a dog noticed none of it

There was something terrible in the cold, polished chrome of the walker. Glinting yellow in the streetlight, it looked new and flimsy and cheaply made, but worst of all it seemed cruel as it rested idle on the sidewalk. Laid out on the bus stop bench next to the apparatus was its presumptive owner, like so much afterbirth spilled onto the side of the road.

Tonight I had simply wanted to take a stroll. When the night air is cool and my kids are tucked safely into bed, I enjoy a turn beneath the stars. But it is difficult to go far in the heart of Silicon Valley without being confronted by the destitution that haunts so many of our neighbors.

On seeing this gleaming appliance and its benched wreckage, I changed my course without thinking, crossing the darkened street to do I know not what. (I feel, in the face of such outrage to human dignity, the overwhelming urge to draw near. Seldom am I conscious of any intention beyond this visceral pull.) As I reached the sodium-lighted bank of newspaper racks, I walked to where the man's head was resting. His face was covered, just as it someday would be within the morgue, and the only visible part of him at this end was some wiry hair, thinning and gray. At the other end were his feet, still within their shoes, peeking chilled and child-like from beneath the covers.

I took out my phone, but who could I call at this hour? Who would have him? Where was the warm, safe haven for him to take refuge? I certainly couldn't call 911, for this was hardly an emergency. No, this is normal in our community.

The man on the bench had tucked his knees up toward his chest to make himself fit, drab and shabby in contrast to the clean lines of the medical device. He had shrouded himself beneath a black sleeping bag while behind him the smug and smiling Foster's Freeze mascot stood beaming in its neon emptiness. Across the street, though it was nearing midnight, the two teens working within the gaudy red and yellow A-frame of Der Wienerschnitzel continued to do a brisk business in milk shakes and chili cheese dogs. The customers came and went.  A patrol officer rolled by. A couple walked past, arm-in-arm. A dog trotted along the sidewalk without noticing any of it.

And I turned around and went home.