Willy

CHAPTER 6 – SURVIVING

The day was just beginning to lighten when I woke up. For a few disoriented moments I had no idea where I was. As I lay listening to the sounds around me — Jack’s gentle snoring, the birds awakening in the trees — I recalled all that had happened since my confrontation with my father. I wasn’t at all sorry I’d left home. Between Dad and Donald, home had become unbearable. I suppose I missed Mom and I know I missed Adam, but most of all I missed Dexter. Yet I knew that staying at home would have been impossible.

The three others in the campsite began to stir. Jack and Amanda and another boy stood and began to roll up their sleeping bags. Jack introduced me to Evan, the fourth member of the group. He was a slender boy, seemingly no more than ten years old. His straight, blonde, nearly-white hair flopped down on his forehead, almost obscuring his grey-green eyes. His face was a narrow oval. His mouth was unsmiling and slightly pouting, the lower lip curling downward forming a hollow between it and his chin. My God, I thought, he’s going to break a few hearts! Unfortunately, Evan had made the mistake of telling his parents he was gay and his father had threatened to kill him if he ever saw him again.

I shook Evan’s hand and asked Jack, “Where can I go to clean up?”

“Well, later we’ll find a men’s room. Right now, if ya need t’ pee, just go off in the woods.

When I returned, I asked, “What now?”

“Now,” replied Jack, “we try to find food. Every day’s spent huntin’ for food and money, tryin’ to get clean, and, when winter comes, just tryin’ to keep warm.” He led me to a 24-hour store a few streets away and told me to keep the proprietor busy with questions about where to find a phone and a shower. Meanwhile, Jack prowled the aisles, tucking a few items into his loose sweatshirt.

We walked away from the store and down the street to a little park. I asked, “Jack, did you just steal?”

“Yup. We have t’ sometimes just t’ stay alive.”

I wasn’t happy about that, but I admitted to myself that I was terribly hungry and not too upset to share the food.

We sat on a park bench eating packaged doughnuts and sharing a quart of milk. As we ate, I asked about Evan. “How old is he, Jack? He looks so young; does he even jerk off yet?”

“He’s eleven. Don’t know whether he jerks off, but he sure has sex. His mom and dad are both into drugs, so I guess it’s not surprisin’ that Evan is too. He sells sex t’ get money for his habit. Usually he’s in camp in the mornin’, but he’s not around much at night. Sometimes he’s gone from the camp for a week or so ’cause he’s found a ‘Sugar Daddy’ who’ll take him in and trade him food for sex.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yeah. It’s real dangerous. He never stays with those men long. He knows that men who like sex with kids can be violent. Kids get beaten up or even killed doin’ that, so he don’t feel safe with ’em.”

“That’s so sad. Isn’t there any way we can help him?”

“I doubt it. Ya could try gettin’ t’ know him — just talkin’ with him. It is sad, and I feel sorry for him, but whenever I’ve tried t’ help him, he just says he likes his life the way it is and t’ leave him alone.”

When we finished eating we went to the Salvation Army store but found it wouldn’t open until 9:00. Sitting painfully on the curb, I asked Jack how long he’d been homeless.

“A little over a year,” Jack replied. He told me about how his family had run out of money, how his father, an alcoholic, had been driving drunk one night and gotten into an accident, killing himself and three others. He was silent a few moments before he continued. “My mom was tryin’ t’ support us four kids but she just couldn’t make it. I tried t’ get a job, but there’s just nothin’ out there for kids our age. I told Mom I’d raise money by sellin’ sex but she wouldn’t let me, and I’m just as glad. So finally I decided t’ run away. Then at least she wouldn’t have t’ feed me. I miss my brothers and my sister, and my Mom too, but there’s just no way I could stay. What about you?”

I told him about getting caught having sex with Dexter and being thrown out of the house. I talked about missing Adam and Dexter and wishing I could let them know I was OK.

“Does he got a email address?”

“Yeah. You did tell me the library has computers but wouldn’t my family be able to trace me to Grantham? I don’t want any chance of somebody finding me.”

“Nah. Not if ya use yer own email account and don’t tell ’em where ya are. If it was possible at all, it’d take them a lot of work and time. Come on. The library should be open.”

In the library, I was delighted to find ten computers available. I logged onto my account and found emails from Adam and Dexter. Opening the one from Adam, I read,

I wrote back,

I didn’t say anything about being raped and wasn’t sure I ever would. I didn’t want to use my old name ever again, and I didn’t want to give away my new one, so I just signed it, “Love, Your Little Brother.”

Dexter’s email told me that his father had locked the loft, that he’d been grounded for a month and that his father was still very angry.

