Yesterday we stood by
and watched the main resident who had been evicted from my friend's rental house and a couple of friends when they came to the
house they had trashed to load as much as they could and take it away. We
didn't help them and I only stood there because I didn't think my friend should
be alone when these people came over, to let them know they were not just
dealing with a woman by herself.
The renter looked odd in
context, his face gaunt and humorless, the sides of his head shaved leaving only
a ridge of spiked hair in the middle in the modern version of a mohawk, quite a
difference from the photo I had found on the floor in a bedroom of a clean-cut
young man in what looked like Air Force or Navy coveralls, his name on a tag
over one of the pockets. He was not very animated and at times seemed to lose
his focus. Our assumption was he was using and high but we had no idea from what.
It certainly wasn't an upper.
At one point, when he and his
companions had gone indoors gathering possessions, a man approached my friend
on the street. He wore a nicely pressed short-sleeved shirt that could have
come out of the LL Bean catalogue, tan shorts and tall white socks in his clean
tennis shoes. Carefully cut and combed white hair topped his head and he looked
like almost any stereotyped suburban man might in that neighborhood. He opened
a conversation casually asking how it was going and how bad the damage was.
Soft-spoken, he asked if she needed any help and told my friend he had a
connection to a company that rented Dumpsters and offered to make a connection
to get her one. She explained she had hired a salvage company but thanked him
enthusiastically.
Then he asked, "Is
he in there?"
My friend looked
confused.
The man gave the name of
the tenant, and then in an even softer voice, "I'm his father, he's my
son."
My friend whom you would
seldom hear say a bad word about anybody, rushed to tell him the tenant was
basically a good kid, but something had gone wrong in the last year and it had
bothered her to see him degenerate.
The man said that was kind
of her to say, and yes something had gone wrong. He glanced almost nervously
toward the open doorway, then turned to walk away.
"I would like to do
something. Let me know if I can help," he said as he left and my friend
thanked him and assured him she would.
The man disappeared
toward the end of the street just as the tenant came out with a load to put in
their vehicle. He walked around it looking for a place to put his burden in the
SUV that was packed to the roof already. He found a spot and forced the box into
the available space. As he walked back toward the door he detoured a bit so he
could approach my friend.
For a second he looked
straight at her but then dropped his gaze and looked downcast again. He mumbled,
"Did he leave?" My friend nodded yes and he looked down the street toward where
his father had disappeared. Then he turned abruptly and went back into the
house.
I paid more attention to
him after that, wondering how this son had that father and how that father had
this son.
My friend Kitty who had
described for me her own life in a situation like this came to mind again. It
had taken a long time for her to talk with me about what her family life had
been before she finally ran away from it. The abuse she had suffered was not
sexual and not even violent, just an atmosphere where her father didn't want
her and blamed her for his situation in life when he drank and her mother
supported him. One almost violent outburst had convinced her it was time to go.
At times I had suggested she try to make contact, but on that she held firm,
she wanted nothing to do with her parents and I left that subject alone after a
couple of attempts.
That sort of forlorn
gaze down the street where the tenant looked off in the direction where his father
had disappeared suggested to me how Kitty might have looked in the same
circumstance, as if something desired had not happened and never was going to
happen.
At that point the
neighbor in the zero-lot-line building came home. He saw the tenant and being a
friendly sort of person said hello and attempted to start a conversation. Later
he brought out some water and some hair gel of all things. The tenant poured
the water over his head then took some gel in his hands and ran his fingers
through the mohawk standing up the spikes again.
A little more animated
in the face of the friendliness, he thanked the neighbor and turned to go away.
It hit me at that point that my friend and I might have created an atmosphere
of intimidation and accusation that caused the tenant's subdued manner
throughout the afternoon. My friend had chatted with him a little, I had
remained serious and in the background watching. Maybe we caused it, maybe not.
"Where you living
these days?" the neighbor asked.
No answer, he asked again
toward the retreating figure.
The former tenant, back in
his sullen posture half turned and barely above a whisper said, "street."
My friend Kitty has lived there too.
A heartbreaking situation for your friend and the former tenant. I can't even imagine the boy's father's reactions. When you know you can't help, what's left to do?
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