Same Kind of Different as Me Page #4

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but I'm gonna whup you silly.

One word

out of your little black mouth,

and you and your family

be looking for another job!

But I wasn't no fool.

I kept my mouth shut

and kept on picking

the man's cotton.

Few years later,

i ran into Bobby's mama again.

She was on the side of the road,

standing next to her car.

All I did was ask her

if she needed help

fixing her tire.

No, n*gger.

Move along now.

I hadn't seen Bobby in years.

Denver?

And there he was.

I said move along.

Go on.

Mother.

Move!

'Bout that time,

trouble came down

the road on three horses.

Things got real bad for me.

"This n*gger bothering you,

ma'am?"

He ain't bothering anybody.

"And what do we have here?"

"N*gger lover, that's what."

"What you looking at, n*gger?"

Bobby, I said

get in the car, now. Go on.

They said

they was gonna teach me a lesson

about bothering white ladies.

And they did.

There's a lot of

messed up things in this world.

Plenty of stuff

I just don't understand.

And no shortage of bad things

happening to good people.

Debbie was always selling me

on how god works

in mysterious ways.

Like that's supposed

to make me like him more.

Well, whatever she was selling,

I wasn't buying.

Can I help you, son?

You can hear them better

from inside.

I'm good, thank you.

- Got room for another tray?

- I do.

With time,

even an old cynic like me

could see the seeds of

what Debbie had quietly planted

beginning to take root.

Her heart in action,

the Amber sea of crushed

beer bottles and syringes

started to disappear.

And lives were changed.

As the mission grew,

so did Denver's impact

on our lives.

He taught us

that while the journey

of the homeless

may often begin

in a hopeless place...

It didn't have to end there.

Amazing, isn't it?

How far a little

tender loving care can go?

Yeah.

Hey, there.

Any food left?

Yeah, hurry up.

Picked you up some food.

I know you like two.

Thank you.

Hey, hurry up.

Who's, uh--

who's that?

Oh. That man is

a hard-working bricklayer

till the day he had a stroke.

Now he just sitting

on the curb,

and then everybody

passing him by,

trying not to look at him.

Let me ask you.

When you give a homeless man

a plate of food or a dollar,

what do you think you're doing?

Uh-- I don't-- helping?

No. A plate of food

don't change nothing.

He still be homeless.

All you're doing is saying,

"you ain't invisible.

I see you."

That's all.

Thank you.

Debbie's putting on

a show tonight.

God is in the recycling business

of turning trash into treasure.

I believe miss Debbie

must be his best employee.

I gotta go to work, but--

you oughta come over.

Is there a picture show?

Yeah.

Never seen

no picture show.

Come on by.

Well, I did, didn't I?

You didn't

go through with it, did you?

It's against the law

to commit suicide around here.

Yeah, and it's against the law

where I come from too.

Where do you come from?

Heaven.

I had to act quickly.

That's why I jumped in.

I knew if I were drowning,

you'd try to save me.

I don't know.

We'll see.

What is this?

I'm not sure.

Should we get the kids home?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why don't you load 'em up,

and I'll be right behind you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Hey, babe! What you doing

out here by yourself?

What, you ain't got no man?

Your man let you out here?

I got somewhere

for you to sleep

right here, now.

All right, miss lady. Fine.

Denver!

Denver!

Denver!

Denver!

Miss Debbie?

Is that you?

Are you okay?

What you doing here?

I didn't see you

at the movie,

so I was worried.

Just through here.

Um--

there are clean towels

in the bathroom.

And anything you can't find

that you need

in the drawers, I'll, um--

I'm just down the hall.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

Sleep good, Denver.

And what,

without even talking to me

about it?

I mean, you have no idea

what that man's

mental condition is.

We not even

gonna talk about this?

Ronnie, just trust me.

And we have children

in the house.

And I don't know

what the plan is, Debbie.

I don't know.

What are you gonna do?

You gonna just save them all?

I'll try.

But you know

Denver's special to me.

Honey, I know

you wanna help him. I do.

I understand that. I do too.

But promise me

you'll talk to me before

you do something like this.

I promise.

I promise.

Yeah.

What room's he in?

Denver?

Denver?

You get any sleep

last night?

Come on in.

Have a cup of coffee.

Hi. Good morning.

Y'all hungry?

You want coffee?

There's some juice

over here too,

if you want any.

I made some toast, so--

here you go.

Do you like sugar?

Yes, ma'am.

Y'all being

really kind to me.

Showed me a lot of trust,

bringing me into your home.

Some things

you need to know about me.

What things?

Done some bad things,

miss Debbie.

Never told you.

Hope I might not have to.

But I guess some things

don't get forgotten.

It's okay.

Why don't you sit?

After my family die...

The man put me up

in a little shack.

And I worked the fields

every day for years.

Never got no paycheck.

Just a little credit

at the man's store.

He didn't tell me

there were schools

I could have gone to.

I didn't know about world war ii

or the war in Korea.

I didn't know

colored folks been rising up.

He didn't tell me

I could have joined the army...

Worked my way up,

earned some money of my own,

maybe even some respect.

It might be hard for you

to believe, but you go down

to red river parish today,

and you might see

how a colored man

who couldn't read,

didn't have no radio,

no telephone, no electricity,

might fall through

a crack in time

and get stuck.

Now, I knowed

there was other places.

So one day,

i just ran toward them tracks

and hop on.

When I jumped off

that train...

Landed me in shreveport.

I'd never seen

nothing like it before.

There was buildings lined up

like freight cars on the tracks.

There was even a black man

driving his own car.

And it weren't no junker.

Just like the man's.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

The first night,

a man tried to rob me.

He had a gun.

Tried to take my shoes.

I fought back.

In the end, I still had my shoes

and his gun.

I ain't proud of this, but...

I decided to rob a bus.

Open that box

and give me that money.

Open that box

and give me that money.

Put that gun down, boy.

I was mean and bad.

But not mean and bad enough

to shoot a man

just 'cause

he showed up for work

on the wrong day.

The judge gave me

ten years in Angola.

Most vicious prison

in America.

I was back in the fields again.

'Cept this time,

i really was a slave.

'Cause that's how

they ran the prison.

There weren't enough guards,

so they gave

some of the inmates guns.

A lot of times, the same fella

that was working with me one day

didn't show up the day after.

Nobody ever saw him again.

They said

they was feed to the gators.

In Angola,

a man without a knife

was either gonna end up dead

or worse.

That night...

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