Joe, A Mystery on a Park Bench

Joe Starks could hardly remember the time before he became homeless. Faded memories like old sepia photographs slipped away before he could fix them in his mind. His mother’s face was now a blur of indistinct features. The apartment they had once lived in together, where was it? What street? What town? Someone had locked him in a room there. Why? How had he got out? Maybe it was better to forget. But there was something he knew, something important that some people wanted to know, and maybe they would find him.

Slowly he rose. Pain shot up in his left hip. The worn sleeping bag didn’t soften the concrete sidewalk where he had laid in an alcove downtown last night. He needed to go somewhere. Growls coming from his stomach reminded him of the soup kitchen on Douglas Street. He picked up his bedroll and stuffed it into a black plastic bag. He threw it and his other meagre possessions into the rusty shopping cart, but made sure to cover the one valuable thing he possessed. Already dressed for the day, his tattered coat wrapped around him against the cold, he ambled down the street at his stomach’s biding. The squeaky wheels of the cart made a policeman turn and scrutinize him. If looks could kill. Joe looked down at the pavement.  

He didn’t have to read the paper to know about police brutality. He had stayed in a homeless camp before. Safety in numbers, you know, but when the authorities decide you have overstayed your time, they move you out. They used electric prods, like we were pigs going to be slaughtered. No, now he didn’t stay in one place too long. And then there were the people who wanted the secret.

The aroma of chicken soup wafted down the long line in front of the Douglas Street Mission. Saliva rushed into Joe’s mouth. When did he last eat? Yesterday, maybe. Behind the donut shop, a garbage can. a more than a day-old carton with dry, stale leftovers. One had jelly inside. He licked his lips recalling the sweetness.

“Hello Joe, how you doing this morning?” Murray, a regular soup server, said, when Joe finally got inside.

“Hungry,” he said.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got homemade chicken noodle soup, and bread and butter.

***

Tanisha Washington’s ambition had lifted her out of the projects, into a receptionist job in the county. She had continued to apply for jobs within the system, working her way up the food chain to a supervisor. She’d taken every free course offered. Nothing wrong with her mind.

But chained to a desk all day, she wasn’t about to let her appearance slide either. She rose early, put on exercise clothes, and headed downtown to the park. Later, she’d wash in the office bathroom and put on her work uniform, a black skirt that went with different colored blouses.

As she ran this morning, she noticed a homeless man in the park lying on a bench sleeping. This was a common sight now, but what drew her eye was the object peeking out under a filthy blanket in the grocery cart next to him. She narrowed her eyes. What was it? A pulsating band of colors blinked on and off from the uncovered area. It appeared to be an odd-looking communication device. What would a drifter do with that? Maybe he had stolen it.

She shook her head. Tanisha, you don’t have time for figuring out what the old guy is carting around.

She resumed her punishing pace. But Tanisha knew what it was like to be hungry and homeless. She’d been there when her mom got sick and couldn’t go to work, when they had been ousted from their apartment. She wouldn’t give the honorary title of father to the deadbeat that left them. All he had contributed was the cream in her coffee-colored skin. At fifteen, she was the bread winner, working at a hot dog stand after school, applying for better jobs after graduating with honors from high school.

But when she got to her office, in between phone calls and interruptions from co-workers, the image of the device in the shopping cart kept flashing up in her consciousness. Her inquisitive mind wouldn’t let go.

The next day, her alarm rousted her from bed and into her running clothes. At the park, there he was. This time sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes. She slowed and stopped.

“Hey there mister, you hungry?”

He nodded vigorously.

“What’s your name?”

“Joe.” Better not to tell her his last name.

“I’m Tanisha. Why don’t you stay here. I’ll go get us some breakfast.”

“Okay,” Joe said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

She loaded a plastic plate with eggs, sausage, and toast and ordered herself a green smoothie from Ma’s Diner two blocks away.

Returning, she handed the Styrofoam shell to him.

