Lives
Book One
The Homeless
Man
Do not look at me. Just keep going.
For when you do, I see more of you than you see of me. I am dressed in my
greasy rags; I smell of old dirt, but you do not see me. I see the people
walking past me as I huddle in another doorway or sit on another bench. Some
look at me, but most try to avoid meeting my eyes. It is if they can pretend
away my existence with their non-glances. Men with worried looks, wearing suits
of grey and brown and black rush on, day by day, week by week, year by year. I
can see in those worried eyes, those redundant eyes that drop or stare away at
some imaginary thing far into the distance as they lengthen their polyester
stride, that they see only a worthless wretch.
A wretch so far below them in the ivory towers of their minds that I am
less than nothing¾I am
invisible.
Women too pass me. I see just before
they get close, close enough to touch, a shift of recognition. They almost-stop,
as people do when they see a snake in their yard on a summer afternoon, or a
spider idling on a lawn chair. They shift over, not even knowing they did it
and they too pass. They see only a worthless thing, not a man, but a thing that
is to be avoided. Their slender knuckles turn white as they clutch their purses
tight, for they know in their primal selves that I may be just desperate enough
to fly up and rip that purse from them.
As I walk along the street, I notice
the cold pavement through the hole in the leather soles of the shoes I wear.
They have been good shoes. They came from the same thrift shop as my filthy
coat and everything else I pack around on this worn frame. I am a failure in
this world of things. I feel nothing¾pride has long since left me as if it was a dream or a
thought. It was something that died in me. It had to die. Maybe the world
killed it, or maybe I killed it before it killed me. I cast it out as I ate
stale bread and slick lunch meat from a dumpster in an alley…
No comments:
Post a Comment