Sparring No One

- Jack Dempsey

A thousand starlings occupying city limits darted around the glaring spotlights fastened to cranes. If not for the outdoor filming of a television show, any other day this would have been a late afternoon walk around City Hall in Philadelphia for the homeless.

On this day, however, a haggard looking homeless man wandered onto our production set. Once he became aware of his surroundings, the mere presence of the crowd animated him, willing him to do something special. His sagging jaw sprung to action to spiel outlandish delusions of grandeur. With nothing better to do in between takes, the crowd of actors quickly took notice of his sad yet humorous antics. To everyone's surprise, he went up on the balls of his feet to shadowbox. Before long, his voice rose to address the masses and he fed off the frenzy.

Coincidentally playing a news reporter, an actor with comedic timing thrust an official looking microphone in front of his scruffy unshaven face.

He spoke right into the useless prop. “I was the first man to fight Jack Dempsey. I boxed the grrreat Dempsey in 1914. Tell the world my name. Tell the world to remember me.”

The crowd applauded his words and this only encouraged him. The news reporter then interviewed him because this is what he wanted her to with a microphone plunged in his face. For a homeless man accustomed to indifference, he continued his uprising to drown out the few mocking laughs and only recognize the overhwelming applause.

“Tell the world my name.’ he bellowed sparring no one. “The world must remember me.”

Wranglers escorted him off the set before we ever found out his name. That is the trouble with the homeless. He could have been anybody. He could have been nobody. He could have been somebody. You never know when a homeless man walks on by. As human beings, we box ourselves into a corner that way.