by Gary Paulsen
Initially they mostly stayed within the boundaries of the housing compound where the boy lived, marked by tall barbed-wire fences with guard towers almost as if it was a prison. It was at the edge of a much larger military reservation, which stretched for miles. From an airstrip, planes were constantly taking off and landing—C-47s, C-54s, Mustang and Thunderbolt fighters—and the boy liked to be near the end of the strip to watch and listen to their thunder.
But when it became evident that the parents didn’t seem to care very much what happened to the boy, Rom started taking him into the city to his shelter, which the boy found was built of ammunition-box wood and corrugated roofing tin, part of a block away from the ornate building with a hole blown through the middle.
Rom’s wife had been killed by an explosion when the war fought through the city and it left him caring for his own children and—because he was the kindest person next to Edy and Sig the boy had ever seen—he kept a large pot of rice going for the street orphans. This he fortified with scraps and vegetables from mess halls he visited once a week and what seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of olive-drab-colored cans of sardines. When the boy asked where the sardines came from, Rom shrugged, made a small smile, and said, simply, that he “borrowed” them from friends and neighbors who worked for other Americans. The boy came to like, then love, sardines and sticky rice, which he ate off a piece of cardboard or newspaper and would enjoy the rest of his life.
At first the boy spent most of his time in the city with Rom, near him, sometimes helping with the rice. But as he became accustomed to being there he started heading off alone, exploring the ruins, feeling the noise, the smells, the raw life of the place.
As month fed to month it became, if not exactly a playground, a kind of home. Soon he found himself wearing shorts and a tired almost-white T-shirt and tennis shoes, squatting next to a ruined, blown-out building eating rice and sardines with his fingers.
Feeling a spark of joy.
Except.
Except he would find there were many Manilas.
There was the daytime Manila, where everybody smiled and waved and would reach out to tickle him when they walked by.
And there was the Manila of the night.
When he had been there a month or so, still before he actually went into the city with Rom, he began to hear the pounding of heavy machine guns at night. At first, he was not sure what they were—the sound was dense, sodden, like somebody rapidly hitting a flat board with a large hammer floating on water—they came in short bursts, eight, ten flat explosions and then a pause and another burst. When he asked Rom about them, about the sounds, Rom merely shrugged—his answer to many questions—and said something about the night people—these being guerilla soldiers who had lived in the forests and attacked the Japanese occupiers during the war—daring resistance fighters who were now battling against the new occupiers, the Americans.
“They want things to change,” Rom said.
“What things?” the boy asked.
“All things,” Rom said sadly.
The night people.
And there came a night, a long night when in the middle of the hard dark and his parents were passed out, he was awakened by the deep sound of the machine guns and decided to go outside and see what was happening. The dependent housing was close to the boundaries of the base, and when he got on the porch, he could see searchlights sweeping and hear the sound of guns but could not see much more.
Had to get a little closer.
And still closer.
Out onto the street and over one block and down another block and still another and then …
Then he could see.
The lights were sweeping the boundary fence and men were trying to climb the fence and the silver-white beam from the searchlight would catch them, pin them, and the machine guns would stutter-slam and tear them off the fence and down.
Blown apart and down. It was a distance away but the boy could see the red streaks of the tracer bullets going through the men’s bodies; he was told later that the tracers were only one of every five bullets, and the men were hit by all the bullets, not just the tracers, and torn into a red mist and turned into something that was not men.
Not men.
The night people.
Almost every night he heard the sounds of the guns. Sometimes farther away, on some other part of the boundary where even if he went outside he wouldn’t be able to see it.
But he didn’t do that.
Didn’t go outside to see it again.
Didn’t want to see that again. Like the sharks in the red water. Not ever.
The next morning when Rom came to take him on the Japanese bicycle, they went past the place where the fighting had occurred and the bodies were still there and there were dozens, scores of colorful chickens working at them and the boy tapped Rom on the back:
“Chickens?”
