The Saddest Man in the World, Part I

 

Graham Hoerner looked at sadness as a competition, an investment, a badge of pride, and a vindication for all his worrying ways. For example, on Father’s Day while driving to his in-laws with his wife and sixteen-month twin girls, he saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart across the street and said to his wife, “I wonder if the poor man was once a viable member of the community, a businessman, a lawyer, or a doctor. I wonder if he has children anywhere and if they are thinking about him today. I wonder why God allows such unfathomable suffering."

Graham’s wife Lara said to him, “Did you remember to bring the brownies?”

Graham said, “We should give our brownies to this poor homeless man.”

 “Are you joking?” Lara said. “I’m in charge of dessert. Are you trying to get me killed?”

 “Brownies might be the only token of love and affection this forsaken man has felt in months, years, perhaps decades.”

 "Perhaps centuries," Lara said. She then turned around and foraged under blankets and gift boxes in the back seat and to her dismay said the brownies weren’t there.

 “You forgot them, Graham. Now what are we going to do?”

 “We’re going to stop the car and take this homeless man to your mother’s.”

 “We’re not taking him anywhere.”

 “The limits of human kindness and compassion cut me with such deep sorrow, it's a miracle I can get out of bed every morning.”

 “Nothing like the sorrow I’m going to feel because YOU forgot to bring the brownies.”

 “I hope your mother lets me sleep in the guestroom. I’ve been overcome with overwhelming melancholy. A nap might prove useful.”

 “What am I going to tell my parents? You’ve been overcome with melancholy? Sheesh!”

 Graham thought to himself, “I am the saddest man in the world, and no one understands how hard it is for me. This is my fate, my yoke I must wear around my neck forever and ever.” 

 

Comments

[Taylor Lyen]

Great dialogue. Flows well, interesting. Raises questions about what happens next.

As a beginning fiction writer, I have not achieved your level of the art. Appreciate the view.

Thanks

cypherbuzz.blogspot.com

[TomWc]

You're channeling Toole, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Jeffrey McMahon]

Tom, funny after I wrote that I did indeed think of Ignatius J. Reilly.

[tomWc]

The overwhelming melancholy and your concern for those poor repressed people is certain to clog your pyloric valve.

[Jeffrey McMahon]

Ignatius is responsible for helping me create an esoteric vocabulary. I read Dunces in 1983. One of those novels that sticks with you.

[Michael Brent]

When I was a little boy in the early 50's my mother would drive my sister and I from the San Fernando Valley down into Los Angeles to go shopping at the May Company Dep store.
Back then you had to drive thru some nasty parts of LA to get there.
We would see the bums wandering the streets and when I or my sister would comment my mother would always say: "Be kind, that was somebodies baby once"
Ive never forgotten that but now that I live in the progressive paradise known as the San Francisco bay area where the "homeless" thrive like exotic house plants, its hard to remember that the legions of drug and alcohol crazed bums that wander the streets begging, crapping in doorways and scaring the tourists were ever somebodies babies.
Just sayin

[herculodge]

I have a friend from Poland who has worked in advertising in San Francisco for the last 15 years. He is very conservative, perhaps a reaction to the failed socialism in his home country, and he despises the very place he now lives, complaining about the homeless as you have. But he keeps his opinions to himself for fear of alienating co-workers. As a result, he gets ulcers.

[Michael Brent]

I am a retired headhunter.
I have no co-workers.

[Keith Beesley]

Homelessness is a complex problem. Many of the "homeless" you see on the street are mentally ill individuals who for one reason or another are unable to get the care they need, so they self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol. The reason we see so many more of them now than in previous decades is because of a movement, starting in the 1960s, to "de-institutionalize" them, or reintroduce them into the community instead of shutting them away for life in hospitals. This movement, while well-meant, has resulted in many individuals being dumped on the street with no treatment or supervision.

[Michael Brent]

Interesting you should mention your friend from Poland.
As I said I am a retired headhunter. From 1978 to 2002 I recruited or "head-hunted" hundreds of engineers for clients in the Silicon Valley. Most if not all in the computer business.
Many of these were Russians who were here on an H1B visas. I always asked them how they liked America and what they thought of the American political system.
All were conservative without exception.
All spoke of the failings of socialism in mother Russia.

[herculodge]

I heard Luke Burbank who has a radio show in Seattle say Seattle is a magnet for the homeless and the citizens are torn with ambivalence over the problem.

Russians, Cubans, and others from current or failed socialist/communist counties tend to be very conservative.

[Michael Brent]

San Fransisco now looks like a war zone downtown along Market Street.
For the most part the police try to keep the crazies out of the tourist areas like Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf cause they scare the tourists away.
Between the gangs and the bums the rest of the "City that knows how " has been taken over.
40 years of liberal rule has turned the rest of the city into an open air toilet.