Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
Grandeur: The Crash
What happens when a man falls so far that he disappears from the world? When did you stop noticing the homeless man on the corner, and what if that man was once just like you?
"The Crash," the fourth episode in our Grandeur series, takes us to the darkest places of human experience – not with dramatic flair, but with the quiet devastation of reality. We follow a nameless man through shelter cots and park benches, through hunger and invisibility, watching as he clutches a mysterious "night" in his coat pocket and the last fragments of his former identity.
This isn't poverty tourism or inspiration porn. It's a raw examination of what happens when someone slides through society's cracks. The true horror isn't in the cold or hunger, but in the moment when death happens two bunks over and you feel nothing at all. When numbness replaces pain. When you realize no one is coming to save you.
But within this darkness lies a profound truth – rock bottom isn't just where you fall; it's where you finally stop digging. It's where the real choice begins. As our protagonist sits with a humming object that seems to watch him, we witness the nearly imperceptible moment when something shifts. Not dramatically, not with fanfare, but with the quiet recognition that if no one is coming, then what happens next is entirely yours.
Through reflection questions, we challenge you to examine your own life: What parts of yourself have you been numbing to survive? What objects do you carry that no longer give you power? Who would you become if you accepted that salvation is your responsibility alone?
Connect with me through the podcast description, email me at anthony@gentsjourney.com, or find me on Instagram @mygentsjourney. Remember – you create your reality.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we are in episode four of Grandeur. This one's called the Crash. So let's go ahead and let's get into the cold open. He doesn't remember falling asleep, just the cold and the way his back pressed against the stone Corner outside the church Like it might swallow him whole if he leaned too hard. His socks are damp. He hasn't changed them in three days. Every step rubs the blisters raw again. There's a spot under his heel that feels like it's bleeding, but he's too exhausted to check. Not tonight. Last time he showered was five days ago. That's a guess.
Speaker 1:Time's a blur now. The kind of blur that tastes like stale ramen and burnt coffee. The kind of blur that steals your name in pieces. Ramen and burnt coffee. The kind of blur that steals your name in pieces. He's not sure the man and his ID photo exists anymore. That man had a fiance, that man had health insurance. He begs, not out loud, not with signs, just in the way he sits, the way he doesn't meet anyone's eyes, the way he lingers near places people pass but never places they gather. Once he asked Once, and the way the woman's lip curled like she might spit on him. That was enough. Now he just sits.
Speaker 1:The shelter smells like chemicals and failure. Everyone's running from something. Most of them are running in circles, and there's danger there. Not loud danger, but the slow seeping kind, the kind that smells like melted plastic and burned foil. The kind that watches you sleep. The kind that sees a man's weakness and finds a price tag for it. He keeps his shoes on even when he sleeps. And the night that stays in his coat, always close to his heart, where no one, no one can see it, where he can still feel it though, a piece of something that once meant something. Now it's just there, a weight, a reminder, his stomach cramps, too much caffeine, not enough food, or maybe it's the fear, the kind that doesn't leave, the kind that speaks and whispers just before you fall asleep, telling you you're not getting out of this, telling you that no one's coming, that you're not just alone, you're forgotten.
Speaker 1:He walks because stillness is a trap. If he keeps moving, the weight of it all catches up. So he wanders through alleyways, past windows he used to see from the inside, past restaurants where he once left tips. Now he looks through the glass like a stray dog, soaking in what warmth he can from the sound of forks and laughter. He passes a man's face down in the gutter. No one checks. He doesn't either. He tells himself it's because he's too tired. But it's not. It's because he's afraid that'll be him soon, that looking at it too long might be a prophecy.
