The King of Jam Sandwiches

by Eric Walters

  I went downstairs, grabbed my pack and slipped out the door. I pulled it closed behind me. I took two steps across the porch and then spun around and tried the door. It was locked. This morning it seemed more important than ever to check.

  I did a half jog to Harmony’s place. I wasn’t in danger of being late for practice, but I wanted to have a bit more time with Harmony—walk to school a bit slower than usual so she would have a chance to talk, if she wanted to. I just hoped she was ready to leave when I got there.

  As I jogged, I thought about my father. I’d considered calling his work to see if he had gone straight there from wherever he was. But then I thought he might have called in himself and given them some story about being sick. If I called now, they’d know he had lied. Him getting fired because of me would be so much worse than if he got found out some other way.

  Before going to bed, I’d thought of calling Uncle Jack and Aunt Cora—just to talk. My aunt was always nice, and Uncle Jack was, well, just a good guy. I knew I couldn’t though—how would I explain calling so late? I didn’t want to bother them, and I wasn’t going to tell them my father hadn’t come home. I used to drop in on them after school—they didn’t live that far away. But I’d stopped doing that because my father had told me it was rude and I shouldn’t bug them. I missed them. Even more, I wished they missed me too. So really, what would have been the point in calling them? I knew they couldn’t fix this.

  Anyway, I kept telling myself, being alone wasn’t that big a deal anyway. It wasn’t like my father did much for me even when he was home. What was another day or two, or a week or two? I’d survive. I had plans. No matter what happened.

  I turned the corner and was surprised to see Harmony waiting for me outside her house. She never waited outside. This was different. Different made me nervous.

  “How are you doing?” I called out.

  She didn’t answer but got to her feet and started walking. I scrambled to catch up.

  “Seriously, are you all right?” I asked.

  “It’s not like she hasn’t pulled this sort of thing before,” Harmony said.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. You sure you didn’t get into trouble for my calling so late?”

  She’d given me an opening, but I wasn’t taking it. “No trouble at all.” Nobody could know he’d done this to me. Not even her. Maybe especially her.

  It was strange, but his taking off felt a lot like my mother being dead—I didn’t want people to know about it because I felt like somehow it was my fault. I knew it was stupid, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it.

  “So do you know anything else about your mother?” I asked.

  “No. Maybe I’ll know more by the end of the day.” When we reached the spot where we usually tried to cross St. Clair, she walked right onto the road without waiting for a gap in traffic. One car swerved around her and another driver honked at her. She spun around and yelled at him. A couple more cars and a big truck slowed almost to a stop. She gave them the evil eye and even slowed her walk. But she reached the sidewalk on the other side safely. I waited for an opening and then ran across.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked as I joined her.

  “If you act like you own the road, they’ll stop. Stop being such a suck.”

  “A suck? I’m a suck because I don’t want to get hit by a car?”

  “You’re a suck for a whole lot of reasons.”

  I stood there in shock. What was up with her? Then Harmony turned toward the alley. I grabbed her arm and spun her around.

  “There’s no way we’re going down that alley this morning. I won’t let you.”

  She looked me squarely in the eyes. “First, do you remember what happened the first time you grabbed me by the arm?”

  Instantly I let go of her.

  “And second, let me? Since when do you think you’re in charge of me?”

  “I’m not…I’m sorry. Please, can we not go down that alley? You know what could happen.”

  “And if I decide to go that way, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t want to, but I’d go with you.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Really.”

  “I take back the suck part. You’re actually stupid.” Again I was shocked. But she kept talking. “I’m not going down the alley because I’m not going to school.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m going to find my mother.”

  She started walking away. I followed her.

  “You can’t do that.!”

  “I can do what I want. I’ll get on the streetcar and then the subway, and I’ll check out some places she might be.”

  “But you’ll miss basketball practice and school. They’ll call your foster home and then you’ll get in trouble and—”

  “I don’t care,” she said and started walking again.

  I ran after her again. This time I got in front of her and stopped, making sure not to touch her. “Even if you don’t care, I care. I don’t want you to get in trouble. You could get suspended. Or what if the Watsons decide you’re causing too much trouble and don’t want to keep you any longer?”

  “What’s the worst that can happen? They ship me to another place?”

  “You said it was the best place you’ve been, so why risk losing it?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I need to do something.”

  “What if I go with you?” I asked.

  “You’d cut school?”

  I couldn’t do that. “What if I went with you right after school?”

  “How is that better?” she asked.

  “First off, we won’t miss school or basketball, so we won’t get in trouble. We’ll borrow somebody’s phone, and you can call Mrs. Watson and ask if you can eat at my place because we have to study for a big test. Then we can go without anybody knowing, and you won’t get in trouble.”

