Adjacent to room #231 is not 229 or 233 but #208, hand-written or more precisely, hand-scribbled on the door.

From what I recall from life, a hallway with common sense would have room numbers sequenced in ascending or descending order in increments of 1 or odd numbers on one side, and even numbers on the other. I check the neighboring door. #225. At least the 100th digit indicates that our feet are on the second floor, and as for the other digits, they are consistent on being inconsistent. This resembles too much the intro from Haruki Murakami’s book “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” and the disagreeable building indeed feels much like the end of the world. We look at each other, and knock on the door. “We have some food for you”. Embarrassment takes over each time, as the voice echoes that of an owner, hollering at a dog. Come here, time to eat. Whenever I say it is time. 

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” says the world’s bestseller. 

Most residents open the door with a smile to chat, some will open to shut immediately saying they don’t want anything, to not disturb since they are watching a football game, and some don’t open. 

“They’re the lucky ones,” says Al, one of the volunteers and an ex-wall street military guy, “lived on the streets of Tenderloin, then won the lottery to move into this building”.

Whatever you do, don’t set foot in Tenderloin, is what the locals would warn and the smell concretely reflected this sentiment. Drug abuse, homelessness, mental illness, all densely packed in one neighborhood and you can tell from one sniff. The disturbing scent is not only hanging out in the streets, but also imported and packed straight into the low-income housing building. That’s where we are standing. As two other volunteers offer their open arms to hug the residents, I clutch onto the cardboard box stacked with food, holding my breath. The weight of 20 white styrofoam take-out boxes packed with lunch or dinner, depending on when we got there, is far more pleasant than the thought of having my skin encounter that of the residents. I’m ashamed, but will not let go of the box. 

One of the apartment doors opens upstairs and a man in a hoodie walks down the stairs with a swagger. When offered food, he stares at the takeout container. “What’s inside today?” he asks. The volunteers look at each other and lift the container lids to find the answer. He snickers.

“You provide these meals every week, but when I ask what it tastes like, you don’t even know.” He laughs. “Giving out things y’all would never dare to eat!” 

The accuracy of his statement makes me immediately drop my gaze down to the floor. I make an effort not to barf, recalling the mashed potato-ish lump, and pale turkey-looking piece thrown into the styrofoam box. Three seconds should be enough for him to pass by. The footsteps then suddenly come to a halt. He stands midway through the staircase, with his foggy eyes filled with tears. “Hey Walter”, my friend grins. Walter, completely out of character from his fierce entry, cries and hugs my friend. 

“Sometimes I’m too lazy to volunteer,” my friend explains bluntly after a long embrace and a walk away from Walter,  “It’s time consuming on a Sunday every week, you know. I need time to study too.” 

“Then sometimes, I’m the only person they talk to every week. Their families have already left them and cut ties. And I see that, and I have to come over,” she says, “it just can’t be a one time thing. It’s about building relationships.”  

The rooms of the Single Room Occupancy were surprisingly decent – at least three times more spacious than where I lived in Manhattan, with a kitchen space inside. Some stay behind the walls, not to be seen. Some stay behind the walls, wanting to be seen but not sure how. I overlay an image of my mother. I see her smiling once a week through our video calls and my father whom I see once a year and recall his existence when his birthday hits around August. Your neighbors, walking with their life, whom you could easily throw a smile. If you are lucky, you hear a knock on your door. Who’s behind the doors? Who’s knocking? Are we reaching out? 

Walter is outside of his building. “Thanks for visiting”, he says. He jumps to the sidewalk and waves with a big smile to a passing pedestrian, who in return, crosses the street in a rush. When asked what he’s doing, he answers “I’m saying hi to the people who walk by!” A group of family passes by, their eyes shift away, suddenly interested in the construction ahead, as if they didn’t or didn’t want to hear the greetings from Walter. He is still grinning. 

“We’re all people. We don’t ignore each other.” He says with his eyes glittering for a brief second, “so when I see a person on the street, I say ‘hey man!’ I kept on doing that, everyday. Then look at this! People now sponsor me.”

There is no need to inquire what sponsoring him meant. He shows a shirt he’s wearing underneath his zipped hoodie. Besides the ridiculous choice of color, in big letters is written ‘Tenderloin’ across the shirt. “I’m the Tenderloin guy”. His chest faces straight up as he continues his ‘hey man!’ activities in the neighborhood he and his shirt represent. Tenderloin guy knocking on people’s doors. 

“Hey,” his body turns and his rough hand reaches out “I didn’t get to greet you before. I was grumpy. I woke up just now y’know”, he explains. “nice to meet ya”. Pause. No more boxes separating the resident in front, as all the food has been distributed. Our hands meet. His sandpaper texture hand shakes off a piece of your pride that need not be there. One fewer layer to feel his life at hand. All it takes, it seems to say, is a “hey man” and a stylin’ shirt.