I have met a kind fellow--met in the vaguest sense of the word. A red windbreaker over a hoody--short, touseled brown alter-boy cut hair. He reminded me of the elusive James from the county fair--the boy in fatigues: naive, really (as I was) to the realness of war--anxious (perhaps because it was "peace time") to join the service. This Providence boy, on his way to Sullivan (closed) then to Porter Square kept me free of giving up--kept me free from the physical defeat of kneeling in the snow to weep from exhaustion and cold.
Out of the white, a taxi crawled up beside us. We shared the chariot cab talking of the steam on glasses and karma. Then he was gone--the boy with the red windbreaker who reminded me of my little brother and the elusive James disappeared into the tragically alliterative blizzard in Boston. The moment of unexpected, unprovoked warmth was gone as sadly as it appeared.
I wanted him to stay--to reach out and reassure me that everything's okay just as it is. But it was the snow that reassured me--the ever falling, blowing snow.
There's so much more to life than words. "Later Days" by Over the Rhine.