It’s one thing to see a couple of homeless people sleeping under an overpass (on some slanted concrete no less) in the city or on an obscure piece of wooded land, clotheslines, tents, makeshift tables, firepits scattered here and there. It’s another to see an individual, one person, huddled under a sleeping bag on a thin piece of plastic on another obscure piece of land that you have been gardening and tending.

“You have to move,” I say to a formless mound that wasn’t moving. “This is not going to work.”

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“I can help you,” I say, although I wasn’t really sure how.

“There are camps nearby,” I try. “But this is for gardening, not sleeping.”

“Please talk to me,” I say, pulling up a chair. “I’m going to sit here until you do. I can give you some money, give you a ride, maybe some clothes, but this isn’t going to work.”

Slowly, an arm emerged from the sleeping bag long enough to grab a package of American Spirit cigarettes and a lighter. It wasn’t who I expected. It belonged to a young woman, slender, spare, raggedy, cuticles ringed with dirt, faint scars on her forearms as if she had been cutting herself. She put the tobacco down, gave me the finger and retreated into the sleeping bag.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Talk to me. But I will call the police.”

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I didn’t want to call the police. I didn’t want a confrontation. I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted her to leave.

Finally she threw back the sleeping bag, sat up and started talking, randomly. Her eyes strayed. She wasn’t belligerent, but she wasn’t making sense, she wasn’t finishing sentences, she wasn’t answering my questions. She wasn’t scary. She referenced 9/11, boomers, her mother, her birth, climate change, Florida, Arizona, growing up psychotic, being good at math, taking meth. She wasn’t making any moves to leave. She took a slug from what looked like a quart of Vodka, though it could have been water. There was a banjo in a hard case near the sleeping bag.

“Do you play?” I asked. “The banjo?”

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“How did you get here?”

“Jumped a train,” she said. That was our first direct communication.

I dialed 311 and got put through to the police. Fifteen minutes later an officer arrived. He kept his cool. He couldn’t have handled it better. You know you’re trespassing, he said. You know you have to leave. May I see your ID? To my shock she reached into a slim wallet attached by a chain to a small loop on her pants and pulled out a driver’s license. He turned back to his car, returned with a form and asked if I wanted to press charges. No, I said. Then he read her the complaint that said she was trespassing and banned from the property.

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“Do you understand?” he said.

She did. This wasn’t her first rodeo. She started rolling up her gear and stuffing it into a bag.

“Do you want a ride anywhere?” he asked.

“Like where?” I asked. “Where would you take her?”

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Salvation Army? He ventured. He didn’t really know. He was new on the job, just a few months.

She laughed at the suggestion as if to say she didn’t trust anyone could help her, she was alone, and she would stay alone. There was a certain bravado in her attitude.

“Do you know where some of the other camps are?” I asked the officer.

He didn’t. I tried to point him to a camp I knew. Neither he nor she seemed interested.

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“Maybe you should familiarize yourself with some resources for situations like this?” I suggested, trying not to sound preachy. “Although I appreciate how you’re handling this.”

Then, turning to her, I said, “And please clean up your mess before you leave,” I said, referencing single socks, plastic water bottles, empty cans of beans, Vienna Sausage and tuna, receipts from Dollar General, Styrofoam takeout trays, plastic forks, soggy pillows, a wrinkled sheet.

“That stuff?” she snorted, insulted I would think it was hers. By then she was hitching her backpack in place, adjusting the straps and walking off. “That’s some other guy’s junk. It’s not mine. I clean up after myself.” I believed her.

I cleaned up his stuff and tossed the wheeled grocery store cart in my truck to return to Kroger and Publix. I felt sad, despairing and hopeless. We have failed this young woman.

Jane Fishman is a contributing lifestyles columnist for the Savannah Morning News. Contact Fishman at gofish5@earthlink.net or call 912-484-3045. See more columns by Jane at SavannahNow.com/lifestyle/.