His name was William Simmons, but no one he knew really cared about that.
Social workers asked him for his name when they gave him a meal, or if he checked in for a cot on a particularly cold night, but they wrote it down without paying much attention. He could have said “Adolf Hitler” or “Kim Kardashian” and they probably would have dutifully made the notation without so much as looking up. He was a number, a placeholder, so his identity was of no consequence.
On the rare occasions when they spoke to him or referred to him by name, they called him Willie. It was as if they felt William carried a dignity he did not deserve, and they neither knew nor cared that he had never been called Willie in his entire life.
He didn’t think of them as bad people; on the contrary, he recognized that they were performing selfless and much-needed work. But they were so consumed with the task of helping people that they didn’t have time to really see the people they were helping.
William had been on the streets for almost sixteen months, but he probably didn’t really know, at least not exactly. One day just went into the next, and into the next. He measured time in seasons, and he measured seasons by the weather. And he never looked back; that was much too painful.
The vast majority of the people on the street hated winter the most, but not William. He couldn’t stand summer; in his mind that was the worst. He could guard against the cold by covering up with cloth and paper, or by getting into unlocked hallways in some buildings. When it got really bad he could go to a shelter; all he had to do was give them his name. Or any name.
But when it was hot, and the streets of Hackensack, New Jersey, could get really hot, there was no escape. The shelters weren’t air-conditioned and thus provided no relief at all. So he spent the summers anxiously waiting for the fall, for football weather, which unfortunately reminded him of his high school playing days.
Complicating every day of William’s life was the fact that his eyesight was maybe 20 percent of normal. He had suffered from macular degeneration for almost fifteen years, and was no longer able to get treatment of any kind for it.
This particular November night the temperature was in the mid-forties, no problem at all for William. He was lying in the alley behind the Italian restaurant, where it was quiet and he could snack on the discarded food. They threw everything away in containers and plastic bags, so it was clean and safe to eat.
At night, William liked to be off the beaten path like this, where it was peaceful and pedestrians wouldn’t be coming by making noise. In the morning, he’d be out front, trying to get money from the people heading to work.
He sometimes thought about one day getting enough money to get a place to live, but he was fooling himself, and down deep he was smart enough to know it. He also thought about getting a job, but he didn’t think he could face the real world again. And besides, listing your address as “behind the Italian restaurant” was unlikely to motivate potential employers.
But the night was for resting and sleeping, and that was what William was doing when the man came by. He woke William up; not with his foot, like most people would, but by leaning over and shaking his shoulder. Not aggressive at all, almost like they were on a train and he was telling his fellow passenger that they had reached their stop.
“Wake up, fella. Come on.”
It took William a little while to get his bearings and focus on what was happening. He looked up, but in the darkness, and with his very limited eyesight, he couldn’t tell what the man looked like. He also couldn’t tell how big he was; from his prone position everyone would look big. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I got some stuff for you,” the man said. “Drugs. Whatever you need. Free.”
In his groggy state, it didn’t make sense to William. It wouldn’t even have made sense if he was clearheaded and totally awake; people didn’t come along and offer him free drugs.
“I don’t do no drugs,” William said, because it was true. He never had and never would. By then he was thinking that maybe the man was a dealer looking to get him hooked so he would have to pay for the stuff down the road. Which was ridiculous on its face; how could a man sleeping in an alley be considered a future source of profit?
“Come on, of course you do,” the man said.
“Leave me alone, will ya? I don’t do drugs. Let me sleep.”
“Sure. My mistake. No problem,” the man said, smiling at his good fortune. “Go back to sleep.”
William laid his head back down on the little towel he used as a makeshift pillow. The man suddenly and swiftly pulled the towel away and brought his foot down on William’s head. The entire two hundred and ten pounds of the man’s weight came down, crushing William’s head into the pavement.
The man reached down and expertly felt William’s neck, searching for a pulse. He found a weak one; William was still alive. Rather than finish the job, the man calmly walked away. William’s injury would no doubt be fatal, and the man knew he would die later, at the hospital.
With his gloved hand, he took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. It was a phone he had purchased for cash that day, the kind there is no contract for.
He told the 911 operator about having discovered a body behind the restaurant, and when asked, said that he had no idea if the man was alive, but at the very least he was hurt badly.
The man promised to wait there until the police arrived. Then he hung up and just walked away into the night, dropping the phone in a trash can. He wiped it clean, even though he was wearing gloves and could not have left any fingerprints. He was very careful about things like that.
Behind him he could hear the sirens, and he allowed himself another smile.
Copyright © 2018 by Tara Productions, Inc.