  “And we’ll call your father and tell him you’re at my place,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said, though I knew it wouldn’t be necessary. He might not be home tonight anyway. “So do we have a deal?”

  Harmony looked skeptical. “And you’ll really go with me after school?”

  “I will.”

  “And you’re not just saying this thinking you can talk me out of it?”

  “I can never talk you out of anything. Look, I just don’t want you to get in trouble. I don’t want you to have to leave the Watsons’ or change schools. So…deal?”

  “Fine. Let’s go to school,” she said.

  Our last class of the day was English. I liked English. And I liked Ms. Gay, our teacher. What I didn’t like was that in forty minutes Harmony and I were going to travel across the city, probably into a bad situation. Even if nobody found out what we did, this still had the potential to get us into real trouble.

  Ms. Gay handed back our last assignment. She made comments to students as she gave them their paper. Each comment was kind, even if the mark wasn’t necessarily that good. I wasn’t worried about my mark—at least, not too worried.

  Ms. Gay stopped beside my desk. “I think you outdid yourself,” she said as she placed my paper on my desk. I saw the mark—a very big red A+. “Outstanding. I really think you could be a writer when you grow up.”

  “Thanks.” It was a nice thing to say, but really, could you make a living that way? I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but it certainly wasn’t going to be writing. I was going to do something that made money. Maybe a teacher. Or a lawyer. Lawyers on TV always seemed to drive nice cars and live in big houses. And it was guaranteed that they had good food and wore nice clothes, and I was sure their children didn’t have to worry about what was coming next. That was important to me. I didn’t want my kids to have to live being worried. I wanted something better for them.

  Ms. Gay continued along the row, and Harmony leaned over to talk to me. “B
ig shock,” she whispered. “You getting a good mark.”

  “How did you do?”

  She turned the paper so I could see the grade. “A solid B—just what I aim for.”

  I wanted to ask her why she didn’t aim for an A when Ms. Gay, who had finished handing out the papers, started to talk.

  “Today we’re going to do a fun little exercise. I want each of you to write a few paragraphs about an object or thing that you think best represents you.”

  She smiled and looked around the class, and her smile faded. “And judging from your expressions, you either don’t understand the assignment or think I’m a bit crazy for even suggesting it. Which is it? Robert?”

  A few of my friends and a couple of the teachers had picked up on Harmony using my full name, and I was Robert to them now too. I didn’t mind. I just wished Ms. Gay hadn’t singled me out.

  “Um, I think we just need a little more explanation,” I suggested, although it did sound pretty weird.

  “Okay. Maybe you can think of yourself as an eagle because you fly high, or as a transport truck because you always deliver, or as a pen because you have so much you want to say,” she said.

  “Or a pig because you eat such big lunches,” Taylor called out from the back. Everybody laughed.

  “Let’s stick with positives,” Ms. Gay said. “Your best feature. Okay, start thinking!”

  This was a stupid assignment, but what choice did I have? At least it would stop me from thinking about my father being gone, and about me and Harmony taking off to try to find her mother. Ms. Gay had mentioned an eagle, but I was no eagle. I had another idea.

  Ms. Gay gathered up the assignments. She looked at the papers as she collected them. The ones I could see had only a few lines or so on them. I knew Harmony hadn’t written anything except her name. I’d put down enough to fill almost the entire page.

  I had written about how I was like a cheetah. I moved fast, I was thin, and I had to be smart to survive. What I hadn’t written was that cheetahs were solitary and didn’t live in a family. I didn’t write that even when my father was there, I was living alone. That’s what I really wanted to write. I wanted to tell her I had been left all alone the night before. But, of course, I didn’t.

  “Well,” Ms. Gay began as she stood at the front of the class, “judging by the lack of content on these pages, it’s clear that that assignment was a real miss.”

  She dropped the papers into the garbage can beside her desk. I was shocked.

  “I was trying to be too cute,” Ms. Gay said. “All I wanted was for you to write about yourselves. That’s what tomorrow’s assignment will be—to write about who you are, what you’re about, what you believe in, what you like, what you hope to become. Does that work better?”

  Before anybody could answer, the bell rang. The day was over. At least, the school day was over. What was still to happen to Harmony and me was just the beginning. I wished I knew what the ending was going to be.

  FOURTEEN

  We walked a few blocks with the guys, then told them that Harmony needed to do some shopping and I was going along to help carry her bags. Of course, that made me the butt of numerous jokes about holding her purse—she didn’t even have one—and being her fashion consultant. I didn’t care what they had to say. It was part of our cover. We walked an extra five blocks along St. Clair before getting on the streetcar because I didn’t want anybody we knew seeing us get on.

  I’d thought of a whole lot of ways I could try to persuade Harmony not to go, but I didn’t use any of them. All I could really hope was that my being with her would make this search safer for her. I also had to hope we’d be home before it got too late.

