and Out'(Kristin Dockar) Let me tell you a story.
I was walking past a charity shop and sitting in the doorway was an extremely large teddy bear. It was propped up with its back to the door and it’s legs were splayed out across the sidewalk. Except it wasn’t a teddy bear because it moved as I glanced at it.
It was a man wearing a teddy bear hat with ear flaps. He was probably about 40 but looked 50. His face was bristly and when he saw me looking, he removed his headgear and showed a bristly, grey face which matched his tufty grey hair. I recognised him. He was the ‘down and out’ that sat day after day outside Costa Coffee.
I’d seen people buy him drinks and snacks, and I had seen him rooting about under the outside tables for fag ends. He seemed to smoke incessantly. Then, quite by chance, I found out where he was sleeping. It was behind the local library where I worked. I saw a bundle on the ground. Cardboard, blankets and a sleeping bag.
As I watched him, he stood up and shook himself, and then walked a few steps to sit outside Costa Coffee to start his day. I knew he used their toilet.

I wanted to know his story.
‘Hi’ I said. He looked at me warily.
‘I see you looking at me. What do you want me say?’
‘No, no’ I said ‘I just thought I would ask if you wanted a coffee and maybe a croissant’.
He laughed out loud at that.’
'How posh. A croissant, I usually have a cereal bar or anything that anybody buys me. I’ve never been offered a croissant’.
He chuckled away to himself.
I went into Costa and bought two coffees and a couple of cereal bars.
Placing them in front of him, I asked his name.
‘Lenny’ he said, falling on the food and drink as if he hadn’t eaten in a month.
I sat down opposite him and began to drink my coffee.
‘I suppose you want to know all about me’.
‘I do’.
‘I’m 42, I know I look older but so would you if you’d lived my life for the last 10 months. Just over a year ago my wife kicked me out. I had a job in a warehouse but I’d been playing away, you know, been unfaithful, so I got what I deserved. I just couldn’t cope, didn’t want to be bothered, lived in an HMO for a bit but hated it. I’ve just spiralled downwards. It’s easily done. I don’t drink or do drugs but I just can’t be bothered. So I sit here all day. My wife walks by sometimes and doesn’t even look at me. Can’t say I blame her. I totally let her down. She’s not done nothing wrong.
I just fancied a bit of excitement. Well, I’m paying the price now. It’s funny because I’m local but most people who knew me, walk by. Think they’re embarrassed’.

I listened carefully and watched Lenny. There was something so sad about him. Yes, he’d been a middle-aged fool but was this all there was for him.
‘Why don’t you come round to the library with me. They have community support there. You could see if there’s any help for you. Get you back on your feet’.
‘Oh I don’t know about that. I just really can’t be bothered. Someone said to me the other day that I’m probably depressed. I said ‘why wouldn’t I be' but I don’t want people pitying me. I deserve this’.
I left him then, saying I would be in the library tomorrow about 3pm if he wanted to wander round. I told him he would get a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit. He smiled at that. ‘Maybe’ he said.
I looked at him and said ‘Don’t forget to make your bed’.
‘How do you know about my bed?’
‘I’ve got psychic powers. But to tell you the truth I’ve seen where you’re sleeping. Hope I see you tomorrow’.
‘Why you there?’
‘I work there. That’s how I know I can help you’.

The next day, to my utter surprise, Lenny wandered in. He looked terrible, dirty, unkempt and hungry.
I sat him down and went and made him a cup of tea. I also produced the promised biscuits. When he saw them he cried.
That’s when he started to make his journey back.
My friend Patricia arrived. She’s a social worker and I had briefed her about Lenny.
She was so great with him.
I loitered behind some book shelves and listened.
‘Lenny, you’re in crisis. At least let me find you a bed for tonight. Somewhere you can have a shower and a shave. You’ll feel so much better.
Again, to my amazement he said ‘Do I get a hot meal?’
‘Yes. I’ll take you to a hostel. It’s pretty basic but it will give you what you need for tonight.
I thought Patricia’s tactics were clever. She wasn’t trying to change his life in one go. Step by step.

Well, I can tell you now. He’s turned his life around. He stayed in the hostel for 6 weeks. Then he went back to work in a warehouse because it was familiar and all he knew. Wonder of wonders, his wife will at least speak to him now but she won’t have him back. He understands.
Lenny comes into the library on the weekends. He sits and reads the paper and sometimes we go round to Costa Coffee and we sit inside.
He’s smarter now and definitely cleaner. He says ‘I won’t say I’m better but I’m getting there. We look at each other and he gives me a kind of nod. I smile at him.

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