Being Henry David

by Cal Armistead

  “Thanks for saving Jack’s life,” she whispers in my ear. Then she goes up on tiptoe and touches her lips to mine. Not just a peck, but a soft, full-out kiss that she allows to linger. She gives my hand a hard squeeze, and then, as if I’d imagined her all along, she vanishes into the crowd.

  “Wow,” I say to Jack, trying to be casual. “Did you see that? Your girlfriend just planted one on me.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” he says in a quiet voice. “She’s my sister.”

  Sister. My heart stops beating, and I forget to breathe.

  “Hank? You okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  Sister. The word stirs something inside me. So far, it’s just a word, but I sense it’s the beginning of a solid memory, and it doesn’t have skin on yet. The beast twitches inside me, and I feel sick. Push the thought away for now.

  “So Nessa and your dad…”

  “Yeah, he was hurting her too.” He swallows hard and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “This life sucks, but it’s still better than being home. With him.”

  “So you’d rather get smacked around by Magpie than your own dad?” Man. I feel bad as soon as I say it.

  He glares at me, his black eye gleaming like an accusation. “Shut up, Hank.”

  “Jack, I’m sorry. But I don’t get why you’re going to do everything Magpie tells you. The guy is a psychopath.”

  “I have no choice till this thing blows over, Hank. And neither do you. He’ll protect us. But at the same time, he’s got us by the balls.”

  “Only if we let him.” I shake my head at him as betrayal and wounded righteousness wash over me. “And just because you delivered me to Magpie as some pathetic new recruit, doesn’t mean I have to cooperate.”

  At least Jack has the decency to look ashamed. “You don’t know anything, Hank,” he murmurs.

  We stand on a street corner and after the light changes, Jack tries to lead us to the right, but I go left, back toward Penn Station.

  “Hank, it’s this way. We gotta go to Port Authority to meet up with Ginger and Watchdog.”

  I keep walking, in the opposite direction of Magpie and his directives. As far away as possible. “Who are they, anyway?”

  “They work with Magpie,” Jack says, trotting to keep up with me. “They’re expecting us, and believe me, the last thing you want to do is piss them off.”

  I grip my copy of Walden tight in my hand and keep walking.

  The cabin in my dream was just like the one that Thoreau built. I know as I stare at the cover of the book, at the trees and the pond, that’s where I want to be, that I will not spend another night in the city. I will not look at the moon through smog, will not breathe taxicab exhaust, or listen to the beeps of a hundred car horns. And in spite of my dream, if I can make it to the cabin, I believe the black bird will never find me.

  I’m walking faster and faster, till I’m running down the street, dodging men and women in suits going to work, parents holding little kids’ hands on their way to school. Normal people starting a normal day. People who didn’t just get attacked in an alley and crack some guy in the head with a brick. Maybe I can outrun all of it.

  “Come on, Hank,” Jack shouts after me, but I refuse to slow down. He pleads with me the whole way to Penn Station, to the entrance, down the escalator, into the terminal. Even though the cut in my side throbs with every footfall, it feels so good to run. Escaping. Like I’m running away from something horrible and running to something better. Something different anyway, and different is good.

  Finally in the lobby of the train station, Jack grabs my arm and makes me look into his face. “Were you some track star in your former life? Goddamn.” He’s breathing hard and his cheeks are bright red. “Hank, listen to me. You’re in this now. If you run, they’re going to chase you, and if they find you, there’s a good chance they’ll kill you. They might hurt me too for letting you get away.”

  “Then why would you stay here?” I glance up at the train schedule board over his head, suspended from the ceiling in the center of the terminal. “Get on a train and get the hell out of here.”

  “I can’t, Hank. This sucks, but at least we know how to survive here. We know our way around, you know? Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  So even if your life is crap, you’ll hold on to it just because it’s familiar? I almost say this out loud to Jack, but I stop myself. Because in truth, I get it. Absolutely nothing in my life is familiar, and it’s like standing on the edge of a cliff every damn minute, rocks crumbling under my feet.