Speaker 1:Somewhere around 4 am he ends up back at the bridge. The same one, the same ledge, the same cold breath of wind rolling up off the water. It doesn't shimmer like it used to. It doesn't say anything, it just stares back. He grips the night, doesn't pull it out, just holds it as if to remind himself he's still real, that there's something left of him that matters. But the truth is he's not sure it does Not anymore. His hands shake, maybe from the cold, maybe from something deeper. A siren passes in the distance. Blue lights roll across the alleyways. For a moment he hopes they're coming for him, that someone saw something and called, that maybe he's still visible. But they don't stop. They never do. He turns back towards the shelter. The street is wet, the wind cuts deep and he walks, not because he has somewhere to go, but because standing still feels like too much, like surrender. This is rock bottom. But he doesn't know it yet, not fully. That realization it's coming, and it won't be kind.
Speaker 1:Part 1. The Crash he didn't mean to sleep there. The park bench wasn't a choice, it was just the last place his legs gave out the kind of exhaustion that isn't about sleep, it's about surrender. His coat was wet, his socks colder than concrete and his breath, only thing that told me, hasn't vanished yet entirely. Kent showered in six days. He knew it because the itch under his arms had turned into a sting and that the man who gave him a dollar yesterday left it on the bench instead of handing it to him. That's when you know, when people stop seeing you as someone who could be them. Now you're something else An object, a smell, a warning.
Speaker 1:The shelter had rules. You could only stay three nights in a row unless you had a voucher. He didn't. So the cot was gone, the little safety net of flickering lights and bad coffee and people screaming at the ceiling in their sleep. It was no longer his. The world had become sharper. Every glance from a stranger cut deeper. Every question you good man Felt like mockery. No, he wasn't good, he was a wreck. And yet somewhere in that wreckage he still had the ring, small box wrapped in cloth, kept at the bottom of his pocket, could have sold it, should have sold it, but he didn't. It was the last sacred thing he owned, the last proof that there was a before, before the funeral, before the layoff, before he sold the car. This wasn't a fall anymore, this was the ground. And yet the city kept moving, it didn't care.
Speaker 1:He pulled the night from his coat, not to look at it, just to feel its weight, just to remember that something had been handed to him once, that something still chose him, even if he no longer chose himself. Someone walked by, a businessman polished shoes, crisp coat. The man looked at him, then away. Like seeing him was wrong, like acknowledgement was betrayal. He clenched the night tighter. Something had to change. But what do you do when there's no step left to take, when even a small decision feels like it'll cost too much? Even the small decision feels like it'll cost too much.
Speaker 1:He leaned back against the bench, eyes toward the gray sky and for the first time he didn't ask for hope. He just asked to make it one more hour. Part 2 the streets blur when you're walking without purpose, just one foot in front of the other, breathing through a scarf that smells like mildew and regret. He stopped noticing the stairs, not because they stopped coming, but because they started to feel deserved. He begged today, not by standing on the corner with a sign that still felt too proud. No, this was quieter, more desperate. He begged today, not by standing on the corner with a sign that still felt too proud. No, this was quieter, more desperate.
Speaker 1:He waited near the alley behind a coffee shop, watched people drop change into a red bucket by the door, watched them tip baristas with ease of gods, tossing coins into fate. When the last customer left, he approached a man throwing out the trash. Voice, low, eyes down, you got anything you don't need. The guy didn't even flinch, just closed the bin and walked inside. He stood there for another 30 seconds, then left. There was no outrage, just the quiet realization that even dignity, when starved long enough, stops protesting. It's not just the hunger or the cold, it's the invisibility. You walk for hours and not one person looks at you in the eye, and the night Still there, still quiet, like it's watching him, judging or maybe just waiting for something. But for what? He passed an old friend today. Maybe it was someone from his old building. The guy always borrowed jumbo cables and talked about weekend barbecues. The man didn't recognize him. His beard had grown in, eyes darker now, face more hollow, but he remembered the man's voice, the same laugh, the same joke about premiums. He watched him get into the black SUV, pissing his daughter's forehead and driving off. It felt like watching an old movie, one he used to be in, one that no longer had a part for him.
