…a retelling of an actual event…
The green barn coat I’m wearing I’ve had through three or four moves; far longer than anything else in the closet. I’ve swaddled infant grandkids now enrolled in college in the old thing and comforted a dying black kitty in it for his last trip to the vet. I seem to recall purchasing it at an outdoor goods store adjacent to the Arcata town square. Last time I checked, the store was no longer there.
I bought the coat because Dad had a barn coat: a big blue denim garment that hung on him like a blanket. He wore his while doing chores out in the orchard in the winter: hacking suckers off almond trees or knocking down the winter grass with a disk pulled by an old Ford tractor. Never laundered, it carried the odor of everything he’d ever done in it – sweat, dust, Zerk grease from lubing the tractor, rancid pipe tobacco smoke. The aromatic essence of Dad.
My now-forty-year-old coat has a bit less history. I used to wear it while raking leaves in our suburban back yard, until I got too hot and steamy inside the thing. I’d drape it over a rhody or a rose bush and often forget it was there. Eventually we moved to a place with fewer leaves. I remember taking it camping – back when I was still comfortable sleeping on the ground – and let sweet and pungent campfire smoke wash over it. Haven’t felt like sleeping on the ground since I can’t remember when. Generally, it now simply hangs on a hook in the mud room to be worn only when there’s the rare outdoor winter chore and the weather’s really dank.
Made of heavy cotton canvas and lined with some sort of wool or flannel, the thread and woven practices that were employed when it was manufactured have been replaced by all manner of lighter more insularly efficient fabrics with labels from The North Face, Hi-Tek or Gerry. I was wearing one of those recycled soda pop bottle sweaters one night when, while sitting next to the fire, a log popped and a spark landed on my belly. Within seconds, the pleasant aroma of the Cohiba Robusto I’d been enjoying was overwhelmed by the chemical-rich odor of a refinery fire on my lap. I dropped the new age wrap on the ground, stomped out the ember and went inside the house to retrieve the barn coat.
Today was one of those last-minute-before-Christmas days when I needed to make the rounds downtown to pick up stocking stuffers that would garner a laugh and then end up in the kitchen junk drawer for eternity. I parked a block or two away from the main drag and, as I exited the car, snapped the top snap of the barn coat and pulled my felt hat down tight against my forehead. Passing through the town plaza – a meager space this time of year when the holiday lights are doused and the area is cloaked in a gray fog – one of the denizens there greeted me: “Merry Christmas, man.”
Our homeless population is fairly small and quite benign, yet on many days, I’ll simply nod – maybe not even that – rather than further engage but, on this day, I responded, “And to yours.”
“Yep. Ever since the rent went up.”
I couldn’t help but stop.
“Damned rent went up and up, and with the drought and the pandemic, my lawn care business – cuttin’ grass, fixin’ sprinklers, takin’ out dandelions – sorta crapped out. Had me sixteen, sometimes twenty regular customers ‘fore they turned the water off.” The little dog licked at his fingers. “The wife and the boy moved in with her mom down to Stockton, but I thought I should stick by my clients if I could.” He offered a wry grin. “Didn’t work out all that well, I ‘spoze.”
I thought about the money I was about to waste on triviata that would occupy the junk drawer. “Need anything?” I asked, reaching into my pocket.
“Honestly, man, nothing. Just a Merry Christmas from a passer-by.”
His request was easy to grant and – holiday spirit and all – it made me feel good.
I hadn’t walked fifteen steps when the door to an office building opened and a well-dressed man stepped out. Shined shoes. Creased pants. Silk, I’m thinking, tie. “Happy holidays,” I said with a wave and a smile.
The man quickly glanced down and grunted something as he walked past.
As it so happened, the next business up the street was the little sundry store I’d planned on visiting. It was fronted with a plate glass window. Holiday goods were displayed on the other side of the glass, but they didn’t matter. What mattered was the reflection in the window. It was of a skinny, bearded older man in faded jeans with a slouch hat pulled low across his forehead – wrapped in a weary green barn coat. All that was missing was a scrawny little mixed breed cuddling in my arms.
I turned back toward the square, but the homeless man and his dog were gone.
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Church of the Open Road Press
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