Flash Memoir: Feeding Sean

 (c) 3/21/2022

“Well, Sean,” I said, “You look good! Your wound has healed up nicely.”

Sean had shaved off the scrub of beard and mustache. His makeshift cast, which was built up from strips of t-shirt and plaid shirts wrapped nearly two inches thick and that had been hiding a purplish, swollen hand, was now gone. The gash had healed to a four-inch-long welt along his wrist. His hand looked normal.

Sean showed me how his wrist was stiff and that he could barely bend it. If he’d had any type of manual labor job before that opportunity was now past.

“I sure wish you could have gone to the ER with that!” The mother in me popped out. I hoped Sean wouldn’t take it poorly. I had already learned that he wouldn’t check in to any medical facility. Money and lack of insurance aside, he was convinced Doctors would lock him up and force feed him hallucinogens and poison.

I noticed that while I couldn’t say Sean’s clothes looked freshly laundered at least they weren’t rank and grubby from months of daily wear.

“Yeah,” he said. “I got the chance to clean myself up.” He beamed and his blue eyes shone with a calm I hadn’t seen when running into him during the past year.

I thought against asking him where the opportunity came from. It had taken me several months, a few dips into my grocery bag or wallet, and a couple of meals at Ozzie’s Pub before he offered his name.

The first time I saw Sean panhandling outside of Starbucks three different people, including me, ran up with cups of coffee and bagged pastries. I nudged my companion. “Look how he shines!” His smile was infectious. I instantly wanted to give him the world.  If only I’d owned the world.

When I talked him into a meal, I learned to not ask many questions. His meal choices had started as burgers and fries, an occasional steak. Eventually all he ate was pulled Pork and a Pale Ale. No sides. No buns. “This is what the German’s eat,” he’d said. He’d never go back to California to see his mother. The German’s were teaching him how to be a man. I didn’t ask about the Germans. I supposed they were white supremacists, and if Sean bought into that belief, I didn’t want to sit here feeding him. I hadn’t asked about the wound on his wrist either. I couldn’t tell if it was an accident or self-inflicted. I had offered to pay for urgent care. That is how small my world is. He needed much more than one doctor visit.

Sometimes Sean would shut down, turn slightly, and stare to the right of my face. Then he grinned as though there was a frenetic comedy on a big screen beside my head. A couple of times I turned to look. “There’s nothing there,” Sean said somewhat dispassionately. After a long pause, he would re-start the conversation.

The last time I ran into Sean he showed how he got around the security fence and slept in the crawl space of the now defunct Kasper’s French restaurant. The restaurant was festooned with notice of what new Apartment Complex was coming. Now four years later, I think of Sean on occasion and with worry. It never changes anything.