Lost Boy

by Tim Green

  When Ryder saw the way Mr. Starr’s eyes looked at him through their bulging lenses, he already knew what the answer was going to be.

  “Ryder is a good boy,” Mr. Starr said. “If I could help him or his mother by driving this infernal machine into the service elevator shaft, I’d consider it a bargain worthy of losing my soul to the devil himself.”

  Ryder looked up at Doyle and smiled for the first time since everything had happened. “That means yes.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Doyle was still sulky. “Firemen go up and down the service elevators all the time.”

  Ryder thought he could fix things when they were alone, and he could explain Mr. Starr to Doyle, then realized he should have done that before they knocked on the door.

  “Can I be of further assistance to you?” Mr. Starr glared at Doyle again. “Would you like me to contact the mayor’s office and advocate for an even better pension plan than you already have?”

  “I’m trying to help, you know.” Doyle glared right back.

  “Yes,” Mr. Starr said. “I do know.”

  “Social services can be rough,” Doyle said. “Now I can tell the folks at the hospital that he’s okay, that there’s a neighbor who’s a family friend who watches him all the time who he can stay with while . . . while she gets better. That’s all I’m trying to do here.”

  “From your face and tone, her getting better seems to be in doubt, so you also better think about something long-term,” Mr. Starr said. “If social services gets their way, I won’t be here much longer either.”

  Doyle scratched his head and reached for the door, speaking as he closed it. “Thank you, Mr. Starr. It’s been a real pleasure.”

  “The boy does have a father, you know,” Mr. Starr said.

  Doyle looked at Ryder.

  “I don’t have a father.” Ryder cast his eyes at the floor. “I never saw him.”

  “But he has a father,” Mr. Starr said.

  “Who is he?” Doyle asked.

  Mr. Starr shut his eyes for a moment, as if in thought.

  Ryder drew a breath and held it. He had no idea what was coming.

  “That, we don’t know,” Mr. Starr said. “Ruby never told me. The whole thing with Ryder was very . . . traumatic. I think that’s why you’re standing at the mouth of a monster’s lair instead of on the doorstep of an aging grandparent or a cheerful aunt.”

  Ryder’s heart went cold. He knew his mother talked like she had no family, but he never knew he was the cause. He looked up at Doyle, whose mouth sagged open. “You mean they abandoned her?”

  “To the family Ruby once had,” Mr. Starr said, “she doesn’t exist, really. She even changed her last name to insure there’d never be a connection. And thus, the heroic neighbor. Me. But it’s a temporary solution at best. So, if Ruby is as bad as the look on your face tells me she is, you’d do well to find the father . . . not the family. Now, please go. I have things to do.”

  “Come on.” Doyle tugged the back of Ryder’s shirt, drawing him into the hallway.

  “Thanks, Mr. Starr.” Ryder didn’t know what else to say, and Mr. Starr said nothing in return as he motored up to the door and hooked it with a claw so he could swing it toward them.

  The door clicked shut and they could hear the whir of the chair’s motor as it took Mr. Starr back into the depths of his apartment.

  “Wow.” Doyle spoke in a low tone. “Sorry for that.”

  Ryder followed Doyle down the stairs. “My mom says his bark is much worse than his bite.”

  “Was that his bark? I feel like I just got bit.”

  Ryder frowned.

  “Hey, don’t worry. It’ll all work out. This way I can honestly tell them you’ve got somebody to keep an eye on you, and you get to sleep in your own bed.” Doyle stopped on the second-floor landing and looked around, sniffing at the warm smell of spices from the third floor and the stink from the second. “Is this place safe?”

  “The fifth floor is the safest because no one wants to climb the stairs.” Ryder repeated the assurances his mom had given him since he could remember.

  “Yeah. Even crooks are lazy these days.” Doyle started down again.

  “You sound like Mr. Starr.”

  “I’m not that grumpy. Could you believe all that fireman stuff? If this building ever went up in flames he’d be kissing our boots.”

  They reached the bottom steps and walked out into the bright afternoon sunlight, where Ryder paused and his eyes met Doyle’s.

  “She was trying to get me to go home. We were fighting and I told her I was going back to the park to play ball with friends. She pulled me, but I yanked away. Then . . . she stumbled into the street.”

