"Hey Rev," the old man weakly says from his hospital bed, "I got a present for you."
He'd been moved from the wards at old University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky where I was the "Professional Christian" in charge of an inner city church.
Pulling the sheet away, exposing skinny white legs and feet, he beams "Lookie."
The long, gnarly, yellow toenails I'd last seen on his feet were gone.
I was mad as Hell at him when I'd seen them, ripping disgusting clothes and shoes off his body to throw him in a bathtub.
He'd been sick for a while, living in a Sunday School room converted into an apartment, and though he hadn't drank alcohol in a few years, Chester was suddenly acting like it.
"You got to get out of bed," I yelled grabbing him, "and move around. The Doctor said so."
But he threw up so I tore clothes off his body, threw him in the Baptismal Pool that serves as the community bath tub and am appalled to see his toenails hadn't cut in years.
"I can't reach that far," he shrugs falling in the water.
I was mean to Chester those days, grabbing him first thing every morning though he screeched in pain, and made him walk the hallways of the church ... because the Doctor had said so.
It was when I learned you can't always trust Doctors.
When I'd taken Chester to the Hospital his Physician gave him a tired, obligatory once over and asked me if he was a drunk.
"He used to be," I reply, "but now he's my babysitter. He also keeps the coffee peculating 24 hours a day for homeless people. He flies around the country giving speeches with me."
I loved Chester.
He was a beloved figure at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on the streets of Louisville, and at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel where we lived.
Once we gave a speech in Mississippi and Chester had the audience of several hundred eating out of his hands.
"Where'd you learn to speak like that?" I ask as we're carried to the airport.
With his crooked grin he replies, "Awe, preaching ... panhandling ... it's all the same."
He was my partner in crime for years ... until the decades on the streets caught up with him ... and a bastard of a doctor told me to make him exercise every day ... a diagnoses without an examination.
Chester howled in pain as I listened to the Doctor.
A week later he went to the Hospital for the last time.
He was so proud of his toenails, laying there smiling and asking me what I thought.
"Who sawed them off?" I ask pulling the sheet back over his pasty white skinny legs.
"It took two of them," he replies.
I nod and grab his hand ... which is cold.
"I'm tired Rev," he mummers.
"I know," I say ... not knowing what else to say.
"I love you," he whispers.
"I love you too," I say.
A few hours later, I'm still holding his hand when he burps and a vile black mud dribbles down his chin ... his tired blue eyes stare at me ...smiling the crooked little grin.
"Awe Chester," I cry.
A nurse appears from nowhere and wipes his face ... and the image of Mary Magdalene washing the blood away from Jesus flashes in my head.
Then the nurse, a large black woman with a child's face, takes my hand out of Chester's and holds onto it ... then she kisses my hand and tells me, "Everything's alright."
And it was.
An old, homeless, street drunk dies a beloved man.
And the last thing he ever did in life was give me a present.
To this day, I can't forget it.
Goddess wanders in and out of our home full of sleeping girls trying to prioritize who needs her most ... me or them?