  A guarded, suspicious look crosses Jack’s face like a shadow. “I thought you said you didn’t have any money, Hank.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then you’re a fucking liar. How are you going to buy yourself a train ticket if you don’t have money?”

  My heart sinks. What am I thinking? Exhausted, I sink down on the floor of the terminal against the wall, and crack my head against the tile as self-punishment. It makes the lump on my head throb but I don’t even care.

  “You think just because you’re wearing a nice outfit and look like a J.Crew model, they’re going to just give you a seat for free?” Jack shakes his head, like he actually feels sorry for me. “You must be used to your nice, rich daddy paying for everything so you don’t even have to think about it.”

  Wow. Is that it? Do I have a rich father who buys me things so that in real life I take money for granted? I try to create an image of this wealthy, generous father, but nothing comes.

  “Maybe,” is all I can manage around the lump in my throat. “I don’t remember.”

  Jack sits down on the floor next to me and stares into my face for a long time. “Look,” he finally says. “Nessa and me, we can’t go home. But maybe where you’re from is worth going back to.” He reaches into his back pocket and takes out a brown leather wallet. Simon’s wallet.

  “Take this.”

  My mind’s eye flashes to blood, Simon’s body twitching in the alley. You’d think the thing was on fire the way I jerked my hand away.

  “Take it,” Jack says, fiercer this time. “You saved my life. Plus, there’s this other thing.” He bites his cheek and stares over my shoulder, like there’s something really interesting there. “You were right. I recruited you, or whatever. Brought you to Magpie on purpose. And he gave me money for it.”

  I stare at him.

  “What, like a bonus or something?”

  “Yeah, exactly like that.” Jack won’t meet my eyes. “So, come on, take it.”

  My fingers tingle at the touch of the soft, worn leather, but I accept the wallet. It’s old and cracked, and there are initials on the front, SJG. Simon must have been a real person before he was a junkie. Someone with initials, who was proud enough to have them engraved on his wallet. I peek inside. There’s a paper social security card with the name Simon James Grady. A library card from Dubuque, Iowa. And money. At least two hundred dollars.

  “Hey.” There’s a gruff voice beside us and I smell unwashed body, a familiar odor like onion soup gone bad. “You gonna eat that?”

  Jack rolls his eyes. “Frankie, get the hell away from us.”

  Frankie’s bloodshot eyes are lasered in on the wallet.

  “Dammit,” Jack says.

  We try to move to a different corner of the terminal, but Frankie lumbers after us. We ignore him. We don’t have much time.

  “Jack, you need to leave too. Seriously. Go find Nessa, and get away from here.”

  Jack shakes his head and nervously scans the terminal. “Don’t worry about us. I’ll think of something to tell Magpie. You didn’t get to see it, but I think he really likes us. He says we’re more special to him than any of the other kids, and I believe him. We’ll be okay, I promise.”

  I bite my lip, and my eyeballs sting. I don’t want to leave Jack and Nessa behind in this place. But I can’t stay either.

  Jack rubs his nose with the heel of his hand.
“So where you going, Hank?”

  I clutch the book. “I’m going to go to the woods to live deliberately,” I say. “To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I can learn what it has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I had not lived.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  I pause. The words are Thoreau’s, from the book. I saw them like a photograph in my brain and just blurted them out. “Never mind,” I say to Jack.

  “You. Gonna. Eat. That?”

  We look up in exasperation at Frankie, who is still hovering near us. He won’t stop staring at my back pocket, where I stuffed the wallet. “Frankie, stop staring at my ass,” I say. He ignores me and keeps his eyes locked. Jack peers over Frankie’s shoulder and freezes. “Shit,” he says. I turn and see two transit cops on the other side of the terminal, a heavyset, dark-haired woman, and a burly guy who takes off his police cap to scratch his head, revealing a military-style blond buzz cut. They stop a kid about our age with dark hair like mine and ask him a lot of questions.

  “I gotta go,” Jack says, not taking his eyes off the cops. “Be safe, Hank.”

  “Take care of yourself, Jack. And Nessa.”

