The Son of Every Man

Chapter 4.4

Miguel's mind raced as he stormed down the familiar streets of his neighborhood. Here, massive old oaks rubbed branches against massive old palms, as the grass grew green and lush beneath. Hundreds of townhomes just like his parents' snuggled cozily up against the sidewalks. They had rented theirs at first as a temporary measure so that the Bishop could be close to his ward. The house quickly endeared itself to them. When the owner had suddenly put it up for sale, Miguel's father made a strong offer.

For nearly four years, the most formative of Miguel's life, he had called these streets home. He was keenly aware now that each quick step forward was a step away from all of it, from his whole life as he knew it, forever. He could pass easily underground and catch a train south (straight into downtown, where he was bound), but he was frightened by how quickly it would whisk him away from this place he knew he could never return to. Walking was all he could bear.

His neighborhood abutted Koreatown. After crossing the broad avenue that was an informal border between the two, he turned back. His home—his parents—stood lightyears away already. The distance grew like a tumor inside him, alternating locations between his chest and stomach at will. It wasn't thoughts of his parents that weighed heavily on him now. It was instead the thought of returning to school, of seeing Daniel's face...knowing they would have to interact daily, must work together to end off the year properly. He shivered in the heat.

The crowded shops and restaurants of old Koreatown soon surrounded him, lining the bottom floors of a hundred steel-framed mid-rises. He pressed his way through as the crowd grew denser. The dreary stucco facade of Sung Electronics came up on his right. He actually smiled a little when he remembered. A few more steps confirmed it was still there: a small color television, jammed in the window display between two larger sets. Miguel had kept an eye on the TV for weeks. It was a simple Sony model with one speaker, framed in white plastic. The tag listed it as a kitchen unit, but he had intended to place it on a shelf above his desk, next to his bed. There was no built-in VCR, which made it more affordable. Originally he had asked for the TV as a birthday gift, but his parents said no. He then asked permission to save up for it himself, and they had reluctantly agreed.

The TV looked strange to him now, like a foreign object that had always been destined for someone else. Suddenly, he could not imagine what it would feel like to desire such a thing. And yet, all that money Miguel had saved lay in a debit account his father had helped him open a few months earlier. One hundred ten dollars. It would be best, Miguel decided, to have it as cash.

He located an ATM after walking another half an hour south. His watch read well past nine in the evening. He slipped the card inside and went to make a withdrawal. The machine displayed an error: insufficient funds. He checked the balance: zero dollars, zero cents. Miguel was alone in the narrow vestibule. He stared at the empty, pixelated digits, trying to understand, then slowly rested his forehead against the shimmering plastic face of the machine. More than a minute passed. The adjacent office had long closed for the day, but Miguel knew that no one there could have helped him anyway. The money was gone.

He continued walking. The thought grew louder now, though it had been with him all along, whispering from a far corner of his mind, ever since he had burst from the front door of his parents' house and into the heat of the night: He had nowhere to sleep.

He was not entirely cashless; thirty-five dollars nested in the folds of his brown leather wallet. It meant he would not starve—at least not right away, and luckily for Miguel, his appetite would not catch up to him for some time. He picked up his pace as Koreatown slowly faded to the northern reaches of downtown. It was the only part of his journey south that he knew to be unsafe. Better to pass through quickly before it got too late. The buildings surrounding him now were mostly clad in brick. Many were abandoned, presently under varying degrees of informal occupation. A dirty and thin woman rested against the stoop of a boarded-up shop. She wore a torn black tank-top and sat with her legs splayed open over a filthy, intricately-patterned quilt. She was injecting herself. As their eyes met, she jerked the needle from her arm and held out her hand. Miguel looked away.

By midnight Miguel reached the center of downtown Las Sombras. He stood still for a moment with his eyes closed, hoping to absorb some of the energy that supposedly emanated from the heart of the city. Beneath these busy avenues lay the web of caverns and tubes that formed Central Station. He had only visited central downtown a few times before. The buildings crowded in tightly, uniformly imposing, reaching incredible heights. He remembered coming once during the day on an errand with his mother. "The sun never shines here," she had complained. "And even worse, at night, no one ever goes to sleep." He had looked up then and witnessed a small arc of blue sky. "The sun must shine," he had reasoned. "At noon."

He was exhausted. Sleep felt like the only thing Miguel had ever truly wanted in his whole life. He knew people slept on the floor of the station, so he located an entrance and stepped down underground. It was cooler down here. He figured it would be best to sleep where others slept. After some half-delirious wandering up and down the busier connecting halls, he found a quiet, dim hallway where a woman with light, frizzy hair dozed next to a large dog. He felt safe, close to them. Maybe the woman, or more likely the dog, could offer him some amount of protection.

When he went to lie down, she opened an eye and said in a coarse, gritty voice, "Get the fuck away."

Miguel tried to imagine she was speaking to someone else.

"Do you hear me or not? I swear, I'll sick him on you." She sat up and stabbed a finger toward the lean Rottweiler, who now sat alert.

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Get the fuck away," repeated the woman.

Miguel's vision turned kaleidoscopic as tears flooded his eyes. "I said I don't have anywhere to sleep. I'm all alone."

The woman's face changed. "Fine. Just stay right there, then. Don't you dare come an inch closer."

Miguel nodded up and down a hundred times. Tears ran in thick streams down his cheeks. She lay back down without another word. He tried to keep still, the back of his head resting against cool concrete. He turned on his side to face the wall. He could not stop crying. He made his sobs as faint as possible so as not to bother the woman or her dog, and before long, sleep mercifully took him over.

When Miguel woke up several hours later, they were long gone. He made his way up to the surface, where he was immediately swarmed by thousands of people in business attire, stepping frantically, impatiently around him until he moved off the sidewalk and onto an adjacent square of grass.

He was all alone. His mind, still foggy from sleep, drifted back to his final encounter with the TV. The fucking TV. It had been the object of fixation for weeks, and now? Utterly forgotten. What other pillars of his life, which he had believed to be unmovable, might now so easily calve away? School would be starting soon. That very moment, all the people making up his painstakingly curated social circles were gathering in a giant old building, miles away. He didn't care. The sounds of the city resonated all around him. Miguel's life suddenly felt so small, so detached that no matter what he chose to do, no matter his next move, it wouldn't have even the slightest effect on any person he had ever known. Not Daniel Lin, not his other friends, not even his parents. Of course, they hadn't forgotten about him yet, but they would in time. He fucking pined for the day. He was alone now, Miguel Gonzalez, his thoughts, his memories. Nothing else, no one else. He released a long, bellowing laugh into the thick morning air.

;-;