Sometimes people gather outside after meetings to congregate and smoke. I hope they never stop doing that, sometimes it means a chance to intervene on someone’s worst night.

The traffic lights changed colors inside swirling, misty halos. “Strange to see fog in New Mexico,” D said. She exhaled smoke and it was thicker.

“Is that what that is?” I asked.

We heard threats and cursing in a booming voice across the street. We heard him before we saw him, a tall man across the street, yelling and coming closer.

“No matter how bad things seem, there’s always someone having a worse night than you.” I said. We looked at each other as the big man cut across the intersection and came straight for us.

“Should we go inside?” D’s feet crunched in the gravel.

I didn’t know what to say. I had a good feeling… and it was too late anyway.

The stranger walked past us and stopped. He turned back surprised to see people standing there. He asked for a cigarette—that’s just the default greeting around here. His face glowed for a moment as he lit it. Deep care was worn into his features. His eyes were pools of shadow. We had just been talking about the fog and here was a stranger who walked out of it.

“I’m looking for my brother,” he threw his hand out to the west, “he’s off that way with some people.” Then he threw his hand out to the north, “I just walked across town. My feet got blisters as big as your head.” His flying hands stopped to pat his chest, “They call me Chief.”

We just let him talk. He needed to. He told us he’d been walking all night and that he’d just had a cousin die, and not long ago he’d lost his mother. Now his brother was dying of cancer and chose to live his last days on chiva. He’d taken off and the only one to save him, Chief, was drunk now.

I stepped up and told him he needed to save himself first. The words coming out of my mouth felt strange to me, action preceding understanding. At times like this you know the only wrong thing is to do nothing. I told him it wasn’t being selfish to do the right thing. I told him right across the street was MATS, the only drop-in detox we have. I could walk him over there.

Chief waved me off, “I already been through that, after my mother passed.” He looked at the sign we were standing in front of. “Oh I know all about this place too… been through this before.”

“Well you know what to expect then,” I said, “Why not just go with me across the street? That’s maybe ten days to think about things… maybe some more options after that.”

“I burned all my bridges.”

I kept telling him to come back in the morning. So we could really talk. I thought of all the people at meetings and all the staff and residents… all the people I go to for help. But just the two of us, after midnight, there wasn’t much we could do.

I didn’t even have any food I could offer. But this guy was really good at waving off help. He was almost an expert at refusing hope.

“When I found my cousin he was beaten so bad I didn’t know it was him. He crawled under a thorn bush to hide. He wouldn’t let me near him. I told him, ‘it’s me, blink once for yes and twice for no: do you want me to help you?’

“He blinked once, so I dug him out and carried him to get cleaned up and warm. He was safe when I left him, but when I found him the next morning he was frozen solid. He was blue.”

And he told us how his mother died, and how he’d gone through a program and stayed sober to honor her memory. And why he went to meetings and did all the right things as long as he did them. Just to end up here, with another brother dying.

An ambulance passed with lights flashing. “There’s always someone having a worse day than we are.” D said.

Chief smiled to her, “That’s right, so whatever you do, don’t start, don’t take that first drink… you won’t be able to stop.”

“Powerless.” She said, because we are, “but what I want to know is… since you know… then why are you on the mission tonight? You’re brave enough and aware enough to say it...”

“You’re talking to a dead man,” he said with a solid nod of his head.

 “You might be speaking to a dead man too.” I said.

He pulled his backpack from his shoulders and set it on the sidewalk. He dug through some folders and pulled out two pages. He gave us each one. It was too dark for us to see all the colors. It was original art, roses coming out of a tribal background. The pages were heavy with ink.

“This isn’t me,” he said, “You want to know what my dream is? To start up a place for people like me, a place to get clean. My mother used to tell me I was a king,” He smiled.

“You are,” we told him, stunned by the art he’d put into our hands, “look what you’re carrying around with you.”

He needed another cigarette, D offered him her whole pack. He refused, looking down at the street he hadn’t gotten out of.

“Take a few for later,” she held up the drawing, “in trade.”

He let her give him a few more. She tried to give him her lighter, but he dug in his pocket and found his.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Chief seemed to remember something, “We all have wings but none of us know it. They say be good to each other because angels walk among us. But we’re all angels.”

He walked off, still insisting he was finished, but smiling a little. We looked at each other. Did any of that really happen? 

We took our drawings inside and looked at them in the light. It was all we could do to keep from crying. But we were happy. We said all we could and this guy tried his best not to feel it, but he left with a little bit of hope. It’s all we have around here.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Robert Wilson is a short story author, novelist and award-winning poet from Albuquerque. His publication credits include contributions to the book, “Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” published by the Harvard Educational Review, and As/Us literary journal’s Decolonial Love issue. He is the author of the “Black Light District” series of postmodern crime novels. Having received his high school diploma while incarcerated in 2013, he is dedicated to bringing writing workshops into correctional facilities, volunteering for UNM Writers in the Community, JustWrite, and the Gordon Bernell Charter School.

You can visit him at: www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-J-Wilson/360021757483448