Illustration
Nicholas Coad
I
Nick Coad is a tattoo artist
from Fife, Scotland. His main
influences include new school
tattoo and comic art.
n my phone, under the entry labeled SARGE, was a phone number I had never called. A woman answered.
“Hello.” She had a rasp, a deepness in her tone.
“I’m looking for Sarge,” I said.
She didn’t immediately say anything.
“He says he knows a place.” When she still didn’t answer, I added, “A place where I can be safe.”
“What’s your name?” She said it slowly, like maybe she was just curious and afterward I wondered if she’d heard of
me, like I was famous somewhere.
After I told her she drew in her breath, then rattled off an address in Maine and hung up. I checked the map. I
went to the library and read bus tables and train times. I figured I could get there by taking four different buses over
three days.
My last night in Vermont, when Bodi called, I told him I loved him.
Before I left, I cashed out my bank account at a major national institution, which my parents had opened for me
when I was five. Everything suddenly felt vulnerable and nothing seemed to be mine unless I carried it with me.
Whatever I owned in Brooklyn had become unimportant. Just clothes and books. Unnecessary, replaceable. At a
sporting goods store, I bought a backpack and water bottle, some energy bars, shirts in a variety of layers and warmth,
a jacket, socks, and a hat. At the local Goodwill, I found a couple pair of corduroys and a couple of paperbacks. A
final stop at the local drugstore added a 12-pack of underwear and some toiletries to the mix, mostly extra cleaner for
my contact lenses and a stick of deodorant. In the handbag I’d brought with me from Brooklyn I had my phone and
charger, wallet, house keys, The House of Mirth, and my journal. That seemed like enough. That seemed like more
than enough.