For a minute I thought the whole city was on fire, all I could see were skyscrapers and big blocky buildings, all jammed up on each other and their windows were lit up like it was christmas. I had never seen so many buildings, so many lights, so many people before. Whenever we moved we always stuck to small little towns along the coast in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts and in the midwest Illinois, Iowa and Kansas.
They were never anything special, just a dozen or so little houses or shacks that faded into the landscape, a laundromat, a gas station or two, a few stores, a few bars and if you were lucky a movie theatre.
They were always isolated little places with only forty or fifty people living there at most. Just the way my father liked it. He said he was a like a coyote or a cactus, stick him somewhere where there was plenty of sun and a few people and he would be a happy camper. When he could get a job (which had happened often, the problem was keeping down the job) he would work as a plumber or an electrician or as a carpenter. He said that he liked working with his hands. Which is why he was so sure that the house hadn’t been burnt down because of his wiring, but whenever I had asked him who he thought it was he got angry and quiet and told me to play with Mary.
Whenever he quit, or was fired or we had nothing to eat, or we couldn’t pay off our bills or the heat had been cut (which happened more often than you’d think) or the electricity, or when the somebody (the police, the mob,) were after us for some reason or another we would pack up everything we owned and drive off in the middle of the night, (or in the afternoon like one memorable morning) until we had ‘escaped’. Then we’d live out of our car or in motels until my father found a new job, or felt it was safe enough for us to move.
But this, this was different. It was new and exciting. My heart was racing and I held Mary’s hand (under our blanket so that no one else could see because I didn’t want my father to ‘tease me’ and call me a baby or a sissy).
We stopped at a greyhound bus station to get cleaned up and put on our best faces. I washed my face and scrubbed it hard enough that my skin was as raw and red as a lobster. I combed my hair out as best as I could and practiced a few smiles that looked terrible. You could have felt how awkward I was. I wondered what would happen, what people would think about me, about us. My father had said New Yorkers were all vain, big mouthed and rude. I was worried that they would make fun of us because of our clothes, our accent (Which my mother said made us unique but I had been told was plumb awful by others) and the way we looked.
May was excited she wanted to stand out, she wanted to be looked at to be noticed, she had blossomed from a wallflower into a wildcat. With a head full of blonde hair big blue green eyes a pretty smile and a body that had started to fill out in all the right places. Mom said she was going to drive boys wild one day.
I just hoped that I would disappear into the crowd.
The night before last we had been chased away from our spot in the park we had been camping out in the past few nights. It had been warm out, and we had been sleeping in the middle of central park in the middle of a good cluster of trees that gave us shade and privacy. A policeman had come by with a few bottles of water and said that it was illegal to sleep in the park and that we had to leave. He gave us water and bought Mary and I a hot dog from a vendor in the park and even offered to take us to a shelter where we could stay until we got back on our feet.
My mother had thanked him, Mary and I had begged her to go with him but my father had marched us back to the car, stomped down on the gas and we shot off my mother screamed and begged for him to step on the breaks and Mary and I were crying because we were flying down the street weaving in between cars and running several red lights. For a moment I was sure he was trying to kill us.
We ended up spending the night in the station wagon in the parking lot of a big grocery store. The sun was out now and it was warmer out. The wind had died down and we sat on the ground in front of the trunk with our legs stretched out in front of us. I was flipping through an old dog-eared copy of little women.
“So? Why do you think we’ve moved around so much?” Mary asked me again.
“I dunno,” I said. “Dad likes moving.”
We had lived in over thirty places across the country over the years and eleven more since Mary had been born, sometimes we had stayed a week, sometimes for a few months, most of the time we hadn’t even left the car except to grab some food and use the bathroom in a fast food place before continuing on our way. I couldn’t remember many of those places, just flashes of color, voices, the smell.
We were always on the run, always trying to get away from something, Dad said we were being chased and that bad people were after him. Mary and I wanted to stay in New York, but Dad said we should live somewhere near the ocean, the air was good for our lungs and that it would be beautiful.
“Do you want to move?” I asked Mary.
“No,” she said chewing on a hangnail. “Not really.”
“What do you think would happen if we stayed?” she Mary asked me. “Not in a car either but in a hotel or apartment?”
“I think we would get caught.” I said.
“Come on Susie,” Mary said pushing my shoulder. “You don’t really believe that there are people chasing us do you?”
I thought about the fires, the way Mom and Dad had been whispering, the angry and grave looks on their faces, how often we moved and how we couldn’t stay in any shelters when we did.
“I do.”
“But we haven’t done anything wrong.” Mary said.
I put my book down and looked up at the sun.
“Maybe Dad has.”
Chapter Eleven
The following weekend Mom and Mary drove up to the Met to see a free exhibit on modern art in cinema, and Mary came home happier than I had seen her in months, she was talking so fast about everything she saw that I could barely understand what she was saying. I just smiled and listened to her talk about how she wanted to me a movie star or an artist.
