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The call came at night.

There was no name — only the voice of a man telling me that he knew about a homeless man living in a tent at the end of a gravel road.

No phone number. No address.

Only the name of that road.

On a whim, I drove down it. Near the end of the road, I spotted two cars pulled off into a clearing in the woods. Beyond it, there was a campsite.

I honked the horn and waited in my car.

The sound roused Tom Pruitt. Shirtless, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he wandered cautiously to the road where I waited, engine running, one foot ready to make a quick getaway if I needed to.

As soon as he spoke, I recognized the voice of my mysterious caller. He hadn’t been phoning to tell me about someone else who was homeless. He’d phoned about himself.

Pruitt, 53, has been living on a patch of land between Reidsville and Eden for the past nine months. He’s weathered winter snowfalls and a summertime string of 90-plus days.

My first visit with him was brief, and I wasn’t sure I trusted him, but I told him I’d be back.

I checked into his background and found nothing alarming.

When I returned, it was with Jason Thompson, an employee at Help for Homeless.

If I were going to choose a poster boy for homelessness, it wouldn’t be Pruitt. His Rambolike look, with shaved head, tattoos and cut-off sleeves, doesn’t elicit much sympathy.

He also has a job working the night shift as a truck driver, moving trailers around a manufacturing site.

He has two vehicles, both older models. He owes for both.

I’d like to say that Pruitt isn’t your “typical” homeless person, but from my conversations with Thompson, there really isn’t a typical description.

The bottom line is that it should never be typical to lack the basics of food and shelter.

Homelessness should always have a face.

Sometimes that face is a mother who can’t make ends meet after a divorce. Or a person who can’t break the cycle of addiction. Or someone whose unemployment benefits have expired and has no place else to turn.

Pruitt says he falls through the cracks in the system.

His story involves a string of misfortunes and bad decisions — a failed marriage that came with an alimony payment, a foreclosure on a home and a blown engine in a car.

Could he have made better decisions and avoided this? Probably.

He’s got two vehicles, neither of them new, but a splurge nonetheless. He owes his dad for the old Chevy Blazer, and he’s making payments on a used Subaru Forester that gets him back and forth from his job.

Pruitt admits that he’d rather live in the woods than lose his privacy and have to conform to the rules and regulations of a homeless shelter.

He has embellished his campsite — a place he calls “Camp Creeping Crud.”

It’s on land that his mother owns. He has cleared a small area of it, but the woods and undergrowth still try to encroach, hence the camp’s name.

He has used concrete blocks and wood to make a washstand. A plastic bowl serves as a sink. He hauls in water and, for now, lets it heat in the sun. He has hung a mirror on the frame.

He has a Coleman tent where he sleeps, and his living area is a tarp spread over poles, decorated with U.S. and military flags. It’s where he keeps a grill and a cooler.

Pruitt belongs to a church, Lighthouse Baptist, and says the pastor occasionally will let him sleep there. He’s gotten a little help from the American Red Cross of Rockingham County, but his $14-an-hour job, with spotty hours, disqualifies him from most services.

Sharon Foust, the executive director of Help for Homeless, has far too many people seeking help who make much less than Pruitt. In the past month, three pregnant women turned to Help for Homeless when they had nowhere to live. Foust referred them to an agency in Guilford County.

It’s easy to see why Pruitt doesn’t make many priority lists, and there are those in the county who would envy his paycheck.

I phoned Pruitt’s ex-wife, hoping to learn more, but all I came away with was a “he-said, she-said” tale.

In the end, there was nothing that Help for Homeless could do to help.

Every year, Help for Homeless does a count of homeless residents on the last Wednesday in January. This year, the group counted 217 people who are either homeless or in shelters.

They most likely missed Pruitt, tucked away at the end of his gravel road. 

For now, Pruitt will continue to weather the heat of summer. He’ll do battle with kudzu, mosquitoes and poison oak. He’ll make his camp as cozy as he can.

Outdoors. In the woods. At the end of a gravel road. Deep in that widening crack where so many find themselves.

A place that’s getting far too crowded.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-4881, Ext. 116, or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com