Rom nodded without turning his head. “From fighting roosters. There must be chickens to hatch roosters for cockfights. Some went wild, others went more wild, and soon there are wild chickens.”
“But why here?”
“Men who come at fence sometimes have rice balls in pockets. Chickens are after rice balls.”
“Aren’t they afraid of the guns?”
“They are hungry and are after rice balls,” Rom repeated. “And sometimes other soft parts…”
Had to ask. “What do you mean, other soft parts?”
Rom shrugged. “Eyes. Some other places left open by the bullets. But mostly rice balls and eyes.”
“Really?” He tried not to think of a chicken pecking the eyes out of a dead man but could not … quite … kill … the thought-picture. “Truly?”
Another shrug. “Night people.” As if that explained everything. “They’re night people. You are young and do not need to think about them…”
Night people.
To not think about.
But he did.
And he did not stay young long.
Manila was darkened at night because the Japanese had destroyed the power plants. The Americans had dragged a Japanese submarine to the pier to act as a source of electricity, but it only put out a limited amount of power and until the power plants could be rebuilt much of Manila was dark.
Candles.
Some lanterns here and there.
But dark.
With moving shadows and night people.
And after that, a part of him, a part of his spirit, was calloused and toughened. Like leather.
And he would not and could not be young again.
Ever.
Part IV
THIRTEEN
SAFE PLACES
Because it was safe there.
In the library.
Only three places safe. The library, moving through the alleys at night after hard dark and, best of all, the woods.
But in town, if you had to be in town, it was the library first. That was best. Alleys only if you had to move, and keep moving. They were second best. But the woods, feeling the forest fold in around you, closely behind you like a soft blanket layered over and around you—best of all. The woods were the best.
Not home. Never home. Not with Them there. Not really a home; grubby apartment that he thought of as a dark, damp, wet ugly nest of … he didn’t know what. Later in life, when he found himself remembering against his conscious will, when he couldn’t keep the memories back in the dark place, he would think of the word “vipers.” Dark, wet nest of slithering vipers. Drunk, mean: viper drunks so that even when they were passed out after the screaming and fighting, passed out like they were dead—never that lucky; that they really would or could be dead; never that lucky—even when they were passed out and down that far it wasn’t truly safe.
What if they woke up? Caught you moving through the house silently walking on the balls of your feet, moving like a shadow in the dark, finding what food you could, taking money from their purse and pants, woke up and caught you? Then what?
Not safe.
And now, now that he was thirteen, just thirteen, first-time thirteen, only time in his whole life when he would be thirteen, everything was different now, new sounding, and it had to be safe. Safer.
He was old enough now to run. To run away and make it stick. He had run before. Run twice. Ran out into the great space west—no, West—ran out into the prairies, hitchhiking into the giant, wonderful, losing space of North Dakota, and found work on farms. Two, three dollars a day and not too many questions asked about why such a young boy would be alone. Told clean lies looking down at the ground and sniffling like he was lonely and going to cry, clean lies about being an orphan: mother killed in a car wreck, father in the war fighting the Germans. Clean lies, hopeful lies, no questions. Two, three dollars a day with slop food called stew full of chunks of soft-slippery meat that didn’t smell like any meat he’d ever had, slop twice a day on a wooden bench from metal pie plates nailed down to the plank table with a galvanized roofing nail in the center. A bent metal spoon and two pieces of dry bread and sandy water smelling of sulfur. Still all right. Better than back there—Back There—near home. Slept in a barn or equipment shed on gunny sacks until somebody, some neighbor, some busybody told somebody else who told somebody other than that and then a county sheriff.
Called a runaway. Like he was escaping jail. Detained—not arrested, they said, but detained—and sent home with a church volunteer do-gooder. Big man with red cheeks who talked about how the boy should Work to Find Jesus in his Life and after three hours of driving in an old Dodge, he dropped the boy at his home where the boy knew Jesus never lived. Like putting a sheep back with wolves, dropping the boy where Jesus never lived. Or even visited. Maybe, the boy thought, Jesus might sometimes be in the library.
