Kindred Spirit

In the 1990s, I lived in a little third floor apartment on High Street in Morgantown, West Virginia, home of WVU. I lived a solitary existence during those years. I was no longer in school, I had already been declared disabled, and it would be years before I was on the internet. I was in my late twenties, but I felt old. When I walked around, I would recall things that happened to me in that town when I was younger and still full of hope. I was 27 and full of nostalgia, longing for times gone by, as if I was 87.

My apartment wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury, but it had huge, high windows and a great view. Across the street was the old Warner Theater, The Hotel Morgan, and the old post office. I could watch parades from my apartment, and I often watched people walking up and down the sidewalk. One day, I noticed a young man with a pack full of books on his back coming from the downtown campus and heading toward a residential neighborhood across the bridge below my apartment. I was immediately drawn to him because I intuitively recognized that we were kindred spirits. He was even shorter than me, and I could tell from his appearance and the way he moved that he was gay. There was something else, too. He walked with a kind of determination to get home as quickly as possible. He kept his gaze down, and he never turned his head to the left or right even for a second. This little blond man was terrified, and he made his way down High Street as if he expected to be attacked if he so much as looked at anyone crossways. I could sense his pain and loneliness.

I noticed him again not long after that, and soon I realized that he was showing up at about the same time every day, so I began to watch for him. As he passed my apartment, I’d wonder about him. I imagined that he, too, probably lived someplace alone and that he hardly ever talked to anyone. I longed for us to become friends. I imagined waiting for him down on the steps in front of the old post office and calling to him as he marched past. But I knew I would never do that. One day he stopped coming, and I never saw him again.