The Runaway

by Mike Walsh

  • • •

  There was talk of trains coming and going all the time but either they were not going Michael’s way or they were not ready to turn him loose. It was explained how it works at his incoming orientation. He was not committed for any specific period of time. The State of California allowed any parent, police officer, social worker or court to incarcerate a juvenile that was breaking the law or just incorrigible. This included out-of-state runaways. When the time was right for the Youth Authority powers that be, the juvenile would be returned to the state he ran away from upon an agreement of acceptance by that state and when transportation was available, that being the train that crisscrossed around the country. When a juvenile reached eighteen years of age and was not acceptable to society he was kept in custody up to twenty-one. If he was a problem in Youth Authority, being a danger to others, he could be arrested upon release and tried in an adult court. This was all pretty scary to Michael, seeing himself locked up for the rest of his life. He was as good as anyone could be.

  There were times though, when guys had to defend themselves and stand up or be beaten down. These were the times that, if caught, regardless of who started it, all involved got punished and written up. The punishment was no problem, but the writing up part became part of your record and could seriously delay your release. After six months, Michael felt that this must be happening to him. He tried requesting a talk with someone who could enlighten him, but he was rejected out of hand every time. He felt that he was just a number that got up, ate breakfast, made bricks, ate a bag lunch on the job, made more brick, ate dinner, hung around the barracks and went to bed.

  One of the punishments you got but not written up for was when one of the guards needed something done in their quarters, like all their shoes shined or their floors polished or even their cars washed. Michael was shoving some guy who was crowding him and he fell into a pile of fresh made blocks. A guard grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him out of the yard. This man’s rank afforded him an office where Michael was marched. He was told that the floor needed polishing and there was no way it would be good enough until the sun rose from the sky. The sun was still up. He was shown where the stuff was and got down on his knees and went to work. The guard left but came back later and put some more lights on. He rifled through some papers on his desk and then looked over at Michael.

  “You’re O’Hara, right?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, keeping his eyes down and polishing a shined floor that could only wear out with more polishing.

  “Well, you better keep your nose clean, the next twenty hours, or you won’t be on that train home.” Michael stopped polishing and let that absorb.

  “Yes sir!” he said, and scrubbed for all he was worth.

  When the sun came up a trustee came in for him.

  “Throw that shit back in the closet and let’s go!” he commanded. They were all self-important.

  He marched him over to the back of the huge mess hall, to an attached building. Inside were a few bunks, a bathroom, some tables with cards and stuff on it and a door leading into the mess-hall kitchen. There was a guard sitting just inside. There was also a big closet full of civilian clothes, hanging and piled on some old dressers.

  “Pick out some clothes to wear and a change to put in this bag and have a seat. The clothes you had on won’t fit you anymore. The guard will call you when you can go into the kitchen for something to eat. It’ll be after the population finishes breakfast.”

  He left and Michael stood there dazed, scared and a little shaky. Going home. Something else.

  He had put on some weight and muscled out some doing all that hard labor. He had gotten a larger shoe size recently and larger size overalls as time went on. The clothes were easy, brown pants, blue shirt, white socks and a dark windbreaker. He hoped he didn’t get picked up as an escapee, he thought. He left the jacket off, putting it in the bag with the change of clothes. There were no shoes, so he assumed he kept the brogans on he was wearing. Pretty soon the guard came in from the kitchen.

  “Only one today?”

  Michael looked around and then nodded, following the guard into the kitchen.

  “Grab a tray there and go out to the line and help yourself, don’t talk to the queers.” Michael took a clean tray from the end of a long mechanical dishwasher and headed out to the line. He felt the dozen or so guys looking at him but he kept his head down and filled his tray, walking slowly down the line. At the end, he turned right into a skinny guy, muscular and bony. He had black hair and a skinny little mustache. He remembered the guys in his company talking about him. He liked kids and he liked to cut them. They all shuddered and were glad he wasn’t in their company, listening to some of the stories, most probably made up.

  “S’cuse me, I need to get by.” Michael kept his eyes on the guys shirt.

  The guy grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around and into the corner, his tray flying off onto the floor. The opening was wide from the kitchen to the serving line but each end had a four foot wall sticking out. Michael was shielded from the guard who was quite a way back and out of range of normal talking.

  A knife appeared in the guy’s hand, a salad chopping knife about nine inches long, wide at the back and pointed at the end, that was now tight against Michael’s belly.

  “I hear your going home, pussy-boy. How’d you like to take the hospital train home, pussy-boy. Or maybe the casket train, pussy-boy.”

  Michael looked him in the eyes. They were glazed and wet. This guy was serious and totally nuts. Michael was scared shitless. Not of getting cut or killed, but of possibly not getting on that train.

