Russell

Today I was walking to a Rite-Aid and there was a homeless man in front of it. As I walked by I broke the cardinal rule of not making eye contact. So there was a full 2 seconds of eye contact with this strange homeless man.
I went into Rite-Aid and bought myself some M&M's because I was craving some. Then as I was leaving I saw he was still sitting there and I know that once you make eye contact you have to at least give change. Well, I was better than that, and I had a half hour to waste before my ride came, so I walk to him and say, "hey if I buy you dinner will you talk to me for a while?" and he agreed, so I went to the Denny's across the street and bought some pancakes for the homeless guy. He was like, "OMG pancakes, I haven't had pancakes in so long."
He wasn't a crazy homeless guy btw. Just homeless.
So I sat down across from him and snacked on my M&M's while he started talking to me. His name was Russell something or other and he'd been homeless for about 3 years. He looked to be about 36-37, but I'm guessing he was really like 34. He had short brown hair and was relatively clean shaven for a homeless guy.
I thought he was just gonna tell me what it was like to be homeless, but instead he launched into his whole life story:

The Story Of Russell Something or Other, as retold by Me.

Russell grew up in a small town in Norcal somewhere, I cant remember the name exactly, but he said it was about an hour from SanFran. He was a good kid, no trouble, no problems, parents were together. He had a older brother who liked to fish. He had good grades all through school, like, honor roll type of grades. 3.5 ish. He had a best friend who broke his leg in 3 places by jumping out of a tree. His first girlfriends name was Cindy, and she had blonde hair. She didn't like fishing and Russell's brother would wave fish in her face all the time, which made Russell mad.
His father owned a painting company, and Russell was supposed to take over the company since his brother had already said that he wasn't going to waste his life getting high on paint fumes. So Russell spent long hours with his father painting walls. This, russell said, made for a very boring childhood.
In his sophmore year of high school, Cindy got drunk one night and demanded that Russell "give it to her," which, being a 16 year old boy, he was not going to refuse. She got pregnant, but miscarried before the end of the 3rd month. Shortly after, they broke up.
For his 17th birthday, he got a new puppy that he named Momba. Momba was a black lab that followed him everywhere he went. Not more than 6 months after, somebody killed Momba in the middle of the night with a gardening shovel. You know, the pointy one. "That was the saddest moment of my life, waking up and realizing that Momba was dead."
Soon after turning 18 he graduated from his high school and continued working for his father at the painting company. He worked there for another three years until...
A girl he had met at a bar told him she was pregnant with his child. He married her only a little past his 21st birthday. His first son, Michael Owen, was born April 15th, 199?. He was a beautiful baby with lovely brown hair and green eyes. He loved his son, but fought with his wife almost every day. He was careful though, not to fight in front of Michael. His second son, Kyle was born April 17th, 2 years after Michael. He looked just like Michael did as an infant. Things with his wife only got worse, but he was careful never to be abusive in any way to her or the kids. 10 months after Kyle, his wife had two more kids, identical twins they named Theodore and Greggory.
They got a divorce soon after, but she allowed Russell to live there with the kids. Things got better for a while, and one night they went out for drinks. Well, long story short, he wakes up in his car alone, two days have gone by, and he has no idea where he is. When he drives back home, he finds that his ex-wife packed up everything, and took the kids and dissapeared. He had nothing. No wallet, no keys, no money. All he had were the clothes on his back and his car, which wouldn't last long if he didn't have any money.
The first thing he did was sell his car so he'd have enough money to buy clothes and food for himself. He got aprox 2500 for it. With this money, he bought clothes and a good pair of shoes and a backpack. Then he started walking south, where he'd never been but had heard so much about. Sometimes as he was walking through a town he'd see some kids having a party, and there'd be so many people, nobody would notice him. He'd take showers there and take their toothpaste and razors and soap sometimes so that he wouldn't have to spend money on it. A few times he took showers there.
Eventually he got to Santa Monica, and Venice. He spent a good amount of time in Venice with his new friends he made there. Sometimes he would go to libraries and search for his wifes name online, not to find her, but to find his four kids.
I met Russell at Rite Aid because he is still going south. He says he is going to San Diego, and from there he'll go east to Arizona where he knows real estate is cheap, and he can buy a house and get his life back. He misses his kids a lot and you can tell he beats himself up everyday for not being there for them.
He tells me hes got about 4 thousand dollars, which is in no way rich, because that really is all he has.

Oh russell.