There was a hobo in my city who used to live at the train station. She was evicted, though, so she moved across the street to the public bike path. Like most people living on the street, she was afflicted with addiction, no doubt caused by mental illness. I don’t know her actual diagnosis, but it seemed like she was schizophrenic. She would wander around, yelling into the ether.

Someone once posted to the Nextdoor app that she yelled at him. I explained that whatever she was yelling had nothing to do with him and not to take it personally. That was partially true. She was fucked in the head and the yelling really had nothing to do with, nor was it directed at, anyone. If you listened carefully to what she was saying, however, you could sometimes tell that she was yelling about you.

When she wasn’t yelling at the people in her head, though, she was quite polite. The only time I ever engaged with her was when she asked me for a light while I was waiting for a train one time a few years ago. I didn’t have one. I felt a little bad, so I thought about buying a lighter or a box of matches and giving it to her the next time I saw her, but that didn’t seem like the best idea. As soon as she walked away, she started yelling like someone had flipped a switch.

I always felt bad riding past her. There were times when her mouth turned down like a baby about to burst into tears. I’ve never seen someone look so sad. It was heartbreaking. She obviously needed help, but what could I do? People would leave her food and blankets and things a person living on the street might need, but none of that was going to fix her. It might have made her a little more comfortable, but it wasn’t the help she needed. She needed the sort of professional help that is only available to people with the means to pay for it in this country.

So, I rode by. Day after day. I watched her yelling at unseen demons; I watched her smoking drugs out of little glass vials. I watched her picking up stones like she was looking for the perfect one, I watched her passed out on the hot asphalt. The last time I saw her, she was sitting under an oak tree on the bike path on a blind corner. I nearly hit her. She was wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled up tight around her face. Four days later, she was hit by a train and killed.

This little candle is the full extent of her memorial. She used to sit on that little ledge. I saw it as I rode by this afternoon, and thought that I should get a picture of it, but decided to get the shot on my way back. On my way back, I didn’t feel like stopping and losing my momentum, so I snapped the picture as I rode by.

As I looked at the picture to see how it came out, I was disappointed and thought about going back to get a better one. I quickly realized, though, that it was perfect. This shitty picture accurately captures our whole relationship (I use the term relationship in the loosest of contexts) I ride by, barely bothered to even notice her because there is nothing I can do for her.

I hope, in my lifetime, America will get its head out of its ass and realize that the whole idea of every-man-for-himself doesn’t work. We live in a society, despite what Mrs. Thatcher told you, and incumbent in that is a duty to help those who can’t or won’t help themselves. We have the resources, we just need to rediscover our humanity.