The Return of the Prodigal

I stand swaying in the boxcar as the freight pulls into the railyard.

It’s ten years since I left.

Two hitches in jail, one of them on an honest-to-God chain gang.

One near-marriage, which was almost worse than jail.

Nobody is going to recognize me.

I’m thirty pounds down in weight, my once-black hair shot with gray and matted with my beard into a greasy tangle that covers most of my shirt.

I feel the weight of a.38 revolver in one pocket of my ragged jeans, a mostly-drunk pint of whiskey in the other.

They won’t be expecting me, anyway.

Friday Fictioneers

 

 

6 thoughts on “The Return of the Prodigal

  1. I hope he gets what he’s looking for, be it vengeance or a warm smile from a familiar face. Hard traveling on life’s path for this one. He needs rest one way or another.

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