Where it was safe. Sure not safe at home. Never safe. Parents didn’t know he was gone anyway and when they at last thought to punish him for running, for being a runaway—no, Runaway—he was already in the woods. Father said he was no good. Swore at him. Called him worthless. This from a man who got so drunk he pissed his pants and didn’t know it. Walked back from the liquor store with a bottle in a paper sack and wet legs and didn’t even know it. Broad daylight, front of God and everybody, probably even Jesus, and didn’t even know he was wet-legged.
But called the boy a worthless kid.
Sure.
Worthless kid who never pissed his pants and was smart enough to slip away before they knew he was gone and head for the woods.
Clean gone.
Safe.
Ran twice and the second time was nearly the same except that he hitchhiked still farther west—West—and learned to drive a two-ton grain truck and a big M-model Farmall diesel tractor. Had to sit on an old Sears catalog in the truck to see over the steering wheel and work the floor shift with both feet on the clutch and both hands on the top knob of the shifter. Over left and back for low gear with a little grind, right and up for second, straight back for high, but he got her done, by God. That’s what the farmer said: “You got her done, by God.” And he did. Good compliment. Made him feel older. Not thirteen yet but made him feel older like he had more shoulders. Or thought they felt that way. Bigger shoulders. Older shoulders.
Drove the big two-ton grain truck in the field—huge, endless fields of grain; thousands of acres out and out so they seemed to reach into the sky—and watched the farmer on the combine, and when the hopper on the combine was full, he drove the truck under the hopper’s auger spout and they augered the grain out the spout into the back of the truck. A stream of grain six inches thick and flowing like it was alive. Gold, rich living gold filling the truck. Chaff and dust off the combine blowing in his eyes and nose so thick it made him sneeze and spit and itch like the dust was made of tiny needles. But still a wonder to see, to put your hand in and feel the grain pouring. Still a wonder.
When the grain truck was full, it had to be driven into a little town four miles down a dusty road and emptied into a grain elevator to be shipped out by railroad on the tracks that went by the elevator. First time the farmer drove but after that he let the kid go alone while he stayed and kept combining because the weather was good and you never knew. Never knew when it might go bad. Rain to ruin the wheat. Or bad wind to knock the grain off the plants so the combine couldn’t pick it up. You never knew. Had to keep going. And the kid drove the truck out to the dirt road and into the town and onto the grate next to the elevator and dumped the grain out the back and into the grate. Raising the dump bed as it ran out to make it flow. And then lower the bed and back, empty, to the field just in time to catch up with the farmer on the combine, which had another full hopper to dump.
So tired by the end of the day that he was dizzy. Had trouble walking. Or chewing food. Or even remembering how bad it was back home. Back Home. Blind tired so that he crawled across the truck seat and slept there, on the rough seat, rather than the sack bunk in the equipment shed. Tired. So tired.
But he got her done.
By God.
The tractor was easier, but in some ways more difficult. When the grain harvest was done, the field had to be plowed by a two-bladed plow that cut and curve-flopped the black soil over on itself like folded cake. Long field—two to three hundred acres, half mile long. The farmer did the first round to make the furrow straight, up and back down with two furrows, one in the middle and one to the side, then the boy took it. Just follow the furrow to the end—took a half hour sitting on the big M Farmall pulling out in front of the plow, waving the seagulls away when hundreds came to eat the earthworms the plow turned up. Seagull poop everywhere, on the tractor, all over him, the plow and—worse—on the hot muffler out in front of him so thick blue-green smoke came back to him in a hot fog, bringing the smell of burned poop, almost sticky, around and into his mouth and nose and eyes and ears. Burned bird crap, that he knew—knew—he would smell and taste to the end of his life.
A small break from the gulls at the end of the field while he pulled the trip rope and trip-raised the plow, turned the tractor out in a wide circle, moved the tractor over and started back in the second furrow, dropped the plow blades down and settled in the seat to once more get covered by the gulls.
