Caught Off Base
By J.M. Snyder
On his way to work, Ange saw the guy with the
cardboard sign standing near the exit to the interstate. He noticed
the dark jeans hanging low, a black sweatshirt whose hood was
cinched tight around a pale face, and dark eyes that stared at the
cars whizzing by with a hopeless wish that someone would read the
sign the guy held, that someone would stop. Ange almost hit the
brakes but he didn’t have any cash on him and he was already late
for work. Let someone else play the hero today. It didn’t always
have to be him.
Eight hours later rain pounded the pavement
as Ange ran from the garage where he worked to his dry car.
Slipping behind the wheel of his old Nova, he cut on the headlights
to push back the growing night and glanced toward the interstate,
just curious. In the fading daylight he could see someone standing
by the turn-off, hunched against the weather and holding a mushy
cardboard sign no longer readable. As he lit a cigarette, drawing
hot smoke into his lungs to warm himself, he muttered beneath his
breath, “Fuck.”
He should go home, forget the guy standing
like an i***t in the wind and the rain. But the quick glance Ange
got of those dark eyes had haunted him all day, and he knew his own
heart well enough to know if he went home now, he’d be back out
again in a few hours, just cruising by, making sure the guy was all
right.
Ange didn’t know why but the kid reminded him
of someone he used to know—the white skin perhaps, such a livid
brand in a city such as this, or maybe it had been the baseball cap
the kid wore beneath the hoodie. Ange had seen the bill sticking
out when he drove past. Whatever the reason, regardless of whoever
Ange saw when he looked at the guy, he was probably cold as hell
and soaked through, and a hot meal wouldn’t hurt. Ange could eat,
himself.
The decision made, Ange peeled out of the
parking lot without bothering to wave to his friend Lamar, who
still stood under the awning of the body shop in the hopes that the
rain would let up enough to run to his own car. A pair of golden
arches blazed through the gathering darkness, the promise of hot
food just minutes away. If he’s gone by the time I get
back…
But Ange shook that thought away. The guy
would still be there. He knew it.