The Runaway

by Mike Walsh

  Georgie was nine years old. His parents saved themselves and other family members from Hitler’s rampage by getting back to America during the war. Back, because they were originally here, having Georgie in 1936. They left him with relatives to go back to Germany to get their parents and siblings out. Having failed and suffering three years of terror and tragedy, they made it to England then finally back to New York and Georgie. Soon they moved to a quieter city – Providence – bought a three-story house and settled down to raise their only son.

  • • •

  Michael was never invited into Georgie’s house or for that matter, Teddy’s house. They had never been in Michael’s house either. The Cohen’s and McMahon’s were moderately well off. Michael’s family was dirt poor. His mother was fortunate to have a sharp mind and could spot a good real estate deal when the opportunity presented itself. She agreed to take care of old Mr. Harrison, in exchange for living in the bottom two floors of his house. Old Mr. Harrison would occupy the top third floor of the house until he died. She was then able to buy the house for $2,400 under very good terms. So the poor O’Hara’s moved into a very nice neighborhood.

  It was World War II. There was a shipyard at the end of the street on the river. Mrs. O’Hara gave room and board to Navy officers that were stuck in town while repairs or updates were being done on their ships.

  • • •

  Michael had his friends, but he had his enemies also. This part of the city didn’t have the organized gangs like Federal Hill. It did, though, present it’s own unique set of problems.

  Michael’s nemesis was Benji Whelton who lived across the street. He would come over to the empty lot next to Michael’s house to taunt and wrestle with whoever was playing there at the time.

  Michael could never get Benji off him when Benji had him pinned, knees on shoulders, ass on belly. One day Georgie told him he shouldn’t be afraid of Benji. He was a bully because he had three big brothers to fall back on. Michael listened because since he moved into the neighborhood, Michael was the first and only one to befriend the boy with the white round face, chubby cheeks and the silly little hat on his curly hair. Others would tease, “that’s why Jews get bald on the back of their heads,” but Michael would only snatch the Yarmulke off Georgie’s head and slap it on his. Georgie wouldn’t get mad. He kind of liked it. Michael never went too far. So Georgie told Michael, he was too nice. Didn’t want to hurt anyone. Just give Benji a good whack and there would be no more pinning to the ground until Michael cried to get up. After all, Michael was the leader of their gang.

  • • •

  So one day Michael was next door contemplating the big tree in the neighbors extra lot when Benji drifted over. When he was close enough, and without provocation or warning, Michael just popped him one in the belly. Well, you never saw such a sight. Big, gangly, muscular Benji, bending over, crying like a baby with his nose drooling green shit swearing his brothers would get Michael.

  • • •

  “C’mon Michael, let me go with you.”

  “No way, Georgie, they’re not after you. I’m going alone.”

  “Well what are you going to do? Where are you going? When will you be back?” At nine years old, Michael O’Hara ran away from home and from Benji Whelton’s big brothers and was back the next day, being delivered by the police after stuffing him with ice cream. They found him sleeping in a cardboard box behind a row of stores two blocks away. Six years later and 71 yellow sheets on file for running away, Michael O’Hara ran away for the last time.

  • • •

  Michael had gone asleep to all the city noises and now snapped awake feeling something was different. It was. It was totally quiet. Not even the sound of a breeze. Michael felt rested and thought he might as well hit the road and get out of this town. He brushed himself off in the light of the streetlights and after walking around, found the park pretty much square with a street all around and an access street in the middle of each side. One corner had a small hotel with a clock pole in front, usually reserved for banks. 3:30 in the morning and warmer as he got further west. Michael had slept about nine hours.

  There was a jewelry store next to the hotel, the door set back with display windows on each side. Someone was standing in that entryway looking in the window. Michael thought it looked like a girl, a fat girl at that. He wandered over that way and saw it was a girl, maybe sixteen, who could tell, and she was chubby to fat. Just as tall as Michael and that made her a big girl.

  Michael went up to the opposite window looking in as if he were window shopping, feeling foolish at 3:30 in the morning. He went to the other side by the girl still four or five feet away and saw she had a pleasant face. Michael looked at her, at her eyes, and she looked back, into his eyes. Christ, puppy love already and all I did was look at her. Michael just stared at her and she stared back. Finally, he said, “You want to go into the park?”

  She shrugged her shoulders a little and said “OK.” Michael put his hand lightly on her back and guided her across the street into the park.

  “You run away from home?” he asked. She said she had, she was always being picked on, and no one loved her. She lived right here in town and was only gone this night. They went far enough into the park so Michael could still see the hotel on the corner but they were shielded by all the trees.

  She stood by a large tree and Michael said, “You want to do it?”