Magazines and old books started to pop up in the backseat, on art, painting styles and acting lines from shakespeare. She would disappear for hours, hovering around places where movie casters allegedly went scouting for fresh talent. That winter my body finally started changing. I looked more like Mary. There were curves where there had been only straight harsh lines, my breasts had started to fill out and my hair wasn’t as mousy or dark, my nose fit my face more and my cheekbones were high and pink-red, I wasn’t beautiful but I thought that I looked more like a teenager. That I might be pretty.
One night when we were able to convince Mom to come with us to a soup kitchen for dinner, in between the rolls and the chopped up beef between drenched in a paste like gravy that was hot and full of pepper.
Mom said to me quietly even though there was no one around to hear her, “I want you to be careful.”
“What?” I asked her.
“Around your Dad. I want you to be careful.” Mom said.
Mary stopped and looked up at her, I put down my fork and finished chewing slowly.
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
Mom didn’t say anything else or look up at either of us she took a mouthful of her cheese and beans casserole.
“Just be careful,” Mom said, “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
“What are you saying?” I asked her. “How does Dad look at me?”
“I just want you to be careful when you’re with him.” Mom said as she took another mouthful as if she was talking about the weather.
My heart was racing, and I looked between Mary and Mom.
Mary glared at Mom and snapped, “Well what are you going to do about it?”
Mom just shrugged and went back to eating. Mary started stabbing the food on her plate, face red and angry, and I turned back to my plate and imagined that I wasn’t eating in a soup kitchen, that I was in a real house and that my parents weren’t weird or fighting, and hell if I was being honest I liked
to imagine I was in the Brady Bunch.
Chapter Twelve
In the middle of summer after almost two years of living on the streets I decided that I had had enough.
Mom had given me a puzzled from when I told her that I was leaving.
“But this is your home,” she said. “We all live here.”
‘Home’ was a beat up old red jeep, the station wagon had died in April after a particularly long and terrifying chase from the police and the old pick up Dad had bragged he had got dirt cheap had been towed because it didn’t have license plates and we had had to sleep in the park for a few weeks until he had gotten enough cash together to get buy it.
Mom squinted up at me. The idea that I might want to leave, to live somewhere anywhere else, to leave her and Dad behind had never occurred to her.
“But you’ll be homeless.” Mom said.
There was nothing I could do but laugh, we were already homeless. Mom and Dad seemed happy with living out of the car and on the road living off a few bucks and washing up in the bathrooms of McDonalds forever. I wasn’t going to let them drag us down with them.
Mary and I had spent months sneaking off to soup kitchens and worked out a system where we got a meal three times a day everyday. We found out which shelters offered government aid and which ones we might be eligible for because we still lived with both of our parents even if it was out of a car.
When it got cold out we told Mom or Dad if he was around, that we were going for a walk to warm up, but we actually were spending our days and our nights in various churches. The best were the ones who gave us hot chocolate with real milk and thick blankets, not the scratchy wool ones Mom always bought for cheap.
We would go down to the public library and take free online classes. College for me (I had already gotten my G.E.D a few months ago every few weeks or so when Dad had been asleep Mary and I had fished through his pockets for change until we had enough to pay for my test) and high school for Mary despite her age she had always been extremely bright. Dad liked to say that we got all of our brains from him but if we had he never showed it. Living on the street because you didn’t feel like working didn’t seem very smart.
For Mary’s tenth birthday I took her to see Star Wars which was being screened in the park, we had eaten Sno-Caps and Raisnets. I promised Mary for her eleventh we would go see a movie in a real movie theatre.
Anything she wanted.
I don’t know what Mom and Dad were doing whenever we weren’t around, and I didn’t really care. I had given up on trying to change their minds, I’d spent so much time trying to in Dogtooth but they had never listened to me before and nothing had ever changed.
When we first became homeless, it had been early spring, and we had suffered through two hard winters in the backs of cars on park benches, we had run from the cops and had been moving from place to place.
“We can’t live like this,” I said. “I can’t live like this anymore.”
Mom had looked surprised and betrayed, that I wasn’t going to play into the idea of everything being one big exciting adventure, or that we were like the cowboys roughing it.
I wasn’t moved. I thought about how many times I had had to steal food, how many times I had been cold and hungry. How many times Dad got a job, then lost it or quit and how we had all be scraping by and how the money I made doing odd jobs always seemed to disappear and I knew but couldn’t say that Mom and Dad were stealing it for beer and cigarettes.
I told Mom if I left there would be more room and more food for Mary until I saved up enough money and she could come and live with me in a motel until I could save up enough for a small apartment. The government would help when I applied for income assistance and food stamps. A lot of people back in Dogwood had been on both and while they had been just as poor as us they had never been hungry and they were able to get good clean clothes.
“Fine.” Mom said. “Go. Just know how much it will hurt your father and your sister.”
I had already told Mary and she was more excited than I was.
