Close Encounters with a Main Street Prophet
Tracie Adams
It happened in Little Rock, a bustling little metropolis in Arkansas, in the business district. A sea of blue suits and knee-length skirts moved along the busy sidewalk like a blue wave pushed by an unseen force. I watched as one by one they broke rank, forcing through the crowd to get to him. They waved. They smiled and shouted, “Hello, Preston.” One of the suits handed him a white paper bag from the bagel shop. And next, a skirt stopped to talk to him, bowing her head briefly before raising it to look into his eyes. His smile widened, revealing a single tooth behind those weathered lips.
I crossed the uneven pavement to get to him, unable to resist an otherworldly gravitational pull. I started to say hello, but staring up into a deep pool of the bluest eyes I had ever seen, I found myself speechless. I studied his eccentric form, from the tanned shoe leather of his face to the bare feet, soiled and calloused. Wrinkled by time like cracked clay, his face shone like a lighthouse. A tattered backpack rested at his feet, on the edge of his cardboard home. All his earthly possessions spilled out of the broken zipper of that canvas bag.
“I’m glad to meet you,” his voice echoed like a choir of angels. I shielded my eyes and squinted into the light, nervously handing him a twenty-dollar bill from my clenched fist. A look of confusion clouded his smile. His hands did not reach for the money. Awkwardly, I withdrew my hand. “So your name is Preston? Are you from around here?”
“I am a sojourner in this place, but not of it. Just passing through.” A look of transcendent love washed over him, highlighting the shadows where buildings shaded the sidewalk.
“If nothing in this world can satisfy our desires, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world,” he went on, matter-of-factly. Time stood still while he quoted C.S. Lewis like they were old friends.
Preston spoke an ancient language that needed no translation. His healing words searched dark places in my soul, the bass notes of his voice rattling the windows behind him. Awakened by the mysterious beauty of his words, joy overwhelmed me, peace transformed me. Something about him made me feel untethered, like a pilgrim floating above her homeland.
In the span of ten minutes, we drifted through the black hole of timelessness, discussing the kind of truth often sought by heavy human hearts. I fought a strange urge to ask if he was an alien disguised in human flesh. Instead, I asked if I could take his photo, if he didn’t mind. He didn’t answer with words, but he smiled warmly into the lens of my camera, his matted white hair blowing in the warm summer breeze.
Years later, I still recall how I could not walk away on my own strength. When Preston told me, “This earth is not my home,” I was tempted to dismiss him as crazy or drunk, maybe both. But his words answered questions I held in my heart with no courage to ask. I wanted to dissect his alien mind, to see through his eyes, to learn how to need so little, to live so fearlessly, to love so deeply.
“Is there anything you need?” I asked him as I surveyed his meager belongings, remembering the sweaty money I still held in my left hand.
“Do you have any books?” He asked, his voice full of hunger.
I rummaged through my purse and handed him my copy of a dogged-eared novel I’d been reading. He accepted it with the tender gratitude of a father holding his newborn child, bent fingers gently stroking the worn binding. He placed his right hand on my shoulder and mumbled a little prayer. My legs anchored in place like concrete posts, I watched him collect his bag filled with books and other strange magic. And then he was gone.
It was golden hour. In a cloudless sky, the sun and moon were passing one another, holding the same space for just one miraculous moment.
I gave him a book. He gave me joy.
Without the photo of him, I would still wonder if the encounter even happened. He said he needed to get to the shelter before they gave away his cot, before he missed the evening meal. His bare feet made no sound on the hot pavement as he disappeared around the corner.
Tracie Adams is a writer and teacher in rural Virginia. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2024. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Trash Cat Lit, Bright Flash Literary Review, and others. Read her work at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X/Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.