by Alexa Land
Finally, I arrived at my destination, and pushed open the heavy glass door at Havilland House, which wasn’t a house at all. This building, a former department store, had been converted back in the 1970s to a combination community center, shelter during winter, teen runaway outreach and soup kitchen. Back when I’d first arrived in San Francisco, I’d spent many a cold winter night on a mat on the floor in the big main room. It probably literally saved my life. I would have gotten so ill out in the rain and cold of more than one San Francisco winter if this place hadn’t given me shelter.
I hadn’t been back here in almost two years, which was when I’d finally managed to afford a room in a residence hotel. And the place hadn’t changed at all. The linoleum floor looked as yellowed and stained as ever, and the dingy white walls still held a patchwork quilt of random flyers for drug counselors, and therapists, and local churches, and a million other outreach programs. I wondered if anyone ever actually switched them out, or if they just added new flyers as they came in. Maybe there were decades worth of now-defunct services up on that wall. Not that it mattered. I’d never once seen anyone reading them.
It was fairly chaotic. Lunch would be served in about an hour, and already a large cross-section of the city’s poorest residents were milling around the “lobby” at the front of the big main room while volunteers worked quickly and efficiently to prepare enough food for a crowd. I wound my way through the throng, and eventually emerged at a little office.
I stuck my head through the door, and saw a familiar face behind the desk. Oliver Avers was a lean African American man of about sixty, who as far as I knew ran this place as a volunteer. He was soft-spoken, and radiated calmness more than anyone I’d ever met. He was concentrating on a pile of forms on his beat-up metal desk, and when I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Avers?” he looked up at me and smiled.
“Well, hello Christopher. It’s been a long time. How’ve you been?”
In addition to his Zen-like calm, the other magical thing about Mr. Avers was his memory. He could recall the names of everyone that came in here, which was hundreds of people. I had no idea how he did that, or how he possibly remembered me years later.
“I’m good thank you, sir. May I have a moment of your time?”
“Of course. Pull up a chair.”
I did as I was told, then unzipped my backpack and pulled a sheet of paper out of a thick cardstock folder. “I just wanted to ask if you happen to recognize this man,” I said, and handed over the flyer.
Ray Nolan had succeeded in reopening my case, but there had been very little to go on. After he reinterviewed me and distributed the sketch of the man who’d assaulted me through all the law enforcement channels, there wasn’t a lot left to do. No forensic evidence had been collected, and there were no witnesses besides me, so the investigation quickly ground to a halt.
But I couldn’t get Kieran’s words out of my head: this man might still be out there hurting other people. When it became clear that the police couldn’t do much for me, I felt a responsibility to try to do something myself. So for the past few days, I’d been taking flyers with the sketch I’d made and the man’s physical description around town. I began with places that rent boys frequented, including every by-the-hour fleabag hotel in this part of town. Now I was expanding my canvassing to include places like this that worked with runaways and sex workers, just on the off chance that someone would recognize him.
Honestly, I didn’t know what would happen if a suspect was actually identified, since without corroborating evidence, I didn’t really think my testimony alone would be enough to put this man in jail. But still, I felt I had to do something.
Mr. Avers took the sheet of paper from me and studied the sketch carefully, then read the information at the bottom. Finally he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
He started to hand it back to me, but I said, “Would you mind posting that? Maybe someone else will recognize him.”
“Sure thing, Christopher,” he said, and set the flyer on his desk. “This crime he’s wanted for, were you the victim?”
“Yes sir. I almost died in that assault, and I’m worried that more boys like me might be hurt by that man.”
“I’m proud of you for taking an active role in seeking justice,” he said. “Few people would do that.”
“I didn’t do anything about it for over a year. I guess I just expected the police to handle it, only they never did. I’m ashamed that it took me so long to get involved.”
“Don’t look at it that way. You’re right that the police should have handled it. Most victims of violent crime really don’t get involved like this, and you should be commended for being so brave.”
“Oh, I’m not brave. I’m just trying to do the right thing,” I said, and got up from my chair. “Good to see you again, sir. Take care.”
The main part of Havilland House had become even more crowded as lunch grew near. I left Mr. Avers’ office and began to weave my way through the crowd, headed for the exit. When a hand grabbed my upper arm, I immediately went into the defensive, whirling on whoever was holding on to me, my adrenaline pumping.
The young brunette with glasses gasped, and grabbed me in a hug. “Christopher! It is you!”
“Hey Jeffrey,” I said, returning the hug as soon as I realized who it was.
“You’re ok,” he said, still holding me tightly. “I thought you were dead.”
“Why did you think that?”
He pulled back a little bit, but kept holding on to my upper arms. His big brown eyes were shining with unshed tears under his long bangs. “Well, because you disappeared right at the same time as Angel and Joshie Lyton. There were rumors of a serial killer stalking young blonde rent boys. I thought maybe he got you, too.”
I was shocked at that. “I didn’t know about that rumor.”
“Yeah. You know, it was just among our population. The cops didn’t believe us, they said you all probably just moved on to another city. But I knew that wasn’t the case. Angel had left his backpack with me, it had everything he owned in it and he would have come for it before taking off.”