But not for long. Not for long. Because one day he turned and looked back down at the end of the field and saw the farmer standing next to a county sheriff’s car and knew he couldn’t avoid them. He thought of running, but knew that wouldn’t work. And so the same thing again.
Detained. The farmer paid him with a twenty-dollar bonus, and the deputy took him to a town fifty miles away. Bought him a hamburger and a chocolate malt and then turned him over to another church volunteer. The boy wondered how there could be volunteers wherever you seemed to be—thought they must be getting paid for taking him back—but this one was a little different. Thin, tall, chain-smoked while he drove, lighting one cigarette with another, ashes down his front, didn’t talk about Jesus. Didn’t talk at all. Just by God drove. Steady fifty miles an hour in a ’49 Ford until he got to the boy’s home, dropped him off, turned, and drove away in a cloud of blue-gray cigarette smoke. Not a word.
Back.
But it was late in the day and the two of them were well drunk, fighting drunk, sloppy drunk, and didn’t even know he’d come back. So he turned, moving away from them and the grim aspect of the apartment building. Like a prison. Like the death-house walls left by the Japanese soldiers where they’d slaughtered civilians, which he’d seen in 1946 when he lived on the streets of Manila as a seven-year-old boy. Stains on the rock walls there where the women and children were lined up and killed with flamethrowers. Light from the apartment building—like it made its own off-yellow puke-colored light that seemed to smell. Bad stains. Bad light. Bad smell.
Away from that.
He still had food in his belly—a leftover taste and feeling from the hamburger and chocolate malt—and it was dusk, not dark yet, but soft gray moving close to hard dark. All right if he kept out of sight along
the sides of buildings in shadows, so he moved down the alleys and slid, shadow to shadow, to the library to think on what to do next.
Safe.
THE PLAN
So he was thirteen.
And he fully intended to run.
To Run. In his heart and mind, he could feel it. Run so far and long and deep they would never find him. Run and get a job somewhere, anywhere. Get food. Sleep where he could. He remembered crawling into the center of tires on a rack by a closed garage to sleep one night when he was hitchhiking. Rough edges cutting him, but off the ground and he slept hard enough to dream. He could always find a place to sleep. Some food and a place to sleep.
He planned it. To Run and never be brought back again now that he was thirteen. Clean away—forever away. It was coming on summer now and there would be work at farms or—and he dreamt at times of this—at a ranch even farther west. West. Be a cowboy and work cattle on a horse. He could see that, see himself as a cowboy. Get the hat, and boots with a design stitched on them, an eagle stitched in red thread on a black boot. He’d herd cattle on a horse named—he couldn’t think of a name. In all the movies, Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger. Gene Autry rode Champion. Something like that. Get a horse and name him … something. He’d get a good name for a horse and be a cowboy and herd cattle and save—he didn’t know what, but in the grainy black-and-white movies they usually saved ranches or pretty girls or small towns. So he’d do that. Run far west—West—be a cowboy and ride wherever he wanted, when he wanted.
But first he would Run. Absolutely first. Get away again.
Except.
Except he didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Couldn’t run.
And at first he could not tell why. Everything was perfect for running. School was out, summer was coming—not, he thought, that school mattered for him. It worked for others. Didn’t work for him. Teachers said things he was supposed to hear and handed him work to study, but he didn’t hear or couldn’t study, because he had to think about other things. How he was a stranger in the class. With the wrong clothes, the wrong hair, pimples on his forehead. Wrong family. No family. Family that hooked him off and down so hard it made him a freak to other kids in school. Should have been in a circus where people paid a quarter to come in a sideshow tent and see the kid who never fit in. He came from a bad family and that was what was wrong. When he thought of it at all, he would think how everybody in the school either didn’t notice him or, if they did, they laughed at him. Gray-green thoughts like the seagull poop off the hot muffler. He never thought about school except to know it was a nightmare walking.