He was tired. It had been a long day of laying tar along the stretch of I-10 under an unforgiving Arizona sun. The first thing that he had done when he had gotten back to the run down flop house that was his current home, was to take a long hot shower. Of course, the hot water had given out. The landlady wasn't very good about maintaining the building and there were a lot of things that simply didn't work. Hale didn't really mind all that much, he usually kept some dog eared paperback with him to pass the time. He was sitting on the edge of the stained bed and toweling off his hair, he could hear his stomach growling. Fortunately, he had some food down in the shared fridge, in the kitchen on the first floor.
With the small amount of pay that he had gotten from the temporary agency that had hooked him up with the job, Hale was able to pay a couple of days of rent in advance. He liked having all of his bases covered, especially when he never really made many plans ahead of time. He liked his freedom a great deal. He wasn't tied to anything, any place or even anyone. Many rooms like this one, where the walls were peeling layers of paint and the carpet was torn up in the corners, he had rented in the past. They were a cheap place to stop and reflect for a week or two and then move on to explore new places. In fact, in just three or four more days, Hale would be leaving here.
He got up and stretched, feeling his muscles protest, he was tired. He had done odd jobs for pretty much as long as he could remember. He traveled from one state to the next looking for work as he wandered, not really caring that much where he wound up. Sometimes the places that he had been lingered in his memory for a while, but he knew that he wouldn't be returning to them. He liked the sense of adventure that he had from simply drifting from town to town and from city to city. Ever since he was very young, he had itchy feet this way.
Strangely, it seemed as if the very events of Hale's life had made him into the perfect voyager. He had always been a very curious boy, although he recalled little of his childhood. There was an intoxicating feeling when he was on the open road and the exhilaration at arriving at a new destination. Most of the time Hale had no real inclination to keep any kind of pattern to his travels. He just went with the flow. It seemed very much a part of him. The stories and memories he had of all of the places he had been, warmed him when he was down on his luck. It wasn't always easy for the new person in town to get employed. But, for the most part, Hale had just kind of blended in with his casual and laid back attitude.
Though there were quite a few other people that lived in this worn out house, Hale hadn't bothered to become acquainted with any of them. It wasn't that he was uncaring of others, more that he was a loner and enjoyed simply keeping to himself. Hale was always polite to others, it was necessary to be able to get work where he went. He preferred to keep his own company and it was difficult to maintain friendships when he was on the road all the time. At one point or another he had thought of settling down, but the idea wasn't really all that appealing to him.
Hale stepped out of his room and walked down the rickety stairs to the first floor to fix himself something to eat. Along the wall of the stairs were old depictions of cityscapes, not there for the limited artistic value, but merely to cover up the cracks in the plaster of the yellowed walls. At the base of the stairs there was a shriveled up, unidentifiable plant, which had died well before Hale had arrived, from lack of attention. No one really even noticed it anymore. As Hale rounded the stairs and headed to the kitchen, he saw his land-lady, Mrs. Cornelius, furtively hanging up the phone in the hall. She looked up at him suddenly and Hale saw her face blanch, then she turned quickly away and retreated into the back of the house. Hale shrugged, he had given up trying to make sense out of people years ago.
The kitchen was filthy as usual. No one seemed to really recognize that they should clean up after themselves or wash their dishes when they were done. The only real good thing about the kitchen was that the appliances, although ancient, were still working. Not that Hale really minded all that much, he had lived in much worse places, under much worse circumstances. He found a plate shoved way back in one of the cupboards that had avoided notice and proceeded to make himself a couple of ham sandwiches. Fortunately, no one had yet borrowed his food. That seemed to be a common occurrence in flop housed like this one. Hale made sure that he used up all of the ham.
He stood there wavering for a moment deciding where to eat and then walked into the living room. It had been a while since he had actually watched any TV and it was the one real thing in the house that worked. Not surprisingly, it was where Mrs. Cornelius could be found most days, with her feet up on a faded ottoman and her knitting basket by her side. Hale had never seen her knitting a thing, though.
The living room was a mish mash of furniture from assorted times and places. There was the old carved love seat with its patched fabric and the long 60s stylish couch with its once proud colors washed out. Looking around for a moment in the entry, Hale settled on a rumpled looking recliner that was bleeding its stuffing at the torn seams. The TV was still set on what Mrs. Cornelius had been watching. Hale grunted, it was America's Most Wanted. It was typical of his land lady living vicariously through reality TV shows, true crime novels and People magazine. Hale was too lazy to change the channel, though.
He ate his sandwiches slowly and listened to John Walsh tell him about desperate villains and dangerous bank robbers. He had missed the opening parts, but Hale didn't really care all that much. The TV was a back ground noise that let his mind wander and allowed him to think about where he wanted to go next. His assignment with the highway project would probably end in another couple of days and he would need to move on. It was the time of year when it was easy to get outdoors work, the kind of jobs that Hale liked the most. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of slowly making his way into New Mexico as he had never been there.
His mind suddenly snapped him upright. He saw his face staring back at him from the TV! John Walsh was babbling something about a certain Hale Altman being wanted for a double homicide in Phoenix.
