"Dr. Livingstone, I presume . . ."

 Sidney's first words to me: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."

When I arrived at Laredo's Bruni Plaza Library around 4 p.m. on April 6, I called Sidney, who answered on his used flip phone for which he doesn't have a charger. He was across the bridge in Nuevo Laredo buying his prescription blood pressure medication, which costs three times less in Mexico than it does in the U.S. That morning in Laredo, while the police served a search warrant, they stumbled upon a stash house containing 69 undocumented immigrants. Another complicated day in life along the border.

I did some writing in the library, which looks like an understocked elementary school library inhabited mostly by homeless men, while the woman on the computer next to me tried unsuccessfully to control her two seven-year-old gum-chomping twin boys and her twelve-year-old son who continually squealed. The kids kept begging her to go, but she stared at the screen and told them to calm down. In the background, the library had a public screening of a loud action movie, complete with a car chase, to an audience of zero.

Sidney finally arrived and stood silent between the stacks and waved at me. When I approached him, he said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." Sidney has three B.A. degrees (one in history, one in English, and one in art history), a Master of Liberal Arts degree with an emphasis in in English Literature, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry, so every time we do something, see something, or say something, he has some reference to history, poetry, painting, or film. I love it.

I was exhausted from urban camping and driving so much, so we made plans to meet Saturday morning. When I picked him up at 9 a.m., he was dry shaving with a dull razor on the low library steps. I drove him around to drop off job applications because he's trying to be honest in filling out his unemployment papers, which require he apply to five jobs per week. I told him most people fib on those forms, and he said, "My parents raised me to be honest. They were Edwardian."

Sidney stayed with me Saturday night at the inexpensive hotel (across the street from a mortuary) I found on the east side of town. Sunday morning, he insisted I take him to Jarvis Plaza for what he calls the "revivalist church" service at 11 a.m.. He also planned to meet a truck driver who lets Sidney use his address for important mail. The open-air church service consisted of an older, robust white man with silver hair and a thin middle-aged Mexican-American man with a pony-tail taking turns reading scripture and translating from Spanish to English or English to Spanish. The sparse crowd consisted of a few holy rollers seated closer to the small wooden podium, holding their hands to God every now and then, and a larger gathering of hungry homeless people scattered around the plaza. 

Sidney at the "revivalist church" gathering. 

The bilingual preachers jumped from biblical stories of people changing their names after profound encounters with God all the way to how God uplifted the beggar Lazarus (not to be confused with the Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead) and ignored a rich man in purple finery. They went on for an hour and a half. One homeless man, who had a squeegee tucked into the back of his discolored T-shirt for his impromptu window washing gig at stoplights, drank a 24oz. Keystone Ice, then handed off the remnants to another guy, who finished it and threw the empty can into the bushes. Sidney said, "You wonder which prep school they attended that taught them that."

The homeless lined up for lunch. After the preachers blessed those who came forward to accept Jesus, and someone said a small prayer, God apparently inspired the holy rollers to call on the invited guitarist from Mexico to play another song in Spanish before lunch. Then another. And another. It was almost 1 p.m. I told Sidney it was bordering on torture. We started jokingly saying "otra" (another) every time the musician finished a song. He obliged.

Sidney's truck driver friend showed up to the long line and handed Sidney his I.R.S. mail, which said he owes the government over $2,387.05, even though they kept the $869 he paid in taxes last year. Repeat: they took almost a thousand dollars from a homeless person and they still want money. Seems fair. Sidney said, "I could just as soon stand up and fly as pay this."

After five or six songs, the church folks started serving people food (pictured below). The line trudged forward, one hungry person at a time. It's true: there's no such thing as a free lunch. Not even for the homeless. (NOTE: I think it's a really kind thing the church is doing in the plaza. Amen y gracias.)

Our reward for 1.5 hours of preaching and five or six songs of praise.