Jed Wolf

It began in a huge thunderstorm at a WaWa convenience store in 1998. I’d been considering a way out of an abusive relationship, when across the checkout counter I saw the most beautiful man in the world.

At the moment we locked eyes, a flash of light shot from a lingering raindrop on his eyelash. Embarrassed and a little sickened from adrenalin, I looked away but when I glanced back, he was gone.

I paid for my stuff and went outside. The sun popped out and sitting on the ground soaking wet, a young homeless man looked up and said, “Did you see that?” I looked down expecting him to be referencing the storm when a similar raindrop glimmered from his eye. “The most beautiful man in the world,” he said.

This was the height of the “woo woo” era. Books like “The Secret,” “Emanuel” “Conversations with God” were bestsellers and I’d rather believe in miracles than address my depressing life.

Too cute and sensitive to be homeless, with large scars on his forhead, he’d survived a severe motorcycle accident and had laminated news clippings to prove it. I wound up giving him a meal, a bike, a room in our big house and my trust.

I wasn’t attracted to him and believed we’d met for karmic reasons. My partner was strung out on steroids and having an affair with someone from his gym. He didn’t care what I did, but after stuff turned up missing, he wanted me to kick the homeless guy out. When I refused, my partner said I was crazy then moved in with his gym buddy.

I was planning camping trips, buying the homeless guy clothes and trying to get him work when I found his crack cocaine, but when he wanted to know the worth of my Russian Wolfhound then tried stealing my computer, I locked him out then found myself alone.

My boyfriend wanted to return but I refused to let him. The homeless guy cried in the snow outside my window for three nights, then left. I never heard from him again until the gay couple across the street banged on my door. When they accused me of being heartless, I knew it was a test.

Apparently after giving up on me, the homeless guy deliberately stepped in front of a city bus. When my neighbors took him in, he offered them sex for money and when I asked if he’d had the bus incident laminated, the couple left my porch horrified.

I decided to move far away soon after and had a dumpster in my driveway. I was tossing un-needed stuff in it from my porch in the twilight, frisbeeing a broken plastic peace sign the homeless guy’d given me, when at that exact moment he rode by on someone’s 10 speed bike. He grimaced when his gift hit the dumpster and despite my sickening adrenalin, I smiled back at him, went back inside and locked the door.