Please welcome today’s guest writer, Anna Gretz. Anna graduated in 2008 with a major concentration in philosophy. She now lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she enjoys freelance writing, knitting, and waxing philosophical in the backyard with her two children. She also manages You Know, You Love, a blog that aims to humanize the people behind labels and categories.
I once spent a lovely afternoon with a man who had murdered his family.
After I graduated from Calvin College, I spent five years working for a non-profit organization, meeting one-on-one with individuals in need, and helping them navigate the many resources of Grand Rapids. The job was a gift, merging my love for spreadsheets, maps, and information collecting with my fascination for the diversity of humanity.
Each visit was different. I spent tedious hours traversing the phone recordings of government aid agencies, filling out food stamp applications, and piecing together bus routes. I helped write, edit, and address letters to prison, court officials, estranged children, and stubborn landlords. I did housing searches and job searches and long-lost-love searches. And sometimes, I just sat and listened.
My office was usually quite busy, with a list of names to visit my office running in the double digits, but on some afternoons, due to bad weather or good weather or free hotdogs being doled out down the street, things were slow. With every name crossed off my clipboard, I could catch up on data entry, or if I was lucky, compose another delightfully succinct spreadsheet, until someone knocked on my door.
“Are you busy?” Today, the knock was chased by a warm, polite voice.
“I’m not!” I answered. “Come on in!” The owner of the voice was neatly but not memorably dressed in a short-sleeved, buttoned-down shirt and khaki pants. His hair was on the greasy side, and maybe on the tousled side, but it was his eyes and his smile that I noticed right away. I noticed them because they didn’t match.
“My name is Jack Teitsma,” he said, offering his freckled hand. I took it, looking into his dark, chilling eyes, while receiving the friendliness offered by his toothy smile.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Teitsma. I’m Anna.”
“They told me to talk to Hannah. Is that you? Or…”
“Yes, that’s me. I go by Anna, and any name that rhymes with it.”
He gestures to the chair across from me. “I sit here?”
“Please.”
I always felt uneasy asking new clients for their personal information. If you’re homeless and can’t afford a cellphone, address and phone number become very personal, stressful questions. I had extra time today. I decided to come back to these questions after I had earned more of his trust. With Jack, I tried something different.
“What is it that you love to do?”
“I’m a philosopher,” Jack answered, the toothy smile returning. “Just look at this.” I leaned forward as he pulled a well-worn yet well-preserved piece of paper out of his bag. He handed it to me.
It was a photocopy of a book cover. It was a simple cover which read, God, Dogs, and Philosophy. Underneath the title was Jack Teitsma’s name.
“You wrote a book!” I said, returning his smile. “It looks awesome. I actually studied philosophy in college.”
And that was it. I always looked for a point of contact with each visitor to my office, something to put us on the same team. This was my first time, however, discovering a fellow philosopher.
Jack filled my afternoon with the most insightful and interesting conversation, igniting all of the parts of my brain I missed using while waiting on hold and filling out applications. We talked about his book, about Kierkegaard, about nature, and about the nature of humans. Then we talked about what he needed to get a State ID card. Then we talked about whether or not you should celebrate birthdays.
Soon, it was time to close. The birthday conversation must have taken us out the door, because as I handed him the Secretary of State’s information on State ID requirements, it didn’t even occur to me that I had never gotten the rest of his personal information. All I had was his name, and a well-worn yet well-preserved copy of the front of his book. He had let me keep it.
It was still sitting on my desk the next morning, when I arrived to find the FBI in my office.
“Do you recognize this man?”
One of the officers held out a picture of Jack. His toothy smile was unmistakable, although I noticed, even in the low-quality mug shot, an unfamiliar wildfire in his eyes. I nodded.
“I bet you didn’t know you were sitting across from a murderer.”
But I wasn’t sitting across from a murderer. At least, not yesterday. I was sitting across from a human. A philosopher. And as I reported to the FBI that I unfortunately didn’t have any information about where he was staying, I was saddened, knowing that his days of free and deep conversation were numbered, and that I would never again spend an afternoon with Jack Teitsma.