I had made sure to tell her before Dad came back. I didn’t have the guts to say it to his face. I didn’t want him to think it meant that I didn’t love him anymore and truth be told I wasn’t sure that I did.
“Susie,” Dad said early the next morning before the sun came up. “Can I talk to you for a minute.”
Mary had helped me pack, though there wasn’t much for me to pack, just a few pants and some sweaters that had a few stains but were thick and warm. I had forty dollars tucked inside of my pocket that Mom had given to me, I planned on slipping half to Mary before I left. Mom was still upset but I knew it wasn’t because I was leaving but because she couldn’t.
“Sure.” I said giving Mary a big bear hug and a promise that I’d still see her every day at the shelter on Lafayette street before I started walking.
We had parked in front of a Korean restaurant to sleep last night, and I wanted to get to the subway before seven. I yawned, I could hardly sleep last night I was so excited.
Dad offered to carry my bag but I told him it was okay, I had it. He had spent the night working his way through a pack of cigarettes. The streets were just starting to fill up with people. Dad slung his arm over my shoulder and would pull me close or give me a tight squeeze every now and then. It seemed to make him feel better so I didn’t complain. He bought me a pretzel and we shared it. We got to the subway with fifteen minutes to spare. Dad pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Are you sure about this? Living on your own won’t be as easy as you think, trust me I’ve done it before. It changes you. It’s awful lonely.” Dad said.
“I’ll be fine.” I said with a smile. I wasn’t going to go back to that jeep.
Dad gave me another one armed hug.
“I know you can handle yourself, I didn’t raise any sissies, ‘cept your sister.” Dad said.
I bit the inside of my cheek. The train was coming, we went down the wet stairs and I pulled my ticket out of my pocket. The doors opened, I hugged Dad tight.
“Your sister know where to find you?” Dad asked.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Good. If things don’t work out you find your sister and you come home.” Dad said.
Something warm filled my belly and I nodded.
The train was packed but I managed to squeeze in between two people to sit under the window. The doors closed. I waved goodbye at Dad. He walked along the train as he started off, waving and laughing until he couldn’t keep up and then he was gone. I put my face in my hands and laughed until I cried because I had did it. I was out. And I wasn’t coming back.
Chapter Thirteen
I spent my first month on my own living in a cheap hostel in manhattan for seventy dollars a night that had a open kitchen, clean rooms and wifi. I had a roommate Sharon who worked as a receptionist for but for forty dollars more I could afford a third bed for Mary. I hadn’t slept a wink that first night on my own, I just stared at the ceiling and waited for the sun to come up, used to Mary kicking me in her sleep or Dad’s singing or Mom’s light snore.
I was working the morning and evening shift at a diner on forty third street and in the morning I worked from six in the morning till two in the afternoon and took a lunch break and came back to work from four in the afternoon till nine o’clock at night. After taxes I was making ninety dollars a week and even more from tips. From the way Mom and Dad had talked about work I had expected it to be something horrible, that it would be impossible to get a job. We didn’t have a dress code except to wear something blue or white with a green apron, and I had bought plenty of good clean and warm sweaters and sweatshirts from Goodwill in those colors to wear.
I loved my job.
I worked the cash register, it had taken me a few weeks to get use to talking to so many people and remembering to smile but after a while I fell into a good routine. I would smile, say hello, take their order, shout it back to the chef and bring it out to them when it
was done. There was the smell of hamburgers cooking on the grill and fresh lettuce, onions and tomatoes being chopped and french fries sizzling as they were being dumped in the fryer. And everyone was constantly moving, running from here to there at the counter, serving people at the tables, at the cash register or refilling the ice and the drinks.
We were all busy but it was a lot of fun, when we had a few seconds we would trade funny stories or make small talk. If you worked during a shift that had a lunch break you were allowed to buy anything meal and any drink on the menu for half the price. I had hamburgers, waffles, challah, hash browns scrambled eggs and a chocolate egg cream which was even better than a milkshake every day.
What I didn’t eat I brought to Mary. While she ate I would tell her about the hostel, the diner, the people I worked how good things were going. Mary told me about how bad things had gotten at ‘home’ the jeep had been towed because Mom and Dad had left it in a fire lane overnight. They had finally moved into a homeless shelter but Dad wasn’t taking it well, he and Mom had been fighting all of the time except when he was drunk; Mom had stopped talking to anyone sometime back in september and had been in and out of jail for shoplifting. I had to get Mary out of there, fast.
***
By the middle of winter I was able to save up enough for Mary to come and live with me in the hostel. I had gotten her a job at the diner too washing up dishes, the owner Tony had looked the other way when I had explained that she was a good kid and that things were difficult at home.
We had our own room (Mary was as tall as me now so I didn’t have to sneak her past the front desk, she looked old for her age not just because of her body but in the small lines in her face and the hardness in her big blue eyes that made people uncomfortable to stare at for too long), which was bigger than the backseat of the jeep and bigger than the room we had shared back in our house in Dogtooth.
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