Speaker 1:Back at the shelter the crowd grew thicker Tonight. A new man was outside yelling at a tree, shirtless, scarred, laughing through broken teeth. No one stopped him, not even the staff. He wasn't the only one screaming, he was just the loudest. He made it inside, got a floor mat, not a cot. The room weaked of sweat and still air and something unnameable that clung to the walls like grief. He curled up on the mat clutching the night through his coat, and somewhere between the snoring and the coughing and the midnight fight three bunks over, he whispered to himself. I don't know who I am anymore. No one heard him. But the night buzzed just once, and then silence Part 3. Between then, silence, part 3. Between the Teeth.
Speaker 1:The wind tonight isn't gentle, it bites. It's sharp and hollow, like it's trying to cut through whatever's left of him. His coat, threadbare now Doesn't help, just another layer pretending to be something. It's not Like him. Like him, like everything. He walks aimlessly down a stretch of road that doesn't even look familiar anymore. Same city, same concrete, but none of it feels real. It's like the world blurred its edges and now no one noticed but him. He hasn't eaten today, not really yesterday either, just a couple crackers he found at the bottom of someone's bag, and they weren't looking. He didn't steal them, they were just Unattended, like everything in a part of this town, forgotten, Disposable. The hunger doesn't ache anymore, it pulses quietly Like a second heartbeat Somewhere in his gut.
Speaker 1:He drifts past the liquor store. The windows are fogged with grime and dust. Inside, a man argues with the cashier about change. The TV behind the counter flickers, showing muted images of people smiling Lives filled with choice and warmth. He keeps walking, doesn't stop, does want to remember that he used to have a favorite drink. A group of teenagers laugh from across the street. One of them points at him, mocking his limp, his smell, his everything. He's not angry, he's just tired. Tired in the way that sinks into your bones and makes you your name, feel too heavy.
Speaker 1:He finds a spot near an alley and crouches behind a dumpster. It reeks, but it's out of sight and that's all that matters. He curls up into himself, the way animals do when they know they won't make it through the night. His fingers fumble for the night in his coat. It's still there, still cold, still silent. He doesn't pull it out, doesn't look at it, just needs to feel it, to remind himself that something still touches him, even if it's not just metal.
Speaker 1:The alley noises grow louder as the sun disappears, bottles break, someone shouts, somewhere farther down, someone sobs and somewhere closer, someone laughs, but it's not the kind of laugh you want to follow. He presses his back to the wall. He doesn't cry, not because he's strong, but because he's past it. The tears dried days ago. What's left is worse Numbness. That's what scares him, not the violence, not the loneliness, not even the hunger, the numbness. Because once that sets in, once it becomes normal to feel nothing, what's left to fight for? He closes his eyes and listens to his breath. It's shallow, uneven, and yet still there, barely. Somewhere across the alley, a man mutters nonsense into a puddle. The words don't make sense, but they're rhythmic, repeated a chant, a loop name blame flame, same name, blame flame, same name, blame flame, same. Over and over and over. It drills into his ears. He stands up abruptly. The sudden motion, dizzying the world, tilts. He grabs the wall to stay upright Too fast. He tumbles towards the street again. Past the kids, past the liquor store, past the fake smiles on the TV screen. His vision, it's blurry, it's swimming. He makes it to a bus stop and collapses on the bench. He's shaking, he's not cold, he's just unraveling. And no one sees, no one even looks. The night hums once, then goes still. He doesn't notice.
Speaker 1:Part 5. In the Quiet Corners. He didn't cry when she died, not at the hospital, not at the funeral, not even when he lowered the casket. But he weeps now In the corner of a sheltered hallway Between a rusty radiator stack of old donation bins. He breaks. No noise, no warning, just a full collapse.
Speaker 1:Shoulders shaking, breath gone, chest tight. His hand grips the inside of his coat so hard the seams strain. He presses his face into his sleeve, not because he cares what anyone thinks, but because the smell is hers. She used to wear this when it got cold. The wool still holds traces of her perfume, something faint and floral. Now it mixes with the sweat and street and sorrow becomes something else entirely, like memory rotting into grief.
