A man is pushing an overly laden shopping cart along the sidewalk. He pushes with one hand while steadying his tall load with the other. In the cold, evening dusk, he is nearly invisible. He slowly wends his way along the roadway, mere feet from the traffic that rushes past him, oblivious to his existence.

Intrigued, I pull into a nearby parking lot. I know he can’t get on the bus with that load. Sure enough, he passes the bus stop. Then he turns into the parking lot, carefully rolls past the stores and turns at the back corner of one of them. With headlights off, I pull forward to watch him from a distance. He continues past the dumpster shed behind the store, then disappears into a dark, fenced-in corner. I suddenly realize he is “home.”

I drive home, troubled, aware the evening temperature is already in freezing digits. Preparing dinner is shadowed by the thought of him. Eating dinner seems somehow wrong. I tell my husband about him as we sit there in our warm house.

As I clear up dinner, I pull out a disposable pie tin and spoon all the leftovers into it. I bag up some rolls and cake pieces, then fill another bag with snack things, plastic utensils, and bottled waters. It’s a relief to do something about my awareness of him.

My husband goes with me to that cold, dark spot behind the dumpster shed, away from the glare and noise of Main Street. As we pull up, a small, feisty dog darts out from behind the shed, straining on his leash to bark at us. Behind him stands the filled shopping cart.

Not sure what I’m doing, I call out, “Hello? I’ve brought you some dinner!” A man scrambles up from his cardboard bed on the ground against the back wall of the shed. He is lanky, dressed in an old coat and a hat pulled down over his head. “Be quiet, Butch!” he scolds the dog. He turns to us. I hand him the warm, covered pie plate and the bag of food. He stares at it, then us, and says simply, “Thank you.”

We talk. His name is Danny. He’s a Vietnam War vet. He’s been waiting for a check from the Vet Administration so he can fly to Florida, he tells us. So he and Butch are living on the street because this is what he has. He seems content with his plan. Who am I to mess with it, I think. Except to bring him a warm dinner.

He thanks us twice for that. Despite the freezing temperature, he assures us he is just fine, warm enough, doing OK.

Maybe he is, but I am not. He hasn’t left my thoughts since we left him. Two evenings later I fill another pie plate and we return to the spot. It is strangely empty. I guiltily wonder if Danny changed addresses because we discovered him. I hope he really has moved on to a warmer place, especially when snow falls later that evening.

I still think about him, still harbor so many questions. Why is this war veteran living on the street? Does he want to be there? Where is his family? How does he stay warm enough? How does he feed himself and a dog? Why is he pushing all his worldly goods in a shopping cart? Why doesn’t my city have a place where homeless people can get out of the cold and find some help? What should we do when we find a homeless person? Why don’t we treat our veterans better than this?

So many questions. At this moment I don’t know the answers to any of them. An online search says 37,000 Dannys live on America’s streets. Perhaps if enough of them cross through enough of our lives, we will collectively become more compelled to figure out what to do for them.

We cannot treat our veteran brothers this way.

D. Louise Brown lives in Layton. She writes a biweekly column for the Standard-Examiner.