The panhandler who dresses for success: Kirby Jack Green, 58, is well-mannered and well-groomed and you might confuse him for an executive, a lawyer or a politician. That's what he wants you to think, before hitting you up for bus fare.
Detroit -- There is a small and well-dressed man you may find loitering around City Hall with a briefcase and wingtip shoes. The man lives by the simple precept that clothes make the man, since the naked and shabby carry little influence in society.
Kirby Jack Green, 58, is well-mannered and well-groomed and you might confuse him for an executive, a lawyer or a politician.
That's what he wants you to think, so that you may not be intimidated by him, so that you might actually approach him for directions, which he is happy to give before hitting you up for bus fare.
He claims to make about $150 a week, or $600 a month, panhandling, which has allowed him to move from the underpasses to a studio apartment in a downtown high-rise.
He owns 50 neckties, two silk suits (tailored with safety pins and duct tape) a mohair jacket, a London Fog trench coat, 11 pairs of shoes, lemon dress shirts, lime dress shirts, creme dress shirts, khaki pants that he presses himself, leather belts, cloth belts, colognes, loafers, docksiders, wingtips, a leather valise and a handbag with "Oxford University" stitched in the side.
And they were all gotten free, including the iron and ironing board, from a local Catholic church.
"What's the old saying?" Green says, reaching hard for the cliche that escapes him for a moment. "Oh, yeah, one man's garbage is another man's, uh, clothes, I guess."
And he owes it all to the clothes. The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning, he said. A few years ago, addled by drug addiction, Green had a stroke on a ladder while changing a light bulb for someone. He fell off the ladder, fell into a coma, emerged from the darkness three weeks later and saw the light.
"Jesus!" he shouts early in the morning in his apartment as he prepares for a day's work. "Jesus showed me the way out of drugs, the way off the streets. Jesus showed me that people are attracted to clean people, respectable looking people, people who look like them."
And in that spirit, Green agreed to share his knowledge with the casual reader as a payback to the good Lord who extended himself when Green needed it most.
First impressions last forever: "Brush your teeth, shave your face and pluck the grays from your beard," says Green. The razor, toothpaste and tweezers all came from the church. He then rubs emollient into the soles of his feet, preparing for a long day of beating the pavement. "Keep your feets healthy. Otherwise you'll be on your knees."
He selects a short-sleeved striped shirt (from Barney's New York), a check-patterned tie (Executive Collection) done up in a double Windsor, a pair of khaki pants (L.L. Bean), a leather belt and a pair of polished loafers (make unknown). To accessorize he wears a silver Timex wristwatch (J.C. Penney, $24), a clip-on badge that is actually a Detroit Public Library card and the Oxford University handbag. Off he goes to work.
The uniform works well. In the first hour, a woman in a car needing directions gives $2. A couple searching for the Mexican consulate another $2, a lawyer another $1.
Mooching under masquerade is a family business. Green says his uncle worked the old Hudson's building on Woodward for two decades. His uncle used a cane, dark glasses and a tin cup. "He wasn't blind," Green said. "And when he died they found $40,000 in his bedroom."
If the shoe fits, it's ugly. Green says he is not proud of himself.
"I'm a criminal," he confides. "I'm a panhandler and I lie. I don't need money for the bus and I think that God must be ashamed of me."
But it is a small sin, a white lie considering the crimes committed by the rich and powerful who have walked past him in his 10 years working the City County Building.
"Hey, you look rich; do you have a dollar, sir?" Green asks of a well-dressed gentleman who is about to enter the building. "You must be Kwame Kilpatrick's lawyer."
"No," says the man, who is, indeed, a lawyer.
"Oh yeah, that's right. You must be Monica Conyers' lawyer. Kilpatrick's lawyers don't get paid."
The man laughed and handed over a few pieces of silver.
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