Robert and the KFC Leftovers

When you live in one place for a long time, you come to recognize the homeless people in your area. There was this one uncle who was known for walking all day long, up one side of the main road of our city for miles, and then he'd turn around and walk all the way back down the other side.

We'd see him nearly every time we left the house--tall, tanned, and very skinny, with wiry gray hair. Always wearing an old brown security guard uniform. We heard he had a family living in another country, but walking up and down the main road was this man's way of life. We'd see him sleeping on benches sometimes as we walked or drove past, and we'd occasionally see and hear him in vigorous conversation with the trees that lined the road, or arguing with stray dogs. Sometimes when you were walking past, he wouldn't notice you because he'd be too busy talking to nothing at all. Like in America, many of Malaysia's homeless are people with mental disorders.

As the years went on, we grew to find the sight of this uncle very familiar. My sister and I would greet him with "Hello, Uncle," if we passed him while walking to school for my drama practices. Once, he stopped my Dad while he was walking back from work and pointed out his shoes, which were worn through. I remember Dad coming into the house in a hurry that day, grabbing a pair of his tennis shoes, and running back up to the main road to the spot where he'd told the man to wait for a few moments and he'd be back with some shoes.

He only spoke a little English, and I never talked to him at length. His name was Robert. Somehow, the uncle who walked the street all day everyday gradually became a part of our small town Malaysian lifestyle.

One day, we were on our way home from a lunch at KFC, when we spotted the uncle, walking as usual. We had a box with a few extra pieces of chicken that hadn't been devoured at lunchtime, and Dad pulled the car over, stopped Robert, and asked if he'd like some chicken.

"Are you sure your family doesn't need this?" he asked, and asked again, to confirm that he wasn't taking away anything we needed before he took the box of KFC leftovers.

I was sitting in the backseat of our minivan that day, but his question, "Are you sure your family doesn't need this?" has stuck with me in all the many years since. He wanted to make sure we had enough before he'd take anything.

Sometime after I headed for college, the uncle who walked up and down the street disappeared and was never seen again. My family asked around--nearly everyone in the neighborhood knew Robert by sight, and in our kind of community, there's usually someone who knows something, but no one ever had an answer. That bothers me. I wish there was an answer. All that's left is one family who remembers his name.

{This post is Day 6 in my 31 Days Series: 31 Days of Growing Up In Malaysia}