by Clark Howard
Richie shook his head. “Not me. I didn’t get breakfast ’cause I had bad dreams and woke everybody up. I’m really hungry, Stan.”
“Wait here,” Stan said, punching him lightly on the arm. He hurried away from the basement door and up the front steps.
It was past three in the afternoon now; the Hubbards would have found out from the other wards that Richie had not been in school since morning recess. Before long they would report to Miss Menefee that he was missing. Soon people would be looking for him. Shivering, he huddled a little farther into the doorway.
In several minutes, Stan was back with some saltines and a hunk of cheese. “This is all I could get that wouldn’t be missed,” he said. “Soon’s you eat it, we’ll go hit some newsstands and get some dough for hamburgers. Right now, you sneak back into the furnace room and meet me there. I’m gonna go swipe that blanket and bring it down the back stairs.”
The blanket was actually an old quilt, worn and tattered, but it was better than nothing. They hid it behind some stacks of newspapers that the landlord saved to sell two or three times a year to the salvage wagon. Then they headed for Madison Street to go stealing. They managed to steal change from half a dozen stands as they made their way up the busy street to the main intersection at Western. With the coins they had filched, they went to White Castle and had hamburgers and milk. Stan ordered three for himself, then gave two to Richie, saying, “My sister’ll fix me supper later.”
It was dark when they got back to the building on Adams Street, and they sneaked into the basement from the alley just in case anyone was around looking for Richie. To make a place to hide, he and Stan fashioned a cubbyhole behind the landlord’s bundles of old newspapers. By shifting some of the bundles around, not altering the pile enough to be noticeable, they made a crawl space long enough and wide enough for Richie to get into, stretch out, even sit up if he kept his head bent forward slightly.
“You can lay on one half of the blanket and cover wit’ the other,” Stan said. “Wit’ all the bundles of paper stacked around you, and the furnace right over there, you’ll probably be the warmest one in the whole building.”
“What about the rats?” Richie worried.
“I don’t think they can get to you,” Stan appraised the situation, “not if you pull a bundle in and close the opening behind you.”
Taking the quilt, Richie wiggled into his confining little hideout. Working part of the quilt under him, he bunched the rest up as a cover. “How’ll I know when it’s morning?” he asked.
“When I leave for school, I’ll stick my head in the door and yell, ‘Hey, Ma, I’m leaving now!’ Like maybe I thought my old lady was down here using a laundry tub. After you hear that, wait a little while and then work your way out real quiet like. You should be able to hear if there’s anybody down here. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Richie said, swallowing drily. This was going to be different from sitting up half the night in the Haymarket movie house while George was visiting his mother. The Haymarket was all right in that situation; if a cop had grabbed him, he would have just been taken home to Chloe. If one caught him now, he’d probably have to go back to live with the Hubbards.
“Meet me down at the corner of the alley after school tomorrow,” Stan said.
“Yeah, okay.”
“So long.”
“So long,” Richie said nervously as Stan pushed the bundle of papers in place to close him in.
He had never been in a place so dark in his life. Or so confining. Except when his arms were straight down at his sides, it was impossible to stretch them out all the way. The smell of the old newspapers began to overcome him. After several minutes, he started breathing very heavily. A sense of panic rising within him, he shimmied down and with his feet pushed the bundle out to make the opening again. Quickly he got out of the enclosure and sat up.
Sitting with his back against the coal chute next to the pile of newspapers, Richie sucked in several deep breaths and felt himself begin to relax. The basement was still and dark, quiet except for an occasional flutter of leaping flame in the belly of the furnace. Maybe, Richie thought, he could just sleep right there, sitting up. Then he remembered the rats. How many rats, he wondered, had he killed with flying bricks since the day Stan taught him how? He wondered if rats had relatives, like brothers and uncles, who might remember him and . . . .
Jesus Christ, rats could be getting into his cubbyhole while he was sitting there!