“Jeffrey, can we go talk somewhere quiet?”
“Yeah, sure. I gotta be back before they start serving lunch though, I’m working the coffee station. But I have a few minutes.”
We headed toward the back of the building, Jeffrey hanging on to the sleeve of my hoodie like he thought I might disappear. He’d changed a bit in the last couple years. He was as tall as me now, and his lean body had filled out just a little. Back when I knew him, he was a scared sixteen-year-old runaway from Modesto, newly arrived in the city. I was a couple years older and a lot more street-smart. So I’d tried to help him out a bit, offer him some pointers on how to survive.
What I mostly remembered about Jeffrey was one cold winter night when we’d slept side-by-side on the floor of this building. I’d awakened and realized he was sobbing silently, trying not to attract attention in the crowded shelter. When I reached out and touched his shoulder, he’d crawled into my arms and went right on crying. I held him all night. He’d seemed really embarrassed the next morning, and avoided me after that.
Soon after, I’d moved into a residence motel in a different neighborhood. I would still see Jeffrey occasionally, because I worked the street in front of the Havilland. He always seemed to be holding it together, often better than I was. Once I was assaulted and went to work for the escort service, I no longer had a reason to come to this part of town and didn’t see him at all anymore.
Looking back now, I felt guilty that I hadn’t done more to help this kid. But I was homeless and selling my body on the street, getting beaten up and robbed regularly because I was small and an easy mark, and just trying to live through each day. When you’re that focused on your own survival, you don’t have a whole lot to offer other people.
We had reached a little dormitory at the back of the building, and Jeffrey unlocked a door with a key he kept around his neck on a string. H
e pushed the door open and went and sat on a little twin bed with a red wool blanket. “This is my room,” he said proudly. “I work here now in exchange for room and board. Nice, huh?”
His narrow little bed was in a corner, the wall above it covered with pictures cut from magazines. Some of the pictures were tropical beaches and flowers. The rest, well, those broke my heart. They were pictures of houses, of families, of smiling, happy people. Jeffrey lived about a million miles from the world in those images. I wondered how he could bear to look at the false promises and fiction that those photos advertised.
I pulled up a smile as I sat beside him and said, “It’s really nice, Jeffrey. I’m happy for you.”
“It’s all because of you, Christopher,” he said. “You helped me so much when I first came to the city. I wouldn’t have survived without you.”
“What? No, I didn’t do much,” I said.
“Sure you did. You were my only friend, at a time when I needed that so bad. You gave me lots of advice, you taught me how to survive. You even brought me here to Havilland House for the first time. Do you remember?” I did now that he’d mentioned it, I had almost forgotten.
“It’s because of you that I didn’t turn to prostitution,” he continued. “You convinced me to find another way to get by. And you’re the reason that I have this home and this job now, because you brought me to this place. I owe you so much.”
I felt the color rise in my cheeks. “I didn’t really do anything. I was too wrapped up in my own drama to really be of much help.”
“You did more than you realize, and I’m so happy to find out you’re alive. I was devastated when I thought you’d been killed.”
“God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d thought that, or I would have come to see you.”
“It’s not your fault. We weren’t really friends at that point, so why would you have come here? I only knew you went missing because I would always watch for you. You always worked the same spot right down the street, every single day. Until one day in August over a year ago, when you were just gone.”
“I got attacked,” I said as I pulled a flyer from my backpack. “By this man.” I handed him the sheet of paper and said, “If you ever see him, stay far away from him. He’s really dangerous.”
He took the flyer and said, “See? You’re still looking out for me. I’ll watch out for him, and I’m so sorry you got attacked.”
“Does he look familiar?”
He studied the drawing closely, his brow knit. But then he said, “Naw. I’ve never seen him.”
“You said two other boys disappeared at the same time. What do you remember about that?”
“It was that same August. I met both Joshie and Angel here at the community center, they’d both come in for lunch. They were around my age, maybe a little older. Joshie was really funny, he knew like a million dumb blonde jokes, even though he was blonde. Angel, he was real sweet, real quiet. It was obvious how he earned his nickname.”
Jeffrey bent over and fished under his bed, then pulled out a red backpack. It was a child’s pack with a cartoon race car on it. “This is Angel’s. He would ask me to watch it for him when he went out to work.”
“Was he a prostitute?”
“Yeah. He and Joshie both were. They disappeared a week apart, Joshie first. You disappeared the week after Angel. It was weird, the disappearances were always on a Thursday, I remember that.”
“That is weird. Why would it always be a Thursday?”
“No idea.” He unzipped the front pocket of the backpack and took out a Velcro wallet, then slid a photo from it and handed it to me. “That’s Angel. I actually don’t know what his real name is. I’ve looked through his bag, but nothing has his name on it.” The photo was of a beautiful boy of about fifteen with long, tousled blonde hair and big blue eyes, cuddling a scrawny brown dog.
“Did Joshie and Angel know each other?”
