A Disfigured Face

I cruised home on Cape Arago Highway after a magnificent outing with Elmer at Whiskey Run Beach. We ran for miles in a light fog punctuated by swirling winds, and I found one golf ball, a terrible shank from the Bandon Dunes Golf Course situated a couple hundred feet above the beach.

The Black Keys played on the CD player. Elmer was snoozed out in the back. My body felt fit and creative mind fortified.

The speed limit decreased to 20 MPH and I slowed down. I saw a man bundled in black to my right, pushing a shopping cart crammed with possessions into the wind. Rolling behind the cart was a tethered baby stroller, also stuffed to capacity.

I saw the man’s face. It was a face unlike anything I’d ever observed in a sea of homeless faces the last decade. It reminded me of villainous ghouls from the Scooby Doo cartoon. But those ghouls wore masks to hide heir identities. Was this man’s face his identity?

Age indeterminate. He had no teeth. His cheeks were crushed, caved in, contorted, gray. Dead eyes. A totally blank visage. A faceless face most likely the result of prolonged fentanyl use, or so I’ve read and witnessed. Could he even talk anymore?

I could not look away, although many caring people, and I suspect this number is growing, are starting to look away.

Seeing this face collapsed my heart. It blew up the fortification within me. He was someone’s son, possible sibling, possible father, grandfather. He had a name.

How would he push that cart another 50 yards? Where would he sleep tonight? How would he rise in the morning and try to survive?