  The guy started twisting the knife, curling Michael’s new shirt. He felt the point draw blood. He looked straight into the guy’s eyes. Stared hard. The guy was grinning, but not smiling. He had bad teeth and that added to the scariness. Michael softened his look, dropped his eyes, started a smile, and relaxed his body completely. The knife backed off as his stomach pulled in.

  And then Michael said, “What’s the matter, asshole? Someone shit in your potatoes?”

  The guy looked stunned, then smiled pulling back the knife. “You shit! You weren’t even scared! What the fuck’s wrong with you? You must be crazy as me! Here, let’s get your tray filled. You gotta eat.” And Michael headed for the back room with a full tray.

  Chapter 20 – The Train Home

  It was the same bus, only this time it took him to the train station in Sacramento. He was the only one on the bus, along with the driver. He watched the countryside slide by, never before having paid any attention to view, homes, ranches, fields, cows, barns, billboards, or anything else you see as you go through a normal life. A kid on the streets only pays attention to the people and the dangers they could mean. When you’re hungry, the food can be cajoled or stolen or begged. When your tired, find a place you can you lay down, but all the time watching the people, watching the people watch you, never trusting a soul because you know they’re going to get you. It’s not that people are afraid of what you are, it’s that they’re afraid of what they think you are. Things never seem to change. The countryside seems to have some meaning, but what is it? Why is the scenery so important. Riding in the trucks, the heat from the trucks heater, walking the streets, the warmth from the doorways, where’s the next stop, that’s what’s important. Isn’t it?.

  • • •

  Maybe because he now knew where he was headed. Had a destination. But he always had a destination. The end of the line. That’s where he was going. To the end of the line. So this must be it. He must have reached the end of the line and now he’s going back. Back to what? The beginning? What will it be like? Gone a year. Bigger, stronger, an adult at almost sixteen. He could never go back to school, hang around with kids. What’s it going to be like? Will his mother be mad at him? Respect him? Trust him? His brothers and sisters. Will they have grown? Of course, it’s a year later. They will be bigger, smarter. Time doesn’t stand
still. Not for anyone.

  There were cows and horses in the fields as the bus lumbered across the flatlands. The city in the distance coming into view. A wave of nausea he attributed to fear washed over him. He needed to calm down, get ready. He was up all night so he tried napping and found himself being shaken awake. The sun was streaming in the window and he was wet with sweat.

  The guard walked him through the station and hoisted him onto a train. All the cars seem to have extra steel screening on the windows and double metal doors that locked. He sat on an uncomfortable bench-type seat facing another seat. A skinny table could be pulled down between them. Above was a pull-down bunk and somehow the benches converted into a bunk with help from a porter. This was all screened with a curtain that was now bunched up between the windows. Michael pulled the bunk down without messing with the curtains and lay down to get some sleep.

  • • •

  He didn’t dream as he usually did. At least he didn’t remember any dreaming. He woke up with a little kid about ten staring in his face a foot away. He swatted him away and sat up.

  “You slept through two meals,” the kid said.

  “So what, I’m not hungry, anyway.”

  “You will be before you get off this train.”

  “What do you mean? It’s only three or four days to New York.”

  “Oh yeah? Look at my hair. I had a crew cut when I got on the train.” Michael looked. His hair was way down his neck.

  “What do you mean? Where did you get on, and where you going?”

  “I got on in St. Paul, a real shit of a city, and I live in Atlanta. Well, near Atlanta. The friggin’ train has been all over the southwest and we’re still in California.”

  “California?” Michael exclaimed. We been traveling all day and still in California?

  “You bet. They had five or six stops all day.”

  Michael put his bunk up and had the kid sit down across from him. This kid had the lay of the land and would save him a ton of time looking into things. The kid was full of information. The train was made up of passenger cars like this one, day room cars, dining cars, kitchen cars, work-out cars, employee lounges, employee sleeping cars and a security lockup. The lockup was for criminals being transferred to prisons or extradition. They were kept locked up, but everyone else pretty much had the run of the train. Most of the cars had no windows you could see through from the inside and those that did were wire meshed with cloudy glass.

  Michael found the dining car assigned to the car he was in. They served dinner from five to seven and he got in under the wire. Passengers didn’t order, they just brought you out a tray from the kitchen and then you went to a counter for drinks, rolls and silverware. The trays were not metal.

  Michael ate the meat loaf and vegetables and wandered into a day room. There were games and lots of books and some guys were playing cards. They were all young, like Michael. He grabbed a couple of paperbacks, a John D. MacDonald and some western writer he didn’t recognize named Elmore Leonard, went back to his bunk and read for awhile. Later, he figured out how to make up his bunk. He had the bottom and the kid he talked to had the top. He thought he might need help with it but managed very well by himself. Michael found out his name was Tommy something and he was eleven years old. Like himself, Tommy was a chronic runaway. They got along just fine.

