by Tom Twitchel
On second thought—no.
As the electric bus trundled along, I decided to “man up” and get a handle on the situation as best I could. There was no one on the bus except me, the driver and a woman who was wearing several layers of clothing and clutching a huge purse to her chest. I wasn’t close enough to either of them to get a read but the driver wasn’t a concern and the woman certainly didn’t look scary. So, no immediate threats.
My biggest worry was getting through the night safe; I had set up an opportunity for the next day that would put me in a position to hide indefinitely. The bus was on its last circuit for the night and if I stayed on it, I would be at the end of the line. Then I would need a safe place to sleep and transportation to my very important errand in the afternoon. Hitting another hostel was out of the question. I seriously doubted that lightning would strike twice and hook me up with another Seth. Shelters were a definite no go. I would end up talking with CPS again for sure.
As the bus cycled through its stops, I felt panic knocking on the door. A plan just refused to pop into my head. Looking out the window, I was growing more and more desperate when I suddenly saw an answer right in front of me. Getting to my feet, I stretched out my hand and grabbed the pull cord that ran along the top of the windows. A bell sounded and the bus slowed but didn’t stop.
The driver was looking at me in his rearview mirror.
“I only stop at route locations this late in the day kid. Sit down and get off at the next stop.
“I’m going to be sick!” I said, and the way I was feeling, I was pretty sure I could actually throw up if he didn’t stop.
The woman looked up and seemed alarmed that I might spew in her direction. The driver cursed loud enough for me to hear but the bus ground to a stop, electricity snapping and crackling on the guide wires overhead.
“Get off then! And don’t puke until you get out!”
I was too focused on getting off the bus to be insulted by his lack of concern. The doors midway to the back clattered open and I hopped down the stairs and out onto the street. The doors closed and the bus moved away before I’d walked two steps. I guess you can’t complain when you’re breaking the rules.
There was no one else on the street. I was motivated to get indoors as quickly as possible. Limping up the stairs to the tall double doors of the building I’d spotted, I grabbed a door handle and pulled.
Locked.
Why would a church have its doors locked to the public? Turning around, I got a better look at the neighboring area—not impressive; boarded windows, doors chained shut. The panic I had been feeling a few minutes before was storming the gates and ready to fulfill the promise I had made to the bus driver. The contents of my stomach were threatening to make an appearance all over the entrance to the church. I started hammering on the door for all I was worth, not pausing to consider who or what might hear it on the quiet street.
I banged away until my hand hurt. Breathing hard and feeling sicker than ever, I leaned my back against the building and allowed myself to slowly slide into a sitting position. How old is too old to cry? I remember a story my mom had told me about the famous General George Patton crying after a particularly bloody battle. “If Georgie Patton can shed a tear, there’s no shame in it if it’s for the right reason.” This sure felt like the right reason.
The tears welled up and my vision blurred. I started wishing I could just disappear and hide from everything. Not very brave, but it’s the truth. I sat like that with my head on my knees, wondering how I had gotten there, where my mom was and how she could justify leaving us, whether Billy was still with Dennis or our aunt had been able to take him to live with her. The taste of salt from my tears leaked into my mouth and I could feel the night air beginning to chill me. I was definitely feeling really sorry for myself. If I died there on the street, would anybody miss me? Pretty pathetic I’ll admit, but when you’re thirteen and all alone, aren’t you entitled?
I spent the night huddling in the shadows of the church, trying to keep warm and making myself small and hard to see.
CHAPTER SEVEN
How I had managed to avoid being seen or harassed during the night was a mystery to me. When the sun came up, I was too stiff and sore to think about it and decided that maybe my luck was just starting to turn in a better direction. God knew I needed it. I dragged myself to the nearest bus stop, my leg and back screaming at me in pain from sleeping in the doorway all night. Getting off several stops later, I showed up for my important appointment, which was meeting the superintendent for the new apartment my “mom” had rented for us.
During the time I was living at the hostel, I had been busy with more than working my act in the parks. I had taken up correspondence of a sort. First, I had used my mother’s personal documents to apply for a change of name using her marriage license and social security card as supporting documents. A new first and last name for her and, of course, I changed my legal name at that time too.
That’s when Benny became my legal first name and Brown my new legal last name. “Mom” had then applied for a new social security card for herself and me. Mine had been relatively easy. Hers had not. I had to settle for a new number for me and a reissued card for her.
Next, “Mom” had opened a bank account for me. Once that had been set up, I went about securing a new place to live. That had been more difficult. The majority of the apartment complexes required all sorts of employment verification, credit and background checks, which had blown up most of them pretty fast. It had come down to seeking out privately-owned, multiple-family dwellings with more relaxed rental requirements. Most of those had been in areas that were so sketchy that I didn’t even bother to apply. Then I had to inspect the few that would suit my needs location-wise. I needed to be close to a bus stop that served routes that would get me to parks, shopping and school.
I had considered skipping the whole school thing but changed my mind when I had considered two very important variables. First, I still needed an education if I was going to take care of myself and I had always enjoyed school.
