Walking a Mile

The bicycle's rickety squeak echoed through the park as Adrian wound his way around the path. He puffed a little but not a lot, being used to the exertion of riding his only mode of transportation. He lifted one hand off his handlebars to impatiently push dirty strands of straggling brown hair out of his eyes as he rode. The strands were wet with sweat.

He squeaked up to the park's rushing fountain, a depiction of two cherubs created from concrete, holding large pots from which water spewed into a large round basin at their feet, and he was off the bike before it even stopped moving. He slipped off ratty sandals, cracked dark brown leather, and stuck his feet into the basin. He sighed and shivered a little when the ice cold water touched his skin and clacked his teeth together. He bent, not much caring that his filthy jeans, soft from so much use, were trailing in the water. Adrian cupped his hands, calloused and almost as filthy as his pants, and splashed an equally dirty, hair-covered face with the welcoming coolness. He sighed with pleasure and sat for a moment on the edge of the basin.

A small boy stood cautiously to the side of Adrian, looking with uncertainty at him. Adrian was used to such scrutiny so it didn't much affect him. He tried to smile at the boy, put him at ease, but the child gasped a little and moved further away. Adrian mentally shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the water, cupping his hands again and splashing his face again. The boy still stared from a safer distance at Adrian's unusual features. His hair was in dreadlocks, brown and dirty and actually falling out of the ties, and it hung to his waist in an untidy mass. On the top of his head sat a blue and red knit cap, perched at a jaunty angle, but the cap was as filthy as the rest of him.

When he was done with the water, Adrian stepped out of the fountain and returned to his bicycle. He picked it up from where it had fallen to the ground and swung a leg over, then he rode away, back to the bike path and out of the park. He felt refreshed which was all he had really wanted. He rode up Cabana boulevard and over to Monterrey, where he spotted the public library, a domain of great joy to him. He pulled up, slanted his the bicycle against the brick of the building, and climbed cement steps to the front door. With a whoosh, he was gifted with the scent of printed paper and cool air, and he couldn't help smiling. Libraries did that to him. He walked into the calm atmosphere his sandaled feet making no sound on dark blue carpeting, and turned right, where seventeen steps stood vigil between the first floor and the second. He loved the second floor because that was where the biographies were kept, and he loved perusing through biographies. It made him not so lonely, not feel so isolated when he read about the problems having families and people in your life engender. He knew the problems well, but he still couldn't help thinking, once in a while, that perhaps he was missing out on something by keeping himself distanced from the rest of humanity. He knew differently deep into his brain, but the heart sometimes misspoke.

He climbed those seventeen steps and stopped at the top, breathing in the book scent he loved so much, then he walked over to the biographies, chose the "Frank Sinatra" one today, and began to read. Before he knew it, so deep was he into the womanizing and philandering of old Frank, the lights of the place flickered in warning that closing was imminent. He startled and looked up. Sure enough, the outside world had fallen dark while he'd been entranced into the world of ol' Blue Eyes. He squinted his own hazel ones, rubbed them red with his grimy fists, and moved slowly from the biographies to the bathrooms. He made use of the facilities, washed himself a little in the sink, took a long, gulping drink from the water fountain, and was outside riding his bike through the dark night. He stopped momentarily to paw through some day-old fruit the produce manager of the local grocery store threw out, and munching a pretty respectable apple, he rode up to another brick building, this one awash in light and bathed in a cacophony of noise that wafted outside. Once again he parked the old, rusted bike, took a wrinkled bag full of bruised apples and pears from the basket in front, and walked into the facility.

Noise deafened him when he moved inside, so much that he put his hands over ears pretty much covered by the dreadlocks. A man sitting at a scarred wooden desk to the left of him looked up and waved him over. "Adrian," he said as he looked down at a clip board. "Did you find a job today." It was obvious from the inflection of his voice that he wasn't expecting an affirmative answer.

"Not today," Adrian responded.

The man looked up, his tired eyes boring into Adrian's wrinkled, watery ones. "Did you try, buddy? You know you only have four more days, here without a job."

Adrian nodded. "I know." He pulled a pretty respectable pear out of the bag and held it out. "Want one?"

The man smiled, his face crinkling with kind lines. "No thanks, buddy. Keep it for yourself. We have some leftover sandwiches over there if you want some. Twenty minutes to 'lights out.'"

"I know." Adrian nodded his head and shuffled in his sandels over to where the sandwiches were displayed on a large brown tray. The man at the desk watched him go and shook his head, wondering for the umpteenth time about Adrian's story. He was still youngish, in his thirties, and able-bodied, but for some reason the man just would not get to work. He gazed at Adrian intently for a few minutes, watched him grab a sandwich and tuck into it with a sort of mechanic need to give himself nutrients. The man could never remember seeing Adrian actually enjoy himself, and that was disturbing. After another minute of pondering, the man shook his head again and returned to his clipboard. He'd learned long ago not to presume about a person's story. You just couldn't know unless you'd walked a mile in his...sandals.