To Stanley.

Stanley was a homeless man who would stand on the corner a block away from my apartment, selling two-dollar newspapers. To say he was striking-looking would be an understatement. He was over six feet tall and had frizzy, wild, blonde hair that stuck out in all directions, and bright blue eyes that were constantly squinting. He could have been in his 40s, maybe younger. The most striking thing about him was the expression he always wore. It was a smile that was more like a frozen grimace, the kind of smile you make when you're in agony and someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to smile. I assumed he was attempting to appear friendly to people.  

He gave the impression that his mind was completely cooked, if I’m being honest. I have no idea what his story was or if he’d always been that way, and I would often wonder if at some point he had taken some drug or psychedelic that was many orders of magnitude too potent, and had never quite found his way back. Sometimes he had a guitar with him. He would strum it absently, not really playing a distinct song that I could tell, just making a gentle, amorphous noise.

I’m not proud to admit it, but I avoided him sometimes. More than once if I saw him standing on his corner from afar, I turned early and took the other route around the square. It’s not like there was anything to be afraid of, but that pained, seemingly permanent grimace was uncomfortable to behold. And whenever I did walk by him, and our eyes would meet, which wasn’t every time, as sometimes he was just kind of squinting at the sun, but when he did see me, he would nod once, briefly, and I would nod back.

I once bought one of his papers. I fished a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it over, and it was at this point that I learned his name. What’s your name? Stanley. Nice to meet you Stanley, I’m Alex. was about the extent of it. I went on my way feeling like I had faced some kind of fear.

Eventually, Stanley stopped showing up. I noticed his absence and wondered where he’d gone, but I would then feel a pang of guilt when I realized part of me was glad he wasn’t there anymore. He’d never once been intrusive, or given me a reason to be uncomfortable. All he ever did was stand there. But that look on his face was so clearly one of suffering, and I was so clearly doing nothing to alleviate it, that the human in me never enjoyed the stark reminder of how miserable some other people are. The same human in me was happy to forget it as soon as it was out of sight.

Maybe a year went by, and one day, he was back. Same spot, same look. I was headed to the coffee shop for my iced cold brew. He didn’t notice me when I passed by him on the way there but on the way back, he did. I nodded and smiled, but did not slow down. I was listening to music, so I can’t be certain this actually happened. But to this day I swear, that as I walked by, I heard him say in a surprisingly healthy, clear voice:

“Alex.”