  Doyle pressed his lips together tight, then said, “Things happen, Ryder. Trust me, I see them every day. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “The school said Mr. Starr can’t be my emergency contact because he’s disabled and he doesn’t have a phone.”

  “I get that.” Doyle tugged on his arm and they began to walk up the street toward Frederick Douglass Boulevard. “The phone part. But sometimes the rules don’t fit and you have to fudge them a little. Not break them, just fudge them.”

  Ryder nodded.

  “Listen, I’m gonna make some calls. I’ve seen FDNY do some pretty gigantic fund-raisers. . . . Maybe we can raise some of the money needed for your mom’s medical bills.”

  “Really?” Ryder looked up and his heart thumped wildly.

  “Well. Wait. I mean, I can’t promise two hundred thousand . . . but I’ll try, Ryder. I will. I’ll do everything I possibly can.”

  On Frederick Douglass Boulevard they got a cab and headed toward the hospital.

  “I know you don’t know your dad, Ryder,” Doyle said, “but do you know anything about him? Anything that could give us a clue? Mr. Starr is right, a neighbor with health issues is not a permanent solution, and your mom could be in the hospital for a while.”

  Ryder thought for a few minutes. “I think he was a good baseball player. When I play I’m really good, and like if I hit a home run or snag a line drive, sometimes she’ll say that’s the only part of me that came from my father.”

  “Like he was a college player, or a pro?”

  Ryder shrugged. “She never said. Whenever I ask her what she means, she closes her mouth tight and shakes her head and that’s it. But I think he might have been, because my mom keeps a baseball that I think he might have signed.”

  “Signed?”

  “Like an autograph. I don’t know.” Ryder bit his lower lip. He knew it wasn’t smart to talk to strangers, but this was a fireman, and also, something about Doyle made him seem like he wasn’t a stranger at all. “She keeps it hidden in the back of her closet, in a shoe box, and I never told her I found it. It says: ‘With Love for Ruby, My Gem.’”

  “And what’s the signature? Who signed it?”

  Ryder shrugged. “I have no idea. It doesn’t look like anything but some squiggles to me. You can’t read it.”

  “Well, maybe we can get some more out of her . . . if she’s up for it.” Doyle turned his attention out the cab’s window. The day had grown late and the traffic was thicker now. Headlights blinked on and taillights glowed red. While the earlier sunshine spoke of spring, winter reclaimed its ground, lowering the temperature in the shadows so that pedestrians turned up their collars and tugged down their hats.

  Ryder looked down, staring at Doyle’s boots. He wondered about firefighters’ boots. He knew they sometimes collected donations in them, mostly one-dollar bills, and he wondered how many they would have to fill to make two hundred thousand dollars, and he worried that there might not be enough fire boots in all of New York City to save his mother.

  When they got back to the hospital, his mother still wasn’t out of the recovery room. Doyle took him back to the cafeteria and got a coffee for himself and a purple Gatorade for Ryder, even though he said he didn’t want anything. They sat at a different table i
n a different corner. Doyle scrunched up his face and studied his iPhone.

  Ryder sat in a daze and stared out a window at the brick wall of the building next to them. Maybe he should have listened to his mom and made friends. It wasn’t that kids didn’t like him, or that he didn’t like them. He could think of nearly a dozen kids he talked to in school and a handful on his team he liked, like Jason, but he never really got to know any of them well. He had no one to talk to, no one to confide in, no one to share his anguish and to provide even a sliver of comfort. He sat mulling these things—wishing he could do them over again—until he realized Doyle was talking to him.

  “What?” Ryder asked. “I’m sorry.”

  Doyle held up his iPhone. “I said that I’ve been tweeting about your mom and people really seem to be into helping. See? I’ve got forty-seven retweets for hashtag Save Ruby! And I just started.”

  Ryder didn’t have an iPhone and neither did his mom, just plain old ten-dollar TracFones with the bare-minimum calling plan for emergencies only. He’d heard of tweeting and knew it was something rich and famous people did to voice their opinions and sell albums or theater tickets. It burned him not to know about Twitter or Instagram or any of that stuff the kids on his travel baseball team were always doing. Anger flared in his chest. Then he remembered the mean tone of the words he’d had with his mom in the minutes before she was hit. The idea that those might be the last words they exchanged flooded him with guilt.

