H4PJ Blog

Tim Seelig: Director of Art4PJ

The story continues.

Many of you remember last fall when I wrote a blog about having met Cletis Tolbert. Cletis was homeless and living on the streets. He was selling copies of his poetry in front of the 7-11 near where I live. I bought some of it and was deeply moved and impressed. He was also a veteran and was having no luck getting the help he needed.

That was where my blog ended. I am sure many of you wondered what happened to Cletis. Well, I had encouraged him, given him money, purchased paper, pens and disposable cameras for him to chronicle his life on the streets and hired him to do some work around my house.

He spent the money on drugs, sold the cameras for pennies to feed his addiction and began coming to my house late at night knocking on the door asking for more money. On his last trip to my house, I told him in no uncertain terms he was to leave immediately and that if he ever came back, I would call the police.

Fast forward many months later. Who should show up at my house but Cletis. Last fall, he had finally been thrown in jail for longer than one night at a time. Even with drugs available in jail, he sobered up. During this period, his wife agreed to take him back when he got out of jail. He related the whole story to me over a cup of coffee, completely cleaned up, animated and bright-eyed. As it turns our, the encounter with me last fall turned out to be one of the important contributions to his getting his act together.

“While in jail, I thought about people I had hurt. I hated what I had become. I don’t agree with stealing, hurting people, etc. I had a sobering thought. I could dismiss how other people saw me. But when I thought about you I thought, “this person didn’t know me from Adam and he reached his hand out to help me and seeing how it came to an end – the look in your eyes – I realized it was nobody by me. I thought about all the things. I cried. Nobody strikes out in life to become what I had become.”

Now Cletis is trying very hard to do the right thing. He is having a very difficult time finding work, but is determined and looking every day. His wife (who to my way of thinking is a saint) is providing him a home and helping him get his feet on the ground. He is writing poetry again.

Cletis told me about another moment of clarity in his life when, while be a drug dealer, he was selling drugs to a man with two children. After completing the deal, one of the children looked up at him and said “One day, I want to be just like you.” These words haunt Cletis every day. He wrote the poem below about that experience.

What Cletis has done is huge. What he faces in the days ahead will not be easy. He is determined to do the right thing and not fall back into the life he has lived over the last few decades. He will need a lot of help. He will need all of us sending him silent strength and support. He will need a job – soon!
Down the road, I hope someone will publish his life story and the extraordinary poetry that flows from his pen.

Few of us have any idea whatsoever what Cletis has gone through. It is impossible to put ourselves in his shoes. We can, however, rejoice with him and his family that he has found his way out of his “darkness” into the light of clarity, purpose and family. Cletis, we wish you all the best in each and every day ahead.

Dope Man
Cletis Tolbert
2 – 18 – 08

It all started as a kid. I developed an appetite for the finer things in life.
Not knowing I would end up married to the game with money
co-starring as my wayward wife.

As my eye beheld flashy things, my imagination began to soar.
I watched closely those that had these things as my appetite grew
more and more.

Not knowing as a child my mind was being seduced by the game
Pulling me in closer and closer like a moth drawn to a fiery flame.

Until such time like those that went before me, I became a dope man
Closing a blind eye to the condition of those that financed
my money-hungry plan.

I became a neighborhood gorilla spending late nights on the streets searching for my honey
But now my wayward wife consumed my life, you know I need my money

The 1st and 15th may mean nothing to you, but they were a special holiday to me
Government checks hit the hands of the hooked and they crowded my hood as far as the eye could see.

Until one day I went to a familiar house on the block to collect my due
Folding my money, I heard the voice of a child with eyes like mine saying, “I want to be just like you.”

Now, I shamefully admit that I, too, perpetuated the dope game by things I did
But I realized not the damage I caused until again I saw through the eyes of a kid.