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Dharma Bum

By ERICA KENT  |  10 FEB 2021

I’m a girl who wants to hop trains, drink hooch. One day I ditch school and chat up a homeless guy with rough water eyes. I give him a copy of The Dharma Bums, then invite him back to my mother’s apartment. Coltrane plays on while I whine about boys.

He puffs on a smoke. “Can’t really help you with that.” He sounds bored. “Stupid to be lonely. How ‘bout just hungry?”

I pretend my eyes don’t sting and make him a sandwich. On his way out he says “not everything’s romantic.”

He’s right. But so what. He’s no Kerouac. And I’m a dumb kind of sixteen.

Erica Kent lives with her husband, daughter and big dog in Portland, Maine. She is a high school English teacher who on some days lacks a sense of humor but works hard to regain it. Her work has been featured in StoryQuarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, Past Ten and The Maine Review.

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