No Road Home.

The lights and the sounds and everything around me, it's like - stop!
So I'm walking down the boardwalk and he may or may not have a cigarette in his mouth but he walking toward me but not for me, you know, like in the opposite direction.  And I look up from the steady gaze I'd formed at my two feet and nerves overcome me thinking that if I don't keep looking at where I'm walking I could trip over anything.  And God knows, we all know, I'm not the most gracious walker, or talker, or singer, or friend, or girl, or anything.  But here goes nothin.
And I feel this real cool breeze on my back and it almost makes me flinch, like, don't touch me.  But it keeps on blowing and I don't have a jacket so I'm freezing my ass off and what other choice do I have but to keep walking?  It's not like I have anywhere to go besides nowhere, and look that one with the cigarette is coming back my way.
"Hey, do you want a smoke?"
"A smoke?"
"You know, like a cigarette, a smoke."
"Oh, no, thanks, I quit some time ago."
Pause, silence.  I feel like maybe I should just take the damn smoke.
"Well that's alright, where are you headed?"
I shrug my shoulders in that way that makes me look almost embarrassed to admit I don't have any plans on a Friday evening, so I'm walking the beach alone.  But I don't say that.
"Oh, just this way."
"Mind if I walk with you?"
"Just walk downwind of me, sure."
"Sure."
So we walk and we chat and it's silly and it's about this and that and he smokes and he crushes the butt of his cigarette into the dark, splintering wood of the boardwalk and he pulls out another and lights it and we keep talking and it gets late and we walk the length of the boardwalk at least ten times before we both admit exhaustion.
"Nice meeting you, then.  Sure you don't want one for the road home?"
"No road home."
"Well alright then.  Will I see you back here next week?"
"Probably not."
"Do you have a phone? An address or something?"
"Not really.  Not right now."
"Do you need a place to stay?"
"Everywhere is my place to stay, you'll find me. No phone, no address."
And that was it, he left, the trail from the butt of his cigarette guided my eyes so far until I could barely make out his silhouette against the pavement.
I waved, but I don't think he saw.  But I kept waving and then I stopped what I was doing right there on the boardwalk and I went home.
I have an address.
I have a telephone.