I wrote back telling him a little about my new life but again not saying where I was.

I wondered about how to sign it but finally I just wrote, “I love you” before hitting the “send” button with a sad sigh. I stood up to see Jack at another computer researching cities that had shelters for teens.

“Are you thinking of leaving?” I asked.

“I’m not sure I can take another Grantham winter,” replied Jack, smiling with resignation.

From the library we walked back to the Salvation Army store, where I was lucky enough to find a sleeping bag for a dollar and a heavy jacket for fifty cents. Jack encouraged me to also buy a pair of shorts so we could go swimming. I found a serviceable pair for fifty cents, although I worried a great deal because my money was almost gone.

“Guard that jacket,” advised Jack as we left. “It’ll be worth a small fortune in the winter.”

“How do you survive in the winter?” I asked.

“Once last year I hid in the library until it closed so I could sleep on a couch and stay warm. Sometimes I hid in dumpsters. But when it’s really cold and the snow’s fallin’ and the wind’s blowin’, it’s God-awful tough.”

“Can’t you go to a shelter?”

“I have, but I stay away from ’em for a couple of reasons. One is what ya ran into in the shelter. There are too many guys there who like t’ fuck kids. The other is that the shelters are really full in the winter and lots o’ times there just ain’t any room. Like I said before, this city don’t have a shelter for kids. That’s why I was lookin’ for cities that do. Usually, it’s the bigger ones, like New York or San Francisco.”

“Are there many homeless kids here?”

“Lots, but I’ve no idea how many are under 18, like us. I think people in Grantham’d be surprised at how many of us there are. All they do is give a little money so they won’t feel guilty, but I guess that’s true all over, not just in Grantham.”

Since it was a warm day, for a while we sat outside and tried panhandling, without much success. I kept trying to find a comfortable position where my bottom didn’t hurt too badly. I finally found it somewhat more bearable to sit on my sleeping bag. Most people simply walked away from us, turning their faces as though they didn’t know we were there. A few told us to get a job, to which Jack once replied angrily, “Where, Asshole!?”

In the middle of the afternoon, I saw the man who had raped me walking on the other side of the street. I leaped up, dodging cars as I ran painfully across the road. He looked up as I approached, a sudden look of fear on his face. I sucker-punched him in the gut and, as he groaned and leaned over, I hit him as hard as I could with an uppercut to his face. He fell backwards, hitting his head on the sidewalk. I was on top of him in an instant.

“You son of a bitch!” I yelled. “I’ll teach you not to fuck kids!”

Almost blinded with anger, I drew my knife, thinking to plunge it into his stomach. He looked fearfully at its point, crying, “No! Please! I swear I’ll never do it again!”

I felt hands grab my arm as Jack shouted, “No, Willy! He ain’t worth it! You’ll get in awful trouble!”

I turned my head toward Jack. We just looked at each other, me angrily and him pleading with his eyes.

Finally, I relaxed. Looking down at the man I said quietly, “You got lucky this time, bastard, but if I ever hear of you fucking another kid, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.” He nodded silently, tears flowing down his face.

I got off him and let him up. Looking around I realized there were several people watching, most of them kids I had met on the streets. They started clapping and slapping me on the back.

As Jack and I walked away, I was overcome with remorse. “Jack I don’t know what came over me. That’s the first violent act I’ve ever done in my whole life.” Turning to face him, I said, “Thanks for stopping me. I would’ve killed him.”

“S’OK,” Jack said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “Nobody but the law would’ve blamed ya if ya had. I don’t give a shit ’bout him; I just didn’t want ya to get inta trouble.”

We went back to our panhandling, sitting quietly for a long time.

Towards evening we began to look for food again, searching several dumpsters before we found one behind a fast-food chicken restaurant which had thrown out some uncooked chicken. Taking it, we went back to the campsite, lit a fire, and tried to cook the meat, with only limited success. We ate it anyway.

As we were settling for the night, Jack asked how my butt was feeling. “It still hurts like hell and it was awful this afternoon when I took a shit.” Nodding sympathetically, Jack said he hoped I’d feel better soon.

Settling into my sleeping bag, I again listened to the sounds around me. I thought about Adam and Dexter and wondered where Evan was, hoping he was safe. Finally, I fell sound asleep.

In the very early morning I awoke with terrible stomach cramps. Climbing out of my sleeping bag, I took about three steps before I erupted violently, vomiting over and over. Between spasms I became aware that Jack was beside me, doing the same.

When at last we finished, Jack said, “Well, I guess that chicken wasn’t such a good idea. C’mon. We need t’ drink some water or we’ll get dehydrated.” With that, he led the way to the park fountain where we drank and drank. Then we returned to the campsite, moved our sleeping bags farther away from the vomit, and silently slept for the rest of the night.

