the rix mix

SC man died hungry, solo in tent, baffling friends

ANDERSON, S.C. — Friends of a 39-year-old South Carolina man are trying to figure out why he never reached out for help before dying broke and alone in a zipped-up tent on the banks of a lake.

Bright but reclusive Civil War buff David Condon lost his job at a local museum and fell behind on his rent.

Sometime in early July he disappeared. On Labor Day weekend, a group of college kids vacationing at a condo complex a few hundred yards from his tent peeked inside and found his body. The local coroner says he died of pneumonia, made worse by malnutrition. He was dehydrated and had lost 50 pounds in a few months.

His best friend, Craig Drennon, saw no sign Condon was having money problems or spiraling into despair when the two got together nearly every week to drink beers and play backgammon.

The people calling themselves Condon's "friends," he probably - & more accurately - considered "acquaintances." His disappearance alarmed no one enough to go looking for him. They ought to ask themselves exactly what they could have & would have done for the man. Passed the hat? Treated him to lunch at Burger King? Stored his possessions for him when he was evicted? Suggested he work part-time at Walmart so he could make his car payments & sleep in the backseat? Urged him to seek more help from government & nonprofit agencies? Condon knew he was up shit creek without a paddle, putting up a false front for as long as he could, then withdrawing into his humiliation & sparing others his personal misery. They ought to thank him for not interrupting their backgammon to beg for spare change.

What happened to Condon is about as authentically American an ending in 2009 as one can have, dying homeless, hungry, & mentally & physically wasted at the edge of a wealthy society that extolls self-reliance over all other personal qualities, advertises "a dollar & a dream," begrudges providing basic health care to all its citizens & won't even crack down on a financial industry that rewards failure with multi-million dollar bonuses.

I wouldn't be surprised if Condon had a useless Blackberry with no wireless service & a dead battery in his pocket.