Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [14]
Marco was short and bald with a noticeably athletic physique, and he had an unkempt goatee. Over time, I would learn that, despite his ability to schmooze, his entire persona, beginning with his eye contact, was very genuine. When he flashed that contagious smile of his, his conversation partner knew that it was time to smile, too.
And now he was coming over to me. He picked me out, I assume, because of our obvious closeness in age. I was sitting on the sidewalk with my back leaning against the brick building, at this point quite removed from the crowd since I had yet to engage in any conversation worth continuing. I had somehow managed to meet the three guys in the yard that didn’t want to talk (except to tell me to leave them the hell alone), so I decided it would be best for me to retreat to my own corner until dinner.
But there was Marco, the Marco, on his way over to meet me, the loneliest man in America.
“’Sup?” he asked, rhetorically.
“’Sup?” I replied. So far we had the makings for quite the primordial conversation.
“I’m Marco Walten. Who are you?”
“I’m Adam Shepard. I just got in town from Raleigh, North Carolina, and I don’t really know anybody.”
“Really?” he asked, glancing at the empty space around me, surely sympathizing that sitting alone on the stoop of a homeless shelter is perhaps as bad as it could possibly get. “You ain’t kiddin’. What brings you to Charleston?”
I went on to tell my fabricated story on exactly how I had come to find myself in the city that some describe as the pride of the South. I had surpassed opportunities to go to college after high school in order to stay home and take care of my mom. She had acquired quite a taste for amphetamines, and rehabilitation attempts had been unsuccessful. At the age of twenty-three, I had decided that it was time for me to either get busy making a life for myself or continue on the road to nowhere. My father, who had left my mom, my brother, and I when I was five, had remarried and was now living in Savannah, Georgia. We spoke on the phone on birthdays and holidays, and we had seen each other just three times in the past eighteen years. As I saw it, now was an opportune moment to rekindle my relationship with him. I was excited to start school at the local community college, work, and enjoy a new life in Savannah.
“And then reality set in.”
My fabricated father knew I was coming. He had all of my train information. In fact, he had even purchased my ticket, which was scheduled to arrive in Savannah the previous night just before 11:00. I had called him and left a message when I was in Wilson, North Carolina, to let him know that the train was running late. In Charleston, I called him again to update him on the schedule. And he was drunk.
I knew that my father had been struggling with alcohol, but I wasn’t quite sure how that would affect our rapport. And I certainly didn’t expect that it would affect us so soon.
On my phone call from the Charleston train station, he had essentially told me that he didn’t want me to come. It wasn’t a long conversation. In fact, it was quite plain. “Don’t come. I don’t want you here. I won’t be there to pick you up, and if you come to my house, I won’t let you in.”
Wow. I didn’t even know how to respond. I hung up the phone and found my way to the shelter. That simple.
It was a great story, one I had been concocting for two days, and as I was going to find throughout my stay at the shelter, absolutely imperative to have. Everybody had a story. In fact, mine wasn’t even that impressive compared to many of the rest. It was our way of being accepted into the group. It gave us something to talk about, a way of relating to one another. It put us on the same playing field.
Hey, we all come from different backgrounds, most of which weren’t normal. We’re all messed up. Now, we can either get out or not.
It’s also the reason why we rejoiced