In the morning, we were both sick again. Again we went to the ornamental fountain to hydrate ourselves.

Neither Jack nor I felt much like eating so I sat with Evan while he ate a couple of stale rolls. I asked him where he’d been in the night, but he wouldn’t say anything. Finally, I said, “Look, Evan, I hate the thought of what you’re doing. Someday it’s going to kill you. Either a man will do it or the drugs will. Isn’t there any way I can help?”

Evan gazed at me for a long time before shaking his head. “Thanks for caring, but there’s nothing you can do. I’m hooked on drugs. I have been since I was six. I’ve tried a few times to stop, but I only get terribly sick and weak. I know what I’m doing’s dangerous, but I just can’t stop. And the only way I can buy drugs is if I sell sex. What could you possibly do to help me?”

“Isn’t there anywhere you could go where people might help you stop the drugs?”

“If there is, I don’t know about it. And I’m not sure I want to stop them. I love the feeling of being high. Usually, it’s the only thing that makes life worth living.”

I felt very sad for Evan. I didn’t say anything but decided I’d try to find out if there was a place where a boy who was hooked on drugs could get help.

After that, the day passed quietly. Our stomachs settled down, and by noon we were ready to forage once again for food, finding some this time in a pizza restaurant dumpster. Checking to be sure it was fully cooked, we ate as much as we could.

We went again to the library, where I found emails from both Dexter and Adam. Adam again begged me to return home. He said that Mom cried every night and worried about her “baby”. I wrote back that I was not going home. As for Mom, I wrote,

Dexter was delighted that I’d written. He said he was glad I’d found Jack and asked questions about how I was living. I wrote back with some details. I decided to tell Dexter about being raped and what I’d almost done because of that, so I wrote about it at some length, saying that it was hard to know who to trust. I said my ass was terribly sore but I thought it would get better in time. Again I wrote how much I missed him and asked him to write again soon.

When we left the library, we tried panhandling again, this time gathering enough to actually purchase some baked beans and bread for supper in a market.

I settled down for the night, once again listening to the sounds around me. I realized that I was hearing sounds coming from Jack that might indicate he was jerking off. I hadn’t done it since I arrived in Grantham because I never could feel alone enough. But I decided if Jack could do it, I could, so I enjoyed fantasizing about being with Dexter. When I finished I fell into a deep sleep.

Again, in the early morning hours, I woke up, this time with fiery intestinal cramps. Crawling out of my sleeping bag and staggering into the woods, I dropped my pants just in time before I exploded with diarrhea. I screamed, “Fuck! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” The pain in my ass was nearly unbearable.

I heard Jack call, “What’s wrong?” followed by, “Oh, fuck!” as he came stumbling through the woods and exploded next to me. The stench was terrible, but fortunately the breeze was blowing away from the campsite. Before we went back to sleep we went again to hydrate ourselves from the ornamental fountain. Three more times during the night we had to get up and explode. Each time, I cried out in pain.

In the morning, we went to a drugstore, where Jack shoplifted some medicine for, as he said, “What ails us.” At first we thought the cause was probably the beans, but each night, for the next four nights, we had the same problem. We tried to keep up with the loss of fluids, but by the fifth day we were weak from dehydration and lack of nourishment, and Jack suggested that we needed to go to the ER.

“Won’t they try to send us back home?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Jack. “They know if they got a reputation for doin’ that, kids’d stop goin’ and then sick kids’d have no place at all t’ go.”

The hospital was on the opposite side of town and we had no money for a bus, so we had to walk, stopping several times to rest. I was so weak and sore tears flowed from my eyes.

By the time we arrived at the ER we were both staggering and dizzy. I just had to sit down despite the pain, so Jack went to the triage window to tell the nurse what was happening. She asked, “You’re both eighteen, right?”

Jack nodded. When he sat down, I asked him why she asked our ages and why he lied. Jack replied that the hospital needed parents’ permission to treat kids under eighteen, so everybody lied and the hospital just let it happen.

Fortunately, it was a relatively quiet day, so within a half hour, we were both on gurneys in the ER, wearing hospital gowns and shivering. The nurse gave each of us an IV in our arms to get fluid into our systems and then, seeing we were cold, brought warm blankets, telling us the doctor would be with us “shortly.”

“Shortly” turned out to be over two hours, because three real emergencies came in right after we got settled. The first was a heart attack which the doctors finally managed to stabilize before sending the patient off to the CICU.

