Randy AKA “Rocky”
Written by Robin Elmerick
Monday April 4, 2005, was one of the most interesting, memorable days of my life. My team and I had just completed a formal interview with a target of hate speech in downtown Indianapolis. I ventured off alone to take a walk around Monument Circle and enjoy the weather. There were a lot of businessmen and women sitting on the monument steps, but someone different stood out to me. There was a homeless man lying on his back, sleeping on the steps. Seeing homeless people in downtown Indianapolis is by no means unusual. This was evident by the reactions of the other people at the monument - -they walked by him, and even stepped over him, as if he was not even there. “Surely this man has been a victim of hate speech at some point in his life,” I thought to myself. I went to find my team and see what they thought about approaching him for an interview.
“Socio-Economic status . . . We have talked about it in class as a reason for discrimination but we have not tried to get an interview with someone who has been targeted for that reason. So, what do you think?” Needless to say, they were agreeable.
We went back to the monument, only to find that the specific homeless person we were looking for was no longer there. Still determined to get the story, we decided to venture off in search of another interviewee.
My partner Adrian and I took off down a side street. As we came to a busy intersection, I saw a man sitting on the corner, shaking a cup. I approached him, put a few dollars in his cup and gave him the flower I had behind my ear. I knelt down and asked if I could ask him a few questions. He instantly wanted to know my name. “My name is Robin,” I said as I stuck out my hand. We shook hands and he introduced himself to me as ‘Rocky.” He later informed me that his real name was Randy. After getting his permission to conduct our interview, I sat down beside him on the concrete sidewalk.
Rocky talked to me about a few of the things that people do to him and have said to him because he is homeless. “They spit on me,” he said. “They tell me to get a job. . . . People tell me to go to hell sometimes too.” As he said these things, he occasionally stopped, held up his cup, and shook it, hoping for donations. I kept my eyes focused on him the whole time to show my interest in what he had to say. It soon became very difficult to keep him focused and elicit more information about incidents of hate speech from him. I again shook his hand and thanked him for allowing us to speak with him. As I began to stand, he said, “Hey Robin. Wait. Can I ask you a favor? Will you send my mom a note saying I love her?” I told him that I would. I got her address from him. He asked several times again if I would actually send a note and I assured him that I would.
I knelt back down beside him again. He thanked me over and over for talking to him. He put his arm around me and said that it was nice to actually talk to and to be able to touch someone. I again thanked him for sharing with us. As I stood up, he asked for one last favor - - my bracelet. I wear a green bracelet on my right arm that I have never taken off. It reads “Save Darfur” and is designed to bring people’s attention to the genocide that is occurring in Sudan, Africa. I bought the bracelet at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. I paused for a moment, took a deep breath and handed him my bracelet. I explained to him what the bracelet meant and that I would not give the bracelet up for just anyone.
Throughout the entire conversation, I was never caught off guard. Hearing his stories, having his arm around me and his head on my shoulder, it was all fine with me. It wasn’t until I stopped and looked around that I was taken aback. I knew that we were at a busy intersection, and that a lot of people had walked passed us, but I never stopped to look around until we finished talking with Rocky. By the time we were ready to leave, a crowd of between 15 and 20 people had gathered around us. Many of them may have stopped out of sheer curiosity. However, it was the looks of disgust that my teammate and I saw on several faces that really struck me. Their looks suggested that it was wrong of me to speak to this man, let alone allow him to hug me. I suddenly got a sense of how it feels to live like Rocky lives every day of his life. Their looks did not bother me; I was happy to have met such an amazing man.