  He gives me a crooked smile. “I always do.” He turns and latches on to a family with two little girls who are walking by. “Excuse me,” I hear him say. “But do you know when the train to Washington DC leaves?”

  Certainly the cops will assume this is his family and not be suspicious, the way he’s talking so easy with them, laughing and joking. Damn, he’s good. But aside from Frankie, who doesn’t count, I’m a kid all alone. And if the word is out about the assault in the alley this morning they’ll be on the lookout for three kids. One of them who looks exactly like me.

  The cops have stopped questioning the kid and are heading in my direction. Luckily they haven’t spotted me yet, which is good, since I’m gawking at them in full-out panic mode. After all, I now have Simon’s wallet on me, evidence to connect me very solidly with a crime. It has his initials for chrissakes. And his ID. I am so screwed. Quickly, I take out all the cash and stuff it into my front pocket, ready to ditch the wallet. Frankie watches every move with his beady eyes, but I’m too terrified to deal with him.

  As I watch them, the woman cop looks in my direction, then gives me a double-take. She looks tough, like she’d really enjoy being the one to nail my ass to the wall. I glance away quickly, but she and her buzz-cut partner are heading straight for me. I won’t have a chance to dump the wallet in the trash without them being suspicious.

  “You…gonna…”

  I stare blankly at Frankie and pull the wallet out of my back pocket. He licks his lips and looks expectant. As casually as possible, with my back to the cops, I hand Frankie the social security card. He grins, takes it from me with a pinky extended, and pops the whole thing in his mouth. In one chew and swallow, it is gone. I hand him the library card, and it, too, vanishes. Digesting the evidence. So far, so good. Bless you, Frankie, bless you.

  Turning back toward the transit cops, I see they’re almost on me. But then this lady in a purple knit hat darts in front of them, eyes up on the destination screen, and she smacks right into the burly cop. In the confusion, I grip the wallet, hoping for the impossible. Paper is one thing, but can Frankie actually eat a wallet? “You gonna…” I drop it on the floor, and kick it to the tips of his dusty black boots.

  “Take it!”

  And so he does. He reaches down, licking his chops like the wallet is a juicy porterhouse steak, and takes a huge bite out of it. Fortunately, the wallet is old, and this dude has strong teeth. He literally rips a piece of leather right out of the wallet, chews once, and swallows. Then he’s back for another. Bite, chew, swallow. The cops are almost on us now, and I can still see Simon’s initials on the side, SJG. Faster, I think. You can do it, Frankie. Bite, chew, swallow.

  Before they can speak, I turn to the cops like I’ve just noticed them and manage an expression of total outrage. “Officers, do you see what this man is doing?” I sputter.

  “I dropped my wallet on the ground—he picked it up, and now”—I gesture helplessly, and the three of us look at Frankie—“he’s eating it.”

  Frankie glances at each of us and grins, still chewing on leather and drooling into his beard. The front of the wallet, the part with the initials, is almost gone, except for the first letter, S.

  “Frankie, did you take this boy’s wallet?” The woman asks in an annoyed tone. Frankie shakes his massive head and swallows. “Mine.”

  “What’s your name, son?” Buzz Cut asks me. I almost say Henry. Henry David. But we are all looking down at the wallet and the remaining initial.

  “Steven,” I say quickly. “Steven David. Son. Davidson.”

  Awkward, but I think I pulled it off.

  “Give the boy his wallet,” Buzz Cut says to Frankie. Apparently Frankie has respect for authority, because he hands it over, the same way he’d relinquished the book yesterday.

  The cop looks over my shoulder when I open the soggy wallet to peer inside. “Looks like he cleaned you out. Come on, Frankie, you need to give this boy his money back.”

  “No, it’s okay, he didn’t take my money.” I say. “I, uh, before I came into the city, my parents told me I should always keep my money in a front pocket.” Stupidly, I pat my front pocket to illustrate. “They said there are a lot of bad people in the city, so you have to be careful.” My palms are sweaty and I try not to think about Simon, afraid they’ll be able to magically read my mind. “So I’m okay for now, officers. Thank you for your assistance.” That last part might have been slightly over the top.