In a new panic, Richie crawled back into his hideout, flapping the blanket and slapping the stacks of paper to scare out any rats that might have sneaked in. Taking off one shoe, he ran it along the floor and both sides, quietly but urgently saying, “Out, out, out!” When he was sure there was nothing alive in the space except him, he hooked his toes under the twine of the paper bundle and pulled it in place to close off the opening.
Later, when he felt more at ease in the little burrow, Richie became too warm and remembered that he was still wearing two sets of clothes. Scrunching and twisting around in the limited space, he wiggled out of his coat, sweater, top shirt, outer corduroys, and the other shoe. Rolling some of the extra clothes together, he made a pillow for himself, and used his coat to cover his feet. Soon he found that he not only was fairly comfortable but also felt safe and protected—even from the hordes of rats that might be out there waiting to take revenge on him. Sighing quietly, he let his heavy eyelids close as a soft, gentle peacefulness washed over him.
Without the radiator and its hated hissing, Richie fell into a deep, much-needed sleep.
He did not hear Stan yell into the basement the next morning. The first sound that reached him was the landlord shoveling cinders out of the furnace into a wheelbarrow. Richie lay quietly until he heard the furnace door slam shut and the sound of the wheelbarrow being rolled up two planks on the back basement stairs and pushed out to the alley. When he heard no other noise, he moved aside the stack of papers and once again slid out, pulling his shoes and coat with him, putting them on when he was out. Pushing the stack back in place to conceal his little shelter, he went over to a laundry tub and quickly washed his face and hands, drying on a towel the landlord had hung there. The landlord was rolling the wheelbarrow back toward the alley door when Richie hurried out the front.
From the basement doorway, Richie scrutinized the street. Nothing looked out of the ordinary; there were no official-looking cars parked anywhere, no men in suits or women with briefcases; everyone in sight looked liked they belonged. Leaving the doorway, Richie walked briskly down to Winchester Street and cut over the three blocks to Madison. He came out on Madison directly across from the Stadium. Staring at the big arena, he wondered if there was even the slightest chance that Rondo would take him back as a hawker. Thinking about that possibility, he bought two doughnuts and a bottle of chocolate milk at a market across from the Stadium’s employee entrance, and sat on the curb to eat. Several people went into the arena while he was sitting there, but no one he recognized. When he finished eating, he jacked up his nerve and went over to the door.
“I’m here to see Rondo about a job,” he told the security guard.
“He expecting you?”
“Yeah,” Richie lied.
“Okay, go on back,” the guard said. “That way.”
Richie made his way around the cavernous, almost eerie empty arena to the vendor room and found Rondo shelving boxes of frankfurters in a wall-size refrigerator with glass doors. When Rondo saw him, he paused in his work long enough to ask, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came to say I was sorry,” Richie told him. “An’ to ask if I could have my job back.”
Rondo studied him for a moment, taking a blue bandanna from his hip pocket and wiping sweat from his face. Presently he smiled slightly and said, “Wanna gimme a hand wit’ these boxes?”
“Sure, Rondo!” Richie beamed as he stood at the other end of a dolly, unloading the boxes of franks and stacking them in another secti
on of the big refrigerator. It took ten minutes to finish that load, and fifteen minutes to do a second dolly that Rondo wheeled in from the hall. When they finished, Rondo wiped his face again and asked innocently, “Now what was it you wanted?”
“My job back,” Richie said, shrugging.
“No chance,” Rondo told him flatly.
Richie stared incredulously at him. “But I thought. . . .”
“You thought what?”
“You had me help you unload all that,” Richie pointed to the refrigerator.
“I didn’t have you help me do nothing,” Rondo said. “I asked if you wanted to give me a hand and you said sure. That don’t mean I’m giving you no job back. G’on, beat it.”
“What about the dough I got coming from that last night then?” Richie challenged. “You never paid me for that!”
Rondo made a show of rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, that. I used that money to buy a new vending tray. The one you threw against the wall was all smashed up. So you got no dough coming. Now g’on, beat it!”
