(Adapted from a letter to my brothers dated 06/22/13.)

For a while, I’ve wanted to tell you about a couple interesting guys in my world, Keith and Rodney.

Rodney is an older guy.  I’m pretty sure he’s the same fellow who, years ago (~2000-2003) I nicknamed “Stinky,” which needs no explanation.  He often got on the bus that I was taking to work at that time.  If he is the same guy, his life has drastically improved since those days.  He’s clean-shaven now, well-groomed, clean, well-dressed.  He stays at the Baltimore Rescue Mission.  He’s at the library almost every day, hangs out for hours in the Wi-Fi café studying books about topology.  He also typically carries a French-language Bible.

Keith is a big, husky guy.  Works for a temp agency 10 hours a day unloading trucks of foodstuffs and liquors throughout the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia).  With that work schedule, he only stays at the mission on weekends.  During the week he sleeps outside on the sidewalk — much too dangerous for me to do, but he can handle himself.  He displays no interest in getting his own place, though I should think he could if he wanted.  At the mission, for fun he reads the newspapers’ financial pages — in detail.  Markets, mergers, debentures, all that stuff I don’t understand, but he likes it.

Keith never talks about religion, but he’s got an e-Bible on his phone and spends a lot of time studying that, also.