I don’t remember when I didn’t see the homeless man walking up and down San Vicente. Pretending not to notice, people call him Khaki Guy, because of the color of his tattered, smelly clothing. He never seems to be going anywhere, just trudging along, weather-beaten, with a cigarette stub hanging from his lips.
Bald, with dark, scraggly hair on the sides, lately he has been limping, and I wish I could take him to my kind orthopedist, who would treat him, though the hospital would probably go postal.
Khaki Man won’t take food or money from me. I’ve tried. And I’ve wanted to invite him in to take a bath, have a hot meal and let me get him some clean clothes. But my unhusband says no, it’s too dangerous. The police, whom I’ve asked to chaperone, agree.
Jill, my physical therapist, believes Khaki Man sleeps in the bushes bordering the Brentwood Country Club. But nobody knows the man’s name or how he got here. I guess part of all of us wonders if he ever had a family, a job, or what snapped in him when he decided how to use up his lifetime.
In a neighborhood where we have IRA’s for our pets, and our children are required to master Greek before being waitlisted at iffy pre-schools, it stuns me that we also have a homeless person, limping up and down our perfect streets, going nowhere, alone.
