Tent Town was gone.
Not a single tent or cardboard box, no shopping carts, broken bicycles, nothing. Only the spray paint remained:
EVERYTHING
YOU
WANT
IS
HERE
One straggler stood at the delta of the emptiness, begging for change with a cardboard sign that read: Seeking Human Kindness. It was like he hadn’t gotten the memo. I fished a crumpled ten out of my pocket and gave it to him.
“Where’d everyone go?”
“You’d have to ask the shelter.” His jaw did an involuntary vibration when he talked.
“The shelter—where’s that?”
“Path—over on Cotner. That’s P-A-T-H.”
“What’s it stand for?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Eight minutes later I was standing in the waiting room of a clean pastel office. Behind a small desk, an older Hispanic woman in nurse gear manned a computer.
I said, “I’m looking for someone that’s been living under the 405 up on Ohio. One of his colleagues said I should inquire here.”
“You got a name?”
“Actually, I’ve got a few of them—he goes by Mike or Mickey, Karaoke Mike, Mickey Sandoz, Michael Sanderson.”
She winced, checked her database, told me to hold on. Then she got up without a word and disappeared behind the swinging doors. I stood there for too long. A three-year-old pulled at my pants leg. I smiled at him, but his pregnant mom commanded him to sit down. Finally, the nurse came out with a slender man, balding, midforties.
“Are you a relative of the deceased?”
“The deceased?”
He froze for a moment, uncomfortable, exchanged a glance with the nurse, then pulled me aside.
“I’m very sorry, I thought you knew. They think they found Mr. Sanderson—but the coroner is still waiting for someone to identify the body.”
“Found him how?”
“I’m…I’m really sorry, I really don’t know the details. But even if I did, you’d have to get that information from the police.”
A half hour later, with sand still in my shoes, I walked up the stairs to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner on Mission in Boyle Heights. Odd-looking building—it could have been a train station or a high school, not the way station of death. The lobby was funeral parlor elegant too—burgundy leather sofas and marble walls—but the fancy-schmancy just rattled my shattered nerves even worse. I found an administrator, a slim, handsome Hispanic guy, who directed me to a computer, but in my typical foggy-headed fashion I couldn’t figure out the online check-in. I walked back to the guy for help.
“I’m sorry, what’s the difference between unclaimed and unidentified?”
“We know who the unclaimed are—they just…haven’t been claimed.”
“Right,” I said. “Right. My guy, apparently they think it’s Michael Sanderson, but they aren’t sure.”
He assisted me at the portal, scrolling the unidentified list—the number of just-recents was startling.
Gender: Male Ethnicity: Black Age: 20+ Date Found: October 16
Gender: Female Ethnicity: Unknown Age: 18+ Date Found: October 14
Gender: Female Ethnicity: Hispanic/Latin American Age: 18+ Date Found: October 14
Every gender, age, race was represented. When he hit Male Caucasian 50+ I stopped him and copied the case number.
About twenty minutes later, a kind-faced older Hispanic man wearing a yellow on black CORONER lanyard guided me down a cool hall, into a room with slab slots on either side—it resembled the storage space of a restaurant kitchen.
“Are you next of kin?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “no, I’m not. Just a friend.”
“It’s good of you to come down. We’ve been trying to get an official ID for four days. The dad’s up in Coulterville, he refused to make the trip.” Without ceremony, the coroner stopped, used his keys, and pulled a slab—a body in a white plastic sheet lay on it, motionless.
Coroner said, “May I?” and I nodded.
With a quick zip and flap of the plastic, he revealed an unpeaceful face, eyes closed, hard-jawed, lost in frustrated dreams—or not.
