As one walks down St. Paul Street in Baltimore’s Charles Village, it’s impossible to miss John M. Spence. Sat on a long bench in front of the local Chipotle, with a cart full of paints and his work all around him, he’s become a community staple over the last several years. Living out of housing for several years, Spence began painting as a way to stay busy and make a bit of income. Painting rocks and canvases right on his home turf on St. Paul, passersby often smile as they see a Bible verse, a Grateful Dead logo, or a “Go Orioles” on one of his creations. I certainly do.
Spence talks to dozens of strangers a day, telling them about himself, asking how their day has been. Upon seeing a person, he smiles, laughs at their first joke, is eager to show them his work. He’s never upset to not make a sale– one can see the joy on his face when someone enjoys what he made, takes an extra minute to chat. John Spence loves people, and it’s the first thing you know when you meet him.
We’d had the interview scheduled for several days. As I walked over, he gave me a big smile and scrambled to pick wet rocks off the folding chair he keeps as a makeshift easel. I sat, shaking his hand and sitting down on that same chair, and we began to talk.
Spence grew up in relative comfortability. He detailed his adolescence in the Baltimore area, attending Towson prior to moving to San Diego to take a job at American International Group (AIG)-- mainly drawn to the area for the culture and beach access. However, he struggled to move up the corporate ladder. It was this that brought up Spence’s thoughts regarding the affirmative action system, remembering a story of a technical exam for a promotion. This exam included questions regarding race and gender. He’d been passed up for the promotion despite passing the technical questions with flying colors. He said this felt unfair, that he should have been given the opportunity off pure merit. I pushed back, offering that it was fair to weigh decision-making off of the historical discrimination that some individuals face to get to the same point Spence was at. He agreed with a caveat, saying that these factors should be taken into account, but should be on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket rule.
It was in San Diego when Spence began to struggle with substance use, often drinking during the workday. Spence told me about the “little bar cart in my office… for when the big wigs came through. It became a problem.” The issue snowballed, and during the time he moved back to Baltimore to care for his mother after her divorce. Eventually, Spence got involved in NA, and stayed for almost a decade. But it became incredibly hard to fit in his schedule, along with working and home life. He went on a vacation to destress, and was accused of using once he came back to meetings. Hurt and offended, he left the program.
He doubled down with the church and volunteering to fill the void of NA. Spence had been involved with the Catholic church since childhood, having worked for the Archdiocese of Baltimore at one point. He’d volunteered as a search and rescue diver while living in San Diego. Out of NA, he began playing piano at nursing homes and churches around the city, using his skills to bring joy. Said Spence “My volunteer work through the church has always been my community.”
He spent decades caring for his mother as her health deteriorated, working on a consulting basis. He worked less and less, largely staying home to provide complete palliative care. Spence and his mother worked together, two days a week, at an adult literacy initiative. However, when the organization went under, Spence and his mother lost their jobs. This accelerated her decline, with Spence saying that “I don't think I realized at the time how much just getting up and going to work those two days was keeping her going.” She passed away just two months later, Spence not working at all during the time. He stated plainly that “I fell apart. I couldn't find work fast enough”, and that “That was the start of me ending up on the street.”
He told me about trying to access support and social services, and being told to just get a job due to his possession of a college degree. He’d applied to everything– McDonald’s, business firms, Seven-Elevens– always being told he was a bit older than they were looking for, that he wasn’t the right fit, or that he was overqualified. Said Spence “I needed help immediately, food stamps, anything.”, but he was unable to access assistance. He said that perhaps he was at fault for the situation he was in– that he should have found a way to look for a job more actively while caring for his mother in her final months. I said he had been put in an impossible situation. He shrugged and said “still”.
I asked him whether a better system could be built if those making decisions had personal experience with the issues. He said yes, said he thought the city and world would be a whole lot better if people like him were treated as experts, listened to like leaders, and understood as humans.
Spence then continued with his story. He said his life had been void of stability for six years, bouncing between a garage, a men’s shelter, and the street. He’d begun painting and sculpting in a program that the men’s shelter ran, and when the arts program lost money, he and his friends went out and sold their art on the street from dawn until dusk, not stopping until they had the few hundred dollars they needed. Spence remarked that he’d made some of the best friends of his life in that men’s shelter– only for it to be shut down and lose funding.
We talked next about political polarization. Spence makes an effort to talk to all coming by, to engage in conversation and get to know people. To brighten days. When asked whether people are less able to talk productively with each other than they used to be, whether we are more susceptible to disinformation than we used to be, Spence said that although he had personally been taught not to discuss politics in personal company, he had observed a deterioration in political culture. That “Even Bible study on Tuesdays sometimes turns into political argument, which I don't think is the place for it, but that's what happens.” Spence said that
“I'm sixty years old — that's roughly ten presidential elections I've voted in. I doubt I picked the winner all ten times. Was I happy every time my candidate lost? No. But I didn't demand recounts or impeachments over it — you accept the results and move on….I try not to fully trust either the news or social media, because both feel skewed toward one extreme or another — there's no honest down-the-middle source anymore. Sometimes I think arguing over identity… and things like that just eats up the time and energy we'd need to fix the bigger structural problems, assuming those are even fixable.”
I next asked him what he did think was actually broken. He gave me three answers, with Spence first telling me that “The relationship between employers and employees has deteriorated over the last fifty years — workers used to be treated as an asset, now they're a line item, a liability on a balance sheet.”
Next, he stated that “A lot of people aren't taking accountability for their own decisions, looking instead for an excuse or a shortcut. I had a seizure on an MTA bus once, around ten in the morning — flopping in the aisle for over ten minutes, airway closing, essentially in medical distress — and nobody called 911. Instead, someone stole my shoes off my feet while I was unconscious. When people's first instinct in that situation is to rob someone rather than help them, that says something troubling about where things stand.”
And finally, Spence told me that people were more comfortable with lying than they should be, that “There's also a slang phrase people use now, "I ain’t even gonna lie" — which tells me that person is comfortable lying the rest of the time. I don't think that's a majority of people, but I see it more than I used to.”
Spence told me that “None of us are right all the time — I'm wrong more often than I'd like to admit, and the hard part is you don't always know it in the moment.”
As our time came to an end, I asked John whether he had any final thoughts, anything he wanted people to hear. John said that
“My New Year's resolution this year was simple: build friendships, don't make enemies. That's something everyone can do every day — smiling is contagious. I'd rather be around people who are laughing and in a good mood than people who wake up already dreading the day, because that's contagious too, and when people are in a good mood they're more willing to help each other instead of staying locked up in their own troubles. Making friends, not enemies — that's really it.”