He was a drifter. A tattered, run-down, out-of-luck borderline burnout. He wore a jacket older than he was, and shoes that didn't cover the heels so much as give him a feeble loophole around the "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs. He'd only been drifting four years, but he'd met enough of his fellows to know differences. There were drifters who'd been born drifters, in a sense. Those who could never find a home. Those born with what they call the wanderlust. No matter how hard they tried to root themselves, sooner or later they'd blow away again.

There was another type, though. They were the ones who'd been pulled up. They were the ones, like him, who'd lost something. They were the ones with darkness in their eyes. They'd lost something, and they couldn't stay around anymore. So they moved on, telling themselves they'd go to live in LA, to sleep in NYC. And days, weeks, months later they'd learn that nobody lives in LA, nobody sleeps in NYC. Some of them, they tried to go home. And when they got there, they learned that when you leave home, you can never really go back. Not once you've been marked a drifter. When you're marked a drifter, you stay a drifter. They leave again. Like every drifter, they follow the wind. Wind of the wanderlust, wind of the broken heart, it still blows you around the country all the same.

The drifter was scrubbing grease in another greasy spoon in another greasy town somewhere in the greasy country. He'd scrubbed so many plates in so many places like this that he didn't even think about it anymore. All the little greasy spoons had blended together in his mind, becoming the only constant left in his life. It was also the best time he could think. The clouds of steam, the rumble of dishwashers, the back-room isolation helped his mind focus and wander, letting him reflect on his life. When he scrubbed away grease, he scrubbed away the grease on his mind too, letting him see everything that had led him here, to this greasy diner and this greasy town a thousand greasy miles from what he used to call home.

Five hundred and fifty dollars. That was what had led him here. All he'd needed was a five fifty ticket out of that town. But he'd been in love too. He wanted to stay, and he wanted to go. And he stalled, delayed, made excuses. Quit his job. He couldn't decide to leave. So he took away his decision. Made it so he hadn't decided. Fate had kept him here. He missed his ticket. Missed his ride to the city of dreams. Chose love over dreams. But the dreams never left. They gnawed at him. Gnawed away his happiness. Gnawed away his creativity. Gnawed away his motivation. And when they'd gnawed everything else from him, they gnawed away his love. And it gnawed and gnawed and gnawed and gnawed. And it killed them both. Gnawed away so much he was a skeleton of himself. Gnawed her away so much, he came home to a smear of blood and brains and a note. Only five words. The only five words, it seemed, that mattered. I don't love you anymore. Five words that followed him. Stayed in the back of his head when he sold everything and stepped onto the first train he saw. Burning behind his eyes every time he looked another pretty girl in the eyes. Five words that made him into a drifter. Five words, four years, a hundred different towns.

He'd walked a thousand miles, trying to leave those five words behind. He'd wiped the grease from two thousand plates trying to leave those five words behind. He'd scrubbed a hundred and seventeen floors, slept with twenty seven women, stolen nineteen dollars and thirteen cents, fought eight gangsters, trying to leave five words behind. Almost tried one bullet and seventy little pills to leave five words. Four years he'd made himself alone, four years he'd had no home, four years he'd never known where he'd be the next night, and he still hadn't come close to leaving those five words behind.

The drifter wiped the grease from his two thousand, four hundred, seventy eighth plate. He walked across the greasy floor, out the greasy door. He tipped his hat to the scowling, greasy chef. He smiled at the nice clean waitress, ho turned away from something in his eyes she couldn't place and didn't want to place. The drifter stepped onto the street, and he took a step west. Another step of hundreds of thousands. Another single step further away from the five words that would never go away.