The Man at the Edge of Town

I once knew a man, who lived at the edge of town. He was always kind to me, he allowed me to join him at his campfires in the evening, when he sat and looked up at the stars. We'd sit and talk for a couple of hours every night and it became so regular and normal, I didn't even have to think about it or ask if I could join him; it just happened. He wasn't too much older than me, maybe ten, fifteen years my senior, but he seemed as if he carried the whole world on his shoulders. I'd never known much about him, only that he'd moved to our sleepy little town three years before I met him. I was 13 at that point and I heard all of the rumors the kids at school listened to and spread; "He's an escaped murderer," "He lost his whole family to a robbery," "He's a spy looking for a government weapon hidden nearby." I have to admit, the rumors fascinated me, but I never really listened to them with any real belief.

When I was 16, I began helping Farmer Roy in the fields. His children had gone off to college and he needed some extra help, so he asked me, as I usually helped my dad when Farmer Roy needed equipment repaired and I'd always ask questions about how each piece of equipment was used. So, I went and helped out from that spring all the way through until the harvest time that year. Every night on my way home I'd pass by the man who lived at the edge of town, illuminated only by the light of his campfires. The first thing I noticed was that he didn't look angry or menacing, he just looked... sad. I passed by in silence for a couple of weeks, before I finally asked my dad why the man looked so sad.

"That man has lived a hard life, Thomas," My father said to me, "His wife left him four years ago, and she took everything from him. He was left with only a suitcase of clothes and a few hundred dollars in his bank account. He'd come home one day to find his locks changed and a suitcase and a note on the front step. He got back in his car and started driving, he told me. He said he didn't know where he was going and he ended up here. He met Jack who told him he could live in his old house while he got back on his feet. Jack told me he sold the house to the man a couple years back."

The next day I saw the man, I asked if I could join him. He gave me a small nod and offered me a chair. We sat in silence for a couple of hours, watching the fire and the stars. Something about the silence was enchanting, almost... as if we had some unspoken pact that all that was needed was the company. The fire slowly burned to embers while the stars and the moon seemed to burn ever brighter.

As the fire was dying, the man said, "The name's John."

"Thomas. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's been awhile since a kid's had the courage to talk to me. Why'd you do it?"

"You just seemed like you'd appreciate a little company."

"Well, you'd be right about that. You should probably get on home though. Your dad might worry."

I wondered how he knew to say dad instead of mom, but I only bid John a goodnight and walked home. Only later would I realize that John and my father had talked before, at Farmer Roy's farm, in fact. I kept joining John at the campfire every night on my way home and we started talking about the goings-on of the town, politics, literature, poems, and music. We talked about the stars and fire and technology and human nature, and nature. 

One night, John recited a poem in French, "Déjeuner Du Matin," written by Jacques Prevert, he told me. It was about a woman watching her lover fix coffee and get ready for work. He told me that he leaves into the rain without a single word. He said that he related to the poem because his own wife had left without a single word.

"She had said plenty to me beforehand, warning me, trying to get me to change, but I was too stubborn to listen, to change," John whispered. "She finally made her message clear when she changed the locks on me. "

I'll never forget what he said next. "When you find the person you love with all of your being, Thomas, never, ever ignore what they are telling you because they have your best interests at heart when they love you with all of their being too. Don't be like me and be too stubborn to listen."

John moved away the next spring, but sometimes I would come home and find a letter addressed to me from him. Inside would be a letter telling me of a new poem or a book he had read and that he still thought about our conversations at the campfire. When I was 18, I received his last letter. In it he told me that since moving away from our town he had been working hard to earn enough money to send 2 kids to college. That struck me as odd; he'd only had 1 child. Then I saw what else was in the letter: a slip of paper with a bank account on it with all of the information I would need to access it. John was responsible for sending me to college and changing my life. Yet I knew that the most important thing he taught me was about caring for others and listening to everyone, especially the ones you love with all of your being.