Second, if I didn’t attend school, I figured a Social Services rep would show up to talk to Mom about my truancy. That would be the end of one small child living on his own. I needed to create the appearance of living with my mother and I had to watch my back to make sure that neither my non-existent mother nor her underage son, that would be me, attracted any attention. Keeping the three location factors in mind, the building next to Goodturn’s pawnshop had been my final choice.
Building my new life also required getting enrolled in school. That had been easy but did cause me some concern. I hadn’t anticipated all of the questions I might be asked and now there were several people out there locally who knew that Dennis was my father’s first name. They also knew that my name, at least the one I was using, was Benjamin. My worry was that a new student enrolled with the first name of a missing child might attract some interest. There was some small consolation that I had actually run away from a different state and that I had successfully changed my last name. At the end of the day, I couldn’t undo Seth and Miss Hoch knowing what they knew. My new last name would probably cover my tracks as far as Dennis was concerned, and I would have to hope that its commonness would make it hard for anyone else to research easily. I enrolled in Roosevelt Junior High for the fall.
When I’d shown up at the dilapidated building that was going to be my new home, good fortune had smiled on me. The super, Breno Giacomo, was a decent but not very bright man who acted more like an oversized child than a man responsible for managing an apartment building, regardless of how rundown the neighborhood was. He hadn’t asked for any paperwork and had said that my mom could bring it to his room downstairs later. I didn’t have any furniture to move in so he handed me the keys and that was that. Why he hadn’t been curious about my mother’s absence was too good to be true, or questioned for that matter. He’d asked where she was, looking around us as though she might appear out of th
in air, and had been satisfied when I had said that she was arriving later after work.
I had slept on the floor the first night, but had upgraded to a bed within a couple of days. I bought a pay-as-you-go phone and a cheap laptop. I couldn’t afford cable or Internet right off so I bought my one luxury item, a wireless net card. After that, I had been a little overwhelmed with the list of things I needed and how much it was going to cost. The Goodwill, Buffalo Exchange, Craigslist and plain old scrounging for castoffs had been my initial resources. The big stuff had been really difficult. Pleading with adults at Goodwill to help me and my mom and only contacting Craigslist advertisers who were willing to drop stuff off made it very challenging, not to mention tiring. Then, raising funds meant every afternoon was spent in the parks, hustling tips. No more carny wagers though, too dangerous. My ever-expanding list of rules also included not performing after sunset, much too dangerous.
The apartment was very basic: old wood floors throughout, which were cold as heck on rainy days, two bedrooms (one for me and one for “mom”), and a large space that served as the living area that was separated from the tiny kitchen by a freestanding counter with cupboard storage underneath. There was a bathroom in the master bedroom and a smaller bathroom off the entry. A stackable washer-dryer combo lived in a hall closet next to a tiny utility closet that housed the water heater and electrical panel. The entry door opened on a short entry hall that led right into the living area. The best feature of the whole place was the bank of windows that ran across the wall immediately visible from the front door. They looked out on the train tracks and the industrial area, but at night, the city lights were beautiful, if a little lonely.
The first week was spent mailing paperwork and registering for necessities: utilities, renter’s insurance (a requirement of the landlord), school and a bunch of other stuff. I thought my head was going to explode. All of Mom’s signatures were perfect duplicates from her marriage license. One minor obstacle to getting all the paperwork done was setting up a phone number for dear old mom. Every form required a phone number, and most asked for an email address. The email was easy and so was the number. I bought an old uncorded phone set with an answering machine, leaving the robotic greeting in place and that took care of that.
I also needed to furnish the place so that if anyone did come over they wouldn’t take one look around and scream, “Minor living alone!” Using photos from Good Housekeeping as inspiration, I decorated the master bedroom to look as much like an adult female’s sleeping area as I could. There was a lot of Goodwill stuff in there. The bedspread was a hideous floral thing that I thought looked feminine and the dresser and lamp were obvious relics from somebody’s grandma’s house but I thought they worked just fine. Frilly curtains and a southwestern design throw rug were my other nods to a girly sense of decorating fashion. That rug really tied it all together. At least, that’s what I told myself.
I didn’t have much to put around the room in terms of personal touches. I had a dog-eared picture of Mom that I kept in my wallet but it was too small to put in a frame. I went with a baby picture of me that seemed “Mom-like” to have on her nightstand. It had been in the shoebox of stuff I’d taken with me the night I ran away. There had been a picture of Billy too. I couldn’t put that out because there would need to be another story explaining why he wasn’t around. I didn’t have the strength to go through that and just plain didn’t want to do it. I taped it into my school binder instead.
My bedroom was very plain. I figured that I couldn’t have someone thinking the kid lived better than his mother, right? Bed, dresser, nightstand, lamp and a small desk for homework.
The living area didn’t get much attention until I got some not-so-diplomatic advice that it looked barren. And that leads to how I met Maddy.
***********
I had gone through a few days of what I would guess any thirteen-year-old on his own would go through and paid the price—bad food, staying up late and getting up later, followed by more ridiculous meal choices. The bellyache, numerous trips to the bathroom and the alarming amount of toilet paper I went through quickly ended that self-indulgent experiment.
