Other Things Worthy of Your Time
Life in a Cardboard Box
10/1/03
Wayne tried to sleep but couldn’t help wondering when the roof would fall. The fact it was pouring and the roof was cardboard didn’t ease his mind any.
He watched the damp swelling sag closer and closer to his face. It probably wouldn’t matter when it finally broke. Everything below his waist was soaked already.
The walls of his, far from precious, humble abode shuttered in the wake of a gust of wind as it ripped through the alley where he tried his best to find comfort. He thought about cussing, but had given up a long time ago, more than he had the effort to realize.
“So what’s your story?” said a voice from across the pavement, perhaps enjoying a box of his own.
Wayne squinted through the darkness, and through the rain now dripping in and filling his eyes. He wiped his vision clean then saw at least the silhouette of his new acquaintance.
“Let me guess,” the voice offered, “you’re a rehab wash out who scrapes by in life by spending what little he can scrape up to feed his urges.”
Again, Wayne didn’t answer, but thought to himself.
Wayne Lyon had never really been addicted to anything. Not drugs, or drink, or gambling. He’d done them all of course, as you’d expect of anyone out in a cardboard box, under the rain, sleeping in the streets, but he’d never actually found pleasure in them, because he’d never actually found pleasure in anything. While he’d never been addicted to drugs or booze, he had never been caught up in joy, or pleasure, or even love for that matter either. Some people say drowning themselves in false highs and intoxication makes them feel truly alive. Wayne had never felt alive at all.
“Oh no, how about this,” the man tried instead, breaking up Lyon’s train of thought. “You’re a genius software developer, defrauded and thrown out into the rain no less, so that someone we’re graced to see in the news, can wrap himself up in what should have been someone else’s success. That’s it, isn’t it?” He spoke with bitter sarcasm, not because he believed the story true for anyone in that particular alley, but because he knew better for the man he was speaking to.
“No, that’s not it,” Wayne answered, equally sarcastic, but not nearly bitter.
The man looked down at him as rain dribbled down the back of his own head. He stepped off the wall towards Lyon to look up into the sky as a bolt of lightning lit it up, then readjusted himself back on his own position. “Then what is it? Everyone has a story, even if it’s a dirty bum sleeping in the streets—often times especially the dirty ones. What’s yours?”
“I don’t have a story,” Lyon replied bluntly.
How true.
It wasn’t like this was always the life he’d led. He hadn’t even been out here for all that long—a few weeks maybe. He didn’t care for the city. The places there where he could be alone weren’t all that hospitable. Wayne had spent the last year or so, wandering the countryside, as anyone wanders in a practically new sports car, filling necessity from café to country store along the way. Every once in awhile he’d finally find that place where people either didn’t care enough to notice him or cared too much for themselves to realize he was around anyway. Those were the nice places, the places he had what he needed and could still be alone with his contentment. He wanted nothing more from life than what he needed, and sometimes even that was too much.
He was a rich kid, coasting through country roads on weekdays in his high-end BMW. Someone once told him it was a bitch car. The person would have gladly been a bitch if they had one of their own. Here and there he’d try to humble himself by acting like he couldn’t pay for a meal at some crowded bar. The owners would just look at the ride they figured he’d stolen as he washed dishes in the back. He thought it was good to humble himself now and then, to feel like one of the little people. He wished he could be one of the little people, figuring it would be easier to disappear.
You’d think that maybe he was a boy who had a rough childhood, and his daddy was too busy building onto the wealth he had enough of to throw around. It wasn’t like that. Wayne’s father had always been around when he was a kid and did all the things a father was supposed to, and did them pretty well. Daddy had always given little Wayne Lyon everything he ever needed. Daddy was dead now, but his son couldn’t have known or cared if he did. It had happened while he was gone, and he’d been gone too long.
Somewhere along the line a few weeks ago, Lyon had found his way back to the city he’d lived around most of his life. He took what money he had on him and left his wallet and the car running by a park where he used to play ball. It must not have made sense to anyone who saw him leave and never come back. To whoever was driving the car now, it didn’t need to. Wayne thought he might just finally disappear for good.
