‘Anthony’ is a tall brown-skinned man, exuding friendliness from his joints. An arm swept cinematically aside. Long legs crooked and supple. His face is youthful, defined along its sinews, cheeks drawing tightly down to a pointed chin as he grins. His black hair, closely-shaven, hugs his wide forehead—his wide, tapered eyes mirthful.
We have a short conversation before he has to leave.
***
“I volunteered to be out here for a week. To live out here and see what kind of life it is.”
‘Anthony’ was born in Dallas, Texas and soon afterwards, his family moved south to Brownsville. There, he led a relatively smooth childhood. He put his mind in school, he said, and learned attentively.
But as he graduated high school, his attitude turned to rebellion.
“If I saw a car running, I’d take it. If I saw people fighting, I’d go take the fight.”
It was those kinds of action that landed him in prison in 1989. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“I went through some stuff: not really bad stuff, but fighting-wise… you learn how to fight. I learned to use a knife there.”
Otherwise, it was the monotonous atmosphere.
“You get tired of seeing nothing but men. I got tired of seeing men all the time,” he chuckled. “I won’t recommend [prison] to nobody.”
Altogether, he spent no fewer than twenty years behind bars.
“If I could sit down and meditate for a while, I could write a book: of everything. I remember everything from day one. I remember all of it.”
After being released in 2010, he began looking for ways to rebuild, and in 2012 he found the regular job he still holds today.
“I work for a tree company. I’ve been blessed—a lot of people don’t get blessed like I do. I’m lucky, man.”
He recognized his good fortune: many former prisoners can’t find jobs. He spoke with a brazen sort of awe about where he is now.
“I became somebody. I’m the sole representative of my company: I’m supervisor.”
His work varies with the weather—in the recent rainy weather, he hasn’t worked as much. But in dry seasons, he makes plenty of money as the dual door-to-door advertiser and initial property assessor. He’s valuable in that he’s fluent in both Spanish and English, since his company serves a variety of clients.
“I’m just writing the paperwork: your tree needs this, we’re going to do that to your tree. I never climb the trees, I never cut the trees, or pick up the branches. Because I’m knowledgeable. Education, man!”
The pay comes with each individual job, he said; but although it’s inconsistent, it can be lucrative.
“It’s good money. Sometimes I make a few thousand dollars. One time it was $4000, that was $1200 for me right there. Within ten minutes.”
He said that many people don’t believe him when he tells them how he works.
“A lot of people think I lie, cause the way I look—tattooed down.”
But his lawbreaking attitude is behind him, if his zeal for his work and his current living situation are any indication. He lives in an apartment comfortably for $1300 a month, accompanied by his beloved pet pit bull.
Except for that week.
“I’m volunteering, can you believe that? I’m volunteering to be out here to see how it is. Cause I don’t want nobody to tell me, ‘I’m a homeless man,’ ‘I don’t have a blanket,’ or ‘I live homeless’: I want to see how it is.”
Once his 7-day ‘experiment’ in homelessness is over, he’ll be back in his apartment, he said.
Meanwhile, he’s been getting a taste of what it means to be homeless.
“I already lost two phones. They already stole two phones from me. I lost two tablets too. I was talking to a guy—I had my phone in my pocket. Turn around, start talking to a guy and it’s like, what happened? It was gone.”
But he isn’t bitter.
“Somebody needed it more than I did,” he said.
He stressed the relative unimportance of products like the things he lost.
“See, those things are material things. You can always get them. I can go buy another phone—that’s why I don’t care if they steal it. But life is what counts. As long as you ain’t dead. Cause once you die, you’re done.”
Another time that week, he said he was walking around when someone asked him for five or ten dollars. He gave it to him.
“You see, when you give, things come back to you. People understand that.”
In fact, his giving attitude transcends his chosen situation.
“I’m involved with a program too called ‘Save the People.’ My company’s a sponsor. What we do is we get clothes, people don’t want it, and give it away. It’s run for more than a year now. We get a lot of volunteer people to help us out.”
That would be his mantra today: to help.
“That’s what it’s all about. Help others. I help others, and then they help me out.”
.