  “Is forty-seven a lot?” he asked.

  “Well, I only have two hundred and five followers, so it’s not a lot, but I think it shows that the people who do see it want to help, get it?”

  “I think so.” Ryder watched an old man set down two Styrofoam cups of coffee, spilling one of them onto his wife and sparking an argument. “Two hundred thousand is a lot, though.”

  “Yeah, but if I could get two hundred thousand tweets, and everybody just gave a dollar . . .” Doyle studied the iPhone screen and muttered to himself. “Maybe FDNY. That’s what I need. If I can get the entire New York City Fire Department working on this, that would do it for sure.” Doyle looked up, eyes sparkling. “Right?”

  “I guess.” Ryder tried not to get too excited, but Doyle McDonald’s enthusiasm had already cast its spell.

  Doyle began typing furiously. “Calling . . . all . . . FDNY members . . . 911 to save the life of . . . Wait.” Doyle looked up. “Do you have any photos of your mom?”

  Ryder shook his head. “At home, maybe.”

  “Ephotos? On an iPhone or an iPad anywhere.”

  “No.”

  “Hey, we can take one.” Doyle stood up. “Let’s go check. Maybe she’s out of recovery. If I take a picture of her and post that . . .”

  “Why?”

  “People like pretty women. It could go viral. Come on.” Doyle started across the cafeteria, leaving his coffee cup to stand alone at their table. Ryder grabbed his Gatorade and had to hustle to keep up.

  They soon learned that his mom was out of recovery and had been moved into the intensive care unit, or ICU. A heavy nurse with curly red hair and small dark eyes stopped them at the desk.

  “We’re here to see Ruby Shoesmith. How is she?” Doyle asked.

  “She’s breathing on her own so she doesn’t have a tube,” the nurse said, “but her heart rate isn’t what they’d like to see.” The nurse nodded at Ryder. “Is he fourteen?”

  “I’m—”

  “Yes.” Doyle cut him off. “He’s her son. Just turned fourteen.”

  The nurse gave Doyle a doubtful look, but shrugged and let them go.

  Except for the wires and the IV tube stuck into her arm, his mother looked like she did when he woke her from an afternoon nap, her lips full and peaceful with a small smile, her brow smooth above the long, dark lashes of her eyes, and her hair a soft swirl of black silk. Her color might have been off a bit, but that also could be the humming neon lights above the tilted-up bed. Other things beeped and hummed as well, monitors to tell whether or not her heart and brain were alive and kicking. Despite his worry, Ryder looked up and gave Doyle a proud nod as the fireman took out his iPhone to snap her picture.

  “Can I talk to her?” He looked at the nurse who had been adjusting the monitors when they walked in.

  The nurse nodded. “You can try. She’s mumbled a little. Nothing I could understand. She’s in and out of it. Her leg is broken and that’s really painful, so we’re giving her morphine.”

  Doyle held up the photo on his phone. “What do you think? She really is pretty, right?”

  Ryder nodded and set down his Gatorade on the counter. Doyle returned to his tweeting.

  Ryder moved close to his mom. Except for the hum and beep of the machines, it seemed impossible that she was even hurt, let alone in any danger. She looked lovely and peaceful. He reached out, wanting to touch her, but too afraid to really do it.

  “Mom?” Ryder tried to fight back his tears, but the thought of losing her crushed his insides.

  Suddenly she groaned and muttered something.

  Her eyes fluttered open. She looked his way, but more through him than at him. “Jimmy?”

  “Mom, it’s me, Ryder.”

  He felt Doyle at his side and the fireman put a hand on his shoulder. “What’d she say?”

  “She said ‘Jimmy.’”

  “Who’s Jimmy?” Doyle asked.

  “There isn’t anyone.” It bothered Ryder that she hadn’t recognized him. It scared him, too.

  Doyle leaned close. “Ruby, I’m a friend. Is Jimmy Ryder’s dad? Who’s Ryder’s father? We need to find Ryder’s father. It’s important.”

