Living paycheck to paycheck is only romantic in the past tense—unless you are Mr. Blue. In that case, you don’t even have a paycheck. Instead, you beg for the honor of shoveling snow in the dead of winter in exchange for a bowl of soup. You give money away when you get it and trust in the goodness of friends (i.e., strangers) to survive.
Who is Mr. Blue? The brainchild of an Old Hollywood screenwriter, Myles Connolly, Mr. Blue (1927) reads like a mystery novel, but instead of a mystery about murder, this mystery novel pries into the mind of a man with brains, talent, and charm who mysteriously lives (by choice!) as a pauper—and he’s happy, almost insanely happy to be poor. The story continues to fascinate after almost a century in print.
Slowly, Mr. Blue’s motivation becomes clear: He wants to be poor because he wants to help the poor. But he doesn’t want to save them from poverty. He wants to save their souls.
While Mr. Blue realizes that each of us has a soul in need of saving, he is unsatisfied with the nameless street evangelist who approaches sinners on subways or preachers who sermonize from the pulpit. He envisions a more human encounter.
“They would not heed a street harangue,” Mr. Blue says of the impoverished. “They would suspect a minister or social worker on sight. But they would listen to him, their companion, their fellow, as they made their listless journeys or lay awake in their haphazard sleeping places.” Instead of a stranger, who has no knowledge of your story or your troubles, the person offering salvation ought to be a friend who had shared your burden and who could listen and speak to your concern — even if the price of this evangelization is to live with you on the streets.
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