Turning, fists clenched, Richie stalked out. Wending his way back around the vast echo-filled stadium, his mind seethed with indignation and rage. His anger was awash with obscenities: Dirty rotten goddamn fucking son of a bitch bastard prick . . . .
At the employee door, the security guard asked, “Get the job, kid?”
“I wouldn’t work for that guy,” Richie announced. “He said I could only have a job if I sucked his dick.”
“Rondo said that?” the security guard asked, surprised.
“Sure did,” Richie assured. “He said all the kids that work for him have to suck his dick.”
The security guard’s mouth hung open in astonishment. “Rondo?”
“You just never know about people,” Richie declared. “I’m gonna go home and tell my old man. I don’t know whether he’ll call the cops or just come down here and whip Rondo’s ass. He’s gonna be plenty mad, that’s for sure!”
Leaving the amazed security guard staring after him, Richie left the arena and crossed the sprawling, empty parking lot to Warren Boulevard. He walked the four blocks up to the 2200 block and sat on the curb across from the building where he and his mother had first moved with Johnny Eaton. How very long ago it all seemed. He wondered if Louis still lived in the building next door, and remembered that Louis still owed him thirty cents from the day they ditched school to go see Buck Jones. Thirty-two cents, actually, because Richie had also paid for Louis’s milk at lunchtirne that day. It crossed his mind to wait there and catch Louis when he came home from school, to see if Louis had any money to pay him back, but he decided not to. Louis, he knew, had a hard enough life without having to worry about old debts.
As Richie was sitting there, a squad car from the nearby Warren Avenue precinct station cruised by and the cop in the passenger seat gave him a curious glance. Richie watched as it slowed at the next corner and turned. Going around the block! his mind alerted. Waiting for a break in the one-way traffic, Richie dashed across the street, cut through a once-familiar gangway, and headed up the alley.
Better keep moving during school hours, he told himself.
That night, prowling with Stan, Richie worried about how to evade the authorities during the day. “I can’t stay buried in that pile of newspapers until three o’clock every day,” he complained. “But I can’t hang around parks or movies or stay on the street either, or I’m sure to get caught—by somebody.”
“Go downtown to the main library,” Stan advised. They were walking the alley behind Madison Street, checking the backs of stores for something to steal.
“What main library?” Richie asked.
“The main main library,” Stan said. “The only main library there is. That one you was pinching books out of is just a branch. The one downtown is a great big building. You could get lost in it. It’s on Michigan Avenue, ‘cross from the park.”
On rare occasions it annoyed Richie that Stan always had an answer. “How the hell do you know so much about a library?” he asked with a trace of irritation. “You don’t even read books.”
“I don’t fuck elephants either,” Stan said blandly, “but I know where the zoo is.” He touched Richie’s arm and urged him into the shadows. “Look,” he said in a quieter voice.
Richie looked where Stan indicated. Across the rear loading dock of a Royal Blue market, the receiving door was open an inch. An outside light above the door was on, but there were no employees in sight.
“Come on,” Stan said.
The two boys crept up the loading dock steps and crossed to the door. With the tips of his fingers, Stan eased the already ajar door open an additional inch. Peering into a lighted rear storeroom, they saw a desk, a large floor safe, a scale for weighing sides of meat, and numerous cartons of canned goods stacked in rows six feet high. But no employees. Pursing his ill-matched lips, Stan opened the door wide enough to enter. Making immediately for the safe, he tried its handle and found it locked. Silently then, he opened each desk drawer but found nothing of value. Turning to Richie, who was half in, half out of the door, tensely watching both the alley and the swinging doors to the front of the market, Stan pointed to some cartons nearest the loading dock. Richie quickly lifted one and carried it outside. Stan grabbed the one under it and followed him. Seconds later, they were galloping down the alley, boxes held in front of them, looking like two pregnant midgets in a footrace.
The cartons each contained two dozen cans of Campbell’s soup, one vegetable, one chicken noodle. They hid them in an alcove off Richie’s hideout, made by shifting two more stacks of newspapers. The next afternoon they lugged them over to Maxwell Street and sold them to a street vendor for a nickel a can, making a dollar-twenty each.
