My beanie gets soaked from the downpour as I walk down the street, headed home. My sleeping bag isn’t too wet, I have the cover on so I won’t be soaked while I sleep. My backpack is zipped up so that none of my possessions get wet. I hope the thunderstorm will stop and the night will get warmer. There have been too many cold nights this month.

I finally reach the little shack I call home. It’s not much, it’s barely enough to keep out the winter frost and the summer heat. There aren’t any windows, and it’s a dirt floor, so it’s really not my fault that my clothes are always so dirty. The hut is completely made out of wood, complete with a shingle-less roof and a metal plank door. I’m pretty sure it used to be a child’s clubhouse, but now it’s my sleeping quarters. I don’t even know if anybody is aware of the fact that I live here.

Propping up the door after I walk in, I light a candle to guide me into my living quarters. I sleep on a ratty, old mattress with springs popping out and no sheet to cover them. I built myself a little nightstand using trash parts I found on the sides of roads. New York really is a filthy place if you don’t have anywhere clean to go to at night.

I drop my stuff down onto the floor and sit on the bed, putting my candle on the nightstand. Taking a moment to myself, I close my eyes and sigh, thinking about the day.

Even though I tried to stand up while earning my money with my sign and my cup to show that I once was one of those wealthy businessmen with their fancy suits and loving families, my back forced me down onto the ground, revealing the truth that I am below them in the end. I didn’t earn enough for dinner today. But I saw someone who looked so much like how Annie would look now.

My beautiful baby girl, Annie, whatever has happened to you?

I take out my picture of me and her, along with the gun left for me by her mother. We’re on the beach, I’m holding her and kissing her cheek while she is showing off that beautiful toothy smile of hers.


I hope Margaret is happy about her life now, leaving a loving father for a rich one, abandoning her husband, keeping him with nothing to his name but a pistol and a photograph. Couldn’t she tell he tried? He went to work everyday, dealt with everyone who made fun of him for not having a proper suit. The pistol was a last resort, she said. She thought he would be able to pick up the pieces without money, a job, a house, and more importantly a family. Now look where I am Margaret, stuck in a staring match with a Colt 1911 Marine pistol. 27 years and I still haven’t picked up the pieces.

Imagine if Annie saw me. She wouldn’t pity me. She would look at me and feel disgusted, embarrassed that her father can’t stand up with a cardboard sign and a styrofoam coffee cup.
Dammit Margaret, you don’t realize that these pieces are meant to be an unsolved puzzle? I’m not supposed to live without you and Annie.
I didn’t mean to get this emotional. It could be the anniversary of everything. I’ve stopped counting the days. A tear escapes onto the photograph as a strike of lightning momentarily flashes a bright light across Annie’s beautiful sepia stained face. I realize, that in this moment, no one would care if I left. No one would wonder where the old hobo on 26th street went. Nobody would wonder what their old husband is up to. I could leave right now, go to a better place.

Annie was only three when Margaret took her away. She couldn’t have remembered. She wouldn’t recognize me, my white hair and beard unshaven and untrimmed.

It was time to stop trudging along, thinking that someone from my past is going to come and save my future.

I take the bullets out of the pistol, looking at them. They all seem to be inscribed with a different name from my past, my boss, my mother, Margaret, Annie, and others. I only load one into the gun.

At least Annie was the last thing to go through my head.