Immediately following the events described in “The Dance”:

I’m halfway between work and home, and my plan was to continue south after the meeting. I want to, more than anything, and I still COULD. This would mark the end of my workweek, a tense but meaningful interaction, a successful dance, a foray into the dark. If I proceed south, I might share a few uninterrupted daylight moments with my wife, will be there when my son steps off the bus.

But I promised that I would look for answers.

I swore that I would try.

And so north it is.

North to the Panera Bread where the police were summoned, an unknown caller phoning to alert someone, anyone, that a man was found dead in the wood line across the street.

North to view the surveillance footage, to interview the manager, to attempt to locate the unknown caller.

North in search of the demon.

The manager wears a tight-fitting button-up shirt with tiny white floral designs blowing around a dark background. His shirt is meant to set him apart, to tell us that he is in charge, that he is DIFFERENT, but seems absurdly out of place among the familiar uniformity of the other staff. Every hair on his head is shellacked into place, a sharp fin of dark hair running just slightly off center, a forced-orderly contrast to the boy’s attempt at facial hair on his chin. His pupils are dark, the irises only slightly less so, and he wears moderately-sized gauges in both ears.

There are sweat stains under both of his arms, nearly disguised by the dark background and patterned print, and I feel that they expose Shifty’s tumultuous underbelly, cannot convince myself that the stains reveal anything less than the true nature of this shifty little man, the polished external betrayed by the relationship between his psyche and biology.

Or maybe he was just hot.

His body darts around in a manner that matches his eyes. We are not here for him, but he is nervous, finding excuse after excuse to recuse himself from our conversation, to break from the (self-induced) pressure of it and return when he is ready.

He is familiar with the patrons of a homeless camp across the street, and believes he has footage of the man who called 9-1-1. He begrudgingly tolerates the presence of these unwanted guests as long as they don’t directly interfere with business. They charge their phones at his tables, fill their cups from his fountains, and thermoregulate with his HVAC system.

He learned ”tolerance” after repeated calls to the police did little to stop the nuisance behavior- asking for/ demanding money from drive-through patrons or being obviously intoxicated inside of the store.

After viewing the surveillance footage, my partner and I walk to the wood line where Son was found, exploring further in the hopes of finding the camp, maybe someone to talk to.

The sign becomes strong in one direction, and we follow the detritus deeper into the woods, eventually stumbling upon a pair of tents- a blue pavilion-style monster that would house 8 to 10, and a smaller green dome for half that number. The thirty-foot radius around the site is a wasteland- wrappers, bottles, cans, and animal bones, the ground barren, cleared of vegetation by the tramping of feet.

The site is wet, ugly, and smells unnatural.

If there are humans here, they are concealed by blue or green nylon. We decide to attempt contact.

I hate announcing myself outside of a tent.

The thin veneer that provides the comforting (and naive) illusion of protection from the outside world works triple-time in the opposite direction.

I cannot see you.

I do not hear you.

And I am about to announce myself, to let you know exactly where I am.

So I step behind a large tree and listen for a while before we say anything (a ridiculous scene to an observer without the facts).

My partner announces, and a man responds. He says he will be right out, that he is alone.

In this, he is a man of his word.

He shuffles into sight from behind the blue curtain. His gait is off, unnatural, his right foot dragging a furrow into the mud behind him. His right arm hangs lower than his left, and he seems to have adapted the disability into a stylistic lurch.

He wears a faded black hoodie, grey warm-up pants with the famous three stripes in navy blue. His shoes are dirty but otherwise escape my recollection. He appears clean but doesn’t “match”, the separate pieces of his regalia assembled by opportunity, out of necessity, lacking any adherence to modern fashion or trend.

His head is bald, the dark skin of his scalp smooth and unblemished. He wears two tattoos around his right eye, the green ink barely discernible against the backdrop of his complexion. His face is cautious, not unkind, weary. His countenance invokes less anxiety than Shifty’s.

His face sags, but not in the way of the ancient. He lacks the wrinkles of time, the creases and lines of seventy years of trial and triumph. Rather, his features just seem to droop, to be on the precipice of sliding off of his face entirely, to be on the precipice of saying “enough is enough”, abandoning him for a different existence, a better life.

He knew Son, saw him in the camp the night before he died. He knew Son to be a fentanyl user, a nice kid. He knows who found son and who called the police to report Son’s lifeless body. He admits to hearing that they dragged Son’s body to the edge of the woods so that the camp wouldn’t get busted up but then says he never heard that, reverts to the simplest denial of first-hand knowledge- “I was asleep”.

