Sunbeam

Some people inspire meditations on what it means to be a human - alone and misunderstood. Of course, that's not what it always means. Some people are never alone or misunderstood. Some people even seem to understand others. Or never question that others are the same as they are. There is no fortress of solitude. Toddlers are right when they think that there is no use in lying since mommy knows all anyway.

Sunbeam was one of the most beautiful people that I've ever seen, though some who knew him may raise an eyebrow at that statement. I speak purely from the perspective of a sometimes artist and eternal lover of the uniqueness of individuals. Sunbeam died recently. I asked the bearer of bad tidings what killed him, but it was a rhetorical question. It didn't matter. It could have been anything. Or nothing at all.

Sunbeam was old, but not as old as he appeared. He had no teeth and his lower jaw and chin jutted out in a look of perpetual defiance. He had some cottony hair that was gray and white and black, and sometimes he had stubble on his face. I loved Sunbeam's face. The planes of his cheekbones and forehead, the skin just below his eyebrow, the lines of his nose could have been carved from bubinga or mahogony or cocobolo or walnut. A myriad of shades of brown or reddish-brown or dark brown or deep amber-gold were the molecular brushstrokes that made him. And, like a polished carving, his shades glowed sometimes from just beneath the surface. Thinking of his face, I wonder how people can be defined so simply as white or black red or yellow. His eyes were the color of very wet soil and the whites of his eyes were yellowish from age and hard-living and horrible mixtures of tap beer and schnapps. And he had a smile like a kid at Christmas in a house full of toys. I really loved his smile.

Sunbeam, I think his real name was Henry, was born in Mississippi. I know that much. It took several years for the language center of my brain to adapt to Beamese, a pidgin English that was just barely comprensible on any level. But I did learn it, and by learning it I learned that Sunbeam was from Mississippi, which sounded more like "mizpee." But you learn these things by listening if you care to learn at all. He wrestled a circus bear as a teenager. And later he fought other men in the streets. His hands gave him away. They were gargantuan and they looked as if they would ache. He lived in Florida for a time with an Indian woman who was apparently crazy. According to Sunbeam, women were all crazy, but the degree of craziness could be ranked by ethnicity, with Mexican women being the most dangerous and white women being the least. He warned me on several occasions that I should never give a Mexican woman a knife or an Indian woman alcohol. I try to bear that in mind on a daily basis. He worked at the Sunbeam bread factory in Louisiana for ten years, hence the name.

When I knew Sunbeam, he was for all means and purposes homeless and drunk. He carried Viagra in his trucker hat, and his sneakers had holes in the toes. But he tried to look dapper. His v-neck white t-shirt was not as dirty as it might have been, unless he was on a bender. His navy Dickies were not shabby. He always wore a dark blue blazer, even in the heat of a New Orleans summer. And he was a gentleman. He would sit quietly at the bar where I worked, and he would jump to my defense if he felt I was being threatened. Sometimes he dozed with his lip poked out, and I would have to wake him. He would deny sleeping at all, and he was tickled when I asked him if he was meditating. After that, when anyone would tell him to wake up, he'd say, "Not sleepin', medtatin'." Well, it sounded something like that.

I was sad when I heard that he'd died. I could never look at Sunbeam without being confronted by the solitary nature of being human. So many people must have been disgusted by him. Just a drunk. Just a homeless piece of waste. But, really, he had a mother. He had a father. He had lovers and friends. Somewhere along the line. He wasn't always what he became. He was a little boy in Mississippi in the 1950s, attending a small church, swimming in ponds and streams, climbing trees, wrestling bears. It makes me sad that we become what people see and that all of the people that we have been, the more loveable people, the cleaner people, the happier people, are shed in favor of the person that we are at last.