The ending of Charles Willeford's "I Was Looking for a Street"

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Charles Willeford is one of my favorite writers. He was born in 1919 in Arkansas to an established family. Willeford’s father (a travelling candy salesman) died of tuberculosis when Willeford was just an infant, plunging the family into poverty. Making matters worse, Willeford’s mother had contracted tuberculosis from his father before his death. She died just a few years later.

Willeford was sent to live with his grandmother in Los Angeles for a time, though the Great Depression eventually made the young Willeford feel as though he was a burden to his family. Willeford ran away from home when he was around 11 years old. He rode the rails as a hobo for years.

Willeford wrote a very good memoir, I Was Looking for a Street, recounting his experiences on the road during this period. I find myself thinking about the ending all the time. In the scene immediately preceding this one Willeford found a clumsy excuse to separate from his two travelling companions, who planned to return home or settle down.

At midnight I was alone by the fire and missing my friends already, but I was much happier alone, and I knew it.

Now that I no longer had the responsibility for Billy Tyson or Pearson I could go to Mobile or New Orleans and ship out on a freighter for South America. If I could learn how to drive a car I could go to Miami Beach, maybe, and drive a taxicab. Or I could go to San Francisco, or Seattle, or Alaska. Alaska? Why not Alaska, that is, if I could get a good used Navy pea jacket first. My possibilities were limitless. One man alone, without responsibilities, has got a fighting chance in this world; and it was, indeed, a wonderful world.