“I always think about how long we’ll have out here, especially on cold, drizzly nights like this.”
Wayne sat up and shook off what was left of his shelter, listening to the man now.
“I don’t even know how some people make it through the winters. They’re a ton times worse than this. Hell, even I could call this a pretty good night up against some of the ones I’ve seen.”
Wayne looked at him, asking a question with his eyes, because he wasn’t going to waste any breath in asking it out loud.
“No, I’ve never had to freeze my ass off out here come Christmas time. I always seem to find myself warm that time of year.” He spoke softly and quite happily, so that he might not have been talking about ending up in some hospital somewhere, or maybe because he’d made himself believe that wasn’t what he was eluding to.
Wayne figured it had to be the latter. There was no such thing as good luck to people out here.
“From the way you can still seem to keep your mouth shut when there’s a perfectly good soul to talk to, you must not have had to bare too many long winters yourself,” the man said, glaring at Wayne from across the way.
Wayne cleaned the back of his teeth with his tongue. “Nope,” he answered, swallowing it down.
“You know, I really didn’t think there could be anyone like you, someone so selfish.”
The thought caught Wayne’s attention, but he wasn’t obvious about it. He sniffed through his nose once, thinking about the things he used to have. “I don’t think I’m selfish,” he said.
“Oh no, you’ve never tried to be selfish a day in your life. You’ve never taken anything, or embraced anything, so that it was good enough for you, and so good enough for other people. You might be the most selfish man I’ve ever known.”
“What?”
“I don’t usually have a lot of high points in my daily routine, but when I’m walking along the street, and someone crosses my path and actually looks me in the eyes and gives me a genuine smile, that really makes my day. What do you think? It’s not like anyone’s buying me a meal, or giving the poor, homeless guy the keys to his car.” The man paused for effect. “But maybe making my stroll down the street a little bit better makes their life a little bit better, and so everyone’s happy then, right?”
“Sure,” Wayne replied. He was sitting in a puddle in the pouring rain.
“You’re never happy though, are you Wayne?” Thunder crackled in the background when he said his name, so corny, but still seemingly dramatic.
The sound had boomed in unison with another loud rumble above the head of Lyon. Part of a rusty stairway leading to an abandoned apartment had broken down from the rain and was falling apart above him. The man across the alley looked up and watched a smaller piece break off and sail down towards Wayne silently, only clanging when it bounced off the ground next to him. Before Wayne could look up or realize what was happening, a large section of the scaffolding broke off and whaled through the air down on top of his legs.
It was the first thing he’d felt in a long time. Wayne clinched his teeth in pain and groaned, grabbing his battered ankles. A good part of the staircase had fallen off and pinned him against the brick wall he’d used as a lean-to. He leaned back, trying to suppress another wave of agony as it traveled up the nerves in his spine. He looked straight up, as the rain fell straight down, and the lightning flashed to go along with the thunder’s bellowing. While a good part of the scaffolding and stairway had fallen down and made Wayne’s night so much nicer, the majority of the tattered steel was still hanging off a single bolt on the wall up above, dangling just overtop his head, groaning in pain itself.
Wayne had forgotten about his companion in the dark, as his current situation had cleared his mind for the most part. The man would garner his attention.
“You ever wonder why there are such things as self-made men? Why there are people that start off with nothing and make their way up the ladder with just plain hard work and pure determination? There are people that maybe weren’t born a beauty queen, or popped out ready to run a mile and fail to break a sweat, but were given very little, not only in material things, but in looks, and brains, and maybe even heart, who took what they have, and milked it for all its worth. You can still fill half a brain with thoughts, and no one’s ever failed to find a passion in their life at least half-heartedly. You know what they say about a love lost. Well then isn’t loving something just a little better than never having loved it at all?
“Then there are people like you, that might as well die here in the rain because it really won’t have mattered come tomorrow. Someone will come along and search your remains, making their day on the nest egg you keep on your person, and that’s how you’d probably have it. You’re not selfish. You’ll let a person here and there have a few minutes to look down on you while the guy in the sports car washes their dishes, and that’s nice. And you’ll leave your car and your credit cards free for the taking, picked up by a retired little league coach by the way, who just happened to spend the next few weeks trying to find the little boy whose name he remembered on the license from a long time ago, so he could make his own day, by making yours, and that’s pretty nice too.