A fresh commitment to eat better took me on a shopping excursion. Let me tell you this: If you want to experience a day full of fun and adventure, don’t do that when your mode of transportation is the bus. Throw in a significant limp and you’ve got a less than magical afternoon.
Limping up the street doing my Quasimodo shuffle I was laboring with a full backpack and carrying a heavy plastic shopping bag in each hand. The weight of the bags was causing the handles to cut into my fingers making them ache and go numb by the time I reached my block. As I approached my building, I was mentally preparing myself for the climb upstairs and seriously considering making two trips. How bad would it be if I fell down a flight of stairs and had to deal with another injury? No thank you sir.
Passing by the pawnshop, I walked by a girl who was preparing to enter the shop. Shorter than I and probably about the same age, she was wearing a red hoodie, black jeans and red tennis shoes. When I was passing behind her, she turned to look at me and gave me the chin nod, as in “What’s up?”
Struggling with my bags, I managed a hoarse, “Hey.”
“Where you going with all that stuff?” she asked.
“Home.” I just kept moving, afraid that if I stopped I’d have trouble starting back up.
She fell in beside me and tried not to be obvious about checking me out. Not checking me out as in “checking me out”; she was taking note of the damage on the left side of my body. A sweet, warm and completely pure sense of caring exuded from her. I had never experienced anything like it other than from my mom or Billy
“You want some help with that stuff?”
“Nah. I’ve got it.” Pride is a terrible thing.
“Whatev, but it looks uncomfortable. How much farther do you live?”
Nodding at my building, I said, “Right here.”
“Really? That is so awesome! I wish I lived this close to Goodturn’s.”
“Huh?” I had no idea what she was talking about. I hadn’t been in the pawnshop yet and although Mr. Goodturn owned the building I lived in, I didn’t know that yet either. All of my interaction was with Breno Giacomo, the not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer super.
“Goodturn’s. The pawnshop? It’s like right there.” She pointed toward the window she had just been staring through.
“Oh. Yeah.” I was trying to keep my answers short, not to be rude but to conserve my wind. I was getting close to the end of my rope.
“Which floor do you live on?”
“Fourth.”
Her eyes travelled up the building and back down. We came to a stop at the entry to the lobby.
“Elevator?” she asked, tilting her head to the side, which made her long bangs swing from one side of her face to the other and cover her eye completely.
Trying to understand how I had acquired her interest wasn’t all that important to me. I just wanted to get away from her so that I could unload my supplies and lie down for a year.
“No.” Because she was standing next to me, I swiped my card instead of using my secret talent, and then fumbled with the door as I tried to balance both bags in one arm. I got it half open and then the handle slipped out of my hand.
Rolling her eyes, but smiling, she grabbed the door before it closed and held it open waving me forward with a grand gesture.
“Yeah. You got it all right.” She giggled but I couldn’t find it in me to be mad. She was not mocking my physical disability, just my less than admirable male stubbornness.
“Okay mister, hang on for a second. First, what’s your name?”
Unwilling to be rude to her, I told her. I took the opportunity to set the bags down and let blood flow back into my numb fingers. Wriggling them hurt like heck.
“Nice to meet you, Ben. Mine is Maddy. Maddy McIntyre.”
“Matty?”
She perfor
med an exaggerated eye roll, “No, MADDY. Like m-a-d but with an extra “D” in it.”
“Oh. Like Madeline?”
“No! Madison. Please, don’t ever say Madeline. Madison is so much more…elegant, don’t you think?” She smiled at me with a huge beaming, full of teeth ear-to-ear movie star pose. As if to say, “and here I am.”
“Look,” she said. “You can’t seriously be planning to carry those bags up that,” she glanced at the stairway, “by yourself. Give me one of the bags. That way you’ll have a free hand for the rail.”
Looking down at the two plastic bags, I felt even more tired than I had a few minutes before. My fear of stopping and not being able to get going again felt pretty accurate at the moment. What could it hurt?
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re kinda into the whole brevity thing aren’t ya?” She laughed as she grabbed a bag and started up the stairs.
“Where do you go to school?” she asked.
Not seeing any harm in that detail I said, “Roosevelt.”
She rolled her eyes at my one-word response. “I go to O’Dea.”
Without saying anything, I raised my eyebrows.
“Catholic. But I’m not—Catholic that is.” She laughed.
When we came to a huffing and puffing stop in front of my door, I said thanks and did everything possible to send her the cue that her assistance was no longer needed.
“What, you’re not going to invite me in? Rude!” She jutted her chin out and smiled wide, batting her eyelashes furiously.
“My mom is out and I’m not supposed to have anybody in while she’s at work.”
“Oh come on. I won’t set fire to anything and I promise not to tell if you won’t.”
“Set fire…?”
Laughing so hard that she was almost doubled over, she burbled, “Kidding! Kidding!”
“Okay, you can come in for a minute but I need to put this stuff away before my mom comes home so you can’t stay long.”