  The lady cop looks me over, and I hold my breath.

  “So where are you headed, Steven?”

  “Home,” I say.

  “And where’s that?”

  I conjure a picture in my head of the destination board and spout off the first city on the sign. “Philadelphia.”

  “Ahh, nice town. Eagles fan?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her friendly manner vanishes, and she puts a hand on her hip, next to her gun.

  “I need to see an ID please, Steven,” she says.

  “Of course,” I say. Sweat is dripping down the back of my neck. I open the wallet again, pretend to search all the sections that might hold an ID. “It’s not here,” I say, going for a look of distress.

  We all turn eyes on Frankie.

  “Did you eat this boy’s ID, Frankie?” Buzz Cut asks.

  Frankie grins and smiles, a little spit shimmering on his bottom lip.

  Lady Cop looks me over, taking in my polite smile and my clean, supremely preppy ensemble. If the construction worker’s description is out, she’ll be looking for a dark-haired kid in a grimy blood-covered sweatshirt and torn jeans. Even so, I hold my breath until she says, “I’m sorry you had a run-in with Frankie here. When you get home, make sure you make some calls to replace your ID and anything else Frankie here might have ingested.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  “Okay, kid. Hope the rest of your day goes better.” Buzz Cut gives me a fatherly pat on the arm. “Have a good trip home, Steven.”

  I buy my ticket and as soon as they announce the all-aboard for my trip, I double-time it down the escalator, push past slower people lined up to board the train, and immediately find a seat.

  Up until the second the train pulls out of the station, I’m sure someone—Magpie with his gun or a cop with handcuffs—is going to come for me. But miraculously, no one does. No one seems to notice me at all.

  5

  Twenty minutes into the four-hour ride to Boston, I finally relax, going over my itinerary in my head over and over again to settle my twitchy brain. The train will arrive at South Station in Boston. The lady in the ticket booth told me I should take a cab to North Station. And from there, a commuter train to Concord. If all goes well, I should get in about 4 p.m. today.

  As for what happens after that, I ha
ve no idea. I’m trying not to think about that part. For now, I’m safe and warm, and sitting in this really comfortable chair watching the scenery go by. Buildings and bridges and concrete switch over to houses and trees and rivers. A lot of the tall grass I see is still kind of brown, and the trees just have buds on them, so I figure it’s early spring sometime. A glance at the date stamped on my train ticket confirms it. Mid-April.

  From the dining car at the middle of the train, I buy two hot dogs and take my time eating them. On the outside, I must look completely normal to people around me, who barely give me a second look. Just some kid eating hot dogs on the train to Boston.

  But as soon as I’m alone with my thoughts, total panic is a heartbeat away. Is this really happening? Did I really almost kill a guy in an alley? What the hell kind of person am I? Simon’s face, shocked and bloody, swims into my consciousness and it’s a struggle to keep the hot dogs down. There is nothing “normal” about me. I have a knife injury that I have to press paper towels against to control the bleeding. I assaulted a guy in an alley. I came close to becoming Magpie’s property in his creepy, surreal world of street kids and drugs. I’m worried about Jack and Nessa, who are still out on the streets, in danger. And then of course, there’s that other detail—I still have no idea who I am.

  Can’t stand it. Have to think of something else or I’m going to curl up into a ball with my hands over my ears and start screaming.

  Walden. I open the book with shaky hands and start to read, will myself to get lost in this book that might hold some clues for me. Completely submerge myself in the world I’m on my way to see.

  I’m a crazy fast reader and finish most of the book even before we reach Massachusetts. Of course, there are pages missing here and there because of Frankie, but I can use my imagination to fill in the blanks.

  To sum up—if I’ve got it right—this Thoreau guy was tired of civilization and how people become slaves to their own stupid houses and possessions. To prove he could be happier without those things, he stripped his life down to the simplest things he knew and took off to live alone in the woods. It sounds like he was really happy and at peace when he was in the woods like that, living by a pond. Must have been nice.