Another boring morning.

Guy comes in wearing a winter hat that I put in the dumpster behind our building two months ago. He has no jacket, just layers of sweaters, and his pregnant looking stomach protrudes from the bottom of the pile. It’s 8:35am, I’ve just put on the coffee and he’s signaling me from the lobby, beckoning me into the fluorescent hell of the foyer.

Guy is just barely intelligible. He has some moderate mental retardation and has abused alcohol maybe thirty years. He’s walked around town talking to himself ever since I was a little kid. There is no one who doesn’t know of him. He’s been in his Section 8 apartment for decades, paying the rent (hopefully) with his disability check after the first of the month. He usually doesn’t come in for help until near the end of the month, after he’s spent all of his fixed income.

So I meet him in the lobby, and he looks at me with fixed concentration, and asks if we have any of the “Katahs”. I have no idea what he’s asking for. And I say so. “Kay as me come hey, oo know, ose katahs wif chee,” is what he answers.

I’ve been here since July and damn if my skills of deciphering haven’t improved. He’s asking for the sandwich crackers, the ones with cheese in the middle. Also he wants soup and he makes sure to point out, “no musroo, I cain stan musroo,” and he makes a funny scrunched up face while he’s saying it, as if even saying the word mushroom causes him to feel nauseated.

So I open the double doors to the food pantry, and for some reason look back at him before I step through the barrier. He’s looking me up, and then down, he smiles and says, “dan gir, oo look goo.” I shudder, and try to pretend that I didn’t hear him. Try to maintain the line that separates us; me the caseworker, him the client.

But damn if the line isn’t grey sometimes.