  It wasn’t going to be an issue for me no matter how late it was, but if Harmony wasn’t home by about nine, she’d get into trouble.

  I had enough money with me for the round-trip fare. Harmony had brought along enough for her fare and for supper. I’d asked Sal to go and let Candy out into the backyard. He was one of the few people Candy didn’t hate. She didn’t like him, but she didn’t bite him. That was about as good as it got. Harmony was now in the same category as Sal. She’d been around enough that Candy had gotten used to her. Sal knew where I’d hidden a spare key. I could trust him with that too, and it wasn’t like I trusted many people.

  Harmony and I settled into seats at the back of the streetcar.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I asked.

  “The East End, where I’m from.”

  “If you lived in the East End, why did they put you in a foster home in the West End?”

  “They probably figure the farther away they send me, the less likely it is I’ll run away.”

  “But if they kept you closer, wouldn’t you be less likely to run?”

  “Maybe they should make you my social worker.”

  “I’m not that brave. And besides, so far it’s worked. You’re still here.” Then I had another thought. “You are coming back with me, right? You’re not running away?”

  “I’m not running anywhere.” She hesitated. “Not tonight anyway.”

  “How many times have you run away before?”

  “A lot.”

  “And what happens?”

  “Sometimes they find me. Sometimes the police bring me back. Sometimes I just get cold and hungry and come back on my own. You know, this is the longest I’ve ever been in a foster home without taking off for at least a night.”

  “I guess it’s a good home and they’re good people,” I said.

  “And I guess you have something to do with it. If I ran away, who’d take care of you? It’s not like your father does.”

  She didn’t know how right she was right now.

  “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself,” I answered.

  “That doesn’t make it right. We’re kids. Aren’t the parents supposed to be there for the kids?”

  “I’ll always be there for my kids.”

  She chuckled. “You have kids I don’t know about?”

  “I just mean I’ll do the right thing for my kids, for my family, for my wife.”

  “So you also have a wife? Should I be jealous?”

  “Maybe she should be jealous of you. Look, I just want to be a good parent,” I said.

  “If it were any other kid talking about being a good parent, it would just sound stupid,” she said.

  “And with me it doesn’t?”

  “Half the time you sound like you’re already an adult.”

  Somebody in my house had to be an adult.

  “You’re going to be a great parent,” she said.

  “I’m going to try.”

  “You’ll do it. You’ve had a role model for how to become a good parent,” she said.

  “You think my father is a role model?”

  “A bad role model is still a role model. You learn what you shouldn’t do, and that lets you know what you should do.”

  She was right. I’d learned a lot from my father. I was never going to be like him.

  We rode along in silence. There were a couple of stops, and people got on and off the streetcar.

  “You know you could do worse,” Harmony said.

  “Worse than what?”

  “Worse than having me as a wife.”

  “If you’re going to propose, shouldn’t you get down on one knee?”

  “Shut right up. I’m not proposing. I’m never, ever getting married.”

  I knew that someday I was going to find somebody to marry me, and I was going to treat her right. I’d treat her so well that she’d never want to leave.

  “I’m just saying that you’d be pretty lucky to end up with somebody like me,” she said.

  “You could do worse too…you know, than having me as a husband.”

  “Boy, somebody has an inflated view of himself.”

  “You don’t think I’d be a good husband?”

  She shrugged. “You’d be better than most of the jokers at our school, but that�
��s setting the bar pretty low. You know, a couple of the girls in our class really like you.”

  “Only a couple?”

  She laughed.

  “Do I get names?”

  “You can figure it out. You’re a smart guy.” She paused. “You really are a smart guy, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have much choice. I guess neither do you.”

  “We have to be smart enough to take care of ourselves. Being scared can make you smart,” she said.

  If that were the case, I must be the smartest person in the world. Again I considered telling her about my father not coming home the night before, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I felt a wave of shame. He didn’t care enough about me to even come home and make sure I was okay. He might not come home tonight or the night after or the night after. I just didn’t want Harmony to know that. Besides, this mission wasn’t about me. It was about her.

  “Do you know why I don’t have many friends?” Harmony asked.

  “You’re still new to the school.”

  “That isn’t it.”

  “Is it because you’re obnoxious?” I asked.

  “Ha. That’s not it either. You know you’re really my only friend.”

  “What about the guys?” I asked.

  She laughed. “They’re not even your friends.”

  “What?

  “They’re just people you’re friendly with, but that doesn’t make them your friends.”

  “What are you talking about? Sal’s, like, my best friend since second grade.”

  “If he’s your best friend, why do I know more about you than the guy you’ve known for years?”

  I was going to argue, but she was right. I’d already told her things Sal didn’t know. That nobody else knew.

  “You’re different,” she said.

  “You’re different too,” I said.