getting on the bus

Many years ago I was a case worker for a diverse group of people. Often, they were the ones who'd slipped through the cracks of others. Needless to say we were a wild and varied group with myself as the pied piper of sorts, attracting lost souls referred by other lost souls. One lovely woman was severely mentally ill and deaf to boot, our communications consisted of long rambling letters on large white boards, a situation that could take hours on end. Another woman was convinced that rubbing butter all over her body was her only measure of protection so in between coaxing excess tubs of liquid gold out of her hands I'd be assisting with massive loads of laundry. Another, a man who is still dear to my heart was an honorable feeder of trees.

The other man I got to know during this time was a young guy, a Christopher McCandless before his time. A good looking man who had travelled the nation, hopping freight trains and camping, hitchhiking and squeaking by. Troy ended up in California after a bad patch, he'd been beaten up and his meager funds had been stolen. He showed up filthy, ragged and hungry. He had stayed in shelters on and off in the country and avoided them when he could in favor of finding day work and sleeping in parks. But it was winter and it was harder to do that and harder still since he'd been recently robbed. He started living in the shelter and cleaned up a bit and started getting day labor work. His goal was to save enough money to buy a bus ticket east, to head through the Rockies and end up on the other side. There was a part of the country he'd yet to see, a place he'd heard about that smelled like promise.

He was reticent to share much about his life but from the bits he offered it was clear that his family situation was a tough one, that he'd been all but orphaned. He was a dreamer and very bright, he had strong feelings about society and what being a good human means. He was also tender hearted, his loneliness was obvious even as he denied it was there. We fell into a routine of sorts, he'd wait for the rest of the folks to clear out and we'd spend an hour or so a day checking in on his status, his savings, his goals. I tried connecting him with more local resources but he was pretty clear leaving was his only option.

Winter wore on and my caseload grew larger, at one point there were 15 or so folks no one knew quite how to help, least of all me. But my interest in creative solutions coupled with a strategically placed office (in the middle of the sleeping area) managed to get a lot of game and kept the wheels turning, some times more successfully than others.

Troy started making plans. He had enough money saved now to hit the road again. We'd talk at length about the life he was choosing, one with less options and one with more. I admired his courage and acknowledged his sadness and waited to see how he'd go. One day he came in my office and sat down and told me he was leaving. And as he talked he reached into his back pack and pulled out an envelope and slid it across the desk and nodded his head. I opened it and pulled out not one but two bus tickets, the long haul greyhound type. He looked at me and said I got one for you too. So you can come with me. I was completely taken aback, nothing in our discussions had suggested I'd be interested nor had he ever made an untoward advance. And yet somehow in all those hours of talking and listening he'd crafted this plan without my knowledge, a plan where he'd spend his hard earned money on something impossible.

I looked at him carefully, knowing the risk this must have been and the pain my answer would cause. But I told him definitively that I could not go, that I did not want to go, that I had work to do here. And more so, how we could get his precious money back. He sat stoically as I talked, a glimmer of sadness behind his carefully disguised eyes. He seemed almost surprised that I was not taking him up on his offer and I realized then it may have been a question of a differing reality in more ways than one. We talked for a little while longer and he took out a small plastic robot and sat it on my desk. Then he picked up his back pack and walked out of my office, out of the shelter, and I never saw him again.

I remember being taken aback by that for a long time, how he'd perceived a reality so different from what reality was, and how living that way must open you up to so many more possibilities as well as so much more disappointments. And even now I wonder if he's still on the road or if he's eventually found a place to call home.