“Thanks kindly,” Joe said, eyeing the food with undisguised greed.

She sat facing the cart at his elbow. But this time the blanket was firmly in place, and nothing blinked.

Joe began tucking in the food at an alarming rate.

Tanisha sipped the green liquid slowly.

“So, Joe, where you from?”

“Dunno.” he said, between huge bites, “just kinda’ wander around.”

“The weather is getting colder here. There’s a shelter nearby. But here’s some cash to get a better sleeping bag at a secondhand store.”

“Why are you being so kind to me, Miss?”

“I was homeless once. I know how it feels.”

Joe stared at her. “Well, nobody would know it now.”

She smiled and took a chance. “I can’t help but wondering what you have hidden under that blanket.”

His fork had just speared another piece of sausage. Now the plastic utensil fell from his hand and clattered to the sidewalk.

His eyes bored into her. “Are you one of them? I hear they look like everybody else.”

“One of who?”

But he didn’t answer. He grabbed the remainder of his food, threw it in the cart, and moved quickly down the path away from her.

Maybe he has mental health issues. Shame on me for scaring him like that.

But that day at work she kept coming back to their exchange. Why was he so secretive? What was under that blanket that he was so paranoid about? But spread sheets and emails occupied her morning and she stopped pondering.

The next morning, she had a zoom meeting at nine with the main office. She got up earlier than usual. Her self-imposed routine would not be skipped.

When she entered the park, all her questions came rushing back. She looked ahead toward the bench Joe had occupied. He wasn’t there, but what did she expect, he’d run away yesterday. She’d probably never see him again. But as she grew closer, she could see a pile of something in front of the place where he’d sat.

She stopped, gazing in astonishment at what she found mounded there, his old sleeping bag, ragged coat, T-shirt, his pants with the belt still through the loops, and his worn tennis shoes. But two things made her catch her breath. His underpants lay on top of his pants. And most incredible was the twenty-five dollars she had given him was still lying there alongside his clothes. She picked up the money, after all she had given it to him. The grocery cart was nowhere in sight.

She shook her head in confusion. Why would he shuck all his clothes in this early morning cold? Was he running around somewhere naked? Why would he leave behind his money when he was obviously destitute? Maybe her supposition about him being mentally handicapped was correct.

But even with their limited conversation, he hadn’t struck her as having that problem. But then she didn’t know much about what constituted this diagnosis.

Hurrying on to work so as not to miss the scheduled meeting, she just couldn’t figure out what had happened.

Later that day, she ate a quick lunch at her desk. She clicked on the news. Evidently, the police were rounding up homeless people downtown.

Ah, probably they had picked up Joe. But wait. Why would they have him strip? And what about the money? Nothing made sense.

There were two more meetings that afternoon, so she was behind on her usual daily work. But she was used to overtime. There wasn’t any guy, or cat, or dog waiting for her to get home. She often stopped at a late-night deli to grab dinner. Tonight, would be no exception.

Just for the sake of her curiosity, on her way home she decided to detour through the park. Who would have wanted Joe’s castoffs, she had no idea, but from a distance she could see they were gone. As she moved closer to the bench, she frowned. What in the world? In the deepening dusk, the composition slats gave off an unearthly glow. She reached forward and touched the area. Heat emanated from the big spot and burnt the tips of her fingers.  

As she put her hot fingers into her mouth, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw no one. She forgot dinner and ran toward her apartment faster than she had ever pounded the pavement. She slammed the door closed and locked it. She felt her heart racing and she flopped down on her couch. What had she just encountered? Did it have anything to do with Joe?

She turned on the TV to cover the noise in her head. She didn’t sleep well that night and the next morning, she hesitated. Should she go to the park? But her force of habit and inquisitive nature wouldn’t allow her to make a detour. But when she arrived at the scene of the creepy phenomenon, there was nothing. Just a plain empty park bench, no echoing footsteps, just a strange memory of a man called Joe.