The homeless man had draped himself across a shaded park bench before falling into a seemingly imperturbable stupor. His meagre possessions, stuffed in plastic carrier bags emblazoned with the logos of a consumer society from which he was excluded, were carefully arranged around his prostrate form like the makeshift crenellations of some nomadic gnome's foul-smelling fortress. God knows what these bags contained: a few itchy blankets perhaps; scavenged spare clothing; that day's harvest of bottles and cans; maybe even one or two relics of his former life. Nothing anyone else would ever care about. But what interested me was the silver and pink plastic bag nestling between the Nordstrom Rack and Target bags. It was from Anastasia's Armoire.
Anastasia's Armoire is what my friend Jane calls her 'alternative atelier,' where she sells bespoke gothic frocks and corsets to customers desirous of impersonating Dracula's Daughter. At least, that's the vision the Anastasia Armoire brand evokes in my mind. Jane would no doubt prefer a less campy point of reference for her creations, but I call them as I see them, despite the reproachful punches on the arm I get. Neither of us would expect, however, to see a Anastasia's Armoire boutique shopping bag recycled as an itinerant's traveling pack; a disintegrating carry-all for the collected works of a disintegrating life.
Sure, it's really just a plastic shopping bag, but it's silver and pink and (considering Anastasia's Armoire's infrequent commissions) exceedingly rare. The sort of boutique shopping bag customers keep in their closets because it's too nice to throw away. It was definitely incongruous amongst the typical workaday shopping bags of box stores and retail chains, like a fairytale palace in the middle of a slum or a princess trapped in an ogre's dungeon. I even contemplated rescuing the poor thing from the greasy clutches of its abductor, surely a fate worse than death for any aristocrat, even one with reinforced handles and a flashy printed logo. I'd be doing Jane a favor if I did. She certainly wouldn't want her 'alternative atelier' known as the official bag supplier to the city's bums and bag ladies.
But in the end of course I left the homeless man in possession of his prize. Carting around his few treasures in an Anastasia's Armoire boutique shopping bag was the closest he came to being someone who can afford a fantasy life, never mind just a plain old normal life. Whatever notions of upward mobility he once entertained became the downward spiraling anxiety of daily survival on the streets. So what was the homeless man dreaming of now while slept, I wondered, for he seemed happy enough in his slumbers. And I thought of Shakespeare's Caliban who upon waking cried to dream again. Dream on, then, homeless man on your bench, dream of pursuing Dracula's daughter through the Mall of America in search of her shopping bag-shaped coffin.
