Portrait of a Man

Eric Corey

He left without saying goodbye.

The whole situation was odd, but that point was especially odd. Nineteen years of his life went by and he never passed up an opportunity to acknowledge, to comfort. For him to leave without any notification to his family was the strangest part of it all. His mother called the police after twenty hours, because she knew that if he hadn’t been home and he hadn’t called something was wrong. It hurt him to leave everyone at home wondering, but he knew it was for the best. He knew that this endeavor was the one thing (if there ever was one thing) that he must do alone, so at midnight on March 26th he silently packed a bag and left.

He travelled light. He carried one backpack, filled only with prescription refills and a single change of clothes. He thought of bringing a notepad, but decided against it because writing wasn’t important to him anymore. Whatever money he had, he took, and walked a mile to the bus stop near the convenient store. He thought of buying a pack of cigarettes, but again he denied himself this simple pleasure; smoking wasn’t important to him anymore either. Shivering in the cold, but failing to notice the snow swirling around him, he was content to simply watch his breath dissipate in the unseasonable cold.

After an hour and a half, he found himself in Chicago at union station. It was a beautiful building, and he had been there many times before, but never stopped to really see it until now; there were bums under the advertisements. He looked at the bums with pity as he always did, but he couldn’t spare any change. He wasn’t the type to walk past the homeless, avoiding eye contact and quickening his pace, so he stopped. He stopped whenever he encountered them, explaining that he had no money and apologizing to each and every one. He scanned the departures and found a train that cost very little and went south, so he bought his ticket and hopped on.

When he arrived in Normal, Illinois, his phone began to ring. He couldn’t hear it, because it was in his desk at home, but his boss was calling impatiently. He never arrived late if he could help it. Although he likes his work as much as he loves his family, he had to leave it, too. He walked to a small corner café in the college town for some breakfast. Black coffee and toast. As he got up to leave, he tossed a tip on the table and turned to see an old friend of his from high school.

“Hey!” they called, but he turned and rushed out the door. He walk-jogged to the end of the street and turned left to the highway. After he made it about two hundred yards, he slowed back down to his normal walking pace. Walking down the turnpike, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.

He had been on the road for one month. He made it as far as Kentucky before he ran out of money. Using his quarters to wash his clothes and take his showers was no longer important to him; he had been in the same clothes for seven days. He still had his prescriptions refills in his bag, but he realized he was running low. After some time, he decided that he had to go to a drug store; he was not sure the next time he’d be near one. He walked up to the counter and the woman there retracted, composed herself, and asked if she could help him.

“I need these” he rasped. He realized how long it had been since he spoke. “I need these,” he continued,

“but I have no money.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t help you.” She said. She was absolute.

He pulled the refills from the counter and nodded as he made his way to the exit. As he passed the front of the store, a disposable phone disappeared into his pocket.

He slept by the dumpster behind the drugstore that night. The phone didn’t work; it had to be activated by the casher. He threw it in the dumpster next to his temporary bed and caught a few hours of sleep. When he awoke, like he awoke many previous mornings, the sun hadn’t yet come up and he felt the stiffness of a much older man throughout his body. He thought of crying for a bit, but did not, and continued on his march.

A woman tried to give him a dollar as he slept one afternoon. He woke up and found the dollar in his hand.

He crumpled it up and tossed it into the street. He clenched his fists and ran to the next highway, running slower than he did before he left home.

When he made it to Atlanta in June, he tried to find a job that paid under the table. No one allowed him through the door, and no one afforded him the opportunity to ask. After the third moving company forcibly removed him, he grabbed a rock from the street and hurled it through the window. The movers chased him and when they found him they beat him to the ground. He laid there until he found sleep.

When he awoke the next day his stomach hurt him so badly he threw up. It had been far too long since he had any medicine, and he was starting to feel the effect. He was weaker than he normally was. He needed money and food and medical attention, so he pinned a young woman to the wall of an alley and stole her purse. He threw up again, and it had nothing to do with food.

He gave himself medicine and ate a decent meal for the first time in weeks. He didn’t have to look through the trash to find it. He took the rest of the money from the purse and left the bag in the trash; when he turned to walk away he saw and old man panhandling. He walked past him while looking on the ground.

Outside of Jackson he found some work on a farm, but he had to sleep outside and was only paid five dollars an hour. The third night he was there, he broke into the house at night and stole a jar of peanut butter. That sustained him as he meandered north to Tennessee.

He was in Bristol, and months had passed since he’d been home. He walked into a bar and they didn’t ID him. He sat next to an old man and ordered a beer. He hasn’t had one since he left. He drank it quickly and asked for another. He finished his second, threw some panhandled money on the bar and left. When outside, three kids jumped him for fun.

It was time to go home

When he arrived back in Illinois, he took some of the money he found to a pharmacy. He bought razors, shampoo, soap, and a new set of clothes. In a truck stop he entered a bathroom and saw his reflection. He had a beard, his hazel eyes looked grey. He was covered from head to toe with grime and soot and all the filth of the eastern United States of America. He was the perfect portrait of a man, and he thought about crying. He went to the showers and shaved his face; he wiped the dirt from his body and put on clean clothes before walking to the nearest train station. It was august 1st.

He arrived home in the evening, and his family didn’t recognize him.