My Invisible Neighbor

I’ll call him Luis. He’s about 6’2” with a dark-complexion, thin, probably in his late 20s, and quiet. Very quiet. He used to live in the churchyard of our parish for part of the year. Now he lives in the space between the city fence and the city hedge adjacent to our back yard. 

I first saw him hanging around the churchyard with another young man who had blonde hair and wore a long black coat like the children from Columbine High School who murdered their classmates and then committed suicide. That other young man wasn’t quiet. In fact it was his disorderly behavior that drew the police to the churchyard recently to arrest this odd pair. With mixed emotions I attended the hearing and petitioned the judge to give them a 2^nd chance even though they were violating an ordinance about being in a churchyard after midnight. The charges were dropped and I didn’t see them in the churchyard again. I never got a thank you from either man – I just didn’t see them again, and in a way that was a thank you. Then a few months ago I started seeing Luis and discovered that he’s my neighbor. 

Luis has a number of things that he has accumulated in the space between the city hedge and fence: a large white bucket, a broken bicycle, a sleeping bag, some magazines, a few Tupperware containers, a duffle bag, a blanket, and several choices of shoes and sneakers. He wanders silently, aimlessly -- mysteriously around Norfolk, wearing his headphones that are connected to a portable CD player and then around midnight returns to his space between the hedge and the fence. 

I suppose this sacred space of his is safer or perhaps less demanding than the local shelter that jams Jesus down your throat like THEIR lives depended on it. Maybe the prayer service, the Jesus sermons, and the altar calls that are required before you can get a meal, broke his patience. But I don’t know that for sure, because I’ve never asked Luis. He scares me. I sometimes think he may be a threat to my family – but I don’t know that either. I even reported his presence to the police a few weeks ago, but I suppose they had more urgent matters before them than one quiet homeless man because they never came to investigate. 

I hesitate approaching Luis less out of fear and more because I don’t want to begin a relationship that will cause me to DO anything. Although I don’t want him in my back yard at least he doesn’t ask anything of me. My hunch is that Luis doesn’t want for himself what I want for him – almost always the way between people who don’t interact, of course.  So I look the other way, pretend Luis isn’t really there, and another human being remains invisible.

And the fear festers …. and the uncertainty is … and ignorance becomes the status quo...

and he is still invisible … 

Am I?