There are no answers; only questions

 Who are you--you in your ancient, rusted-out Toyota Corona barely chugging around the parking lot, the back seat filled with ragged clothes, a broken plastic hamper in the passenger seat?

Your tabby-striped cat trusts you enough to take a slow joyride on the hood of your car while you laugh the maniacal whisky-tenor laugh of a life spent too soon.

Once you were someone's gleaming new son, loved beyond explanation, fresh, precious.

Were you someone's childhood buddy? Did he run faster, jump higher? Did you outscore him in math? Did you one-up each other in motorcycles, smooth ennui, girls?

Were you the love of someone's young life? Did you promise each other a life of rainbows and unicorns? Did she make your heart sing and soar, only to crash--as young love does--when you really saw each other--shaky, hairy, flabby, broken?

Were you a soldier, sailor, airman, marine? Did you serve, only to come home and face another, more insidious, enemy?

Are you "only" down on your luck? Did you get swept out in a layoff and never bounce back? Does someone love you and long to offer you shelter and roast beef and a hot shower and a long chat? Are you someone's prodigal son?

Are you so broken that you can't live in the mainstream ways we crave, yearn for, expect? Does the madness prevent you from reaching and grasping? Does an old woman worry about you, try to find you, leaf sadly through your high-school yearbook? Does someone remember your wedding day, the things you promised her, the ring that was eventually pawned? Do your children hear about you being damned, resented, regretted? Are you a bad example, a cautionary tale?

What broke you? What brought you here, to the parking lot of my favorite Mexican restaurant, you and your cat and your scarcely operable car?

The only thing I see clearly is that this is wrong and sad. Everything else confounds me.

My mind, my knowledge, my universe--all are too small to comprehend the world of homelessness; I hear the chatter and I reel in horror and frustration.

"How can an affluent society allow this outrage?"

"They do it to themselves with drugs!"

"A lot of them don't even WANT housing."

"But they're hungry and cold; they don't even have socks and jackets!"

"Let 'em get a job!"

"There are no jobs for people like that!"

"Well, why aren't there rehabilitation and training programs?"

"There ARE rehabilitation and training programs--some of these people DON'T WANT another kind of life!"

We are told that God loves you, knows your name, will eventually take you home to live in glory--but that's so easy as to be facile. What about now--do you hurt? Are you hungry? Are you cold, lonely, scared? That car you live in won't last long. Will your life end in the encampment under the freeway?

All questions, no answers.

But no matter what your answers are, I need you to know you are known--not by name, not by story, not by anything other than image--you are not faceless.

Your image is burned into my eyes forever. I can't shake you off, you and your cat and your horrible rust bucket car.