Thomas slowly opened his eyes and stared up into the dark sky above him. The sun was just setting to his left and the long shadows reached out across the alley toward his tattered, fraying Chucks. He sat up and then fell back again, moaning and pressing his hand against his throbbing right temple. He could feel the bruise from where his neighbor Josiah had hit him with a tire iron the other day.

Thomas had found a barely eaten cheeseburger in the dumpster around the corner from his home under the freeway bridge in downtown New Orleans, and Josiah hadn’t eaten in two days. Thomas sighed and licked his parched lips as he thought about how delicious a decent burger would taste right about now.

He ran his fingers through his long, matted hair. It had stayed blond all throughout his life, with only the smallest tinges of white beginning to creep out from his forehead and right above his temples. His face was creased with years of countless smiles and frowns. His green eyes had a cloudy look to them, as though constantly obscured by something that wealthy people, or at least wealthy by Thomas’ standards, couldn’t quite see.

He sat up again and closed his eyes against the waves of pain that resounded throughout his skull, bouncing around until they settled in a nauseating buzz in his ears. He cracked one eye open and then the other. He slowly stood up, pausing after a moment to catch his breath and steady himself against the wall of the bar that he had passed out behind that morning.

It was eight o’clock, and the hot July night was only just getting to its peak temperature of 84 degrees. He was alone in the alley and alone in his thoughts. No one disturbed him, except for the ragged black cat that pawed its way through the stinking heaps of trash that Thomas and his comrades in arms shuffled through day by day, night by night.

Thomas licked his lips again and tried to swallow but couldn’t; his throat was too dry.

He missed his home. He missed Julia. He missed his two sons. But that was too long ago for him to worry about. Thomas had failed himself as well as them, and now there was no turning back. He bit back the tears that he could feel welling up behind his foggy eyes, and bent forward to claw his way through the filth from the dumpsters that surrounded him.

It was dinner time.

George Klynn Carr can be reached at [email protected]