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| Choose wisely. East Brunswick, MD - 1992. Photo by Joe |
As I've reported numerous times in these stories of John Hodgman's 700 hoboes, there were many who deliberately chose the life of the wandering poor. These men and women embraced the freedom of the road and were beholden to no one and nothing but their own hunger. Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins was not one of those hoboes. He lived among the ranks of hoboes who had lost everything and now spent their days searching for work, desperately seeking a way back to normal, back to the world as they had known it.
He was born in 1913 to a working-class couple in Philadelphia. His father was a longshoreman at the seaport, and his mother was a homemaker who often washed and mended neighbors' clothes, when money was tight (money was always tight). The only store-bought toy they were ever able to afford was a big canister of Tinkertoy - essentially just a bunch of wooden dowels and spools with holes drilled in them. Little Bobby Nubbins adored Tinkertoy, and created impressive engineering works with them. Miniature carnival rides, cranes, bridges - even a replica steam locomotive - were all part of his repertoire, much to the chagrin of his mother, who had to navigate the floors of their small apartment with great care. When he was six, and his little brother Jimmy was four, their mother died suddenly, having not navigated the floors of the small apartment with great enough care, tripping and falling atop a particularly spectacular Tinkertoy Ferris wheel. Those little wooden dowels had punctured both of her lungs - and her aorta in two places.
Bobby became Jimmy's primary caretaker, while their deeply depressed father trudged back and forth to daily double-shifts at the docks. When he turned fourteen, he began working at the port, himself. A couple of years later, in June 1929, his father died of salmonella poisoning after a coworker had handed him a thermos of seafood bisque and said, "Does this taste right to you?" By the end of the year, Bobby Nubbins was laid off, and soon after found himself and his kid brother evicted. Jimmy was lucky; he had a girlfriend, and her parents were able to take him in - as soon as he married their daughter, which he immediately did at the courthouse, using his last couple of bucks for the license. They had no room for Bobby, so he hit the road in search of work, and was a full-fledged hobo within six months.
He obtained an odd moniker, as hoboes do, and came to be known as Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins. The what of how that came to be was simple; the why of it, less so. After years of caring for his brother, Bob had developed some of the best characteristics of good providers, the most important being generosity, and the ability to put other's needs before his own. As a result, he was always quick to offer his fellow hoboes - especially those worse off than he - whatever he had, with humility, grace, and humor. Whenever someone approached his campfire, he would grab an old bowl from his pack and say "Beef? Or chicken?" His visitor would stare at him, puzzled. "Would you like beef," he'd ask, "or chicken?" At this point, his visitor would either state a preference (always beef), or simply continue to stare. "Hahahaha," he would laugh, "I haven't any beef or chicken - can't you see I'm a hobo! But I do have some pigeon meat, and lint, and I think there's still some squirrel - and I've got a couple pieces of venison jerky. What's mine is yours..."
This didn't always end well, for him. The hobo's life was a hard one, and many of them had long since had their humor worn away. But Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins' little joke landed at least as often as it missed, and eventually he developed a reputation. Hoboes who knew him knew that he had neither beef nor chicken, but they also knew that he was going to share with them whatever he had. His kindness was rewarded now and then, with referrals for day-labor jobs and the occasional interview for real employment. Great Depressions are Great Depressions, though, and he was of course a dirty vagrant, to any prospective employer. He kept at it, and saved his pennies in the hope that one day he could buy a suit of clothes, and rent a room and get cleaned up for an interview. And he kept walking.
One cold December night in 1934, as the Depression dragged on and there had been no work for weeks, and things seemed especially bleak, Newton Fig approached Bob Nubbins' campfire. Bob was cooking a pot of real kidney beans, which he had procured in the crossroads town of Chillicothe Ohio by way of begging - something he truly hated to have to do - and he was looking forward to his first full stomach in ages.
He looked up from his pot and smiled, dirtily but warmly, at Newton Fig (who was called that because he came from Newton, Massachusetts and his surname was Fig - hey, not all hoboes got super-clever monikers!). "Hey there, brother! You look hungry. Beef or chicken?"
"Hardy-har-har," Newton deadpanned. "I know damn well you ain't got no beef or chicken, but friend, I'd love to have a sit by your fire, and maybe just one bite. I had a decent meal just yesterday at a church near Richmond Dale, and by the looks of you, that pot of whatever you got there is the first food you've had all week."
"Well, you're right about that, Newton," Bob sighed, "but what's mine is yours."
"You're the best hobo I know, Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins. A better friend than any of us deserves, but you mind if I ask you a serious question?"
Bob laughed. "Is it about my hobo name?"
"Sort of."
"Fine. Ask away. I'll do my best to answer."
"We all know why you're called Beef-or-Chicken - that's obvious. But, why do you do it?"
"Mostly 'cause it's funny..."
"Yeah, but I've heard stories of you gettin' pounded pretty bad for your little joke - and robbed and whatnot," Newton said.
"Oh, that was only a few times," Bob assured him. "Besides, there's a lesson in my dumb joke."
"A lesson."
"Yup."
"There's a lesson in your offering strangers two options for dinner - neither of which you have?"
"Yup. Everyone knows there's no beef, and what hobo has any chicken..."
"Well..." Newton interrupted.
"Okay, yes - that one time, Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick had a whole chicken for Christmas dinner - a stolen chicken, I might add. Anyhow, everyone knows I got no beef or chicken, and I know they know it, but there's that little bit of hope in the offering, isn't there? That tiny optimistic voice inside that says, 'hey - maybe this time there really is beef or chicken.'"
Newton looked skeptical. "Okay - I suppose..."
"And here's the important part," Bob continued. "There may not be chicken or steak, but there's always something. As bad as things get - and we know bad, don't we - there is always something to be had. Like, maybe there's more than just two choices, in life. Maybe there will never be any beef or chicken, for us. But there will always be something. And if there isn't something today, there can be, tomorrow."
"You're an odd bird, Nubbins," Newton laughed, "but God bless you and your odd bird heart."
"Well, thank you, brother." He reached into his pack and pulled out an old bowl and a wooden spoon, and leaned over the pot steaming away above the fire. Now - will that be beef, or chicken?"
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