The Passenger

In which I help a friend cross the river.

February nights in Charlotte are cold, like most February nights everywhere. But in Charlotte they have a special coldness because that’s how the city rolls. If you don’t have a nice fat warm home and a fine car to transport you about while avoiding the elements, well, that’s your fault. You should have gone to Carolina.

So it was seven years ago this week. This particular Thursday night in 2015 was quite cold, in the low 20s, with a light drizzle. Wendy and I had gone to visit my father at the nursing home he lived in- which was not really a visit but simply us being present and letting him know and we cared about him. At his stage of advanced dementia, he could register our presence but do little else. We arrived at the home in early evening, around 7. He was asleep. 

He had been at this particular place a year or two and had recently moved into a section where they could watch him all the time. The exit doors were locked so folks couldn’t wander off, which my dad had a tendency to do. He once left a group outing to a museum to go buy cigarettes, crossing a four-lane artery road with his walker. When the staff confronted about this supposed transgression against the rules, he simply shrugged. He was going to go where he wanted, no matter what. No one could hold him back. 

But he was in place that Thursday evening, as we hovered above his small bed. “Dad”......”Dad”. He barely stirred. I tried again, gently rubbing his shoulder. “Dad? We’re here.” His eyes barely opened. He tried to speak but could not. He seemed lost, wandering. Wendy and I sat there with him for a minute to see if he would awaken. But it was late already and the staff was shutting down, so we quietly exited. I felt sad as I had wanted to hug and and love on him a little. 

The drizzly rain continued and we sat silently while making our way across town. There was nothing much to say, really- just processing the non-visit. I thought of him and his long, extraordinary life.

He had come from next to nothing, armed with only a skill to draw and paint, and had doggedly forged a career and a life as an artist and designer. He began as a sign painter in the 1950s, then moved into mall displays, then theme parks. In the late 1980s he invented a new type of children’s playground- ‘soft play’ he called it. By the time he retired, his work was known and sold worldwide, and he had managed a large company that sold millions of dollar’s worth of his designs every year.

But time had done what time does and now in his later years he simply tried to hang on, making whatever art he could at the home and sneaking outside to smoke cigarettes. ( I smuggled them to him for years and he greatly appreciated my stealth.) Now he was at the point where he couldn’t smoke, couldn’t make art, couldn’t really do much of anything. So as we drove away thatevening I lamented the loss of his faculties and tried to remember how cool a person he was.

At a fairly large intersection  I noticed a woman experiencing homelessness standing near a bus stop with a large suitcase. She was talking loudly to the cars:  “please help me- I need a ride”.  And she DID need a ride. It was February, cold and raining. The uncovered bus stop was no place to be. 

Wendy opened the passenger door and the woman got in. The woman was grateful- she told us the address on the west side where she had a room for the night. Or at least she HOPED she had a room- she wasn’t sure if her friend was home. 

My polite questions got vague answers- she would not give her name or history. So we sat in silence for the duration as she rested on her large suitcase. Who was she? Where had she come from? Why was she experiencing homelessness? I wasn’t going to find out.

We wound our way across town and found a sad, squat duplex in a large complex of other sad, squat duplexes. But she was glad we had arrived and explained it might take a moment for her friend to open the door as it was late….IF her friend was home.  I helped her unload her suitcase. She refused to let me carry it to the door for her, though she hobbled and moved with evident pain. So Wendy and I sat in the car to make sure she got inside.

She knocked, waiting on the sidewalk in front of the stoop. Nothing moved for a minute or so. She knocked again. Nothing. We watched. No change. The car was getting cold so I averted my eyes for a moment, turning it on. At the same moment Wendy turned on the heat. This process took less than a second. When we looked up, the woman was gone. 

Where was she? We had looked away for less than two seconds. She had a heavy suitcase and was moving slowly- there was no way she could have gotten inside with all her things in the space of one second. We scanned the street to see if she had simply walked away but she had vanished. I got out of the car and looked around- no one. The lights in the duplex were dark. She had simply disappeared. We sat in silence driving home. Who was she? And where had she gone? We would never know.

The following day was busy: I was shooting a job with actors, crew, clients. All through that day I worried about this woman- hoped for her. Then around three o’clock, with no warning, I got a text from the home. My father was dying. I left set quickly and when I arrived the staff explained his rapid decline had started the night before, right after we had visited. He was breathing but unresponsive. My father’s crossing was well underway.

I quickly realized who that spirit was we had helped the night before- and where that spirit had gone.

I miss him every day.