“You’re breathing my air Wayne, and, frankly, you’re wasting it. Everything you’ve ever cared about in your life should be flashing before your eyes right about now, but you’re drawing a blank, aren’t you? You’ve never cared about anything. You’ve never lived your life.”
It was true that when Wayne figured his life should be flashing before his eyes, he wasn’t getting anything. Only one thing popped into his head when he thought of everything he ever cared about.
There was once a girl—there’s always a girl. It was long enough ago that the memory wasn’t fresh, but important enough that he’d always remember. He grew up with the girl, friends in grade school, holding hands behind the junior high, and sneaking off in high school to make out in whatever room they could find at the time. It wasn’t just Wayne in this case, but both of them had always taken it for granted, and when it was time to go their separate ways to college, they barely even exchanged lukewarm goodbyes, maybe because they’d eventually find each other again…and again, and again. He could be in one corner of the world, not caring in the least. She could be on the other, the feeling mutual, and they’d always seem to pick up the phone to the other’s voice, and it would never be that far off when they’d put a face to go with it, eventually running off to find someplace like old times.
He could be in the country, trying to escape from the world, she could be in the city, letting it pass her by. He could even be out in the rain, sleeping in a cardboard box, and she could still be living in the same place he’d seen her last, but feeling just as incomplete.
Wayne wouldn’t even be able to tell he was crying himself, the rain was coming down so hard. When you’re sleeping in an alley, how is anyone supposed to reach you? Wayne had let go of the only thing he ever cared about, and what might be the only thing he ever would.
Through whatever pain the weight of the scaffolding put Wayne through, the look on his face was finally coming from something genuine, and the man across the path was smiling.
“She’s out there, alone like you, and as long as you don’t come home, she always will be. How selfish are you Wayne?”
Somehow a man that had given up on his life found the will to go on, and the strength. He wanted to live, not only past that point, but finally, for the first time in his life, for the rest of his life.
Wayne gripped at the bars that mangled around his legs and squeezed his limbs slowly free, lifting the weight as much as he could off of them. Above him, the stairway had stopped dangling and was taking aim at the most direct route to its resting place. The bolt held fast but the mortar and brick in the wall gave way and the whole thing came crashing down just as Wayne stumbled out of the way and into the rain soaked streets. He stood up and limped around, testing his ankles. They felt pretty bruised up but weren’t hard to walk on, and felt still in one piece. He looked through the shadows of the alley at the wreckage meant for him. Underneath the metal bars lay what was left of his box, soaked and pressed tight on the ground.
The streets were empty, free of people, cars, or any other tools of their day, washed away to someplace away from the storm. Unlike the cluttered alleyway, this was unfamiliarly pure, and being further cleansed by the raindrops escaping from the clouds themselves. This place felt safe; it felt like sanctuary, because it was something free, something that was new. Lyon didn’t notice that about the surroundings though, but just about the way he felt, which was the same.
The thunder sobbed one last time and Wayne sighed, falling down into a heap, sitting on the street corner, remembering the man in the alley. He looked up the path expecting him to be gone. Wayne figured the man would have probably tried to avoid the crash himself, or maybe he really believed he’d just disappear. It would have been the fitting thing to do for someone like that. He hadn’t gone anywhere, but was standing on the street corner in front of Wayne. He stood there in the light that shone around the corner, hands in his pockets, just smiling now, maybe waiting for his next lecture to a wandering soul.
* * *
Wayne ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his chin on the back of his hand. He walked up onto the step and took a deep breath, skipping the bell and simply knocking in the way he always did.
He figured out why she would be the only girl he’d ever love in his life, and what was worth living for, when she opened the door. She stood straight and silent, realizing who it was that had finally come back, and realizing what it really meant. Looking at her there with tears in her eyes, Wayne thought of the man from the alley, standing in the streetlight, and how he could have gone away in the commotion, but he, like the girl Wayne would spend the rest of his life with, just stood there, an angel that stuck around.
NOTES
I like this actually.