I was on the train the other day when a tallish man with a crumpled little hat and a paper bag in his hand sat down beside me.

Him: I'm not a bum.
Me: Me either.
Him: No really, I'm not a bum. But I did just get out of jail.

He showed me the contents of his bag, which included a used plastic razor, a mostly-empty package of medication, a worn bible, and mail, addressed to the jail and stamped with that day's date.

Him: I need $5 to get a bus ticket.
Me: I need $19,000 to pay for school, and doesn't the train ticket come with unlimited bus fare?
Him: I need a Greyhound ticket, and I'm not a bum.
Me: Oh.
Him: Well, can you help me or not?
Me: I'd be happy to talk to you for a while.
Him: I don't need a friend. I need money.
Me: I don't give money to people who aren't my friends.
Him: I think I know a verse about that. God told me you were going to bless me.

Then he showed me his 'broken' Mp3 player and asked me if I could fix it. I did and showed him how to use it. He encouraged me to look at his book, a set of four novellas on sale at Amazon.com for $12.95. I said I would. He showed me his gang tattoos and said he wrote the book after a prison term in California when he became a Christian and decided to give up the "gang life." I asked if prison was as bad as they make it out on TV. He said it was worse. I asked how Christianity was working out for him. He showed me his favorite verse (It's better to live on the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.) and called the recent jail term and separation from his wife "setbacks."

I looked up his book later. My favorite part is the description of, That’s What It Is, novella number three: "a young convict finds out an older convict is a cross-country pimp, so he’s out to pick his brain for the pimp game."

If I could make this stuff up, I'd probably be an author myself. At least I made a new friend.