Sad Story

Last night when I left work, I went to the bus stop. It's the bus stop right in front of my building. It was still light outside, or as light as it gets on a grey, rainy day. There was a guy lying down on the bench under the bus stop shelter. He was obviously homeless -- he was really dirty, had a matted beard, and was wearing dirty yellow sweatpants and a dirt encrusted jacket. He had a can of Bud and a bottle of something wrapped in a paper bag on the ground next to him. And when I walked up, he had his hand down his pants, from behind.

I still walked over and stood under the shelter (it was raining, after all) and I felt OK about it, since there were so many other people around, and I stood right behind another woman. It was 6:00, so a lot of people were leaving work. But as I stood there, I was getting more nervous about him. Who knows what he might do. Luckily my bus came pretty quickly. As I got on, I noticed he had moved his hand from the back of his pants to the front (still inside.) It makes me sad that people live this way. I wonder what happened to him that his life now consists of drinking out of a paper bag on a bus bench with his hand in his dirty pants. I think he was probably mentally ill, and I have to wonder if with the right treatment, he might be OK.