Same Kind Of Different As Me

Denver notices Deborah, one half of “that smilin white couple” (92), has taken aninterest in him. He tells her to leave him alone, that he’s a mean man. Deborah tells him to quit talking about himself like that. Denver has a reputation, however, needing to be upheld: “Stay outta my way, ’cause I would beat a man down, have him snoring ’fore he hit the ground” (92).

Denver knows volunteers often have their own agendas:

They come at Christmas and Easter and Thanksgivin and give you a little turkey and lukewarm gravy. Then they go home and gather round their own table and forget about you till the next time come around where they start feelin a little guilty ’cause they got so much to be thankful for (93).

So, he remains skeptical of the Halls despite everyone else liking them. Still, while keeping his distance, Denver keeps an eye on them when they work the serving line on Tuesdays.

As the months go by, Ron notices a change in his heart and begins to believe perhaps God has called to him as well as Deborah. He feels excitement on Tuesdays, instead of dread, and starts going to the mission on his own during the week. He sits outside chatting with the homeless and does his best to only listen, not judge. At the outer edge of all this activity is Denver, who is still an ominous, silent cipher.

Deborah becomes known as “Mrs. Tuesday,” but she worries serving meals once a week isn’t enough to heal hearts or change lives. She comes up with “Beauty Shop Night,” where she and her friend Mary Ellen Davenport give manicures and pedicures, makeovers, and distribute makeup kits. Then, Deborah decides to showinspirational films in the mission dining hall once a week. After that, she starts birthday night, taking a cake once a month to celebrate the birthdays of people born that month.

This culminates in an outing to the Caravan of Dreams, a classy jazz and blues nightclub in downtown Fort Worth. Ron fills his Suburban with homeless men to drive there, and to his amazement, Denver shows up—newly clean and wearing a suit, yet taciturn as always—and sits in the front seat. Ron tries to talk to him during the ride and in the club, but Denver ignores him. Ron decides he just isn’t worth the trouble; however, in the parking lot after the concert, Denver apologizes for his behavior and tells Ron to find him the next time he’s at the mission so the two of them can have coffee and chat. Ron immediately invites Denver out for breakfast the next morning, which causes Denver to pull back. Still, Ron is excited about the news he’ll have for Deborah when he gets home. 

Denver decides the Halls, “Mr. and Mrs. Tuesday,” might be trying to do some real good after all: they don’t seem afraid of the homeless and talk to them like regular people. Denver is interested in going to the nightclub and seeing how downtown has changed since he lived there on the streets. Plus, he figures if he goes, that will encourage other people to go as well.

Denver has a job sorting clothes in the mission clothing store, and the day of the concert he picks out the best suit that comes in to wear. Still, that night he secretly hopes there won’t be a seat left for him to go along with everyone else; however, he says, “God saved me a seat” (100), and he rides up front with Ron. Denver just wants to be left alone but feels bad about how he’s treated the Halls, who only want to help people, so after the show he offers to have coffee with Ron at the mission. He realizes, in retrospect, “Lord-a-mercy, did that open up a can a’ worms” (101).

Ron and Debbie pray that night after the concert for God to show them the way to reach Denver. The next morning Ron picks up Denver at the mission, and they go to the Cactus Flower Café for breakfast. Ron asks many questions about his life and upbringing, and eventually Denver asks a question of his own: What does Ron want from him? Ron says it’s just to be his friend. Denver says he will consider it. On the way back to the mission, Denver confesses that everyone there thinks the Halls are CIA agents because Deborah asks so many questions, and the two of them have a laugh about that.

The next week Ron takes Denver out for coffee at a Starbucks. Denver is nonplussed by the price of coffee there as well as the way customers and baristas talk to each other. Denver says he’s been thinking about Ron’s request to be his friend, but there is something bothering him: the way white people fish. It’s Ron’s turn to be nonplussed while Denver explains what he means. White people fish but use catch and release, setting fish free instead of eating them. That makes no sense to Denver, who grew up catching fish just to be able to eat. Denver tells Ron, “If you is fishin for a friend you just gon’ catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend[…]But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever” (107).

Denver admits he didn’t like the idea at first of being Ron’s friend. Thanks to life on the streets, he can’t let anyone be that close to him or make him that vulnerable. Being friends is like being in the army: sticking with each other through thick and thin. Denver doesn’t see Ron doing that for him; however, maybe they do have something to offer each other. Denver can help Ron navigate his way with the homeless on the streets, and Ron can help Denver with the country club set, should the need arise.  

Ron is moved by Denver’s offer of friendship and replies, “Denver, if you’ll be my friend, I promise not to catch and release” (109). After this, Ron and Denver spend more time together having coffee, talking, and taking field trips into Ron’s world of high art, fine living, and conspicuous consumption.

