Utah Offers Housing

You are on the park bench, bags at your feet.

A nighttime DJ voice escapes from your gentle face. You could have been in broadcasting.

Who are you talking to? To no one? To someone?

You are a father, a brother, a son.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Perhaps you are explaining.

Perhaps reciting histories.

Bible verses. 

Poetry.

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts.”

7 a.m., too early for such lofty thoughts.  My post-run coffee is calling my name.
Is there coffee waiting for you somewhere? Was there, once? What was your life like, then?

You are on the light rail, bags at your feet.

Sleeping, hunched over on 3 seats, head buried in a coat.

Your burgundy suede Timberlands are incongruous with your sweatpants.

A gift? A purchase too dear? A remnant of former prosperity?

It’s cold outside, but in here, it is warm, as we gently and noisily rock towards the airport. Through the neighborhoods. Slicing through the drizzling rain. You sleep.

You high-five your friends as you meet down by the water. All following the unspoken, practical dress code of canvas jackets, hoodies, backpacks, and grocery bags at your feet. Fathers. Brothers. Sons.

You hold your Big Gulp with clenched hands and richocheting eyes, speaking too loudly; cookies in a ziplock, furtively eating on the bus.

Who are you? I wonder.

How did you get here?

What broke?

Can it be fixed?

Can the system be saved? Is there a solution?

We talk in the comfort of our car, driving home from Baltimore. “Utah offers housing. Because without a home, we can’t even begin to address the mental health issues and the physical health issues that are driving people into the streets."

Utah offers housing. That’s a start, we say. 

You stumble out of your house as you wave at me cheerfully.

Stumblin’ Mark, we joke.

You serenade the neighborhood with Barry Manilow and Cream and NPR.

I post your musical escapades on Facebook.

Your faithful dog shits in my yard on the daily, but when they take you to jail again, I tentatively slide into the door off your back deck to make sure that the dog can get out and that someone will feed him.

Your second-shift job stopped years ago, as I am no longer awakened by the loud conversation at 4 a.m. as you get dropped off.

The dog gets slower and slower and then disappears.

Sometimes I see you walking with your backpack down to QD and back.

You get the mail occasionally.

Once we talked for a long time about kids these days as I planted flowers in the front yard.

Your son used to come over to your house. Loud arguments, doors slam. Car races away.

The camper sat listlessly in the side yard until one day it was inhabited with your ex-wife and more dogs than windows. We called animal control. I was afraid.

The camper and inhabitants were gone the next day.

Your house has been dark for a year now. 

No lights, no noises.

I think that the landlord should do something.

I think you might still be there. Once, the door was open.

I consider calling the police, but I don’t want to waste their time. 

I heard that your brother was trying to get you on benefits.

But I haven’t heard your music in years.

Maybe you moved out? 

Your long-dead car is still in the driveway; the Big Lebowski bumper sticker starting to peel.

I saw you walking to the mailbox last month. No longer stumbling, you could barely maintain a shuffle. You looked bad, man.

I thought to myself, you might die in that house and we wouldn’t know for weeks.

Would there be a smell? Would the police come?

They think you’ve been dead for quite awhile.

We’d been under a pretty strong freeze for a few weeks, so there’s one question answered. No smell.

Who were you?

How did you get here?

What broke?

Could you have been saved?

If I’d bothered to move from pity to pathy, would I have then offered you anything more than humorous derision? Would I have bothered to learn your real name?

Where was my responsibility in all this?

Was it enough to listen for the music and wait for the smell?

Was it enough?

- Mark Donald Thompson - May 1963 - November 2019 -