Dumpster Dan

Dumpster Dan

They found him slumped on the park bench and eventually pronounced him dead. It was no big deal that he died, but his dying so publicly caused a lot of discomfort for the many who had dismissed this poor man over the years.

He wasn’t supposed to do that. How dare he die right there on the bench where this homeless, retched man used to sleep. Right there where everyone could see him. It was bad enough we had to watch the homeless man wander through the streets, digging in dumpsters, but to die that like?

He was a nobody, a nothing — he was a part of the town, a part of society no one was supposed to notice. But dead on a park bench, right in the middle of town? It’s kind of hard not to take notice of that.

His name was Timothy R. Dufresne. I learned this from the obituary they reluctantly published in the local paper and announced on our local two-bit radio station that no one listens to. The radio station stays afloat only because local businesses have in on their places of business ostensively for background music, but really to make sure the advertisements they’re paying for are being broadcast.

It said that Timothy’s only relative was a sister Marjorie Kline, who was married but then divorced and who had no children. I wonder if she cared about Timothy now that he was dead? I ask this because she didn’t care about him when he was alive.

Many people seem to care more about people when they die than they ever do when they’re alive.

Timothy was the town’s disgrace. In big cities, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of homeless men and women, scrounging out an existence day after day. But in a small town like mine, there are no homeless people anymore. Timothy’s dead. He passed on a park bench, slumped over dead as a doornail for all to see. At least until they finally hauled him away to the morgue.

He often slept on the very bench where he died. I used to ignore him when I walked by. The dirty degenerate needed to pick himself up and get a job. He was a disgrace to the town. Kids used to provoke him and chide him and make fun of him and force him to leave the bench. They chased him away to who knows where.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Now that he’s dead, people don’t talk so disparagingly of him. Funny, they treated him so badly when he was alive, but now that he’s dead, they speak better of him. You can include me in that bunch.

I used to call him Dumpster Dan. Not knowing his real name – and not wanting to – Dumpster Dan seemed like a good fit for such a dirty, lazy, homeless man that sat for hours on a bench uptown doing nothing worthwhile. At least nothing worthwhile that I could see.

Being a somewhat prominent businessman in our little town, and knowing a lot of people, my calling Timothy “Dumpster Dan” caught on with a lot of other people, and thus Timothy R. Dufresne, became forever known as Dumpster Dan, at least until he died and his short and sad obituary was published.

Owning a business near the town center gave me a good vantage point to watch the goings-on in the town square. The bench where Timothy spent most of his days, was right across the street from my shop. He never changed clothes – one could only imagine what he smelled like. His baggy brown trousers, his yellow shirt, and his tattered gray and black winter coat were all filthy and stained. And his shoes were too big and the sole was coming loose from the left one.

He always carried a plastic shopping bag that looked almost full. What was in it, I have no idea. But occasionally I’d see him looking in dumpsters and fishing things out. What those things were, I don’t know, my view was partially blocked. I know he used to eat out of the dumpster behind Linda’s Diner because Linda told me she would catch him digging through the dumpster by her diner and she’d chase him away. She said she’d sometimes catch him eating out of the dumpster. How revolting.

So, in my typical sardonic way, all his dumpster diving led me – and hence most of the town – to refer to Timothy as “Dumpster Dan”. Some even called him that to his face.

For years, Timothy, homeless, friendless, and alone, spent his days walking aimlessly around the town – digging through dumpsters, sitting on that park bench, sometimes napping, always doing nothing, and always going nowhere.

A bum without a home. Luckily for him, our town has no law against vagrancy. It has never needed one until Timothy wandered into our town almost ten years ago.

It was, I guess, fitting that he died in front of us all – right there on that park bench, slumped over just as he sometimes did when napped. As he napped and did nothing, the rest of us were busy making something of ourselves. With the gears of us working folks spinning and buzzing around him, he dared to slump off this mortal coil into eternity – unhonored, unrespected and scorned.

They buried him in a city plot with a simple marker on his grave… paid for, reluctantly, by the taxpayers of our town.

How long he had been dead before anyone noticed, I don’t know. I was too busy that day. It was a good day for business and making money. And my business always comes first. 

Then one day, not too long after Timothy died, I learned that he had been a very wealthy man, with a heart bigger than his many bank accounts.

He gave money to the sick and the poor and the hungry and the needy. He founded a successful non-profit that helped tens of thousands of people in need.  We all learned from a local pastor that Timothy’s sister, who worked for Timothy’s humanitarian non-profit, had embezzled and swindled Timothy and his non-profit organization out of millions of dollars.

Timothy was arrested for fraud and theft by deception. He went to prison for five years – and never once told the truth about his sister – he took the blame, the embarrassment, and the scorn and never uttered a word against his sister or in his own defense. 

“and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth…”

His sister never told the truth either, that is until yesterday. Pastor Rubin Jenkins from the First Presbyterian Chuch, located and then paid a visit to Majorie Cline.

She was living only 25 miles from here – just a half an hour’s drive. And all this time while her brother was digging through dumpsters, eating scraps, wandering around town aimlessly, and sleeping — and dying – on a park bench, Marjorie was living the high life funded by the money she stole from Timothy and his non-profit — and from the tens of thousands of sick, hungry, desperate people he never got to help. 

I don’t know what Pastor Jenkins said to her, but whatever it was, it brought a confession from her lips and thus the posthumous exoneration of her brother.

And so a man whose wealth helped thousands, that he gave so unselfishly and graciously, and who had his money, his charity organization, and reputation stolen from him by his only living relative, a man who suffered silently, and never uttered an unkind word about anyone, was finally exonerated.  The man who never pointed the finger at his sister, even when he was being hauled off to prison, who we all disdainfully called “Dumpster Dan”, and who died silently and publicly – but alone – slumped on a park bench without a single tear being shed for him, was much more than we ever knew, or gave him credit for. This poor, unfortunate soul certainly deserved better than the appellation, Dumpster Dan,  and better than the cruel, thoughtless treatment he received from the people of our town.

I, for one, am ashamed. I never bothered to know this man. I judged him on the way he looked. And now I realize there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, who are alive today because of this poor man who I called Dumpster Dan. 

Timothy, may you rest in peace.

I’m so sorry.