“Jeez, what luck,” Richie said, referring to the open door.
“Luck didn’t have nothing to do with it,” Stan corrected. “We was looking for something an’ we found it.” Gazing off wistfully, he added, “Someday I’ll go back for that safe.”
Richie stared curiously at his friend. Sometimes it seemed that Stan was growing up much faster than other kids. Richie considered himself very lucky to have a buddy like Stan Klein.
The fourth day after he had run away from the Hubbard household, Richie emerged from his basement hiding place and immediately felt a strong hand grab him from the side of the doorway. The hand held him firmly by the shirt collar. “Just take it easy, kid,” a man’s voice advised.
“Hello, Richie,” a female voice said.
Richie’s head snapped around and he saw Miss Menefee standing on the other side of the doorway. She nodded and the man led Richie out to a welfare department car at the curb and got into the back seat with him. Miss Menefee got behind the wheel and they drove away.
“You’re very lucky, Richie, that it was us who found you and not the juvenile officers,” Miss Menefee said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “You could be on your way to the juvenile home right now instead of to my office.”
When they got downtown to the welfare department, Miss Menefee said, “Thanks for the help, Arnold,” and took Richie into her tiny office and sat him down. From behind her desk, she asked unsmilingly, “Why did you run away?”
“I didn’t like those people,” Richie replied.
“Well, for your information, young man,” Miss Menefee told him crisply, “they weren’t exactly crazy about you either. They said you refused to sleep and disrupted the entire household by making noise in the middle of the night.”
Richie started to blame it on the radiator, but for some reason that story now seemed a little silly and embarrassing to him. “Mr. Hubbard beat me and Mrs. Hubbard made me go without eating,” he accused, sulking.
“Oh, come now,” the caseworker ridiculed. “ ‘Beat’ you? Mr. Hubbard paddled you. As for going without eating, as you put it, that is perfectly normal punishment. I got sent to bed without supper a few times myself when I was your age.” She leaned forward, folding her h
ands on the desk in schoolteacher fashion. “Now listen to me, Richie. You are just one of many, many wards of this department. In fact, there are more wards than there are homes to put them in sometimes. The state doesn’t pay all that much to board you; most of these foster parents are making a personal sacrifice when they take you in. No place is going to be perfect, Richie. Life is not perfect.” Pulling a card file in front of her, she started flipping through it.
“Where’s my mother?” Richie asked.
“You know perfectly well where she is. She’s living at a home for unwed mothers, waiting to have her baby.”
“I want to go see her.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. No one under sixteen is allowed to visit there. If you want to write your mother a letter, I’ll see that she gets it.”
Glowering, Richie looked down at the worn knees of his corduroys. Lousy fucking rules, he thought. He was beginning to think like Stan, beginning to examine and evaluate in his young mind all the adult guidelines that had been set down to control the conduct of the young. Can’t see my own mother ’cause I’m not old enough, he brooded resentfully. Ain’t supposed to have no feelings until I’m sixteen.
“I’m taking you to a new foster home and I expect you to behave yourself at this one,” Miss Menefee said firmly. “I picked up your things from the Hubbards; they’re over there.” Richie looked and saw a shopping bag in the corner. “Pick it up and let’s go,” the caseworker said.
That night in a run-down frame house on the South Side, a haggard-looking woman in a soiled dress led Richie to a room that had two double beds in it and no other furniture. “There’s cardboard boxes under the bed to put your things in,” she said. “There’s three other boys live in here too. I lock the door at nine o’clock every night and unlock it at six every morning. The oldest boy, Dave, is in charge of the room. Do like he says and you’ll get along fine.”
The other three boys came in a little while later. Two of them were about Richie’s age; Dave was a year or so older, and accordingly bigger. “You’ll sleep wit’ me in this bed,” he decided. “The old bat turns out the light from outside when she locks the door at night, but we got candles stashed so’s we can have our own light. We have lots of fun after we’re locked in.”