“No, not really. I mean, you know how it is here. Everyone kinda knows everyone. But they weren’t friends or anything.” I didn’t have the same perspective as Jeffrey, I’d never gotten to know anyone when I’d come here, apart from him and Mr. Avers. But then, Jeffrey was far more social than I was. I’d always just kept to myself, just like a lot of people that lived on the streets.
“Did any boys disappear after me?”
“No. I mean, not that I noticed. It’s not like I know every single boy that’s out there, though. I only know the few that come to the Havilland.”
Could the police really overlook something as big as a serial killer? I mean, I didn’t have a lot of faith in law enforcement apart from Kieran. But still, that seemed like a huge thing to miss.
“You know, I kept his stuff all this time,” Jeffrey said, “because I kept hoping Angel would come back for it someday. I didn’t want to believe he was dead, just like I didn’t want to believe you and Joshie were. And look, now here you are, alive and well! Do you think maybe they’re alive, too? That maybe they really did just move on to another city like the police said?”
My gut told me that both of those boys had met the same fate by the man that had hurt me. They’d probably been killed, their bodies never recovered, the way mine was supposed to have been. I wasn’t about to say that to Jeffrey though, as he sat there looking at me with so much hope. So I stuck a smile on my face and said, “Maybe,” even as sadness washed through me.
He looked so happy as he took the photo from me and returned it to the wallet, then put everything back together and slid the backpack under his bed. “I’m gonna keep hanging on to his stuff. Maybe Angel will show up one day, just like you did.” God, if only.
I took a pen from my pack and wrote my cell number on the back of the flyer I’d given him. “Jeffrey, it was great seeing you. It’s almost lunch time and I know you have to get to work, so I won’t keep you. But here’s my number. Would you please think back to when Joshie and Angel and I vanished, and try to remember if there was anything unusual about those days? Call me if you think of anything. Or you know, if you just want to talk.”
“Yeah? Would that be ok?”
“Of course.”
He lowered his gaze as he said, “I’m sorry I got weird on you after that night in the shelter. Later on, I really regretted pulling away from you like that. But I was just so embarrassed.”
“You shouldn’t be. We all break down in tears at some point or another. Sometimes you just need to let it out.”
Jeffrey looked up at me and said, “Oh no, not about that. I was embarrassed about the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Really? Do you honestly not know?”
I shook my head no, and he colored slightly and said, “I woke up with a huge boner that morning when you were hugging me. I was mortified. I’m not even gay, I don’t know what the hell happened there.”
I smiled at him and said, “Not only did I have no idea, but it wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had known. You’re not the first guy to ever sprout some morning wood, you know.”
“Yeah, but come on, not when a dude is holding me.”
I chuckled at that and said, “Well, next time something embarrassing happens, just talk to me about it. Don’t slink away in shame.”
“Yeah, ok. But for the record, I’m not planning to get any more boners around you.”
We walked together to the front of the Havilland. A huge line had formed. It was a brisk January day, and people were here for a chance to get out of the cold for an hour, as much as for a hot meal. The shelter wouldn’t open until tonight at eight p.m., per local regulations. “Seems like there are more homeless people than ever,” I mused out loud.
“Yeah. So many people rely on this place. I really don’t know what’s going to happen next month.”
“What’s next month?”
“We’re being shut down because the building’s not earthquake safe. Mr. Avers had been fighting the city for years, but we lost.”
“This plac
e has been here for decades! How could the city shut you down now?”
Jeffrey shrugged. “I dunno.”
“What are you going to do? Where will you go?”
“Mr. Avers is trying to pin down a temporary location. You know he’s not just going to let this place fade away, there’s too much need. He’s done a lot of fund raising and gotten a few grants, we should be able to rent a place. It’ll probably be a lot smaller than this, but it’ll be something anyway.”
“How much money is needed to fix up the Havilland?”
“About fifty-five million dollars, all told. It’s kind of insane. I mean, think about it. The city wants to shut this place down because they think it’s unsafe. But how safe is it for all these people to go hungry, and to sleep on the streets in the rain and cold? How many of our population aren’t going to make it through the winter without our help?”
After we said goodbye out on the sidewalk and Jeffrey went inside to work the lunch shift, I pulled out my cell phone and read a text from Kieran, asking where I was. I texted him my location, and he wrote: I’m close, I’ll meet you there in a couple minutes.
True to his word, a black and white police car pulled up to the curb almost exactly two minutes later. Kieran was in full uniform, and in total cop mode. He scanned the crowd, his body language alert, one hand resting on top of his holster. I soon saw why. He was the outsider here, vastly outnumbered by the prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers who saw him as a threat. Nobody said anything to him or approached him, but the tension in the air was palpable.
“Hi baby,” he said when he came up to me. He was on duty, so he didn’t touch me. It wasn’t very professional to cuddle your boyfriend on a crowded sidewalk, after all. “How’s it going?”
“Good. I think I may have had a major breakthrough.”
“Really? Did someone recognize the sketch?”
“No, something else happened.” I repeated Jeffrey’s story about the other missing boys. And then I asked, “Do you think it’s possible that the police department could miss something as major as a serial killer?”