Speaker 1:He doesn't know how long he stays there. A volunteer passes him, doesn't stop. He's invisible. Now that is harder than anything. It was once the man people waved to at a coffee shop, the one co-workers texted for advice, the guy who always brought the extra charger and the spare umbrella and remembered everyone's birthday. Now he's a shadow and worse, a burden. He finds himself staring at his hands again, like he's trying to prove himself that they still belong to him. But they're too thin now, too dirty, still shaking. He takes the night out, wipes it off on his sleeve, not because it's dirty but because it's the only thing he still treats like it matters. He tries to remember what the old man said, not the words, the weight behind them. He'd felt something then. Now he just feels hollow.
Speaker 1:That night a new guy comes into the shelter, tall, wide stance, eyes that scan every corner of the room. He's not like the others. He has a clean coat. No twitch, no slur, just alert, too alert. He sits on the bunk across from him and doesn't sleep, just watches. The night, doesn't hum. That night the silence is suffocating.
Speaker 1:In the morning he walks, doesn't hum that night. The silence is suffocating. In the morning he walks, doesn't say goodbye, just leaves. No destination, no plan. He ends up at a bus stop with no route, just a metal bench and an ad for a payday loan. He stares at it like it might offer salvation, but it's just numbers, just bait. He thinks of calling someone, then realizes he has no one to call. Even if he did, what would he say? Hey, remember me, I'm nothing now, just thought I'd share. He laughs Out loud First time in weeks and then he weeps again, but this time it feels honest, not like breaking, like clearing, like something old, finally letting go. He stays there until the sun sets, then walks back into the city Night in his pocket, head down, something. Something is different in his chest A fracture Maybe, just maybe a seed, part 6.
Speaker 1:The sound beneath the cot feels smaller now, not physically, just spiritually, like his body's grown heavier with what it holds and the thin frame beneath him can no longer bear it. Each night it groans under the weight not of flesh but of everything else. He hasn't changed clothes in days. His hair is slick with sweat and street grime. His skin smells like the inside of a coin purse metallic, sour, unclean. He showers once a week, if that, whenever the schedule lines up, whenever there isn't a fight for the faucet. But most days it doesn't feel worth it, not because he doesn't care, but because he does. That's the worst part. He still cares. He still checks the mirror, still avoids certain angles because they show him too much, still folds the shirt that smells like her and sleeps with it under his arm, still keeps the ring in his pocket Tucked away for safekeeping. That's where he lives now. The ground, every piece of him feels lowered, leveled. He eats whatever he's given. He only speaks when spoken to. He's learned to dodge the dangerous ones and nod at the quietly broken. They form their own tribes in here those who talk to ghosts, those who beg for a second chances and those who have forgotten that they're even waiting. He doesn't know which one he is yet. Maybe he's all three.
Speaker 1:One night a man overdoses, two bunks over. He doesn't scream, doesn't convulse, he just stops and by the time they notice he's already cold. They carry him out wrapped in a blanket, not even a body bag. There's something off the donation pile. The shelter clears out for hours. He stays, sits on the cot, stares at the empty bunk and feels nothing, not shock, not sadness, just the echo of inviolability. He pulls out his notebook, tries to write. He can't. The pen skips. The words vanish before they reach the page. So he draws a circle, then a line through it, then another, then another, until it looks like a shattered compass. He doesn't know what it means, but it feels true.
Speaker 1:That night, the night hums again soft, like a whisper in his heart, but this time it hurts, like a low pulse pressing against something raw. He holds it in his hand and watches it do nothing. No light, no shift, just hum. He places it on a concrete floor beside the cot. It hums louder. He backs away, sits on the edge of the bed. The hum doesn't stop. He kicks it once lightly. It spins, stops, goes silent. He doesn't sleep, just watches it. Until morning, when he finally stands and puts it back in his pocket, something shifts inside of him Not peace, not clarity, but awareness of the sound beneath everything, of the beat, behind the noise, of the fact that, even when everything falls away, something stays and that something is watching.
