The parka he wore lacked the shine that usually shows a jacket is new. He wore a navy fleece cap that stood straight up like a rectangle on top of his head. His mouth missed his two front teeth. The tooth to the left of the gap jutted forward and pointed at the people he asked for change.

As a group of friends and I approached him on our way to a party Friday night, I thought, “Oh, great,” not because I didn’t want to be hassled — in fact, I missed people asking me for change over holiday break — but because I didn’t have any change to spare. He said something like, “Hey! You guys got any change? I just need $2.50 more for the Greyhound to Lacrosse.” As he said it, he pulled out a check made out to Greyhound for $10 from Transitional Housing and the memo line read, “Bus ticket to Lacrosse – Emanuel.” Some of my friends had nickels, dimes and quarters, and he accepted them graciously. My friends continued on, but I stayed to find out why Transitional Housing would not spring for the whole amount.

“That’s bullshit. They couldn’t spare another $2.50?” I asked. He explained that it didn’t matter to him, he was just glad to get the $10. I started to feel bad that I couldn’t contribute to his fund, so I decided to help him get the rest. I tried to find out why he needed to get to Lacrosse, but I couldn’t quite get an answer out of him. But he did tell me his bus left at 11:30 the next morning.

So we set out to raise the necessary funds, and as we walked the sidewalks, some people talked to us and gave money or politely declined. Others gave me a look like, “What are you doing hanging out with that guy?” It was mostly because he looked the part of a transient, but some of the glares were because he was a black man missing his two front teeth.

But we raised almost four dollars, and as I was ready to end our interaction, we got onto the subject of the cold.

He told me earlier that he was from Mississippi, and I couldn’t figure out why he came to the blustery north. He said the North always had a sort of mythic quality in the South, stemming back from the Civil War. He believed a black man could go up and make it.

He had a degree in social service from a university in Mississippi, where he also played football. He lost his two front teeth after a tackle during a game where a player’s jersey got snagged on his teeth and pulled them out. He worked in the social service arena with kids because he liked the idea of a child saying, “I learned what I know from him.”

But then he said he fell. He wouldn’t specify, but he had been out of work since. He had family in Lacrosse and figured they could help him try again.

But at least, he said, he was being true to himself, because he knew himself. And he asked me what I did, and that regardless I just needed to be true to myself, because if I took a fall like him, all I would have was myself. At this point the cold was getting to us and I said, “Come to this party with me – at least we’ll be warm for a while.”

“But they won’t accept me,” he said. While I didn’t know the hosts of the party, my friends are nice people, so I told him he didn’t have to worry. He reiterated what he said, but I eventually convinced him to come with. We walked to the party and he continued to give me some knowledge.

We made it into the party and no one really noticed us, but a few people gave us dirty looks. I found my friends, introduced Emanuel and we all cracked wise together.

Through conversation with my friends, I found out that earlier in the night three black men tried to get into the party, but a girl argued with them, asking them what they were doing there and who they knew, because she didn’t want to let them into her party. It wasn’t clear whether they were given permission to enter, but later on in the night someone heard the same girl ask, “I don’t mean to be racist, but what were those niggers doing here?”

For the rest of the night we avoided the girl, I bummed cigarettes for Emanuel, we joked and eventually headed to Paul’s Club. He left Paul’s Club without saying goodbye while I talked to someone else. I was disappointed, but figured it was better to leave the experience as it was. The next day I saw him on State Street around 4:00 in the afternoon; I guess he missed his bus.

Samuel K. Bakken ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism. He is a former Herald news editor