Walter fingers an ashtray like maybe he could conjure up a smoke. Hank gives him one of his. Walter jams it in his mouth and Hank lights it for him. He stopped drinking cold turkey for a couple of months last year after he had a seizure. We had to refer him to San Francisco General. When he was released, he hung out at Fresh Start, stayed in our shelter at night. During the day, he volunteered, made coffee, and mopped the floors. What else could he do? No halfway house would take him, because he hadn’t been through a program. No program would take him, because he had been through pretty much all of them. Besides, they all had long waiting lists. Maybe that’s why he started up again. To have a purpose.
You know this guy, Walt?
Walter shakes his head.
He kind of looks like Rodney, I say.
Who’s Rodney? Joe asks.
A-Rod? Walter says. No, it’s not him.
He hangs around on Larkin, Hank says. Buys his wine at the convenience store on Eddy.
The blond guy, I say.
Yeah, Walter says. A-Rod, everyone calls him.
No, that’s not him, Hank says.
That’s I what I said, Walter says.
But it looks like him, I say.
He’s not A-Rod, Walter says.
Who’s A-Rod? Joe asks.
Joe asks if any of us want coffee. Me and Hank shake our heads. Walter nudges his cup forward and Joe takes it and walks to the counter. He’s great eye candy but it’s not going to happen between us. The way he walks me home, that’s nice, I have to admit. I don’t want to talk about how I’m not drinking all the time. Maybe if Hank got a job at Walmart he’d talk about something else. Maybe then I’d like him in the way I like Joe. It was good he said the Serenity Prayer. It kept my head straight. I liked that Joe took my hand at that moment.
I wonder what the dead guy thought this morning. If he knew he was sick, if he felt funny, funnier than normal. He was probably hungover. I imagine him in Golden Gate Park waking up, pulling his knees into his chest against the cold. He probably got up and rolled up his sleeping bag. Or maybe he just had blankets. They’d be wet with dew. He might have had a shopping cart. He may have hidden his gear behind bushes. That’s what I did. That was me. It may not have been the dead guy at all.
We hear sirens and then the red lights of a squad car and an ambulance splash light against the windows. I get up and Hank follows me to the door. I open it to two officers. Three paramedics stand behind them in the shadows. One of the officers takes out a notepad. He has a heavy face and looks almost bored. His partner appears younger and stands to one side.
We got a call about a deceased person? Officer Notepad says.
Yes, I’m the one who called, I say.
Hank and I walk them over to John Doe. The heavy sound of their steps echoes off the concrete floor behind me. They glance at Walter, who stares down at the table, chin against his chest. I wonder if he has nodded off. The paramedics squat down and one of them pulls the blanket off John Doe’s face. They stare at him.
How long has he been like this? one of them asks.
He came here about ten thirty tonight. We did a bed check at eleven and this is how he was, I say.
He was passed out on the street in front of the building, Hank says. He was breathing, too drunk to walk. Me and a volunteer brought him in.
The paramedics look at John Doe again.
Do you know who he is? one of them asks.
No, sir, I tell him.
Officer Notepad takes our names and phone numbers. One of the paramedics covers John Doe with the blanket again.
We’ll call the coroner to pick up the body, one of them tells me.
If you get a name for him let us know, Officer Notepad says.
He and his partner walk back outside and sit in their squad car. The paramedics follow.
Hank picks up the clipboard and hands it to Joe.
Better go see that everyone else is breathing, he says.
Joe takes the clipboard. I watch him, not feeling a whole lot one way or the other.
I’ll call Tom again, Hank says.
I’ll miss Hank if he goes to Walmart. I think it’ll be weird for him to work in a place with people who could never imagine a guy dying alone on a mat on the floor. Hank and I wouldn’t have work to talk about anymore. I don’t know what we’d have to say to each other. But we’d still have a lot in common. Too much. Maybe we’re meant for each other after all.
Tom
Johnny wants to slam his burrito in my face. Wants to, will do, hard to read, but I’m leaning toward will do.
You took my job. Why don’t you take my lunch too? Johnny snarls.
He’s drunk, voice slurring in an ocean of saliva, jaws loose on their hinges. I just wanted a quick lunch. This little burrito joint run by a nice older lady, La Taqueria it’s called, on the corner of Leavenworth and Ellis, its steamed windows marked with finger drawings by bored customers, the thick aroma of refried beans wafting from pots on a black stove that could use a good soap and water wipe-down, usually provides me a relaxed place to eat without anyone bothering me. A kind of break I can’t get when I bring my lunch and eat in my office. Until Johnny showed up, I’d been sitting blissfully by myself.
He always drank but I never knew him to get this wound up. Of course, I’d not fired him before. We sat in my office two days ago, his eyes bloodshot and rheumy, pigeons on the windowsill, pacing back and forth, cooing, heads bobbing, witnesses to the hammer coming down on a guy I’d lied for and promoted.
