homecoming

I returned home from two weeks in Colorado--bags in tow, tired from a long flight, happy just to be home--to find that my key didn't work in the lock anymore. I rang the bell and called up my girlfriend but she wasn't answering, so I sat on the porch and wondered who else I could call. It was the middle of the work day. Nobody else would be available. But she should be home. She knew I was coming. And anyway the key should have worked, shouldn't it? I knew that my old house had problems with the locks before.

And she never ignored her phone. It was her most annoying habit--any time someone called she'd answer, like she was incapable of not answering. "I don't want to be rude," she'd say. "You're being rude to me," I'd respond, and she'd never hear because she was talking on the phone. I pounded on the door some more. No answer.

I decided to walk to the diner on Broadway, and call up a friend my girlfriend introduced me to. I couldn't carry this stuff around all day. I needed to go somewhere. He answered with a snarky "What do you want?" and I, assuming he was upset I'd called him at work, said, "Hey man, I know you're at work but I'm locked out and I really--"

Click.

I'd been turned out, I knew. I had no idea why. No idea what I'd done. Had I really lived in such a way to merit this? Had I really lived in such a way that I was kicked out of my house and I had nowhere else to go?

Was it really that simple to just leave?

I paid my check and took the train back to the airport, and suddenly the whole country was open and inviting.