The Spot

He was a friend’s namesake

and sat with his back against the wall of St. Michael’s/

St. Dimitrios Church on Jesuitenstraße –

at the same spot on the sidewalk

for the six or so years that I’d known him,

in good weather and bad.

We spoke every time I stopped

to drop a coin or two in his Starbucks coffee cup –

sometimes just a hello and a thank-you,

a you’re-welcome and a have-a-good-day/weekend.

Sometimes he’d ask about my children – All well?

Enjoying school? Looking forward to (or Enjoyed) the holidays?

He spoke to many others –

the church he had his back to reflected on the glass façade

across the yard in front of him –

blond hair, blue eyes, and gentle

like the one whose namesake he was. It’s good to give

to both charity and individuals, he’d said to me once.

The charities do a lot but sometimes we have other needs.

His need at the time was to raise enough money

for a driver’s license, so that he could look for a job –

you couldn’t get one without that, he said. No, I don’t need

any clothes, thank you! – head tilted to a side, eyes

squinting, one more tightly against the light than the other.

Why was he on the street? Long story, he said.

Someone who looked like he could be the custodian

of the once-Jesuit and now-Greek (Catholic-somewhen-

in-between) church wore black clothes and a black docker hat –

he sat close by on the steps of the church, or stood there,

watching sunlight and shadow strike endless poses in front of him,

leaning into each other like tango dancers.

I’d never seen the two men speak,

but they must have known each other well.

The seasons changed, and with them the angle of light

that filled the open yard, which filled with and emptied of

school children every weekday –

the daily ebb and flow of life my friend’s namesake witnessed

from his more-or-less fixed point of view.

His hair grew long and thin, his face wrinkled and shrank.

He looked like he’d given up on the driver’s license.

Often, walking past him, I’d catch a whiff of weed in the air.

One day, he wasn’t in his place on the sidewalk

and approached me from another side of the street –

could I spare something? I couldn’t – I didn’t have my wallet

on me; no change in my pocket, either.

He’d never asked for money before and never since,

always letting his paper cup do the job for him. That I couldn’t

offer anything that day hadn’t changed the way he smiled.

Then Covid came.

Familiar faces disappeared behind the strangeness of masks

if they didn’t disappear altogether.

Gesund bleiben, he said to me often. You, too, I’d tell him.

He sat there wearing a surgical mask,

maintaining his distance.

The pandemic was nearing its end – there was hope

of life soon returning to normal. In that climate of relief

it occurred to me one day

that the spot on the sidewalk had been empty for weeks.

Then I found someone else sitting there. Dropping a coin

in his cup, I asked if he knew the one who sat there before.

He’s dead, the man said.

I didn’t ask his name.

I saw him several times. We exchanged greetings.

Take good care of yourself, I’d tell him. Yes, of course, he’d say.

You too! After some time, he didn’t sit there anymore.

I never saw him again.

And I never found out what had happened to him.

Since then I’ve seen at least two men occupying that place –

I haven’t asked either of them any question.

I don’t know if the man in the black docker hat

really was the church custodian – I haven’t seen him in months,

although on good days, sunlight and shadow still dance

their slow noontime tango at the same spot.