Speaker 1:All right, let's go into the monologue. This is the bottom, but it's not the dramatic kind you see in films. There's no explosions, no betrayal, no final scream into the sky. It's just silence, just a man folded into himself, drifting in a world that stopped calling his name. This episode wasn't about decisions, it wasn't about faith. It was about weight, about how it feels to carry memories you can't trade in for food. About the ring in your pocket stops being romantic and starts becoming a stone Heavy, cold and ever-present.
Speaker 1:You watched a man unravel. He didn't scream, he didn't fight, he just dimmed. You may have missed it because it doesn't come with a soundtrack, but the moment he sat still in that cot and felt nothing, when someone died beside him, that was the moment the world proved its indifference, the moment he realized it was all on him. This wasn't a fall, this was the thud, this was the dirt on the floor of the cave, the point where digging stops. The point where digging stops Whether you rot or you rise, and that's the terror, because the next move is his. There's no magic, there's no rescuer, there's no rescuer, just him Alone With a humming night. I should say with the humming of a night. That may not even mean anything really, right, but if you've been there, really been there. You know that's when something shifts Not big, not bold, but real.
Speaker 1:This episode invites you to sit in that stillness with him, to not flinch from the dirt, to ask yourself the hardest question of all what if no one's coming to save you? And what if that's the best news you've ever heard? Because if no one's coming, then anything and everything that happens next is yours the recovery, the refusal, the return. It starts here, not at the mountaintop, at the floor With a man who smells like rust and sleep beside a piece of metal. He doesn't understand you, yes, you. If something in this episode felt too close, too heavy, it's not because you're weak, it's because you're carrying and you've been carrying too heavy. It's not because you're weak, it's because you're carrying and you've been carrying too much alone. And maybe it's time to name that, to grieve that, to stop waiting and start deciding.
Speaker 1:So let's go ahead and get into the reflection questions. Reflection one what part of you have you been numbing to survive man? I could name five things probably, especially with this. Number two when was the last time you truly let yourself feel rock bottom, without distracting or escaping? That's a big question. Number three what small, unnoticed decision could mark the beginning of your rise? Number four what symbols or objects are you carrying that no longer give you power but you refuse to let go of? And number five who would you become if you accepted that no one is coming to save you, but you're still worth saving?
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you something, and this is a question that was asked to me a long, long time ago. Actually, I think I read it in a book. To be honest, it said if no one is coming to save you and you had a week left to live, what would you do with your life? And that whole thing changed my life. It's actually one of the reasons why I started this.
Speaker 1:To be honest, you know, I know these past two episodes have been very, very heavy and it's hard to listen to, but I'm just going to tell you this is the bottom of him. It starts to get better, but in order to build a hero, in order to build someone, you've got to build them through challenges and it has to be honest, right, and that's what we're doing here. So please understand that there's 16 episodes left and there's a whole bunch that he's going to go through and he will ascend, I promise, but it's going to take time and the reason why I'm saying this. I got a message today saying like oh my gosh, is this guy going to be okay? He will, he will be okay, I promise so.
Speaker 1:Anyways, guys, since we're talking about um messaging me, let's just go over that really quick. There's three ways you can do it. First way is going to be through the description here of the podcast. There's a function or there's something in the description that says let's chat. You click on that and you and I can have a conversation about this series, this episode, or the 200 and I think we're almost at 270 plus episodes of Gent's Journey. There's a ton of them out there. There's a huge library. That's the first way. Second way is through my email. My email is anthonyatgentsjourneycom, so feel free to reach out to me there. And then, last but certainly not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is mygentsjourney, so please, please, please, feel free to reach out to me there as well. Okay, so again, guys, thank you so very much for listening today. And remember this you create your reality, take care.