The exciting truth of this existence is that we never know where we’ll end up, what we’ll see, whom we’ll meet, or what lessons we’ll learn along the way. It’s what makes life so interesting, the transient moments between birth and death so bittersweet. Indeed, not many people truly understand this profound lesson—or even recognize it when it happens to them.
It happened to me the day I met Henry Williams. The day had started off the same way as the multitude of other days before—unassuming and quiet—but it ended with my life forever changed.
* * * *
The man was completely disheveled, wearing torn blue jeans and a thick woolen overcoat that looked as if it doubled as his nightshift. Dirt was generously caked on him, and the grime from living life clung to him like dryer sheets on freshly dried clothing. One thing was certain: he was in desperate need of a sandwich and a bath.
I studied him over the lip of my book as he sauntered around the first floor of the library, reading magazines one minute, devouring books of poetry the next. There was a mercurial air about him, as if life was too short to concentrate on one thing for too long. Though he was a good forty feet away from the cubby where I was reading, he intimidated me, made me feel small. I had always felt I was an inconsequential part of existence, but his no-nonsense, bull-in-a-china-shop manner only heightened this feeling, and it left me feeling inferior.
I caught myself wondering why that was. It also perplexed me. How did he exude such a presence from that distance? Was it because the man was homeless and I had been raised to feel disgusted by him? Was it his stature that put me on edge, being six-foot something with the shoulders of a linebacker, while I had the physique of a kicker? Was it the sobering reminder that anyone in America could fall low?
Or was it because I was an extremely introverted person?
I still don’t know.
I stopped reading and stared at him with an increased interest, as if he was a high school biology experiment. The man was an oddity to me, something that needed to be observed, quantified, and then solved. With that thought in mind, I planned to observe him from where I was—not only because he was homeless, but because that’s the type of person I am.
I avoid human interactions wherever and whenever possible.
I knew he felt my scrutiny because he casually but decisively turned towards me, his body language reminding me of a languishing lion finally noticing its prey … noticing it before running it down and devouring it. And the look he shot me told me all I needed to know. I was the prey. Recognizing that simple fact forced me to do the only thing I could think of: avert my eyes and hope the hunter overlooked his game.
Getting caught made me blush deeply, so I tried to concentrate on the book in my hands. Instead of reading the words splayed across the paper, I found myself staring blankly at them, as if they were a puzzle I couldn’t read let alone solve. Truthfully, I was thinking and hoping—no, praying—that the man hadn’t noticed my interest. Or worst-case scenario, he did not see it as an invitation to walk over and engage me in conversation.
Too late.
Without looking up, I felt him stalking towards me. It made me feel what a wounded gazelle on the African plains must feel: unable, no matter how hard it tried, to escape the fate creeping towards it. This was not going to go well. Maybe it was best to try to ignore him, continue pretending to read, and he’d get the hint and leave me alone. Oh, how I had prayed to whatever deity was listening that’d be the case!
Apparently, my prayers weren’t going to be answered.
“Whatcha readin’?” he asked me in a gruff southern drawl that was interlaced with an unexpected softness. Instead of sounding like the wolf he appeared to be, he sounded more like the lamb he hunted.
“Excuse me?” I responded, feigning distraction, not looking up from the book as I tried to hide my embarrassment and awkwardness. All I wanted was for him to leave, but since I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t there, I could only stare at the pages and cling onto the naive hope that he’d just walk away. That didn’t work. Trying to ignore his rapt attention was impossible; it hung like a lead weight around my neck.
I sighed inwardly. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I looked up tentatively, like I was dipping my feet in a steaming bath of water, and flinched unconsciously. The man hadn’t moved away. Instead, he had stealthily inched closer. He was standing directly over me with a look on his face that showed a child’s innocent curiosity warring with the cynicism of a world-weary adult. A dichotomy if I ever knew one. It unnerved me.
His blue eyes sparkled with mischief, and they invited a chill down my spine. Splashed with clarity and determination, they suggested he was privy to a joke that you didn’t know, one that you wished you knew but couldn’t. The worst part about them was the reminder that life wasn’t fair. That you weren’t given everything you wanted, only what fate deemed necessary.
“What … are … you … reading?” he asked, stretching out his words as if I was dense.
His tone was mocking, and it infuriated me. I responded without thought.
“I heard you fine the first time you asked. I was at a really important part in this book and wanted to finish it.” I lied with an annoyed edge to my voice. “No need for you to slow down your speech and treat me like an idiot.”
A wry smile slowly dawned across his face as he shook his head with bemusement. In a fit of equal parts anger and nervousness, I snapped a rubber band around my wrist and adjusted my glasses. I barely registered the rubber band’s bite. My heart was beating faster than a racecar piston while my mind was racing around the track. I half expected him to slap me or punch me in response to my snippiness.
He did neither. He held my gaze with his vampiric eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to insult you. It’s just that … well …” He sighed as he crossed his arms across his chest. “You certainly heard me and were trying to politely ignore me. So I figured slowing my question down would get my point across.”
“And your point is?” I said, trying to deflect his astute observation.
“That it’s rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you,” he replied while still smiling.
“My mother taught me that years ago,” I fired back.
“Obviously, not well enough,” he retorted dryly.
The snide remark and his blasé, devil-may-care attitude made me bristle with indignation. I pointedly creased the bottom corner of the page I was on and closed the book with as much authority as I could summon. I dropped it with an audible thunk onto the table. Grabbing what courage I could muster, I met his stare. It hadn’t changed, and it was still unnerving. I adjusted my glasses once more, fighting his gaze. I finally let out an exaggerated sigh as I rested my clammy palms on my corduroys.
My annoyance seemed to entertain him. The thin smile on his weatherworn face blossomed into a full bouquet of mirth.
“Listen,” I began angrily.
“Henry,” he finished calmly.
“Well—listen, Henry. How can I be of service to you? There must be something incredibly important for you to come over and interrupt a total stranger as he reads. In the public library, nonetheless.” I spread my hands out to encompass the entire building. “Is there a raging fire in the building I am unaware of? Am I your long-lost brother? Have the Canadians invaded us?” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “Granted, I was trying to ignore you, but now I am unable to do so. What … do … you … want?”
“Better manners would be the first on my list,” was his sardonic response.
I ground my teeth together and began to shake with thinly veiled anger. I snapped the rubber band a second time. The man was being so obstinate it physically pained me. All I wa
nted was to reach up from the table and strangle him into unconsciousness! I recognized it was so very unlike me to wish that, but I brushed the realization aside, the anger beginning to bubble up.
Better manners? Who was he to talk to me about better manners? Wasn’t he the one who had come over and rudely interrupted me? Wasn’t I in my own little world when he came and busted down the door without the slightest hint of provocation? And he had the gall to lecture me on manners?
“Whoa, boy,” he said as he took a step back. “You just got as bristly as a North Carolinian porcupine! I feel like I’m about to get quills stuck in me!”
“If you call me boy again, you just might.” Oddly, I allowed the slightest twitch of a smile to make its way onto my face. My initial annoyance with him was inexplicably drying up. And my sudden lack of anger filled me with a sense of consternation … I should have still been extremely annoyed, at least, so why wasn’t I anymore?
He reminded me of my crazy uncle, I decided. Their similarities must have relaxed me. My uncle was one of the few people in my life with whom I spoke more than thirty words at one time. We were both the introverts of the family, so it seemed only natural we’d gravitate towards each other. Was that why I started warming up to Henry despite myself? I had no idea. I realized the man was still a stranger, and I knew nothing about him—knew that