  The days rattled on, sleeping, eating and reading. Michael found himself getting soft and headed for the work-out room. He did pull-ups on a bench while Tommy sat on his legs. He could do a hundred usually but struggled to get eighty. He always did a hundred deep knee bends and did them easily. He had to cut down on the chow and come back for more exercise. He now weighed in at 154 pounds. At six feet he was pretty skinny, but hard muscled.

  • • •

  Every time the train was coming to a stop, the passengers were warned ahead of time to get to their seats, or bunk if it was at night. A porter walked through calling out the names of passengers getting off. It was two weeks later when they called out Tommy’s name. Michael didn’t recognize the last name when Tommy jumped up all excited and grabbed his ready to go bag. He always kept it ready. He high-fived Michael and went to sit by the door. A guard came to the door and made some signal for it to open. He looked at the band on Tommy’s wrist, checked something on his clipboard and pointed him out the door. The door closed and the train sat there for what seemed like hours, probably taking on supplies or relief workers. Finally, they were on the road again.

  It was another week in the dark of night when Michael was awakened by the sound of his name. He waved his arm out the curtain and the porter came over. “New York in half an hour, sonny, you better get ready. Door number nineteen just up front.

  Michael hit the head, got dressed and packed and was at the door in ten minutes. He sat down to wait, his arms and chest tingling with fear and excitement.

  Chapter 21 – The Bus Home

  The train door opened and a man with a clipboard was standing there looking expectantly at Michael.

  “You O’Hara?” he asked.

  Michael jumped down, all smiles, glad to be off the train. More than three weeks he thought, and finally some real air, though smelly as it was.

  “That’s me, sir.”

  “OK, come over here and sit down on that bench. I need to get another kid. Do I have to cuff you, or will you sit still?”

  “I’m sitting right here, sir, until you get back.”

  “OK, I’m just going over there a ways, can still see you, but I don’t run as fast any more.”

  Michael watched him walk away, an older man probably sixty, doing his duty. Michael looked around and thought this was a bad place to jump anyway. Stairs way over either side. He was going to run, just a matter of where and when. The man came back with a little kid in tow, holding him by his jacket collar.

  “Little shit already tried to run, bastard.”

  The kid was wiry, but not more the ten. The man cuffed them together and looked down at his clipboard.

  “OK, you to Providence,” pointing at Michael, and “You, to Springfield,” pointing at the kid. Two different buses from the same station. Great. Maybe I get some sleep tonight after all.

  They were ushered up the stairs and through the huge terminal. A big clock told Michael it was nine o’clock. The man stopped to look at it also and looked down at his clipboard.

  “Ten-thirty, we got plenty of time. Let’s go.”

  They got in a standing cab, all three in the back. The man flashed a badge and said to charge it to the probation office. The driver didn’t seem to happy about that but when they were dropped off at the Greyhound station, the man gave him a dollar and he seemed happier.

  They went inside and were told to sit on some benches. The man went to the counter and came back with some tags. Michael looked at his hanging from his jacket with a pin and saw it said Providence Terminal-No Exits.

  The bus to Springfield was there first and the man took off the cuffs and sent the kid over to the bus. The driver was standing at the door and took the card in his hand to read it. He pointed to the back of the bus and the kid got on.

  When the Providence bus arrived and off-loaded, Michael got up and said “see ya” to the man and walked straight to the bus. The card was off his jacket and curled in his hand before he got there.

  He stopped in front of the driver and the driver said “Welcome aboard, son, sit anywhere.”

  Michael went to the back of the bus and looked out the window. The man seemed to be satisfied and got up to leave. When he was gone, Michael moved to the front of the bus to a seat next to the door.

  It was a three hour drive through Connecticut and into Rhode Island. The driver seemed to know some of the people and he let them off at different places. When he got to the beach town on the Post Road where Michael started out a year ago, Michael jumped up and asked the driver to drop him off here to save him a hitch back. Michael stepped off the bus.

  He found the dirt road lead
ing down to the beach cut between the store and a house, coming to the back of his house. It was dark and about one in the morning, still nice and warm. He thought he might give them a big surprise but when he tried the door and banged on it, no one came. It looked empty. He went around to the front porch and looked in the windows. It was dark but by the moon, he could see it was empty. The porch furniture was gone. The porch railing was solid all around with a screen door at the end and the top screened in. Michael went to the far end and lay down with his bag as a pillow. He woke up with the sun shining in his eyes.