  “Okay,” she said, “But I don’t want to get on the ground and get my clothes dirty.” Michael said that was all right, they could do it standing up. He pulled her dress up and she held it. When he tried to pull down her panties, she wouldn’t let him. They could just push them aside. Things were getting difficult enough when Michael realized he lost his boner. He opened his buttons and told her to fish him out and get him hard. She did and she kept stroking him as he tried to maneuver his dick into her, not having any luck at all, her standing up, big fat thighs, trying to hold back her panties and her stroking him. This won’t work, you’ll just have to jerk me off, he told her. “All right, but don’t get any on me.” Michael turned sideways and shot his load. The girl pulled some leaves and wiped her hand.

  “I can get us a room, if you’d like,” he told her.

  She said that would be nice. Michael told her to stay there, he would arrange the room, find a back way to get her in, and be right back. She said all right and leaned against the tree. Michael crossed the street and went to the hotel door. Of course it was locked. He rang the bell and waited. Pretty soon a grumpy old guy came to the door pulling on his suspenders and asked what he wanted through the crack in the two glass doors.

  “I need a room, sir. The sign says you have a vacancy. How much is it for the rest of the night?”

  “Two dollars and you can stay till noon, sonny. You got two dollars?” Michael pulled two dollars from his pocket and slid them through the crack.

  “It’s for my sister, I’ll go get her and have her ring the bell when she gets here, OK?”

  “OK, but hurry up. I need to get back to bed.”

  The old guy turned around and went back to the back room. Michael went back to the park and looked around for the girl. She was gone and when he called out, not too loud, there was no answer. That was strange, he thought. Oh well, maybe she was scared and went home.

  • • •

  He went back to the hotel and rang the bell. The old guy came out right away with a key dangling in his hand. He let Michael in, gave him the key and pointed down the hall.

  “Number 15 and keep it quiet, sonny.”

  Michael went down the hall and let himself in the room. He plunked down on the bed but couldn’t go to sleep. It was almost morning and he should be on the road, but he came back to the room because he was afraid of getting picked up by the police being the middle of the night. He must have dozed off when he was awakened by some commotion coming from the hall.

  He heard a few words that made him think they were coming to his room and fo
r him. The girl must have gone home and spilled her guts. Who knows what she might have said. The window was locked but low to the wall. He snapped the lock open and slid the window up. He could practically touch the ground when he swung his leg over. He pulled down the window and hoped they did not see it unlocked and that he went out that way. He had no idea what other way there was out of the hotel except the locked front doors.

  Michael ran to the corner and looked down the street. Sure enough, a police car with the bubble red light on was parked in front. He ran across the street into the park and ran all the way to the other end. He kept to the residential streets and out of town to the highway without seeing any cops. Still, he wanted far away from this crazy city as quickly as he could. A cement truck stopped for him, going about twelve miles out for his first load of the day. It was after six and he was on the road again thinking about that French singer in a movie singing about little girls. What a crock.

  • • •

  The driver pulled into a cement plant with big towers, piles of sand and other stuff, trucks lined up under a chute. Michael hopped down from the cab, thanking the driver for the ride. He crossed the street and started walking west. The sun was just starting to come up and was warm on his back. He was dog tired, being up most of the night. There was no place in sight he could see that he could snuggle into for a nap.

  Eventually, he just fell asleep walking. It happened all the time. He would wake up tripping over a rock or a dip. A car horn would wake him up. This time a car door slammed and startled him awake. He stopped, his eyes adjusting to the light. Something shiny was blinding him.

  His eyes cleared and he saw it was the sun shining on the cops badge. Uh, oh. Now what? The police car, highway patrol, was parked across the shoulder, the cop leaning back on the fender looking at Michael through dark aviator sunglasses. Michael stopped, ten feet away, nowhere to run. He guessed he’d try to bluff his way out of this. Maybe the cop didn’t know what happened in town.

  “Good morning, officer. You stop to give me a ride?”

  Bad move. The cop reached out grabbing Michael’s arm and spun him around mashing his face into the warm metal of the patrol car. He was manacled and shoved into the back seat in seconds and the door slammed shut. Michael worked his way off the car floor and onto the seat. The cop said nothing. He was tall and slim, grim-faced, no bullshit attitude. He made a U-turn, slammed the gas to the floor and flipped on his siren and lights. Michael was thrilled, but only for the moment. He was going to jail and he was not happy. Stupid fool. Thinking you’re out of the woods because you’re out of town.

  The cop pulled into the police station around the side where it looked like an employees entrance. He got out, opened the back door and literally dragged Michael out, up the couple of stairs and into a hallway. Michael straightened and leaned against the green wall.

  A man in civvies with a badge and gun holster, empty, came out of a room and asked the cop if this was him. The cop said nothing, just grabbed Michael’s arm and shoved him into the room and into a chair.

  He removed his cuffs and walked out, closing the door. Michael looked around, no windows, no way out. After a few minutes, two guys came into the room, one the guy from the hall. They had hats on, no jacket, sleeves rolled up passed the wrist, ties pulled down, looking tough. The one with less hair started talking, asking questions.

