Leftover

Every week, I volunteered at the soup kitchen. The best thing about this was telling people I volunteered at the soup kitchen. It could have been in any conversation, maybe at work or maybe at the bar, when I’d tell everyone in earshot about the constant contributions I made to society.

But this story isn’t about the soup kitchen, and this story isn’t about me (actually it kind of is, but not entirely). This story is about David, a college student I met there. David was promising, intelligent, and...for reasons I will soon discuss...the reason I no longer volunteer at the soup kitchen.

Glide Memorial is located on Ellis street, within walking distance of Powell Station and surprisingly close to Ghirardelli Chocolate. You can actually see the neighborhood get poorer as you walk towards it, starting with the hotel where rich people stay and ending with the sidewalk where homeless people sleep. Outside it smells of piss and sweat, but inside is fairly decent.

We had all sorts of volunteers, mostly high school students filling in their mandatory hours, but occasionally we’d get a college student like Michelle. She had one of those last names that made it difficult to look her up on Facebook (not that I ever tried that).

I signed in at the front desk, glad to see that Michelle’s name was already down. I went through the usual motions. First was the handwash, which lasted however long it took to mentally sing “happy birthday” (I was probably one of the only people who followed this rule). Then came the gloves and hair net. Last, and this was my favorite part, I’d pick a random high school student and tell him to clear the sink for cooking. Clearly I looked older, so high school volunteers usually listened to me.

“Hey,” I said rudely, tapping the first person I could find on the shoulder, “mind washing these dishes? I need the sink clear.”

“Sure,” he said brightly. When he turned around to acknowledge me, I could see that he probably wasn’t a high school student at all. “I’m David, by the way.”

“Dan. Are you from a high school?”

“No, I’m a law student at the University of San Francisco. Why, are you?” I actually don’t know why he asked that. Obviously I wasn’t.

“I work at City Hall.”

“Doing what?”

“Data entry. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Didn’t you need the dishes cleared?”

“Nah.”

The upstairs of Glide Memorial is something of a mini-kitchen, but downstairs is where things really happen. There’s a much larger kitchen, adjacent to which is a serving queue. Past that are enough tables to serve 200 people, and they have a sign to confirm this.

The two of us started cooking. Somewhere there was a volunteer coordinator, but I didn’t bother to check.

Michelle was already here. Talking to her was my second favorite part, but that night she really hit it off with David. Oh my gosh, you go to USF, too? Wow, I’m also in the law school. Hey, we have the same professor! God, that midterm was so hard. Occasionally I’d interrupt to ask for a spatula or something, but that was pretty much it.

The interesting thing about staying in a large city is that you can do the same thing for years, but change will still happen around you. San Francisco was growing a lot. I don’t know if the change was good, and I’m not someone who likes to discuss my opinions at length.

Every time I returned to the soup kitchen to volunteer, the two of them would be talking. I would eavesdrop. David seemed to show no interest in her, romantically, and maybe it was his lack of interest that made them connect so well.

Seeing David every time was a change in routine...at first. But then it became the new routine, and time went on as it always had. Days were long. Weeks were short. Alongside Glide Memorial and Netflix and all the other random things I did on the Internet, work continued on. Everyone at the office was always really bored, but our boss understood where we were coming from. She let us listen to music as we worked and pretty much take breaks whenever we wanted. In fact, if I remember correctly, the job description originally said “Note: This job is really, really boring.”

Eventually there was a change, and maybe I should have seen it coming.

I don’t want to disappoint you by saying that something big happened between David and me. To be frank, almost nothing happened at all. It’s the fact that something almost happened that made me decide to avoid David altogether from that day on.

We agreed to go drinking after our shift one night, something that already struck me as different. I didn’t even know if he was of legal drinking age, but I honestly didn’t care if he wasn’t.

He said he was short on cash, so we just bought some IPA at Walgreens and drunk at the park. It was that tiny little park, the one across the street from City Hall where we held a rally so many years ago. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself in high school climbing to the roof of a nearby storage container with my friends. I remember wondering where all of them were now.

He didn’t say a word the whole time we sat there. It was the first time we really hung out at all.

“Where’s your car?” he finally asked, when we were done.

“I don’t drive.”

“Why not? Do you not have a license?”

“I do, I just don’t really like being behind the wheel.”

“My car’s nearby. I can drive you home.”

It didn’t sound like a bad idea at the time. David had had two, maybe three beers at the most. I was the one was actually kind of drunk, and riding in a car sounded a lot better than riding Muni.

It was night, and it was getting kind of late.

