Henry
I remember his hands mostly.
From the first time I met him through the next few times we stood together, smoking cigarettes on Chestnut Street, they were all I could look at.
Like the hands of a corpse, they looked carved.
His fingers were long and thin and held together by knuckles that looked ready to explode. Yellow nails marked the ends of his black fingers like stains. His palms had been worn to the color of bone.
Weathered and cracked, these hands, you could tell, had been through hell.
Shaking his hand, cold and clammy and weak, you could feel a ghost there.
I have always felt that the hands of a man can tell his stories for him. They can tell of the life that he has lived. The scars on a man’s hands telling his war stories. Telling the world that he has been through it. Whatever his own it may have been. A man’s polished and manicured hands telling the world that he has done everything to avoid it. Whatever his own it may have been.
This man’s hands told me that he was done living. They told me that he was indeed a ghost. Invisible, he stood in the shadows waiting for this curse called life to end.
Though, looking beyond his hands, there was a different story to be told. With his wide and yellowed bloodshot eyes, he saw through the shadows and into the light. His laugh was as sincere as it was meaningless. Only the laugh of a child could match it’s effect. In this man’s spirit there was life. Beautiful, beautiful life.
This man had been homeless for longer than he cared to remember.
His ruin was addiction.
He had a family, a wife and a daughter. He had relatives. All of them living their lives and doing well for themselves here in this very city. His family had been forced to shelve the love they once held for him, he gave them no other choice. They gave him a chance. And another. And another.
And then, no more.
The man that his family has forgotten, lies before him, pieces of that character embedded within the creases of his cold and dead hands. These hands, worn and scared by the years that he himself would soon rather forget, remain before his eyes, forever at his sides, as reminders of those days that led him to this life.
He lived in an alley, he begged for his food and money, he was everything that a homeless man is. He had nothing that a wealthy man has, but he did have his pride. He would never accept money from a friend, nor would he ever panhandle in the company of a friend. He would reluctantly let you buy him lunch, though he would prefer to give you a handful of his own change and send you off to the nearest vending machine to buy him a soda or a candy bar. He could have made a lot of money on the busy corner of Chestnut and Broad but he made a lot of friends there instead.
This modesty, his laughter and the way he could sit on a window sill and smile a big toothless grin at the worst of the world passing by, I admired all of this.
In the time of nearly a year, in all the time that I knew Henry as a friend, I never saw him with his hands in his pockets. I never saw him sitting on his hands. He held them out to the world, out to himself. He was showing everyone who cared to know, that he has been through it and it hasn’t beaten him.
As much as he had wished to forget his past, he had, it seamed, no intentions of hiding from it.
I admired that mostly.
Copyright © June 2008 Chris La Cour
What a sad little tale! I actually know someone who is like that.
Beautifully balanced round that central image, extending it out subtly into a three dimensional portrait. The detail and clarity of the prose dignify the subject. Wonderful writing.
Leafless, thanks for commenting.
Yes, a sad tale but an enriching one as well.
Paul, thanks for a great comment/feedback as usual.
Oh I love looking at mens’ hands – sounds a bit ’sexy’ but it isn’t (most of the time!) – they really do tell a story. This is lovely writing, very gentle – says as much about the narrator as it does about the subject. Nicely done.
Thanks, Simonne.
Excellent. A tale of true character.
Your story gives me feelings for this man and I want him to be happy in the life he has. Not to edit or change your story, you just made me really think of this charactor as real.
So in my mind Henry meets a stray dog tomorrow that will give him the unconditional love he desires.
He is real, Jane.
He’s Henry from Philly.
I haven’t seen him since I left the city, I used to cruise by some of his haunts whenever I would go back but I’ve never again seen him.
I can only hope that he found that stray dog you imagined.
It’s been a while, Chris. Got a new story? Like I said the first time we met, someone who can write and pushes at the edges of narrative possibilties is a rare and wonderful thing in bloggoland. No pressure or anything, but it’s been a while,
this filled my heart, up and out of words. my father is homeless and i don’t know…it just made me smile and tear and all of those things.
thank you.
thanks to Henry from Philly, especially. bless his golden heart.
Paul, thanks for the nudge. Been dealing with a lot of B.S. lately. But, yeah, I’m going to get back to work right away.
Hi, Sarah. You’re more than welcome.
I’m glad to hear my story touched you like that.
I hope your father is doing the best he can.
This is beautiful. And exactly what I’m talking about with regards to creativity. How many people passed Henry in a day, and how many took the time to make all the connections that you have, and then wrote about it in a way that makes anyone who reads it feel a little bit more connected? There’s wonderful humanity in here. It’s a sliver of life. It’s about something so mundane-a homeless man’s hands-yet also so beautiful and absolutely universal. Please don’t ever stop writing.
Thank you, Fistfulofwater!
Very powerful.
LM
Thanks, LM and welcome to my site.