My Therapeutic Sweater Deal

Working in the Bowery back in the early 80's was a baptism by fire into ministry for me. I worked as an activities director/chaplain with approximately 500 male souls in a ten story building. They each had their own room. One of them was Bill (we will name him Bill for this article) who came to live in NYC after losing his farm business in Ohio. His wife was the organizational backbone of the family and farm....everything was lost once she passed away. Bill wasn't able to run the farm or raise their disabled daughter without his loving spouse or supportive community. He ended up in the Bowery where he decompensated even under a skeleton social service support system. One day Bill purchased a nice pair of boots. The only problem was that they were one size too short. I directed him to go back to the store and exchange them. I made arrangements to have him accompanied by one of our social service workers but Bill rescheduled the time and informed me later that the exchange went well. After wearing the new exchanged boots day and night for two weeks he was limping. By the time we had him checked out by one of out hygiene specialist, Bill had gangrene in of his both feet which had to be amputated. Bill lied to us. He never went to the store to exchange the boots. I was too tired, disgusted, and sad and burnt out with compassion to tell him 'I told you so'.

Months later a feet-less Bill was getting around our lower east side tall flop house / transformed adult residence in a wheel chair. He customized it into a transportation machine with all his invented gadgets of convenience. This included a milk gallon plastic bottle, which was tied to one of his wheel’s arm rest with a long string, which he used as a "Trucker's Friend'. Now for those of you that are not acquainted with this devise, let me have the honor of explaining what it is. It's simply a container male truckers have strapped to their ankles with a lone tube that connects it to their privates. This way they are at peace when there is no rest room in sight. Now Bill had an abundance of rest rooms per floor at our residence. He simply wanted to lessen his trips to the men's room. The charm of his version of the 'Trucker's Friend' was that it had no tube. Bill often filled that urine tank up to the brim. Yep, the man was addicted to convenience. Bill was one of hundreds of souls I had the pleasure to love, confront, pray about and pray over and smile on the way home about every day. I was a rare Spanish Pentecostal minister that would go home with the smell of cigarettes daily. Many of my men passed away without ever being connected with their extended families. Relatives often showed up afterwards.

Down in spirits one day I decided to treat myself to a therapeutic purchase. I stepped out and walked around SOHO. I located a couple of nice knit sweaters. They were the kind that you would wear like a karate gi’s top with the belt. They were on sale, BOGO (Buy One Get One Free). So I got an off white one and a black one. Feeling very happy and comfortable I got back to work and put on the light colored one and walked around the building and got compliments from the clinicians, workers in recovery and our residents. 'Looking good Reverend Cortez'...'Women gonna love it Father'...'You Stopped Looking Like Hell Rev'..and the such...words of endearment. We had two buildings that connected. The adult residence building connected to the office building. A door and three steps connected the building directly to my office. A wheelchair-bound Bill was blocking my door that day. He was in the middle of overflowing his jug...and I yelled at him to get his attention. Splish and splashing he moved on with his traditional apologies. As I opened the door and spewed out some parting inspirational thoughts to him I stepped onto the stairs with a jujitsu body glide and slide down the steps. Yep, Bill turned my steps into a pee water slide. I got up to wipe my bruises and dirt off my new...wet sweater..WET SWEATER...WET... BARAUCH HASHEM ADONAI!!!!...BENDICIO SEA EL NOMBRE DEL SENOR...BLESSED BE HIS NAME. Under the anointing of holy angry gracious shock I went to my rest room washed up well, took a meditative moment and proceeded to discard my new moist light sweater and put on my new dry dark sweater. Sometimes the deal is in the gratitude.