The Runaway

by Mike Walsh

  The he spied the five gallon gas tank. He kicked it. More than half full. It was one of those round jobs coming to an oval at the top. A metal hose was sticking out the top with a cap on it. Michael twisted off the cap and carried the can inside.

  The boys were done eating and were filling a paper sack with more food. “Put that down for now and run around these rooms here and bring back all the clothes and bedding you can find,” Michael ordered. “Hurry up, we want to get out of here.”

  Michael found a box of kitchen matches in a drawer and standing back, tossed a lighted match onto the pile of clothing they had piled up and soaked with the gasoline. The pile whooshed up into bright blue and yellow flames.

  “Let’s go, boys, we’re out of here!”

  They were six or seven blocks away before they heard the first sirens. Michael wondered if the boat would survive.

  He told the boys to head toward downtown, pointing out the direction, and tell the first cop they saw that they had run away and wanted to go home. Neither one seemed physically damaged and when asked if they should tell, Michael told them it’s up to them. Just to remember if they do, people tend to blame the victims as much as the queers. Think about it and decide. Maybe it’s your secret and you learned a whole lot from it. They did a three way hug and off they went. Michael never did get their names or where they were from. He looked back at the huge cloud of smoke and listened to all the alarms. “Fuck ‘em,” he muttered.

  He cut right and walked along the residential streets, enjoying looking at the porches and yards. He thought some day he would have a nice little house and a front yard, sit on the porch and rock. Yeah. Someday. He turned left back to a main street. When he got to the corner, he stopped and looked around, trying to decide the way to the highway. Then he saw the two kids walking towards him. They hadn’t seen him yet and he ducked into a storefront, watching them.

  When they were abreast of the doorway, he jumped out at them, shouting BOO! They hardly flinched, just stopped and looked at Michael.

  Then, “One of them is a cop.”

  “What?!”

  “The cop at the corner, back there, he was one of them.”

  Michael looked back in that direction, not sure what to make of this. Then he thought, yeah, he did see some blue suits in one of the rooms. Made sense, him to be a cop.

  “We think if we went to the cops, they would find out from this guy and blame us for the fire. We don’t know what to do now.”

  “Alright, alright, let me think a minute. You’re right, cops in this town are no good. You need to go somewhere else first. Where are you from, did you say? Nebraska? OK, I’ve got a couple of dollars and some money I found in the house. Not much, but let’s see how far it gets you. We need to find the bus depot.”

  He went into the store, a men’s clothing shop, and asked where the bus depot was. Twelve or so blocks one way and about six another.

  He shoved the kids along and said, “Let’s get going, we got some walking to do.”

  At the bus depot, for thirteen dollars, he got two children’s tickets to Omaha. They had a two hour wait. Michael sat them down, had them hold their ticket in front of them. Anyone curious would see they have a reason to be sitting in the depot and were not vagrants. He made up a story for them and told them to stick to it if anyone bothered them. They would find a cop in Omaha and be safely home in a couple of days. He hoped, anyway.

  • • •

  After walking what he thought was west, he eventually came to a highway and went into a gas station to use the bathroom. When he came out, he flipped out his thumb and caught a ride right away. Only then did he remember the bag he left in the washroom. Traveling light again.

  Chapter 13 – Reno

  He walked across the railroad tracks and was struck with the enormity of the lights and noise. A big sign spelled out Harold’s Club in large, multi-colored lights. He walked to the corner and started up one side two blocks and around the corner another two blocks. Between the four blocks the road was tiled in ceramic and only special cars were allowed in. The streets were crowded with all kinds of people moving in and out of the casinos. There were cowboy hats and women’s hats with fruit on them as well as couples, hand in hand, walking and looking with starry eyes. Times Square did not come close to this display.

  • • •

  Michael walked into an entrance to Harold’s Club and was immediately ejected by a big goon in a blue blazer with the Harold’s patch on the breast pocket. Something about an age requirement.

  There were some hotels at the back side of the blocks, so he drifted over there, picking out the biggest one. The lobby was big with a smaller casino on one side and restaurants on the other. Gift shops were in the back with the check-in desk in the corner.

  Michael spotted a restroom sign and headed in that direction, keeping a peripheral eye on the desk and the suited bellboys standing around. No one bothered him, so he went into the men’s room to take care of business.

  Cleaned up, brushed down and hair combed, he came out of the restroom and walked directly to the rooms hall, past the elevator and down to the end of the hall. None of the rooms seemed to be open, and why should they be, it was the middle of the night. He climbed the stairs at the end of the hall, by the exit door, and walked down the upper hall of the two story extension, until he came to the elevator. He was wary of the elevator man, they seem to know all that goes on in a hotel. They would just as soon kick your ass before tossing you out if they thought you were messing with their turf.

