Inaction

My friend and her dog and Elmer and I cruised a Coos Bay beach on a breezy afternoon as high tide approached. We had the dogs leased and headed toward the Empire Boat parking lot and a return to home.

As we passed a huge driftlog, a bearded young man riding a bicycle through dune grass appeared, going in the opposite direction. Toward where?

It was an extremely dubious place to ride a bicycle. In fact, absurd.

I saw the man’s face briefly—hard, a bit shifty in my mind, but we made eye contact and nodded.

It was then I noticed a white tent tucked back in the willows. It must have been the man’s. The tent was not pitched there the previous morning.

We hurried on our way because the rising tide threatened to block our path around some slick and sharp rocks.

Elmer and I waited for the right moment, then maneuvered over the rocks. Standing some 30 yards behind me was my friend and her dog, waiting to follow us.

We made it halfway over the rocks when I turned around and beheld 15 yards away, not my friend, but a homeless woman in her 20s wearing a grimy sun dress, over-sized men’s work boots (no socks), and a blanket draped over shoulders like a shawl. She was taking the same path over the rocks as Elmer and I had just traversed.

Elmer and I stopped on a flat rock. The woman came closer, right at us. I saw her face: utterly vacant and pulverized by bruises, dead eyes. She had short curly hair. She took no notice us. I nudged Elmer aside to give her a wide berth. I said hello and tried to make contact but there was nothing to make contact with.

She stepped up to a serrated rock roughly four feet high. There was no way she could make it. A wave rolled in. She’s going to fall and split her head wide open on this rock. I ran through several first-aid procedures should the fall happen. The first order of activity would be to release Elmer off the leash so I could render assistance. I wasn’t worried about him bolting. He’d stick around.

The woman stepped down from the serrated rock and somehow managed to find footing on another jagged rock.

She now stood five feet away from me. I thought about offering my hand, but I didn’t.

The woman abruptly turned landward and walked into a small dune that led to a tunnel through a thicket of blackberries. She disappeared from sight. It felt like a magic trick, but not at all magical.

Elmer and I found firm footing on the the sand. My friend and her dog traversed the rocks. I told her about the woman. She had seen it unfold, but hadn’t seen the woman’s face.

We got the dogs into my car and began driving out of the parking lot. Within seconds we were discussing the woman, wondering if we should call 9-1-1, although neither one of us had our phones on us, and then the woman appeared, walking in the middle of the uphill road leading out of the parking lot. How she got there from the blackberry thicket was impossible to imagine.

I slowed my car until she veered off the road and onto a sidewalk. It was then we saw the young bearded man paralleling her course a block away on his bicycle, watching her the whole way. It all smacked of pimp and prostitute.

In the short drive home my friend and I discussed the woman with urgency, pitched different scenarios, possible courses of action or inaction, and possible consequences of those actions or inactions.

Had this occurred in Portland I could have called a Street Response Team and it might have responded, conducted an immediate assessment, and provided a specialized treatment, including calling the police.

There is no such triage service in Coos Bay and most likely never will be, although it would seem to be a great idea. I see the need for it every morning on my walk to the bay with Elmer.

My friend made bloody marys and we drank them on the patio as we continued to discuss the woman.

In the end, we did nothing. I told my friend if I saw the woman the next day in a similar state of extreme distress I would call the police using a non-emergency number (even though such a sighting would have constituted an obvious emergency) and make a report.

The next morning, my friend left for Portland early and a few hours later I was driving to the beach and saw the woman, wearing different clothes (no blanket), walking down the sidewalk. Her face registered an expression slightly above vacant, so there was something good in that, I think.

I didn’t call anyone on her behalf.