Bend In The Road (Fiction)

The bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you refuse to take the turn. ~~ Unknown

Maybe it was the alcohol.

Truth is, I haven't had a drink in the past year or two so what I'm saying is the lack of it is maybe making me see things?  Well, it's possible.  Most people who pass think I live on the street because I'm a hopeless drunk.  Well, I'm not a drunk and I'm not hopeless.  If I was hopeless I think I would have killed myself a long time ago. 

No one can live without hope.

During the day I'm usually positioned at the southbound on-ramp of the 95.  Cops come by every day or so to roust me but it's a game between us.  We know each other by first name now and once in a while they'll even offer me a cigarette or some loose change themselves.  They're not supposed to but, hey!  Even a cop can have a heart.

So this one day I'm on my feet for almost ten hours going back and forth with my hand out.  I don't use a sign because no one believes what you write anyway.  They all think you're going to take their dollar and go buy a beer. Well, standing out in this heat all day a beer does sound pretty good.  Ninety degrees this morning climbing to 118 by 5 pm.  But I've been saving to get off these streets.  Believe it!

Well, you could see the heat rising up from the sidewalk in shimmering waves of light when I stopped by the church that afternoon to get some dinner.  It's usually about a half hour walk from there home and I knew it was going to be unbearable but I had nowhere else to go after eating.  They don't let you loiter around much.  In the public shelters you've got to sleep with one eye open and your shoes on.  Some of the guys there are so good they could steal your shorts off you while you sleep.  So I found myself this deserted Airstream  out in the desert that I use for shelter.  It's not much but it's home.  There's no lock on the door but the frame is so warped it doesn't open anyway.  I've got to climb in from a rusted hole in the belly.  There's spiders and flies but I've never yet been visited by a scorpion or desert rat.  No bed of any kind but the floor is solid except for that one entry hole.

With the heat slowing me down, the sun had set by the time I got there.  I was tired, dirty, and smelling like a dead skunk on the side of a country road.  I climbed up into the Airstream where the heat was like a separate presence.  I had to strip down to my shorts the moment I got in and yet the sweat was still just poring off me.  I rolled my shirt and pants up into a pillow and propped myself up against the back wall to enjoy my last smoke of the day. I was getting drowsy, feeling like a stuffed pig  roasting in an oven.  I can't tell you how long it was before she appeared.  And I can't tell you much about her because she radiated some kind of aura, so bright that if you looked directly at her she was indistinct.  You had to catch sight of her out of the corner of your eye.  What's more, she seemed to float just above the floor, maybe 5 inches up.  I started to ask who she was, what she wanted, but, before I could say "'you may be an undigested bit of beef", she was gone. 

I scrambled over and poked my head out the floor to see where she might have gone and gouged a hole in my scalp against the ragged aluminum skin.  Blood flowed into my eyes.  The ground swiveled and swirled up to greet me as I fell like Alice through the looking glass. 

I don't know how long I was out.  They say it was heat exhaustion and that I'm lucky to be alive. That the fire started when I fell asleep with the lighted cigarette in my hand.  Everything I own is gone.  Which wasn't much.  My clothes.  What little amount of cash I had.  My home.  

But  I'm still here.

And as long as I'm alive I have hope.