  “Father?” Her face clouded over and she turned her head away with a groan. “Not my father. No.”

  “Ryder’s father? Who’s Ryder’s father?” Doyle spoke softly, but insistently.

  She looked back at Doyle before shifting her blurred attention to Ryder. Her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “Jimmy.”

  “It’s me, Mom. It’s Ryder.” Tears spilled from his eyes and his face contorted with anguish.

  “Don’t tease, Jimmy Trent.” His mother’s smile faded into a scolding frown.

  The monitor started to go crazy, beeping loudly.

  “Oh, no. I’m getting the doctor.” The nurse rushed past Ryder, then hurried out of the room.

  His mother’s eyes widened, then they closed.

  In the flurry of activity, Ryder got swept to the side.

  The bark and shout of orders was enough to unsettle him, and Ryder cried out and rushed back to his mother’s bed.

  The doctor glared over his shoulder. “Get that kid out of here!”

  Doyle and a nurse grabbed Ryder and dragged him out. “Mom!” Ryder called, crying.

  In the hallway, Doyle hugged him tight. “Shhh. Come on, buddy. She’s gonna be okay. You gotta . . . think positive.”

  Ryder shook his head and sobbed, “I can’t think anything!”

  “Hey, hey. Shhh. Come on, now.”

  Ryder broke free and ran away from it all, down the hallway, through the doors, and into the stairwell. His feet slapped in a quick rhythm. Down he went, aware of the door being flung open above him and that the heavy thunk of steps was Doyle in pursuit. Ryder reached the bottom and banged open the door. He dashed through the hospital lobby, winded from crying and running. He shoved his way through the exit.

  Concrete benches crouched outside a small shadowed courtyard between the entrance and the sidewalk. Above, brown-painted metal awnings offered cover from only the most feeble weather. Ryder threw himself down on a bench and slouched with his hands jammed into his coat pockets against the cold. Vapor huffed from his mouth in great white puffs.

  Scared and confused, he kept hearing his mother’s voice in his head, calling out the name Jimmy Trent. Was that his father’s name? He felt a sharp stab of pain, as if all the times he’d been upset about not having a father hit him at once. Fathers’ night for his baseball team. Drawing a
family tree in fourth grade. A teacher scolding him by asking if Ryder thought his father would approve of his behavior. There were hundreds of those moments. Spread out and alone, they were like paper cuts—annoying, but nothing to cry about. All together, it was a knife in his heart and it filled his eyes with more tears.

  He sniffed and dabbed at his eyes, and after a few minutes, Doyle walked up and sat down next to him. They sat that way for a while, quiet and together as people passed them by, both coming and going.

  Finally, Doyle spoke. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Ryder shrugged.

  “If you promise to wait right here,” Doyle said, “I’ll go check and see how she’s doing. Okay?”

  “Fine,” Ryder said.

  “Fine, you promise?”

  He nodded. “I promise.”

  “Good.” Doyle patted his leg and got up to go. “Right here.”

  Ryder suffered the entire time Doyle was gone and he could have kicked himself for not going along, but he promised he’d wait, so he did. Finally, the hefty fireman returned with a big grin. “Well, she’s out of the woods. They won’t be letting us in again tonight, though.”

  Ryder didn’t respond, even though the flood of relief made him so dizzy that he tried to breathe deeply through his nose and let it out slow. They sat quietly for a while before Doyle’s phone played a tune.

  Doyle checked the new text that had come in. “Hey, Chief wants to see me. Wow, on a Sunday. Want to see the firehouse?”

  “No.” Ryder didn’t look up.

  “C’mon, kids love the firehouse. Big trucks. Chrome so bright it makes you blink.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Ryder said.

  “Okay, young people like the firehouse. You can slide down the pole. C’mon.”

  “There’s not a pole,” Ryder said.

  “Honest to God, and you can go down it. Plus, I know for a fact that my partner—the guy you saw, Derek Raymer—has a big pot of chili like you never tasted. He won the blue ribbon at last year’s Firefighters’ Cookoff.” Doyle stood and held out a hand, offering it to help Ryder up. “Come on. You’ll meet the chief, not that he’s anything but a slab-sided blowhard, but hey, he wears the white hat so . . .”