Nickels & Dimes

The old Children’s Hospital of Buffalo site is undergoing a construction facelift.

I walked up the ramp to get to the job. One of the buildings is being turned into apartments.

The walk up the ramp was wild because it was the same ramp that I walked up 20 years ago.

Every day for a month to visit my son in his hospital bed as he went through a crazy surgery to remove a massive tumor from his tiny chest.

As I walked that ramp yesterday I felt the same anxiety.

It was the same ramp I walked up to visit the surgeons who saved Jake’s life so I could gather the information to write ‘Counting On A Miracle’ 

Two years after that I walked up the same ramp to interview hospital staff for ‘House of Miracles’

Jill Kelly walked up the ramp with me after the book was out as we visited a few patients for a Buffalo News article.

The same ramp.

On Thursday there was a man’s sleeping bag there. There were also a few bottles and cans and beside the bag there was loose change.

I just glanced down, taking it all in.

“Don’t touch my nickels and dimes!” A man yelled.

I looked across the ramp. The man, who appeared to be middle-aged, and most certainly homeless was in a crouch.

Using the sidewalk as a bathroom.

I was startled to silence.

“That’s all I got to my name, rich guy,” he said.

He pointed at the notepad computer in my hand.

I took a couple of steps.

“Eighty-six cents,” he announced. “I counted it! Eighty-six!!”

The man was in a bad way, more unstable than drunk, but a little of each.

He never raised out of the crouch.

Just kept yelling, ‘Eighty-six.”

“I’m gonna’ check it,” he said. “Better all be there.”

I opened my wallet. Removed three one dollar bills.

“Three dollars and eighty-six cents,” I called back.

“God Bless You!” He yelled.

I started off.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” He called out.

I wasn’t going to wait around for a hand shake.

“Have a good day,” I called over my shoulder.

And I was sad the rest of the day.

In the very building where they saved lives. Hell, they saved my kid’s life…

…there’s now homeless men in every cubby hole.

I mentioned my meeting to the job supervisor.

“I find them sleeping all over the place, every morning,” he said. 

He pointed to a cubby hole between the two buildings.

“That’s where a few of them hide during the rain storms. Hurts my heart.”

There’s something off about all of it.

A hospital.

Where boys and girls were born (including me) and where lives were saved for decades…

…is now a house for the homeless.

Something off about it.

Living on nickels and dimes.