So much

I heard him yelling before I saw him.

He was in front of the church. His possessions were loaded into a shopping cart, and it appeared he was trying to navigate the steep hill. And he was yelling.

Was there a fight? Should I be worried?

But when I finally saw him, he was standing alone with his shopping cart. His face was flushed, and his voice was loud. I walked until I stood on the sidewalk in front of him.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He stopped yelling immediately. He looked surprised—as if his yelling had been happening in a private place, and he hadn’t expected anyone to notice. His eyes were wild, and his clothes were torn. He looked as if he had lived without a home for a long time.

“He said I was an animal!”

His eyes darted off past the clump of trees that delineates the church property. I could see no one. Maybe there was someone just out of sight. Maybe there was no one. It probably doesn’t matter.

I looked back at this man. He was no longer yelling. He looked as if he might cry.

“Well, you’re not,” I said.

He looked at me in a peculiarly intense way, as if to see if I could be trusted to tell the truth. I’ve seen this look, from time to time, in homeless people. Some will not make eye contact at all. They will look down or away as if I don’t exist, or they will speak over my shoulder, never meeting my eyes. This man looked directly into my eyes and watched me closely.

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