Lying on his side, in front of the PATH Credit Union office which hadn’t opened yet. A worn, dirty black parka and pants, boots that might’ve been worn to work some time, perhaps not very long ago. His face has bubbled over into a mass of graying brownish grayish pockmarks: He looked very old, but I really couldn’t tell his age—or his race.
Lying on his side, curled in a nearly fetal position. Was he, unconsciously—or, perhaps, knowingly—replicating his mother’s womb? Could that have been the only secure, stable home he ever had? Or did he have a “normal, happy” childhood, here or someplace else?
Lying on his side, does he dream or think about his past? Did he live in poverty and move from one rooming house or apartment to another, never with the same furnishings or people for more than a year or two? Or did he live in a spacious house with a lawn and garden in a town like Westfield—or in a brownstone in Park Slope or the Upper West Side?
Lying on his side, in front of the PATH Credit Union office: Is this where he landed after dropping out of a school where the ceilings were falling on classrooms? Or did he stumble after attending one of those schools where they get the latest model of Apple computers the day after they’re introduced? Would it be worse if living had always been so hard--or if he’d had a happy, fulfilling life, whether through privilege or hard work, and took some sort of terrible fall? If he spoke, would his vocabulary, his grammar, his accent echo such a life? Or would he speak a language of the streets, the warehouse, the docks or a truck station?
He could have come from anywhere, from any group of people. But he was lying on his side, curled up in fetal position, in front of the PATH Credit Union. If he were awake, would he have panhandled for money in front of that credit union—or would he have been too proud or ashamed to do such a thing? Maybe the Nathan’s restaurant or the deli in that corridor give him their leftovers at the end of the day. They may not be as fresh, tasty or elegant as the meals he once ate. But they might be the most consistent nourishment he’s had since his days in his mother’s womb.
Lying on his side, he can’t go back. Nor can we.