Worcester is the Massachusetts city Perry Smith reached while trying to find an old Army friend and a job. Instead of providing the welcome and work he had anticipated, the city marked another turn in his unsettled journey: his friend was gone, and Perry was arrested for vagrancy before leaving again.

Setting and Intended Destination

Perry had settled on Worcester as a definite destination because an Army buddy from Korea was supposed to live there and might help him find a good-paying job. The eastward trip was prolonged by detours: he washed dishes in an Omaha restaurant, pumped gas at a garage in Oklahoma, and spent a month working on a ranch in Texas. By the time a Greyhound bus brought him to Worcester on a wet afternoon the following November, the planned reunion had become the purpose of a long, interrupted journey.

The book presents Worcester as a Massachusetts factory town of steep, up-and-down streets, described as cheerless and hostile even in better weather. That impression frames Perry’s arrival, but the decisive disappointment is practical: he locates the house where he believes his friend lives and learns from the people there that the friend had left six months earlier and that they do not know where he went.

A Failed Reunion

With the hoped-for contact unavailable, Perry went to a liquor store, bought a half gallon of wine, and returned to the bus depot to drink. His account presents this as a brief attempt to warm himself and take pleasure in the moment after the disappointment. The episode does not lead to a new home or employment; it ends when a man approaches and arrests him for vagrancy.

Arrest and Departure

At the police station, Perry was booked as Bob Turner, an assumed name he had adopted because he was listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He spent fourteen days in jail and was fined ten dollars. He then left Worcester on another wet November afternoon, making the city a short-lived stop rather than the settled destination he had hoped to find. The sequence turns an anticipated reunion into a failed search, followed by confinement and another departure.