by Eric Walters
“Don’t you want a drink first?” Taylor asked.
“I’ll get one later.”
“No need for later. I can go and get you one,” Sal said.
“Sure, thanks.”
I didn’t want anything to drink, but what could I say? Drinking made no sense to me. I was working hard to be in control of my life—I couldn’t risk losing that control.
Sal headed off in one direction while the rest of us went the other, weaving our way through the crowd. The people were older than us—some a lot older—and they were loud. It was obvious they had had a lot of punch to drink. I was uneasy. The whole place gave me the feeling that people were on the edge of losing it.
We gave a wide berth to a couple of guys who were yelling at each other. Judging from the way a crowd was starting to form around them, I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought this could lead to something more. We’d only gone a few steps past them when there was a roar and somebody yelled, “Fight, fight!” A rush of people moved in their direction.
I pushed through, then turned and saw that my friends weren’t following. They had joined the crowd watching the fight. The back gate was open, and people were running into the yard from the alley, hoping to catch the action. I waited until there was an opening and then popped through and out into the alley. It was instantly much darker, the only light coming from a lamppost halfway down the block on the main road.
The people in the alley were spread out, and I couldn’t see if Harmony was one of them. Maybe she’d already left and gone home. That would have been the smart thing to do, which meant she was probably still here. Being here in this alley in the dark wasn’t that smart either, but I couldn’t leave without trying to talk to her. Harmony was in my head. I’d been thinking about her all during my work shift. If this was the end of us being friends, I at least wanted to know. I was tired of waiting for things to happen and having no control.
There seemed to be more people to my left, so I headed that way. There were little clusters of people standing beside and between the garages along the alley. I looked at the first group—and they looked at me. They were definitely older and bigger than me. One of them scowled at me. I quickly looked away. I flashed back to the last time I was in an alley and then started wondering if those guys could be here tonight. That thought got me spooked. I wanted to just turn around and leave. And then I saw her—at least, I thought I did. Her back was turned to me.
“Harmony?” I called out.
She turned around. She was standing in the shadows with four other people, one of them a girl and all of them older than Harmony. She was holding a red plastic cup. They were all holding those red cups. Was I the only person not drinking?
“Um, can we talk?” I asked.
“I doubt I could stop you if I tried,” she replied.
“I was hoping we could talk alone.”
“Who is this kid?” one of the guys asked.
“He’s a friend,” Harmony said.
“Friend or boyfriend?” one of the other guys asked.
“Boyfriend?” she scoffed. “Look at him. Give me a break. Do you think I’d have him as a boyfriend?”
They all laughed—laughed at me. I hadn’t expected her to say that or that it would hurt so much.
“Then you should tell your friend that people came here to party!” He yowled, and two of them exchanged a high five.
“Please, Harmony. It’s important.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Just for a minute, please.”
“The girl said she didn’t want to talk,” the biggest guy said. “You need to leave.”
“Harmony?”
Her expression softened. “Sure, we can talk.”
The big guy grabbed her by the arm as she started to walk away. “Stay with us.”
“Let her go!” I yelled.
Judging by his expression, I had surprised him as much as I’d surprised myself.
“Or what are you going to do about it?” he demanded. “Are you going to fight me?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. They all laughed except Harmony. He released her arm.
“Do you really think you can take me, you little puke?” he asked.
I shook my head. “That doesn’t matter. I’ll still fight you if I have to.”
“It looks like you have to,” he said. He reached out and gave me a poke in the chest. “Just walk away while you can.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up, and a lump formed in my chest. A lump of anger.
“Maybe you should walk away while you still can,” I said.
His friends all laughed, but this time it was at him. He looked as angry as I felt.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said.
“You should be.” He pushed both hands hard against my chest, and I stumbled backward and fell onto one knee.
I got up. I brushed my hand against the knee of my pants, worried that it had ripped. It was fine. I knew I should walk away but I couldn’t. Instead I stepped toward him. He pushed me again, and this time I almost tumbled right over and onto the ground.
I walked back toward him again. This time I put up my fists.
“Don’t make me do this to you,” he said. His voice had changed. He wasn’t threatening as much as he was pleading. “Just walk away while you can.”
I shook my head. “I’m not walking away without Harmony.”
“Come on, Josh, he’s just a kid—leave him alone,” the girl said.
“Talk to him,” he said to the girl. “He’s the one looking for a fight.”
“What grade are you in?” the girl asked me.
“Eighth. Just like Harmony.”
They looked surprised, and all of them turned to Harmony.
“You’re in eighth grade?” the big guy—Josh —asked.
“Yeah, so what?” Harmony asked.
“I’m in eleventh—we’re all in eleventh grade. I thought you were in high school.”
“We better go,” the girl said. “Leave them to talk and—shoot! The police!”
