Caught Off Base

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.