Mark Still Alive
“Sweet Jesus! You're alive!” I yelled at Mark as he sat in front of the grocery store hawking the newspaper that advocates for the homeless.
“Yeah, I'm alive,” he said. He was relieved at saying it.
A few days earlier I'd taken a call from Jacob, a member of the Old Crow Book Club, and learned that an ambulance had transported Mark to a hospital in the early evening after he was observed acting strangely in front of the grocery store.
Jacob had speculated that Mark had suffered some kind of stroke, but at the time, who knew for sure. It took considerable effort by some of the residents of the neighborhood, but eventually Mark's whereabouts were tracked down to a hospital and he was released and returned to his home in the Safe Rest Village. Everything had been even more frantic because Mark's daughter and grandchildren had driven all the way from Missouri or Iowa to see him and their visit coincided with his hospitalization.
Mark gave me the lowdown on his condition (walking pneumonia) in the midst of total chaos six feet away from where I stood: one young man surrounded by flowers for sale smoked fentanyl on a strip of aluminum foil. I could smell it; I could hear it crackle. This was going down at one in the afternoon in front of a grocery store with customers of all ages coming and going. I thought about calling the cops or alerting management, but I didn't do anything. Was that a failure of citizenship? And it's not like I could tell the dude go kill himself somewhere in private. One look on his face and you knew he was out of his mind, perhaps permanently.
I saw exactly zero people smoking fentanyl in public in my neighborhood for three and a half years. In the past month, I've witnessed it a dozen times in broad daylight and each time my spirit erodes a tiny bit more.
Another homeless person, a mute woman shrouded in a black hoodie, a regular in the neighborhood typically out of her mind on hard drugs, held up a sign asking for ??? The words she had written were totally unintelligible.
Another semi homeless man was interjecting and interrupting my conversation with Mark.
I asked Mark if he was sauced when his emergency occurred. He said no. I doled out five bucks for a copy of the newspaper. I told Mark I was glad he was alive. Many people care for him and he is worth caring about.
Can I say that about the man smoking fentanyl in front of a grocery store?
As of this writing yes, but something is slipping away inside of me on this issue.