I spun around. There were flashing lights, and two—no, three—police cars were bumping up the alley toward us.
I reached out and grabbed Harmony’s hand. “Come on,” I yelled and dragged her away. The others followed, like I knew where I was going. A few more joined in, running with us down the alley and away from the flashing lights—and then another set of flashing lights was coming at us from the other direction! We skidded to a stop. People froze in place, captured by the beams of the oncoming squad car. We were trapped!
Without saying a word, I led Harmony away from the group and into a gap between two garages. There was a chain-link gate. I opened it and we went into the backyard. I closed the gate behind me. It was empty and quiet and dark.
“Where are we going?” Harmony asked.
“Away from the police. This is a good place to hide.”
It was then that I noticed she was still holding a plastic cup. I took the cup from her hand. “I think you’ve had enough already.” She didn’t protest as I dropped it to the ground and it splashed back up onto me.
The house we were hiding behind was dark—no lights, no motion. Everybody was either out or asleep. This wasn’t the worst place to hide, but what if the police started checking the yards around Devon’s house? We had to get farther away. I led her down the narrow space between the two houses. Still in the shadows, I peeked out at the street. There were a couple of police cars, some officers on foot and kids on the street, but they were all down the way by Devon’s place.
“Can you run?” I asked.
“What sort of stupid question is that?”
“You’re not even walking that well. How much have you had to drink?”
“That’s not your business.”
“It is if we get caught. Okay, let’s go.”
We came out from between the houses and hit the street running. We weren’t alone. There were other kids running down the stre
et along with us. I kept dragging Harmony along until we hit the end of the block and turned the corner.
“I need to stop,” Harmony said.
I slowed us down to a jog. “We need to keep moving.”
She dug in her heels, and we came to a stop. “I need to do something else.”
She bent over and hurled. The smell of alcohol swept over us.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She answered by vomiting again. There was nothing but liquid, and the smell of alcohol and vomit was overpowering. She wiped her mouth against her sleeve.
“I need to sit down,” she said.
“There’s a parkette just up ahead. There’s a bench. Come on.”
I grabbed her hand again and we walked up the street and into the parkette. It was a little square of green with a bench and a small flower bed. It was dark and empty, and I was relieved. We could sit here unseen. I led her over to the bench, and we sat down. I let go of her hand and we sat there in silence, in the dark, for a while.
“I’m a jerk,” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“This is where you’re supposed to disagree and tell me that I’m troubled. That’s what the social workers always say about me, that I’m troubled.”
“Just because you’re troubled doesn’t mean you can’t be a jerk too,” I said. “A drunken jerk.”
“Okay, I deserved that. I need to tell you something. The social worker called and told me that my mother went back to rehab.”
“That’s great news!”
“And left again the next morning.”
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to come with you to go looking for her again?”
“You’d do that?”
“If you want me to.”
“Thanks, but really, what’s the point?” she asked.
I guessed there wasn’t any point, and I was grateful she didn’t want to.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday, so you’re working, right?”
“All day until closing, but I’m home by six. Do you want to hang out? I have homework to do—we both have homework to do. We could watch some TV after.”
“What about your father?”
“It’s Saturday night, so he’ll be out,” I said.
“Then that would be nice. I really am sorry.”
“That’s okay. We all do stupid things.”
“Do you do stupid things?” she asked.
“I just offered to fight a guy who was twice as big as me.”
“That was stupid. That’s twice in a few days you’ve done that,” she said.
“You really are a bad influence.” I took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry about your mother.”
“And I’m sorry for calling you a liar about having a plan. You’re about the only person who doesn’t lie to me.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Right now we need to get you home. When is your curfew?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Then we can definitely get you home in time. You need to get straight upstairs and to bed so they won’t know you were drinking.”
“Yeah, maybe that will work. I just feel so stupid.”
“Good. Maybe you won’t do this again.”
“It doesn’t seem to have stopped me from getting drunk before,” she said. “Do you know what the worst thing is?”
“That you vomited on your shoes?”
She chuckled ever so slightly. “The worst thing is, I’m doing the things my mother did when she was my age…that she still does…and I’m starting to think I’m just like her.”
“You’re nothing like her,” I protested.
“Drunk and hanging out with some loser in an alley?” she asked.
“This is a park, and I’m not a loser.”
“I meant back there…oh, you’re joking.”
“Apparently not well, but yes.”
“What I’m saying is, is she who I’m going to become?”
“No.”
“You don’t know her, and you really don’t know me.”
“I do know you, and I know you can become anything you want to become.”
“I’m not like you.”
“And you’re not like her either. You’re you. You’re smart and—”
“Not like you,” she said.
“The only difference between you and me is that I work hard. And you can too. You just need to plan. Do you still want to know what my backup plan is?”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I’m going to. And I’m not going to tell you—I’m going to show you. Tomorrow. Right now let’s get you home.”
