A man and his cat - A story from my touring days

I've told this story before so many times in conversations and it even inspired a song once. It's simply one of those stories that in more ways than one changed my world view. I've learned to recognize that the message of this story does not resonate with everyone, but I'm inclined to think that it might just be a thing of timing and not indifference.


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It was just another night

The band and I had finished our final set and its time to breakdown everything. The drummers as usual has the most amount of work, so I tried to assist as much as possible in order to leave downtown at a reasonable time. It close to 2 am and most places are beginning to lose their needed foot traffic.

I remember feeling extra tired that night, the life of a working musician lacks most of the glamour that many who don't practice the profession imagine it has. I can't say I remember exactly how I felt screwed over that night, it might have been a last minute change or possibly heavy parking costs, but I do remember feeling like I was ready to never do that one gig again.

The restaurant we played at was located in an outside mall, almost towards the end of the strip and with many businesses already shutting down, the lights were beginning to dim around me and the tables and chairs were starting to be flipped by the unhappy employees. "Yeap... its that time of night... time to go home, sleep it off and be ready to do it all over again tomorrow"

On my third trip back to the car I noticed a shoe sticking out of one of the shops, right off a now dark entrance to a store. Since this place, this mall was supposed to be high end, the kind of place only people with wine collections frequent, I do remember doubting if it was a person there hiding. I made a mental note to walk back on the other side of the isles and take a closer look.

I took my time and walked very slow, it kind of made sense, I was pretty tired anyways and I wanted to know what was hiding in the dark. "It could be a thief" I remember thinking. From about ten feet away I noticed it was just a homeless man attempting to sleep on a piece of cardboard outside a very, and I do mean very, fancy store. Being the oddity that I am, I clearly remember contemplating the ironic curious contrast.

Not that far away from me a table still sitting down, eating, laughing, enjoying life while a man slept on a slab of concrete in front of "irony". "How ridiculous can this be?" I thought to myself, as I tried to imagine what led this man to be homeless in the first place, to end up sleeping in front of irony itself. And then, something moved, he was not alone in his dark corner, he had something in his arms. A cat curled up attempting to get comfortable next to his human friend.

I won't lie, why would I? I tear did escape my eyes. Up until that moment I might have had a pinch of judgment in my stare, an ounce of doubt, but just like that it dissipated, like smoke on a windy day. "Why does it matter how he got here, its completely irrelevant... it really is" I thought.

I quietly walked away, I guess I did not want to wake him, I knew nothing about the guy but one thing and that was enough to feel and recognize his humanity. He probably had nothing left, nothing to give that any of us could see with a naked eye, but he still had one gift, just one... "love" and he found a little animal who understood that powerful subtle language too...