Poisoned to inconsequence. Daniel Redmond Wallace. 2019
“You want a belt?” The kind old man in the passenger’s seat asked.
“Naw, Im cool.”
It was another day oozing cold rain. Weather that can get you cold to your deepest soul and had been filling all the pores of the world up so that the ground smeared onto the pavement. Birds still looked bright and clean, perhaps more so than ever from contrast.
“Where are you headed?”
“Work.” I didn’t want to expand further since I would have to admit to prior lies. We had crossed paths at the gas station.
He came into the store and first glimpse suggested that he may be homeless but definitely in need. There are so many more people suffering now or perhaps I can just see it more clearly but every other car in the lot looks like it is someone’s home andramshackle reality sets in.
He had a thick white beard and a down vest, wore a duffel bag full of odds and ends. “Could I get a ride down Poplar?”
“I’m not headed that way.” This was the lie that made me give him a second chance for me to decide what to do.
He asked once more while I paid for guess and so I asked, “Where are you trying to get to?”
“Poplar and Cleveland.”
I figured as much. This is an intersection with all stages of people moving about dependent on society to survive the struggle. It’s almost in the shadow of the VA and one needs no clearer reminder how we treat people than the hollowed out and broken men wandering, staggering, wheeling around. I can see it from my classroom.
Back in the vehicle, he noticed “Say, you got a CD player, I have some old school stuff. O’Jay’s, Johnny Taylor.” He sat, riding shotgun, with his duffle in his lap.
“I’m good.”
“I wish I had a job.”I may as well learn some more. You know, reignite the discovery of details that once made me write.
“What do you do then?”
“I’m a diabled veteran.”
Damn.
“What happened?” I figured he may have been in Vietnam.
“Sarin gas, messed up a gland in my brain.” The gentle old man with a clean white beard was ruined from ourselves.
“Where’d that happen?”
“Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”
That was a straight shot to my serenity.
“Can’t hold a job because my brain doesn’t work right.”
I wanted to find a place where he could make his part but we had reached the intersection and I had to get back to work.