He gives a fake name, but it’s close enough to his real name to trigger an alert when a friend of mine runs it through a database. There is a warrant for his arrest, charging him with failing to abide by probation conditions that no sane person would ever have believed he could have complied with.

For a second, the nature of our interaction hangs in the balance. A bacterial infection rendered his right side all but useless, and so deceit remains his only viable form of flight. The lie revealed, he is now only left with fight, freeze, or concession. Fight remains an option- teeth, nails, saliva, unseen weapons, and initiative are still his to use. Violence is still on the table.

We make the decision together.

I’m sorry for what he’s going through, and didn’t come down here to make his life any worse. I’ll do whatever I can to keep the process smooth. I mean it, and the sentiment buys me some faith, but the critical part of this interchange happens somewhere else, one another plane, an unseen part of our existence from which emanates the primal and the visceral.

This is where we show each other what we are prepared to do, the lengths we are prepared to go.

The calculations are done, now.

Logic has prevailed.

And I can see it in his face.

He admits his attempt at deceit, and apologizes for it. The invisible tension is gone as quick as it arrived, and we move forward to the next phase of our brief relationship.

We walk him back out into civilization where he will soon be picked up and reinserted into the machine.

The dance complete, he opens. We talk while we wait, an urgent attempt to wring the most out of our short time together.

The education he gives me is invaluable. I hope that I repay the favor.

He will probably never stop using fentanyl. The crowds he runs with all use it, and even when he kicks it, the people he knows best- his friends- will put it right back into his face. He knows how good it feels, and nowadays his life holds very little meaning for him anyway, so he might as well just stay on the train. Right?

He has no family in the area. Most of them are dead.

I ask him if he has any children. He laughs and tells me “no”. This is not true, and a few minutes later, the lie, the “no”, have become too much for him to bear.

“I have a son.”

His son is a grown man, lives four states away, and has children of his own.

“He’s good, man. He’s a good man.”

He has no contact with his son, hasn’t seen him in a few years, doesn’t even have his phone number. He could get ahold of him if he tried, but for years, he hasn’t. His son is better off without him, probably has no use for him.

“What do he want with a junkie dad? Useless. He don’t need me in his life.”

What if you got off of this shit?

We’ve been in each other’s company for over an hour now, and he’s been sagging the entire time. His features reassemble now, the disparate facade giving way to one of rage, hatred.

“You think it’s easy gettin’ off this shit? You don’t just snap your fingers and…”

Of course I don’t.

But what if?

What if you could show your son the kind of courage it would take to overcome it all? If you could set an example- not in the way people dream of, but the only way now left to you? If you could show up, be a part of his life, or at least not have him wondering when he’s going to get a call about YOUR body in the wood line? Short of that, what if he could hear through the grapevine that you were okay, that you were doing your best to fight this thing, that you were winning, losing, and still doing your best?

The rage vanishes, replaced for the moment by a new idea. By a forgotten call, a spark from a fire that he and his choices long-ago extinguished. For a moment, he has the demon by the tail. For a moment, he can see another way.

“Yeah, man. Sorry.”

Then…

“Maybe.”

He knows all about failure, chemicals, addiction, suffering, shame.

Just like Shifty.

Just like me.

Just like anyone who’s ever said “what’s the point?”.

Maybe his son is better off without him. Maybe his grandkids should never see him, should never know that he exists. Maybe he doesn’t deserve their attention or presence. I don’t know.

I’m not naive. I’ve had this conversation before. I know where this most likely leads. But it’s not about winning, redemption, or a feel-good story. It’s about illuminating the demon, and all the reasons to get to know it, to fight it.

For a moment, he has it by the tail. I’ll probably never know if he grabbed it by the throat.

What I know is that he couldn’t deny the existence of his son. He could lie about his own name, sleep on the ground, and hang around with folks who would drag a dead comrade through the woods, quasi-desecrating his body and causing (unintended) pain to his parents in a futile attempt to preserve the sanctity of their camp. He can commit crime. But he was visibly uncomfortable in the minutes between the denial and confirmation of the existence of his son. He can tolerate the physical absence, but couldn’t turn his back on the memory, even to a total stranger.

Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe not.

He’s placed in a cruiser five minutes later, and I ask him to think about what I said. As a profoundly genuine gesture, he shifts his twisted and broken body so that he can stick his cuffed right hand out of the open door. He wants to clasp hands, just for a second.

“Thanks, man. I will.”

His eyes convey authenticity.

For the moment, the spark has returned, his features cautiously considering a delay of departure.

For the moment, the demon is exposed. He sees it, acknowledges it, recognizes what’s at stake.

I nod, shake his hand, and shut the door.

Thanks for reading.

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