When you drive someone, there’s a universal rule that you’re supposed to play upbeat, mainstream music. Ideally you should have these songs on a playlist, but if you must use the radio then it has to be an upbeat, mainstream channel that preferably can be categorized as “easy listening.”

David did the opposite. He must have had a CD called “disturbing music,” because that’s all I heard. First it was “Climbing up the Walls,” the least upbeat Radiohead song I knew.

We were slowly edging out of downtown and making our way to the freeway. His speed increased considerably when he merged onto it; he was one of those drivers. I enjoyed looking out the window because Muni was underground. You pass all sorts of houses when you put enough distance from downtown, and they’re not nice. This is the part of San Francisco you’ll never see on a poster, or a Woody Allen movie, or the website background on one of those emerging tech companies.

He played “Goodbye,” by Apparat. Hearing the song for the first time was...an experience. I never figured out if it was about depression, rape, or both, but the tune was chilling enough for either subject.
He was going about 90. He still hadn’t spoken for the entire ride, which seemed out of character for him.

“If you were to die right now,” he said, as if that were a normal way to break the ice, “how would you feel about your life?”

“What?”

We seemed to slide the slightest bit toward the lane of oncoming traffic, but I thought I was only imagining it.

“Have you seen ‘Fight Club’?”

“No.”

Okay, so maybe he was just making a reference. I didn’t want to think about this. There were some things on my mind, probably small, but I wanted to go home and think about them.

Not a minute later, he pulled the stunt again. This time, it was clear that he was edging toward the wrong lane. But just as quickly he brought the car back, swerving, and the combined movement was so fast I didn’t even have time to shout.

“What are you doing?” I tried to sound angry, but didn’t. It’s like I was dreaming.

“Do you want to die, Dan? Every time we talk, you tell me that you want to die.”

Did I? Maybe I had mentioned things like this before, but I was only joking.

“I joke around a lot. I don’t want to die.”

“You constantly tell me that life is meaningless.” Hm...he had a point there. I definitely said that to him on occasion, and we had been talking for months.

“I didn’t mean that I wanted to die, and I was kidding!” I really was. My way of joking was by saying things that were bleak, constantly. He’s the one who took me too seriously.

“No no no,” he said, and the car was picking up speed, “you’re right. You understand. There’s no reason to live. Everyone is going to die. Why not get on with it?”

My head was still throbbing, and the car’s speed didn’t help a bit. I tried to think of something intelligent to say but my head still hurt. “No one wants to die. Really.” I emphasized that last word, like I was pleading.

“Everyone wants to die,” he said. “They just haven’t realized it yet.”

“I don’t want to die,” I said.

“Yes you do. I can tell.”

“What about the person you hit? What if they don’t want to die?”

“We’ll hit a truck. They’ll be fine.”

This time I grabbed the wheel, and I held it steady. He didn’t provide much resistance. He probably wanted the car crash to involve only a few people.

*
I didn’t really know that much about this guy. I guess I sort of made up a person, called him David, and then didn’t give it another thought.

My adult community service club held weekly meetings, and all of our officers spoke very highly of David. Here he was, this ambitious, bright new member who seemed like he could really bridge the gap between our older members and our younger ones. We started to talk a little bit about his background, but at that point he was just another person. He was a person, but he was still just another person.

*
“David,” I said, still guiding the wheels, “what is it you think you’re doing?”

“Oh my God,” he said. The car began to slow, but not so much that it was dangerous.

“Exit here and let me off as soon as you can,” I said. I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s like he was in a trance for a few minutes and was just now snapping out of it.

“Okay,” he said.

He offered to finish taking me home, but I said I would call an Uber. He seemed to understand. He reacted the way a driver might react if I just realized his car was unsafe, or he wasn’t actually licensed. He also looked scared, and even after all this time I can’t make sense of what happened. Is he like two people? Was he possessed by one thought in one instance?

“Dan?” he asked me, uncertainly.

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

“I won’t.” And I didn’t.

*
There’s this really shitty coffee shop about two blocks from City Hall. The coffee isn’t great and I don’t trust the neighborhood, but the owner is nice and there’s rarely many other people there. So I can think.

I would use their wi-fi and for a long time, I would just check in on David. I didn’t follow or friend him on anything, at any point, but I still felt like I knew him from this. I could trace his steps.

And he seemed fine. I can’t think of any other way to put it.

I started volunteering at the SF Marin Food Bank, instead of the soup kitchen. It’s the same idea, only the coordinators are way nicer and you don’t have many interactions with people.

I received no indication that anything with David was wrong, and three years passed. He’s still fine.

So I just went back to my life, and he went back to his, and that was that.