He was just a tramp and had no desire to get involved with the authorities.
The problem was he was sleeping rough in the same backstreet community when a fellow vagrant had passed away overnight. The police were there, making their enquiries about the dead man and had been told by others that he would have to be his closest friend. He wouldn’t have said close. The man that was being zipped up in a body bag had been rotten to the core. He’d been forever stealing from the rest of them. The police were keen to get a name for the deceased, but nobody knew what it was. When questioned, he had told them that he was just another homeless guy, like the rest of them, names weren’t important to them. They seemed satisfied with that, but insisted on him going with them.
Later, he found himself at the crematorium, sitting in the waiting room. It was a strange place for him to be in. He was nervous and feeling sorry for himself. After a while, a man came out from the office carrying something. He approached and handed over a small cardboard box containing the dead man’s possessions, stating that as he was the closest friend or relation that the deceased had, he should have these.
He opened the lid and rummaged through. It didn’t contain much. He found a handkerchief, a packet of cigarette papers, an empty tobacco pouch, a broken comb, two bus tickets, a pencil stub, and to his astonishment, he found a crumpled ten dollar bill balled up in a tissue. He hadn’t seen one of those in a very long time. He closed the lid and left.
Out in the street, he dropped the box into the first street side rubbish bin he passed, but slipped the ten dollar bill into his pocket.
Walking on, he began to whistle.