People who don’t know Noel Currie will, at first glance, believe that he is mentally ill. His clothes are tattered, his shoes are worn and dirty, and, incredibly, an old 12 cubic-foot refrigerator had been his home for the past five years.

A few weeks ago, however, fire was set to Currie’s ‘home’, leaving him exposed to the elements.

“It was a man who helped me to do some work who gave me the fridge and I took it here to sleep because I had nowhere else to go,” Currie told the Sunday Observer under a tree in Mile End, St Ann.

Currie, 59, said fire was set to the refrigerator by some boys in the district while he was visiting a doctor. “I feel real bad about it,” he said while perched on the edge of the burnt-out refrigerator which he had used old pieces of zinc to batten up enough to still sleep in at nights.

While admitting that the refrigerator is not the most comfortable place to sleep, Currie said it was much better than sleeping in the open air.

“Yes, it is very uncomfortable to sleep in here because sometimes when the rain a fall me will get wet, but what must I do?” he asked.

Currie will tell you he is not mentally ill, and the residents of Mile End who have known him for most of his life agree. They say he has just been dealt a hard blow after he could no longer afford a place of his own.

Although he is always willing to work and is used by many of the residents to run errands, such as carrying a bag of animal feed or buying cooking gas cylinders, he has never been able to make enough to afford a place of his own or even to buy proper food.

“I used to work all over, and I’m willing to work to do just about anything, although me foot sick now,” he said, pointing to a wound on the sole of his right foot.

One resident who asked to be named only as ‘Miss Jill’, said that when Currie first returned to the community after having gone to live with his father in Kingston as a child, he was neatly groomed and smartly dressed. But the years of living under the tree and sleeping in the refrigerator at nights have taken a toll on him.

Telling his story, Currie, still perched on the edge of the burnt-out frame of the refrigerator, said he grew up in a neighbouring community to Mile End but later left with his father to live in Greenwich Town in Kingston. He recalled having attended Greenwich All-Age School, although he is still not able to read.

After his father died, he returned to the community to seek work, but by then his mother, who was very poor, was forced to seek shelter in an infirmary, and he had no one to stay with.

The residents say they remember that Currie used to live in an old house in the community, but when the owners returned to take possession of their property he had to leave.

He said it was at this time that he got the refrigerator, which he moved to one end of a flat piece of land which was later developed into a cricket and football field.

One resident explained that when Currie took sick recently and left for the hospital, persons who wanted to further develop the field were only too quick to set fire to the refrigerator, thinking he was not going to return.

Despite his misfortune, Currie said he just wants to get enough work so he can afford to take care of himself. But the residents say he is becoming frail, as he has been diagnosed as having an ulcer and as such he cannot work as much as he used to.

Currie, however, pointed to a small vegetable garden and insisted that he could still work, adding that he sometimes helps farmers to weed their fields in exchange for a bit of money or some food.

“I just want someone good who I can work with because I used to wash cars, do farming, just about any little thing because I am a hard worker,” he said. “It’s just that I can’t get anything to do to help myself.”

He said he has some relatives still living in the community, but he has received very little help from them. One of his sisters, who lives in a neighbouring community and who had taken him to the doctor when he became seriously ill, had very little to say when the Sunday Observer spoke with her.

In the meantime, ‘Miss Jill’ is hoping that Currie can get some assistance from the state, as, she said, he has suffered long enough. “People always promised to help him but is always only a promise,” she said, adding that he can no longer work to support himself.

“You should see how him bend up in pain and was crying the other day when his stomach tek him,” she told the Sunday Observer. “I just had to boil a lot of tea and give him until they took him to the doctor.”

Currie showed this reporter the medication prescribed by the doctor. They are to be taken after meals. Unfortunately, he did not have enough food to take them. In fact, the only food in sight at his makeshift home was a pot containing boiled bananas, remnants of his breakfast.

The residents say they want to see him get a roof over his head, now that the refrigerator is gone. They remember that during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Currie spent the time locked away in the refrigerator under the tree.

“He loves to work and is not afraid to work, but he just needs somewhere to live,” said one resident who gave her name only as Marvet.

Another resident, who wanted to be identified only as Joy, echoed Marvet’s appeal. “He really needs some help, and I hope that someone out there will help him,” she said.