A vignette; in our neighborhood

I was driving home from grocery shopping yesterday when I noticed an old, decrepit car parked about a block from my house. I’ve seen the car there before, with a young man inside. He shoves rags and other pieces of junk into the windows to keep the sun out, and sits there with the car door open so he doesn’t fry in the heat. It is generally over 100ºF in Tucson in the summer, and only getting down to about 80º or so at night. It’s not a fun time to be living in your car.

It was nearly midday when when I drove by. The car was all shut up and the door was not hanging open. At first I assumed he wasn’t there. But as I drove past, I saw a figure in the driver’s seat, sitting a bit slumped, with his head hanging down and forward, like you would if you were asleep on an airplane with no one to lean against.

I assumed the worst and immediately called 911. It is too hot to survive very long in a closed car sitting in the open sunlight in the middle of the day without any shade. I spoke to the police as I drove the final block home and got my groceries out of the car. I had barely finished on the phone when my doorbell rang.

I thought it was the police with follow up questions, but then I could hear a young man talking to my Ring doorbell (which is a video recorder), about a local faith-based gym. I peaked out, and it was a couple of guys in gym-branded T-shirts with fliers, and they seemed legit.

I wanted to ask them if their gym was gay-friendly. Not that I really care, because I’m very happy with the local gym that I go to with my lesbian friend and her wife. It’s a perfectly fine gym, a few blocks from my house. I bicycle there, even in the heat.

I never thought I’d enjoy going to a gym (I do not like the noise and all the people and movement, and some of the vibes can get competitive or worse, pick-up bar-ish). But it makes a world of difference to have a calm, knowledgable, no-nonsense gym buddy to help me with the machines and free weights.

I would have been interested in asking those guys if their faith-based gym was gay-friendly because some Christian groups are, and some aren’t. And if they weren’t, I would be curious as to how they would phrase that politely. Would they say something about how God loves us all and Jesus died for our sins, and none of us are perfect here on earth (with the implication that gayness is wrong but we tolerate sin in each other because Jesus did)? Or would they say something vague and dodgy, like a gym isn’t a dating venue? Anything but a strong affirmation of gay friendliness would be suspect in my mind.

But instead of indulging my curiosity, I thought about the poor young man slumped in the car in the heat, and I asked them to go with me to make sure the homeless guy was ok. To their credit, they agreed to walk down there. As we turned the corner, we could see that the police had already arrived. Reassured, I went back inside to put away my groceries, and the faith-based gym missionaries went back to their door knocking.

Soon the police called me. Apparently the guy was claiming he lived at the house on the corner near where he parked, and the police wanted to know how much I knew about him and his situation. I was relieved to hear he was alive. I doubted he lived at the house, but I didn’t actually know for sure. I told them that I had seen him sitting in that car before, but I didn’t know any more than that. I felt bad for being the cause of his undoubtably unwelcome police encounter, but I didn’t want to do nothing if he was dying of heat stroke while tripping in his car.

When I looked out later, the door-knockers were gone, the police were gone, and the guy in the car was also gone. I hope he does ok.

A pick-up truck trolled slowly into view. It pulled a trailer heavily loaded with choice items gleaned from the piles of junk some neighbors have already started to set out for the City’s Brush and Bulky trash collection next week.

Soon the junk collector was also gone, leaving only the silent heat and the slowly building thunderclouds in the distance.

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