NINETEEN
Mrs. Priamo had let me leave work a bit early. I’d rushed away, run home as fast as I could, washed up and changed. I was now wearing my new pants, socks without holes, and a shirt. They were clean. All my clothes were clean. While I was at work my father had done the laundry. He’d also cleaned the house and gone grocery shopping. He was halfway down in the elevator, and things were calm. Times like these gave me hope that somehow the elevator would get stuck right there in the middle.
Supper had been waiting for me when I got home—mashed potatoes, a can of creamed corn and a quarter tin of ham. We didn’t usually have anything that fancy. I liked ham. It wasn’t like my father went to much trouble, but the fact that he’d made it and had it waiting for me meant a lot. Then he had gotten all dressed up and driven off for his night out.
Every Saturday night for as long as I could remember, my father had gone to a dance at a local hall. There was a band and people he knew, and that was what they did every Saturday. They went out and talked and danced and drank a little. He drank vodka.
When I was little and he was going out, I always tried to get myself “ready” before he left. I’d take whatever food and drink I wanted to have and lock myself and Candy into his bedroom, where I could watch TV and try not to worry about being alone. Of course, I was older now and didn’t need to do that.
Candy started barking before the knock came on the door. She was louder than a knock and better than an alarm system. I assumed Harmony had arrived. I peeked through the window. It was her.
“It’s okay, girl,” I said to Candy. “It’s Harmony.”
I opened the door and pulled Candy away to let Harmony in. She greeted Candy first. She held out her hand, and there was a little dog treat. She always brought Candy a treat—a small piece of meat she’d saved from her dinner. Candy grabbed it and ran off to eat it in solitude.
“I didn’t see the car, so your father’s gone, right?” Harmony asked.
“About twenty minutes ago, and we’re going too,” I said. “Come on.”
We squeezed out the door and Harmony started down the walk.
“This way,” I said.
I went around the side of the house, opened the door to the shed and walked in. Harmony watched and waited, looking confused. I took a big pack off a hook. It was heavy, and the weight made me feel good. I heaved it onto my back.
“Now we can go,” I said.
I walked out of the shed, closed the door and started walking. Harmony was soon at my side.
“What’s in the pack?” she asked.
“You’ll find out when we get there. Did the Watsons figure out you’d been drinking?”
“I think Darlene knew, but she pretended not to notice. She also apologized to me.”
“For what?”
“She said she knew it must be hard to go through what I’m going through and she’d try to give me a little more space. You know, it’s not the worst place to be.”
We came up to the railroad tracks and walked beside them for a while. We got to the right spot, and I climbed up the embankment with Harmony beside me. We stopped right by the fence. I looked both ways to see if anybody was watching. We were alone. I removed two loosely placed metal clips and pulled back the wire mesh on a section of fence to create an opening big enough for us to get th
rough.
I motioned at Harmony. “Go ahead.”
Harmony went first. Then me, my pack just clearing the opening. I turned around, pulled the mesh back into place and put the clips back on, sealing it up again. I looked around. Still nobody watching.
“It’s not that far now,” I said.
We crossed over the main tracks and then the other two sets of tracks. Those were side rails where an engine would bring a car or two of raw materials to a factory or take away finished goods. We moved down the embankment on the other side. At the bottom there was a small creek. It ran out of a big sewer grate a few blocks north. The water was low, so we could step on the big stones in the middle to cross.
Harmony looked uneasy. That was something I didn’t see very often. We continued moving until we hit a patch of forest. It wasn’t big—not anything that could even be called a forest, really, but just an area of trees and bushes here in the city, by the tracks and abandoned factories. We followed a little path to a small clearing.
“Here we are,” I said.
“Okay, but I still don’t know why we’re here.”
“What can you see?” I asked.
She looked around. “Trees, brush and some condos farther away. The top floors of a couple of deserted factories. Basically…nothing.”
“Nothing is important.”
I put down my pack, and it clattered. I opened it up and pulled out the first thing I was looking for—a collapsible chair. I unfolded it and clicked it into place, then offered it to Harmony.
“Have a seat,” I said. She sat down.
I started pulling more items out of the bag. There was a flashlight that had a crank so it didn’t need batteries, a stove that operated on propane, a couple of extra fuel canisters, and some pots and pans.
“Are we having a cookout?” Harmony asked.
I pulled out a sleeping bag. “Or a sleepover. This is a special thermal fleece-lined bag guaranteed to keep somebody warm camping in subzero temperatures.”
“Let me guess. There’s a tent in there too.”
I pulled out the tent. “Winter-certified two-person Arctic survival tent in camouflage green. It blends into the trees and is easy to set up.”
I took it and basically flung it into the air, and it popped open as a full-fledged tent. It was like a magic trick.