I’d sat on a bench outside the gas station watching him for a while. He’d been given a lift into Romayor in the back of a pick-up truck. Dishevelled. Unkempt. Struggled to clamber out. I could have helped but didn’t. Certain that if I had, it’d be hard pressed to shake him off. Choosing instead to continue munching my cold cut sandwich I’d just got from the deli inside. Silently observing.
There’d been a chill wind leaving Coldspring that morning. Soon retrieving my jacket from the pannier. The only glimmer of light in an otherwise forgettable night’s stop a brief foray into a local dollar budget shop. Deborah. An illuminating presence. Intelligent. She’d worked in a school, but, she explained, her former mother-in-law also taught there. It hadn’t sounded very convivial.
The dishevelled man drifted around the forecourt. Approaching drivers as they pulled up in search of another lift. Eventually sitting on the rough gravel besides a parked car. I didn’t think the two occupants knew him. After a while they agreed to take him, allowing him to sit alone in the back whilst they both wandered inside. Brave or stupid I wasn’t quite sure.
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