Homeless neighbor raises many perplexing questions

There's Bart, meandering down the sidewalks of my neighborhood. He's in no hurry. Come to think of it, Bart never moves as if he's in a hurry. Maybe that's because he has no place to go.

Bart is my neighbor and has been since I moved into this neighborhood in 2007. We've never spoken. We never even make eye contact. Actually, I've never seen him make eye contact with anyone.

Today Bart is wearing what he always wears. Thread-worn khaki pants. Tennis shoes. A tattered shirt. He sports a beard that is a grimy caricature, like ZZ Top after several days without a bath or sight of a comb. In the winter, which is now, he walks with a blanket hooded over his head and covering his shoulders. In the summer, that same blanket shrouds him from the heat and sun, though that doesn't prevent his face from being burned, peeling, red.

Bart circumnavigates this neighborhood like an ant following a chemical trail round and round in circles. Sometimes he loops my cul-de-sac. Other times he wanders over to the little shopping center behind the McDonald's. I see him eat there. Or, more accurately, look for things to eat out of the McDonald's trash Dumpster.

Bart is homeless. I don't even know that his name is Bart. Somewhere a while back, my kids and I started calling him Bart. It must sound like we're making fun, but I think more we thought he deserved some moniker, seeing as how he was our neighbor and all.

I've never seen Bart talk to anyone. Though, in cycles, he does sometimes stand for extended periods of time, murmuring and talking to himself. I was close enough to hear it once. Though nothing intelligible. Just a rhythmic murmuring. I think Bart does this when he is in a particular low cycle of his mental illness, the name of which I can only guess. Schizophrenia? Major clinical depression with psychotic features? Maybe the name of Bart's mental illness doesn't matter.

The only person I've ever seen speak to Bart is my children's mother. She'd come to pick up little Joseph, at the time, age 6. Joseph stepped out onto the driveway just as Bart was approaching. Mom, frightened by Bart's appearance, shouted at him to stay back. I could have told her that Bart is harmless. But I understand why a parent would be afraid.

Sometimes Bart carries a plastic grocery bag. Containing what, I don't know.

I have no idea where Bart sleeps. There is no shelter or church within walking distance of which I'm aware. And he's always around. I try to imagine him curling up in the corner of the grassed landscape there by the bank. Try to wonder when the last time was his head was on a pillow. Mostly I wonder if he experiences loneliness, or perhaps the one mercy of his mental illness is that he is no longer cognizant of such ordinary human longings.

I have no idea where Bart bathes. Which he doesn't do very often. But every now and again it appears that he has found his way to soap and water, and he is wearing cleaner looking clothes.

What I think most of all when I see him is, "What is it like to be you?" Because it strikes me as an icon of the banality of the human condition. A suffering that I simply can't imagine. The environmental struggle of it. The perpetual aloneness.

Of course, won't I be surprised if he pulls this column out of a trash can, reads it, and I find out that I don't know him at all. That he has a degree from Harvard and a Mensa IQ and simply prefers to live in ways unattached and therefore free. Reminds me of the song "Shopping Bag Ladies" by Dean Friedman:

"The shopping bag ladies, they live in the terminal waiting room/ Patiently whiling their hours away/ Desperately keeping the demons away/ Making up lies about times that were good/ Extolling the virtues of motherhood/ Worldly possessions they'll not have to lose/ Lightweight emotional refuse/ That rant and they rave, they're mad and their crazy/ But that's how they stay free."

I often wonder how and why Bart is still alive. He looks terrible, physically.

I often wonder how Bart will die, and if anyone will be there when he does. Or if anyone who knows him will be notified.

I don't think so.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.