The Son of Every Man

Chapter 4.6

Miguel was surprised how easy it was for him to disappear. He slept mashed against subway station walls when it rained, couched in quiet alleys or beneath the boardwalks of his favorite beaches when it did not. On the third night, he acquired a blue wool blanket, a birthday gift to himself, and from that point on his sleep was satisfactory. The merchant who had sold him the blanket cast him a look of sympathy, handing it over for one-third the asking price. The look made him feel ashamed, but not enough to refuse.

(Miguel had been it in the markets, and if he had looked up from that particular stall at that particular moment, he would have seen Gabe—all fourteen years of him—four floors up, standing at the edge of the balcony with a book in his hand, gazing wistfully out at his narrow evening view of the ocean.)

Initially he feared that at any moment, some previously unseen force would scoop him up from the street, place him back in a desk, and the dream would all be over. But one unexcused week passed, and then another, and then it was the middle of June and school let out for the summer season. No one was looking for him. Miguel cried more than once over this truth, then came to view it as the bittersweet taste accompanying his freedom. One day, he looked up at the sky and realized it had been more than a month. How did he feel? He felt fine. And in that time, Miguel had drifted through many different parts of the city, bathing in the ocean, washing in municipal pool showers, sneaking onto transit, searching out the cheapest sources of food. In all his days of restful wandering, not one familiar face drifted into his vision.

Miguel liked being near the ocean, so when he fell in dire need of cash, he began working under the table at the vast network of docks lining the shores of the Bay of North Las Sombras. He landed a job gutting fish that flowed in on an endless supply, offloaded by passionless, leathery fishermen. His wage was very low, but it was more than he needed. He worked with a small crew in a rusting dockside shack, jammed in among a brown sea of sad structures.

He started early on a Monday, and young man named Peter immediately caught his eye. By skillfully participating in the crude banter of the other men, he gathered that Peter had moved from Sweden five years earlier, when he was sixteen. The young man retained a strong, charming accent. Peter was the only white crew member, and his bright blue eyes met Miguel's own many times over the course of the week. As the crew left en masse Friday evening, threading between stalls to reach the oily passageway out of the shacks, Miguel finally worked up the courage to speak to Peter alone.

He fell in behind the young man. "Don't you get tired of hunching over all day long?" he asked, clumsily referring to Peter's considerable height.

Peter's shoulders shrugged. "Better than to be out in the sun."

"I guess that's true."

He stopped and turned around. "Where do you go now?"

"What?" asked Miguel, taken aback. "Oh. Anywhere I want."

"Cool. Do you want a ride?"

"Okay," said Miguel quickly.

Peter's battered pickup was parked with the windows down, in the weeds along a narrow street leading up from the water. They climbed in. Bits of trash lay strewn about the small cab. The hot gray vinyl seats stuck to Miguel's thighs.

"I can take you home," he offered. "Where do you live?"

Miguel thought he had been clear. "I don't live anywhere." He would never forget the stunned look that followed.

"You're homeless?"

"Some people call it that, yes."

"Because it is the right word. You don't have a home."