A guilty goodbye

There was a homeless man who lived on my block. In the spring he took up residence on a patch of sidewalk against the chain-link fence in front of the abandoned lot just down from my house. He materialized one day and never left.

Tall, dark, he shambled back and forth in front of the car shop, sometimes muttering to no one. Or he sat on chunk of concrete with his head lowered. He made no motion as people passed him by with nonchalant acceptance or slight caution.

As leaves fell, he accumulated blankets—a blue comforter with outsized pink flowers, a maroon sleeping bag. He acquired a puffy jacket. He used a pizza box to block out the first snow. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished. I noticed his absence the day after the first big freeze. That day, workers came to do their quarterly cleanup of the vacant lot. Now he is gone, along with his pile of donated belongings.

Unless he returns in the spring I will continue to have this nagging wonder: Did someone take him to a shelter? Did the cleanup crew throw away his things and force him to move on? Did he freeze there on the sidewalk?

And more troublesome, how wrong was I to never help him? Is it worse to have never tried to speak with him or give him food, or to be happy I no longer have to feel the apprehension of walking past him to get to my apartment? What would others have done in this situation? Why did he choose our random block of Greenwood Heights as his abode anyway?

All I can do is hope he’s somewhere safe and warm. And that I do.