He calls himself Jeff the Jungle Man. I first saw Jeff while I was on an exercise walk around our city Courthouse Square. It’s a lovely place, a park really, with beautiful green grass year round, benches and picnic tables and tall trees decorated with lights at Christmas. Prescott, our city, is called the Christmas City of Arizona. The Courthouse is situated in the center of this park setting. It’s almost one-half mile when a person walks around the perimeter – a favorite place for walkers, and tourists visiting our historic downtown area.
One day when I was at the Square I saw this elderly man walking ahead of me. He was slow, very slow, not that I am all that fast anymore but he was barely walking at all, more like shuffling. It was cold and I was wearing gloves; the old man was wearing only one. He had no glove on the right hand that held his walking cane. In his left hand he was carrying a sleeping bag. He appeared to be a homeless man.
As I came closer to him I considered offering him my gloves, but I didn’t. I heard him mumble something as I slowly passed him. I kept walking and then I heard a young man call out, “Hi Jeff!” I stopped and turned around; the young person, perhaps twenty or so, went up and began a conversation with the old man. I turned and kept walking. When I circled around the Square and returned to the spot where I first saw Jeff, he was gone. I looked everywhere, but did not see Jeff or the young man.
Two days later I saw Jeff again. This time I was on my walk later in the day. The sun was low. People who worked in the Courthouse were leaving for the day. In another hour it would be dark, but Jeff was lying on the ground in a patch of sunlight. He appeared to be sound asleep. Across from the Courthouse on the east side there is a large Baptist Church; it was Monday and there was a large gathering of homeless people, mostly men, gathered at the door of a room where the church feeds the homeless once a week.
I walked the City Square several times and Jeff continued to sleep. But on one of my passes Jeff was up. As I was walking by he called to me, “Can you help me with my zipper?” I stopped walking and went to him. He was fumbling with the zipper on his coat. I told him I was having trouble with my hands but I would try to help him. I am having trouble closing my hands and so I was not managing Jeff’s zipper very well. My grip was not tight enough and I could not make the zipper move. Jeff called out to another passerby but the person did not stop. I kept trying and finally got the zipper to work.
While I was working with the coat I told him that I heard someone call him Jeff. He said, “Yeah, a lot of people around here know me; they call me Jeff the jungle man.” I didn’t bother to ask how he got his name. Instead, I asked if he had eaten supper. “No, he said, “I missed the meal at the church.” And then I asked if he would be staying the night at the Salvation Army. “No,” he answered. “The beds are full of bugs, and I hate staying there. I’ll walk the night, and then sleep tomorrow.”
Yesterday I walked in the late afternoon and I saw Jeff again. He was in the same place in the park, on the ground sleeping in the sunlight. On the second or third time around the Courthouse Square I saw flashing lights of our local police. When I approached the place where Jeff was, there were two policemen and a Courthouse security guard talking with Jeff. Jeff was still on the ground. Next time around I saw that there was a fire truck with paramedics, and an ambulance. They were taking vital signs; Jeff was being examined and notes recorded. I was done with my walking exercise but I wanted to know about Jeff, and so I stopped and asked the paramedics about Jeff. They of course wanted to know if I was a friend or knew Jeff. I replied that I was not, but only an interested citizen who had seen Jeff at the Courthouse Square. I discovered that they were taking Jeff to the Emergency Room at our local hospital.
Today, I plan to follow-up and see what I can learn about Jeff’s condition. And if I see the young man who called out Jeff’s name a few days ago, I will tell him what I learned about Jeff, the jungle man.