Walking home from Los Feliz’s cute vintage movie theater by myself, I approach my Cheers-TV-show-like coffee shop and notice a homeless man up ahead pushing a cart. A common sight in my neighborhood, despite its Mayberry feel. He is hunched over and laboring to push his scantily-packed cart, using it as a walker of sorts.
He isn’t one of the regular homeless people in our neighborhood. Though his shoulder-length gray hair reminds me of a guy named Glenn who, years ago, used to do business in the neighborhood. Glenn sold incense on the sidewalk and the coffee shop lent him a table to display his wares. In exchange, he’d help them clean up the store at night.
Glenn bought the incense from 711 at the corner for 20 cents and charged a dollar for it. I respected his entrepreneurship. I’m not an incense kind of guy but I tried to buy from him every now and then, particularly when his response to my question of “how’s business?” was not favorable.
One day I stopped, shook his hand and properly introduced myself. I wanted him to feel a part of the community, or maybe I just wanted to be such a prominent figure in the neighborhood that even the street-side incense salesman greeted me by name. He never remembered my name, but he knew he didn’t need to offer me incense, like he did to everyone else that walked by.
Glenn was a fixture of the neighborhood. Always polite, helpful, and willing to have a neighborly chat. Through conversations with him I gathered that he stayed at some sort of shelter or halfway house and was trying to stay clean. “I’m getting a place of my own” he’d say, or “I had such and such setback and am almost back on my feet,” seemingly trying to save face.
Eventually, the coffee shop stopped lending him the table so he set up his incense on top of a nearby newspaper stand. It lacked some of the original charm and I think it hurt his business. It felt less like a cute neighborhood quirk and more like a desperate plea. Not long after being relegated to the newspaper stand, he disappeared and we haven’t seen him since.
Anyway, I see this new homeless guy pushing his cart. He passes the coffee shop and for just a split second, he stops mid-stride and glances at the newspaper stand. It strikes me so hard, he might as well have turned to me and said “Who is John Galt?” Even without seeing his face, I knew it was him. Who else would awaken from a stupor to contemplate a newspaper stand?
I speed up and obnoxiously crane my neck, leaning around his long hair to see his face. Sure enough.
Hey Glenn! I shout.
His eyes light up from some distant place and his frail, greasy body scurries toward me. He seems to recognize me or at least know that I belonged to the previous life he was just remembering. I give split second consideration to shaking his hand, but my germophobe side prevails.
How are you? Where ya been?
I had an apartment in West Hollywood, then got in a wreck. It was their fault…
Before finishing the thought, he wanders off toward the 7–11.
I stand paralyzed, pondering my next move. I could insert myself in Glenn’s life right now and maybe make a difference. I could lure him to a rehab clinic. Maybe let him crash with me.
As he rounds the corner of the 7–11, not to buy incense, but to set up camp for the night, I turn and continue walking home.
I try to have a good cry, but can only muster watery eyes.