  “You know why you’re here, kid?” No answer.

  “You know what you did?” No answer.

  “You know who the girls father is?” No answer.

  “All right kid, play it that way.”

  He nodded to the other guy, the one with more hair. That guy slid a twelve inch rubber hose from his shirt sleeve and without preamble, smacked Michaels up the side of his head. Michael and the chair went half way over and came back up straight with a thump. His head rang and he saw stars. His eyes went black and then reopened to flashing lightening. He blinked several times and shook his head clear.

  “Gee, I thought the rubber hose only happened in the movies.”

  The guy pulled back to swing again but Michael put up his hands and said, “OK, OK. I’ll confess. What did I do?” The cop with less hair dropped a spiral pad and pencil in front of Michael onto the table.

  “You know what you did, kid. Write it down. All of it. And sign it.”

  Michael took the pencil and started writing.

  • • •

  My name is Michael J. O’Hara. I am fifteen years old. I am guilty of smooching with a fat girl in the park. She told me she was eighteen and I told her I was eighteen. I am writing this freely so they won’t whack me with the rubber hose again.

  Signed, Michael O’Hara

  • • •

  The cop with less hair ripped the page off the pad and read it. Then he handed it to the other guy who read it. He crumbled it up and walked out of the room, the guy with less hair following. The door closed and Michael heard a lock click.

  It seemed like hours went by before he heard the lock click again. He had been going over in his mind all the things that could happen to him, not the least dumping him into the Ohio river. After all, he did not know who the girl’s father was.

  An average looking man came into the room, suit pressed, no hat, no badge, no gun. He put his hand on Michaels shoulder and looked at the side of his head, mumbling, “That will be all right, I think. How do you feel, Michael? Head a little sore? Need an aspirin? No? OK, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re going downstairs to the cafeteria and get you something to eat. That sound OK?”

  Michael felt like he should cry at this point, but the meal was coming so why bother. He got up and followed the man out and down the hall.

  The building was on a hill and they were actually on the second floor, so it was two flights down to the cafeteria. There were other city departments in the building but there was only a couple people sitting at tables having coffee and whatever. The serving line was L-shaped and started on the left, but the man guided Michael all the way around to just before a cashier to a counter opening. A black man brought out a metal tray of food, set it down and handed a slip of paper to Michaels captor. He signed it and handed it back. He then selected a table far from the exit and sat them down. Michael had not eaten in some time and immediately wolfed down the meat loaf, mashed potato’s and string beans. Then he polished off the apple pie and milk. The man just watched Michael.

  “OK, you feel better?” Michael nodded.

  “Fine, you can call me Jerry. I’m the juvenile officer in this district. I’m taking you to a judge just outside the city who will decide what to do with you. He specializes in juvenile cases, although not so much like this one. Let’s go. My car is just outside.”

  They climbed the stairs, just one flight this time and went out a door to a back alley. A station wagon with some writing on the side was right there. “You need to get in the back, Michael. Sorry, but that’s the rules.”

  There was cage wire separating the front and no doorknobs. So much for jumping into traffic, Michael thought. Jerry drove out of town west, the same way Michael was brought back, and at the edge of town, pulled left in front of a long skinny building with parking in front. When Michael was let out he saw a house attached to the left side. The door to the office had a little sign “Judge John J. Carpenter—Juvenile Division,”

  Jerry rang a bell and opened the door. There was a desk and two chairs right there in front of the door. Michael noticed Jerry flip a lock on the door. The chair behind the desk held a giant of a man of no determinable age, bushy hair sticking out of his ears, drooping mustache and little glasses. Michael thought, Santa Claus with a gavel.

  “Sit down, boy,” he commanded. “Jerry, why don’t you take a break. I’ll call your house when we’re finished.”

  Jerry looked stunned, stammered something, and the judge waved him off with “Don’t worry, don’t worry about it. I can put him in the holding room right there, indicating to his left, when I’m done with him.
”

  Jerry looked at Michael, held his eyes for a moment and unlocked the door. He nodded to it looking at the judge and the judge waved again saying “Yea, yea, I’ll get it.”

  Judge Carpenter sat back in his chair, intertwined his fingers on his huge gut and stared over his glasses at Michael. Minutes went by, then he said, “OK, Mr. O’Hara, I know you did nothing wrong that would warrant what you went through. However, you being a juvenile and all, a runaway I suppose, I must do something that will keep my conscience clear. You understand that, don’t you? Of course you do. You’re obviously a smart kid, on the streets and still alive and kicking. Now, if I give you back to the juvie-officer to defend you in open court, there will be some embarrassing things coming out that will be better off unsaid. I mean about the girl and about your little visit at the police station. So we need to think of something else.” He rolled his eyes a little and squeezed his chin a little. “What do you think, Mr. O’Hara? What course of action should we take?”