Denver teaches Ron about twentieth-century slavery, where the Man always has the upper hand with black (and white) sharecroppers. Despite slavery being ended by Abraham Lincoln, “Black Codes” and economic serfdom kept the same social order mostly intact in the Deep South for over a hundred years. Ron tells Denver’s story to anyone who will listen before remembering his own grandfather in Corsicana, who used black field hands and who was little better than the Man.

Ron originally thought he’d be the big man making the big sacrifice of his valuable time to tote around Denver showing him a life and all the things in it he’d never have: a ranch, a horse trailer with sleeping quarters, and paintings by Picasso. Ron comes to realize, however, after a trip to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art, where Denver thinks all the abstract art is a scam, Denver doesn’t want Ron’s life. In fact, after Denver discovers every key on Ron’s keyring unlocks something he owns, Denver asks, “Are you sure you own them, or does they own you?” (113). Ron begins to see himself as the student and Denver as the professor, a man who has been listening to God and now only needs an audience. Ron feels privileged to be the first one to listen.  

Denver learns new things from Ron: the difference between a taco and an enchilada as well as a restaurant and a café. He also becomes friendlier with Deborah and tries to help her, Mary Ellen Davenport, and Sister Bettie whenever he can. Although not a saint—he’ll still hang out in the hobo jungle at night and pass around a bottle of Jim Beam—he becomes more integrated in to the Union Gospel Mission community.

A key reason for this is Sister Bettie. She’s not a nun; rather, everyone calls her “Sister” because of how spiritual she is. Never homeless, after her husband died she had a calling to work and live at the mission, where she organizes meals for the homeless. Sister Bettie regularly visits local restaurants for donations of leftover food. She then cooks meals to feed 200-250 people every Wednesday at the Lot, a small park located in one of the worst neighborhoods near the mission. One day, Sister Bettie asks Denver to sing at the Lot, and although he doesn’t want to, nobody can turn her down.  

Ron believes Sister Bettie will take Deborah to a more intense spirituality, “a level of service more fearless, more sacrificial than what she could perform inside the walls of the mission” (117). Deborah wants to share this experience with her “prayer warrior” friend, Mary Ellen Davenport.

Ron describes Mary Ellen as “plucky” because she is spirited and brave. Mary Ellen and her husband became friends of the Halls in 1980 when invited to the Hall’s home—a mansion—for a swim party. Mary Ellen is put off by this display of wealth, but she and Deborah become fast friends through prayer and Deborah’s offer to babysit the Davenport kids. While Deborah has always been persistent, from Mary Ellen she learns to be brave. Deborah asks Mary Ellen to volunteer with her at the mission and the Lot. This also doubles Denver’s misery, as there are two white ladies pestering him instead of just one.

After twenty-nine years of marriage, Deborah begins to blossom like never before. Ron attributes this to the counseling after his affair, the time spent at Rocky Top, and her increasing spirituality. Their new mantra each morning becomes “We woke up!” (120), which Deborah learns from a homeless man who—no matter how rough he lived or looked—greets each day with joy simply because he is alive. Their life together has mellowed into a deep contentment, although Ron didn’t know at the time “each morning would soon be a precious gift we could count on one hand” (120). 

Thanks to Deborah and Mary Ellen, Denver begins to sing at the mission’s chapel service on a regular basis. After this, Deborah tells Denver she wants him to come to a weekend religious retreat. He doesn’t know what a retreat is and is even less inclined to go when he learns it involves going to “someplace lonesome and talk and pray and cry all weekend” (121).

Ron and Deborah refuse to let up on him. Over coffee at Starbucks, Ron says there will be men there, too, plus free food. In the mission cafeteria line, Deborah informs Denver he will most certainly be going to the retreat. On the morning of the retreat, Deborah tracks Denver down and insists he join her and four other white ladies in her Land Cruiser to go there. While some homeless men jokingly sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” to Denver, who’s sweating like it’s the middle of August, instead of January, he takes the plunge and goes with them. 

While Ron becomes friends with Denver, his art business continues to do well. In 1998, he is commissioned to sell an Alexander Calder sculpture, a local institution, after the bank building it’s in front of is sold to Canadian investors. Determined not to stir up hard feelings locally, Ron sets up a dummy corporation for the sale, loads the sculpture into a moving truck in the middle of the night, and doesn’t tell the drivers where it’s going until they are in Oklahoma.

While Denver is at the religious retreat, Ron is with his son at the Palm Beach Art Fair. Deborah calls to say Denver was a big hit, playing the piano and singing spirituals off the cuff during the last day there. Ron is eager to hear Denver’s side of the story when he gets back, but several days after returning from the retreat, nobody has seen or heard from Denver.

Ron discovers Denver is in the hospital because he didn’t feel right using the Man’s bathroom at the retreat and has become tremendously constipated from all the free food he ate. He and Ron share a big laugh about this. The trip has made Denver understand the work Deborah does is making her precious to God, and he has a warning for Ron: “When you is precious to God, you become important to Satan. Watch your back, Mr. Ron. Somethin bad gettin ready to happen to Miss Debbie. The thief comes in the night” (126).