photo: Reed
At about 9:00 pm on Day 209 I saw Garrett playing his maraca and tambourine on the Southeast corner of Connecticut Avenue and Q Street in Northwest. I have some items that you guys have sent for him and I crossed the street to talk with him and see if he would be there a while so that I could go home and get the items and come back to deliver them to him. Just about the time I reached Garrett a man in a wheel chair rolled up and stuffed some folded dollar bills into Garrett’s can and went back to where he had been sitting before. As I chatted with Garrett I couldn’t help but notice that the other gentleman was missing both legs and was holding a box with the words, “Donate, help needed, disabled” written on it. I was completely distracted.
I walked over to him and introduced myself. He didn’t tell me his name right away, but I later discovered that it was Clyde. “I hate to admit it but often times I tell people that my name is Mike, but it’s really Clyde.”
Garrett said he had to go and I continued to talk to Clyde for more than two hours. During that time at least a half-dozen people stopped and gave Clyde some money. One person even gave him an apple. Another, a clergy member from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, stopped and chatted with us for a while. He had spoken with Clyde before. As he left he dropped a five-dollar bill inside Clyde’s box.
Clyde is wearing a faded blue and white hat with Sandals Jamaica written on it and large black sunglasses. His left leg looks to be amputated above the knee and is fitted with a prosthetic leg accompanied by a shoe. His right leg appears to be amputated near his pelvic bone. He has on a checkered pair of pajama-like pants that cover most of his prosthetic and then rest limp on his right side. At some point during the evening I gathered the courage to ask Clyde what happened to his legs. “I lost them in accident. I got a metal plate in my arm as well,” he says pointing to his right arm.
I asked if I could photograph him but he preferred not to. I even asked if I could just photograph his box, but he wasn’t comfortable with that either. I respect that. You will just have to do with some photos of the area where we passed the hours talking that evening.
Clyde, who tells me that his friends call him “Camel” because of a Ray Steven’s song about a camel named Clyde, is in his late 50s. He doesn’t live in DC but travels here by bus every month for about a week. While he is here he sometimes goes down to Capitol Hill to voice his opinion on topics as well as spends a good amount time in the Dupont Circle area. He sits and greets people kindly as they walk by, “Don’t forget the homeless.” When the sun sets and the bar-goers start to thin out he wheels himself a short distance away on Q Street and sleeps upright in his chair. “I’m used to it, it doesn’t bother me,” Clyde assures me. “It’s safer than trying to stay in a shelter.”
I found Clyde sitting in his wheel chair at this spot (photo: Reed)
It would be impossible to give our two-hour conversation justice in a few paragraphs here. But I will try to leave you with an accurate summary about what I know about this private man. He is kind and gentle. He doesn’t drink or smoke. He is well-read and knowledgeable about many topics and patiently shares his knowledge with others (or at least me!) He believes in God. He helps others when he can, which is evidenced by him donating some of his own money to Garrett. He served in the US Coast Guard and has traveled all over the world. He is very critical of our government. He rivals my father as a conspiracy theorist. He only watches Fox News and wishes we had more honest journalists “like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.”
Clyde has a home, but his social security doesn’t make ends meet. Each month he falls about $250 short so he takes a bus to DC and spends about a week here in order to collect enough money to pay the bills. “I got so many bills I’ve been thinking about changing my name to Bill!” he says…it falls a little flat but I managed a smile. He later told me that he would put the $10 I gave him toward paying some of those bills.
In the winter he forgoes his monthly trip to Dupont Circle’s tree-lined diagonal streets, large19th century homes and row houses and endless embassies and takes a bus south every month to the warmer shores of South Beach, Miami where the colorful art deco buildings, palm trees and sandy beaches seem to wash away the winter blues.
Most of our conversation was somehow tied to politics and religion, two of the most delicate pieces of conversation I can think of. He shared a lot of his views and educated me on many topics.
It got to be close to 11:30 at night and I needed to head home. Afterall, I was starting my new job the next day! He said he would be back here next month. Same time (about the 8th of the month he arrives in DC and stays to about the 15th), same place (the corner of Connecticut and Q Street.) I look forward to stopping by and chatting with my new friend on his next visit.
Year of Giving 