A Life Worth Something
BY ALEX ARMOUR
Part 1 William Hill was a desperate man. He didn’t want to leave his family, but he had run out of options. He needed to make money, even if it meant leaving his wife and son for a while. He snuck out in the dead of the night, careful not to make too much noise. As he was about to step over the threshold of the door, he stared back at the letter he left on the counter for his wife to find in the morning. “My Dear Laurel, I’m sorry I left the way I did, but I couldn’t bear to see the look on Randall’s face as his daddy walked out the door. I know I’ve been a lousy husband and a worse father, but I’m trying to make it right. I’m going back to Chicago to see if Ricky can help me find some work. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Love, William P.S. Kiss Randall good night for me” He thought, “Maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to stay.” That flicker of hope lasted no more than a second as William finally stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind him, and disappeared into the night. After arriving back in his hometown, he was heartbroken to find out his cousin, Ricky, had died in a car accident only a few months earlier. Not only had he lost his only way to make money, but he lost the only real family he ever had. Within days, William was on the street begging for change with no idea how he was going to feed himself...much less his family all those miles away. The cold wind on his face and the emptiness in his stomach were both overtaken by feelings of failure for his son. Not knowing the next time he’d see him, William wrote a letter apologizing to Randall. With every word his son read, William wanted him to know his father left not because he didn’t love him, but because he did. And that every step he took until he saw his boy again was to give him the best life he could. He put the letter in his coat pocket, planning on delivering it the next day. With the weight of shame and embarrassment, his sign reading “HOMELESS-ANYTHING HELPS-GOD BLESS” felt like a 100-pound dumbbell. Nonetheless, he picked it up and held it in front of him.
Part 2 It had been weeks since Andre Davis was fired from his job. He wasn’t out of money by any means, but he was certainly on his way. Without work and nothing else to keep him busy, Andre couldn’t help but think about how he ended up in this situation. How he went from a respected salesman to the lazy, unmotivated person he was today. A few weeks earlier, Andre and a coworker, Brad Stevens, found themselves at the same bar on a Friday night. Andre never really liked Brad, but after today, he could picture beating up Brad within an inch of his life. Seems that Brad, your most stereotypical entitled white man, couldn’t get one girl there to show any kind of interest in him. By the end of the night, he had tried and failed so many times he might as well have still been that fat, ugly kid with braces rather than the successful businessman he was. Brad didn’t think his night could’ve gotten any worse. That was until he looked across the bar to see Andre, his most hated coworker, flirting with not one, not two, but every single woman who had rejected him that 19
