Dead man

August heat swaddled me as I made my way home from the community swimming pool. A damp towel hung from my neck. My trunks, reeking of chlorine, drooped from my narrow hips as I shuffled on dime-store plastic flipflops.

I was 11, shirtless, recklessly sunburned, and alone. That’s how I rolled as a kid in Eugene, Oregon, back in the mid-60s. My family was so large, and our house was so cramped that I grew up like a feral cat, roaming and poking around trouble without fretting about consequences.

The pool was five or six minutes from our house. Half of my route was a dirt path choked with waist-high reeds and pockets of prickly brush that spread a sweet earthy scent. Crickets chirped faster as I waded in.

Halfway down the path, I saw the tread of a tennis shoe poking from the high grass. Inching closer, I saw a second sole. Did someone throw away shoes? My family lived on a shoestring, so I wasn’t above wearing someone’s garbage. I stepped closer until the weeds tickled my knees.

A rolling wave of unease rushed over me when I saw the legs attached to those shoes. For a few seconds, I thought that he was sleeping. Then I noticed the swarming flies. His skin was pasty white like the belly of a trout. His scruffy hair was white, too, and his vacant eyes stared intently at nothing. He looked about the age that my father was when he was killed in the Vietnam War.

I had never seen a dead person before but there was no doubt in my mind.

In fact, the more I stared at him, the more I knew he was a military man. A gray canvas backpack rested within an arm’s length of him. An army patch displaying an upturned sword was affixed to it.

I stayed another minute as if daring him to get up while I scanned the area. Beyond a wire fence to the south was my grade school track. The county fairgrounds sprawled to the north. A smelly slough where my friends and I often played imaginary war pierced the path.

I walked - I didn’t even jog – home and announced to my mom: “I found a dead man.”

“What?”

“Over by the slough. I think we should tell someone.”

She made me repeat every detail and kept asking if I was sure he wasn’t just sleeping.

“No. He’s dead. I checked.”

“You checked? You know better…”

She was a single parent of seven kids, but her initial reaction to everything was to panic. When she finally called the police, she did so breathlessly as if someone was breaking down our door.

It should have ended then, but it was only the beginning.

.......

“I know this is scary.”

The detective wore a pained look as if something life-changing had just happened to me.

I wasn’t sure what he meant by “scary,” but I nodded.

“Who was he?” I asked.

The cop laughed. “I get first crack asking the questions.” His chuckle carried a sharp edge, the way my teachers responded when I challenged them in class.

“We’re not sure who he is … was, yet.” He motioned where the body lay covered with a sheet. “Had you ever seen him before?”

I could feel him watching me.

“I didn’t get a good look. It was scarrrreeey.”

Mom gave me one of her “shape up, mister” looks.

 “Notice anything around the body?” the detective asked.

“Anything? Well yeah, a backpack.”

“We found it open. Did you look inside by any chance?”

I shook my head. “No way.”

He stared at me as sweat pooled on his massive forehead and around his button-down collar.

 “Did you see anyone else in the area before or after you found this guy?”

I shook my head. “Who was he?”

He talked right over me, telling my mom that the dead man was a “transient” who had no identification. “He’s a John Doe for now.”

He saw confusion contorting my face. “We call a dead man we can’t identify 'John Doe.”'

“Was he murdered?” I asked.

“Boy, you sure are curious … I don’t think so. Guys like him… they just die. Sometimes from exposure or from the elements, or from drugs. Or they drink themselves to death. This guy looked like was a drinker. A lot of these guys can’t handle the world, especially guys coming home from the war.”

“My dad was in the war. He wasn’t a loser.”

“Sorry kid,” he said, turning his attention back to me. “Anything else you can tell me? We’ve got a report of a bank robbery. He fits the description."

He pointed toward the pool. “The bank is five blocks that way. I imagine he could have hid the loot along the way here.”

He closed his small notebook and turned to leave but hesitated as if he just thought of something. He asked if he could see my hands. I held them out, palms up. He turned each of them over a couple times. He seemed satisfied and asked one more time, “did you see anything out there by his backpack?”

“No. what are you looking for?”

“Jeez, I bet you grow up to be a cop. You are a quizzer. I may be back in touch. If someone flashes big cash, please let me know.”

I mumbled, “My dad was no loser.” I expected mom to swat my head, but she hugged me instead.

......

The only newspaper article published about the death was about two column inches long. It called him a “transient who died in a weedy field after suffering a likely drug overdose.” A local veterans’ center identified him as J.C. Miller, 35. No first name. Just initials.

By the time I rode my bicycle down to the veterans’ center, Miller had already been cremated and buried along with three others in a single plot, called a “pauper’s grave.” There was no gravestone. Just wood planks. His read, “J.C. Miller, Grave 3, Row 2.”

A tall, bald man named Cole who introduced himself as the manager of the center asked what brought me there.

“J.C,” I replied, as if I knew him. “I found his body. Can you tell me about him?"

“He roamed streets after getting back from two tours in Nam,” he said. “He bounced between shelters and drinking binges. He didn't like to talk about the past and he really didn’t like talking or thinking about the future. Scolding cut through him like smoke through a screen door. Mainly, J.C. blended into the background.”

He led me to his office and picked up a binder. Look, he said, here’s a list of all he left behind:

A dollar and 89 cents;

Two paperbacks;

Three gift certificates for hamburgers;

 a Seattle library card;

and paycheck stubs for dishwashing work.

The more he talked, the more it seemed J.C. was a ghost. I started backing toward the door, but he ushered me to a room with small wooden crosses affixed to the wall. “You might want to see this.”

A Catholic priest read from the Book of Wisdom to about 20 people, most of them looked old and weathered. He read a passage from King Solomon:

“For no king has any different origin or birth. But one is the entry into life for all. And in one same way they leave it.”

The priest dipped a cedar branch I into holy water and then touched J.C.’s cross.

“When their names are seen they are remembered even if only for an instant," Cole said. “To me, everyone is someone. Everyone leaves someone. Everyone leaves their mark.”

Tears flooded my eyes. I imagined one of those crosses belonged to my dad’s short life. “Thanks for letting me see this, but I have to go,” I told Cole as I rushed from the room.

It wasn’t until I had one foot out the building’s front door that I made up my mind. I turned back inside and stuffed the $512 I had stolen from dead J.C. into the veterans’ donation box.

“Everyone is someone,” I said as I pedaled home.