  He found a door unlocked, a closet of sheets and towels and blankets piled on shelves. He pulled away some blanket from the bottom of a shelf rack that was open in the back and had a small space behind it because of the angle of the wall. He crawled back there, pulling in some blankets and stacked the rest to hide him. He was sure he would awake before the room cleaning people arrived. He settled down, set his head alarm for six, and fell fast asleep.

  He awoke with a start, had he heard something? He listened intently, hearing nothing, and wondered what time it was. Michael piled out of his bed and straightened himself out, pushing his hair, now getting longer that he ever wore it, around until he felt satisfied.

  He peeked out the door, saw no one, and started down the hall. Several doors down, a business man came out of a room and dropped his suitcase on the hall carpet. He reached around to lock the door and spotted Michael coming toward him.

  He said “Hey kid, I’ll give you a half-buck to run my key down to the desk. I’m running late and it would really help me out, OK?”

  “Sure mister, I can do that.” He put out his hand and took the key from the man. “What’s your name, sir, so I can tell them who it’s from?”

  “Johnson, just tell them Johnson in room 210. It’s right on the key. The room number, I mean. That will tell them who’s checking out. I gotta run. Thanks kid.”

  He went down the hall to the stairs leading to the parking lot. Michael waited until he heard the door close and went to 210, opened the door with the key and went inside. He saw the Do Not Disturb tag and hung it outside the door on the knob. He closed and latched the door.

  The card on the back of the door stated check-out time was noon. The clock on the night stand said it was almost seven. There were two twin size beds, one had been used. He sat on the bed and decided what he would do. A shower and a nap first, then we’ll see.

  He picked up the black telephone from the cradle and spun the operator dial. A man answered asking if he could be of help. Michael mustered up his deepest voice and asked to be rung at eleven, giving his room number and name as Johnson. The man sounded confused, saying he did ring him at six, and was that all right? Michael said yes, that is okay, but he had decided to stay another night. Was that all right? And should he come down to pay for the night, or can he take care of it when he checked out? The man told him no problem, he will ring him at eleven. On second thought, Michael told him, never mind that. He may be out to the cas
ino. He hung up and got ready to take that shower.

  He casually walked through the lobby swinging the big plastic key holder by the key. No one gave him a second look. He went into the coffee shop and was told to sit anywhere. He slid into a booth and a waitress came over with a coffee pot.

  “Coffee, Sonny?” She turned over the cup and Michael nodded.

  He ordered a big breakfast, ignored the coffee, he didn’t drink coffee, and noticed the waitress eyeing the key he had laid on the table in plain sight.

  “Charge to your room, Sonny?” He nodded again and scribbled an illegible first name and Johnson that could be made out. He knew about tipping and wrote in what he thought was an appropriate tip.

  The shops were not open yet so he went up to the room, avoiding the elevator, and listened to the radio until he fell asleep. Later, he went down to the men’s shop and bought some underwear, socks, jeans and a couple of shirts, along with a flight bag and charged them to the room. He went to the room, changed into the new clothes, taking the toiletries, and packed everything into the flight bag. Time to hit the road. Almost.

  He went out the back door, the same way he originally came in and down the stairs to the parking lot. The two story part of the hotel stuck out L-shaped and the front was all across the tiled road in the middle of the casino blocks, some ten stories high. What was left inside the L was the parking lot with the dark street on both sides. In the corner was a canopied entrance where guests checked in.

  Michael walked past the entrance that was really the back of the hotel because the guests had to walk a long hall to the front desk past the small casino. There was a valet station near the door with no one manning it. There was an old Packard parked down a ways, its trunk up and an older woman with white hair struggling to get a rocking chair out of the trunk. She was quietly swearing a little, apparently annoyed at something.

  Michael approached, set his bag down and asked, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  She turned her head from the trunk and looked at him.

  “Of course you can help, son. Much better than those coloreds in there, say they be right out and disappear.”

  She was short and stocky, about in her fifties, Michael figured. He liked her right away, the deep commanding voice, always in charge. He reached into the trunk and lifted the chair out easily without touching either side of the car.

  He held it up and said, “Where to, ma’am?”

  She closed the trunk, went around to the driver’s side to get her purse, locked the car and picked up his flight bag. “Alright, then, follow me.”

  She pushed her way through the revolving door and Michael backed in the next slot carefully hugging the chair to him and backed into the hall. The woman was already a quarter the way down and Michael hustled to catch up. There were elevators at the end of the hall before you entered the casino, with a wide rock fountain waterfall thing blocking the view. You could then go left or right, or take an elevator on the left or stairs on the right. The elevator needle said it was on the fifth floor.

  Michael set the chair down, a wooden rocking chair with some emblem on the headrest. It was an eagle with some straw held out each side. The woman saw him looking at it and remarked, “It was my mother’s. Dad was in the Marines and they gave it to him when he retired. Their both gone now, so it’s mine now. The rocker leg was broken and I had it fixed. Pretty good job, too.”

