Proof That You Exist

I worked crisis in Sagebrush City, a desert city in the Southwest. Half the job was proving to the county that our clients existed.

The names have been changed, and so have a lot of the details, to protect everyone, including me.

At the county benefits office, you brought a birth certificate, a Social Security card, proof of residence, proof of income, proof of no income, and proof the proof hadn't expired. The worker would look at the stack and say you were missing verification.

Of what?

"It doesn't say."

The benefits office ran on a rule nobody ever wrote down: if you ask for enough documents, some people will disappear. We tried not to let ours disappear.

We also went to the wrong funeral. Five of us showed up for our client Calvin, and a woman with a box of programs saw us and said, "Oh, thank God. We're short chairs in the family room." So we carried chairs. Jerry hauled a coffee urn. Tallulah found the kitchen and came back eating chicken.

Then somebody read the program. The dead man was Walter Henderson, a deacon with thirty-one years at the county sanitation department. Calvin was in the other chapel.

For months afterward, Cajun Jerry kept Walter's program in his truck.

"You never met him alive," I said.

"Don't mean he wasn't good."

Proof That You Exist is one of ten Sagebrush City books. Read them in any order.

Ebook (epub), delivered right after purchase.

Included free: Jukebox, a short bonus Sagebrush City book.