  She pulled down a lever that set off a ring to call the elevator. “The boy is probably goofing off up there as usual. All my good help gone and these new coloreds are lazy as can be. They don’t listen and pretty much do as they please. I’d fire the bunch of them but then what would I do?”

  Michael kept quiet, figuring she had more problems that just that. The needle started to move and eventually the door opened. The elevator boy was about a hundred years old and said “Good evenin, ma’am.”

  She said nothing and he didn’t look at Michael, just swung the wheel around and they started up and all the way to the top. The door opened into an alcove and there was just one door with no number on it. The woman came up with a key and opened the door.

  Michael had never seen such a place. There was glass on three sides with a big stone fireplace in the middle of the other side. He walked in and set the chair down. On the hall side to the right of the fireplace was a bar and the woman went right to it, tossing her purse on a couch.

  “You want a drink, boy? No, I guess not. You can’t be more than sixteen. How about a soda?”

  “Thanks, ma’am, a soda will be fine.”

  She handed him a bottle of lemon-lime and followed her back into that big room. She had poured some dark liquid into a short glass, no ice, and came around the bar to sit on the couch. Michael stood there until she motioned him to the chair at the end of the couch. He wanted to get out of there, back on the road, but still wanted to be polite.

  “So what’s your story, kid? You on the road? A runaway?”

  Michael grinned, he liked the way she talked. Right in your face direct. “Yes, ma’am. All of the above.”

  “Well, then, you’ve no place to go and could probably use some work? Make a little road money?”

  “What kind of work?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s like this. I’m being squeezed out of here and probably don’t have much more time. So I’m packing up to move. I’m needed on the floor, or they’ll steal me blind more than they are already, and I don’t have time to get the boxes, wrap and pack and stuff like that. I got a ton of stuff needs packing up in here. Probably take you a week or so. You look like you’d be careful, being neat and all in those new clothes.”

  Gulp! Michael figured he had stolen these clothes from her. Now he felt bad.

  “You can stay in my guest room, don’t worry about the talk. No one cares around here. C’mon back, bring your bag.”

  Great, don’t wait for me to agree. Just put me to work, he thought. The room was nice and had its own bathroom.

  Michael dropped his bag on the bed and asked, “When do I start?”

  He went down the elevator and told the “boy” to take him to the basement, like she told him to. She said there were tons of boxes and wrapping paper and rolls of twine for the boxes. Bring up what he needed for now and go back for more later.

  The boxes were flattened, used, and ten or so bound together with twine. He found a new roll of newsprint paper two feet wide, a ball of twine and hauled it all over to the elevator. The door opened right away to his ring and the man grinned and said, “Lady’s been done gonna be movin, huh?”

  Michael just said, “All the way to the top, please.” The guy just chuckled, like he knew something Michael didn’t.

  He pulled all the stuff off into the alcove and waited for the elevator door to shut. The man sat there on his little stool grinning and looking at Michael, who put on his meanest face and pointed his finger at the door and moved it to the right, indicating he should shut the door and get lost. The grin faded and the door shut. Michael waited until the arrow started down, as he was told to do, then bent down at the bottom of the suite door and pressed a hidden button that popped the door open.

  There were seven or eight rooms and Michael started in the unused bathrooms and other rooms, wrapping delicate glass and ceramic carefully, packing in a box and labeling with a carpenter’s pencil. Mrs. Farnsworth, as she finally told him, and he told her his real name, came in every couple of hours to see how he was doing and bring him lunch from downstairs. He could tell from the kitchen that she did not cook here and with no food anywhere, must eat in the dining room. She spent little time with him, but each time she talked and Michael asked questions, her story finally developed.

  • • •

  She had inherited the hotel/casino from her father. He had built it when he left Harold’s club, being a former manager and point holder. He wanted his own place away from the mob types that had an interest in the casino and were robbing it blind. He sold out and bought this lot while it w
as vacant and built it from the ground up.

  He had died last year and the mob moved in on the grieving widow who lost her father and husband in a matter of months. They had been able to keep them out but she didn’t know all the angles. The mob had bought up the whole block of small hotels and casinos with the intent of tearing them all down and building a massive hotel/casino. She was the last holdout. Not that she wouldn’t sell, but the building was only five years old and worth a lot more than what they were offering her. Even only half of what just the land was worth. But they were squeezing her out anyway.

  They hired all her good help away, and all the new people she hired seem to be on their payroll also. The dealers let the wise-guys win at the card tables and money disappears off the top daily. The guests are unhappy with the service and when you taste the food, well, it’s just awful. That was her story in a nutshell. So she was packing up and getting ready to move on with the few bucks they offered.