The second and third were gunshot wounds, apparently inflicted by the two victims on each other. There were several police officers in the ER along with the two men. One of the men was only wounded in the leg, but he was shouting and screaming as though he was going to die and telling one of the officers that he was going to sue because it had taken so long for him to get help. The other man had a head wound and two abdominal wounds. Before the doctors could get him stabilized, he died, never uttering a sound.

Finally, a young doctor came into the cubicles where we were and pulled aside the curtain separating us so he’d be able to talk with both of us at once. We told him about the chicken and the beans and then about the five nights of diarrhea. The doctor asked where we’d been getting food, and then he asked about the water we’d been drinking. Jack told him we’d been drinking from the ornamental fountain in a park. “Oh, dear,” was the doctor’s only comment.

“I’m going to need to order some blood tests,” the doctor announced. “First, we need to find out what’s going on in your intestines and second, it’s routine for us to give tests for STDs including the HIV virus. Are you both OK with that?” I didn’t really know what STDs were, but I nodded along with Jack.

While we waited for the results of the blood tests, Jack said to the doctor, “I think ya oughta look at Willy’s ass.”

I shook my head vigorously and glared at Jack, but the doctor asked him why and Jack told him about the rape. Nodding, the doctor told me to lie on my stomach and put my knees under me so that my ass was in the air. Donning plastic gloves, the doctor gently pulled apart my cheeks as I gasped in pain.

“Did you report the rape?” the doctor asked.

“No,” I mumbled.

“Why not?”

“First, I didn’t know who the man was; second, he said that if I told anybody he’d kill me; third, homeless kids don’t generally trust cops; fourth, I was too damned embarrassed and I still am.”

The doctor tut-tutted, shaking his head sadly. “Well, you don’t need to be embarrassed, son, because you didn’t invite the man to rape you. He just did. You have a considerable amount of infection in there which we‘ll have to treat with antibiotics.” He left, returning a moment later with a large tube of antibiotic cream. Once again he had me assume the position. Pulling on fresh gloves and calling Jack over to watch, he slathered my ass, both outside and in, reaching as far in as possible with the cream as I groaned with pain.

Closing the tube and removing his gloves, he asked Jack, “Are you boys really friends?” Jack nodded. “OK, then you’re going to have to do this for him, three times a day for a week. Do you think you can do that?” Taking the offered tube Jack gulped and nodded.

Again the doctor left, returning this time with a box of latex gloves and a bottle of pills. Handing both to Jack he said, “He needs to take one of these four times a day for ten days. In addition, he needs to keep his rectum as clean as he can. So if he has a bowel movement, you may have to wash him off afterwards. Do you understand?” Again Jack gulped and nodded.

Since we were still waiting, I mentioned that we had a friend who was hooked on drugs and wondered if there was any place that could help him. The doctor assured us that they could help him at the hospital, probably keeping him and treating him until he had gotten past the worst of the withdrawal. I said I’d tell Evan as soon as we saw him.

When the results of the blood tests came back, the doctor looked them over without commenting until he was finished. “First, the good news. Neither of you has HIV or any STDs. You need to try to keep yourselves clean. That means if you have sex with anybody, using condoms-always. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” we both replied.

“The other news is that you’ve managed to pick up amoebic dysentery, a particularly nasty bug, which we’ll have to treat with more medication.” Calling a nurse, he told her what prescriptions to get. “Now, I’m pretty certain that bug came from the water you’ve been drinking. An ornamental fountain like the one you describe doesn’t keep getting fresh water; it constantly re-circulates the old water. Over time, the water gets dirtier and dirtier. I imagine some of your friends have bathed in that water. Birds have defecated in it. Dogs have urinated in it. There’s no way that it’s clean enough to drink. You both need to find a clean source of water. No more drinking out of the fountain. In fact, tell all your friends not to drink out of the fountain or we could have a real epidemic on our hands. This particular bug you have is nasty but it can’t spread to other people except through the water, so don’t worry about that. Meanwhile, I’ll speak to the health authorities about getting the fountain’s water tested and cleaned.”

At that moment the nurse returned with two prescription bottles.

Taking them and handing them to us, the doctor continued, “Even if you have no further problems after a day or two, you should take this medicine until it’s gone, following the instructions on the bottles. Drink plenty of fluids — clean fluids! As for you, Willy, I want you to come back a week from today for me to check your rectum. That’s not optional; it’s essential. But Jack, if you don’t see progress or you see the problem getting worse, bring him back here right away, no matter what he says. OK?”

Jack agreed, we thanked the doctor, dressed, and left the hospital. “Don’t we have to pay?” I asked.

“Nah. We’re free because we’re homeless and have no money. The law says that the hospital has t’ treat us anyway.”

“Well for once, thank goodness for the law!” I exclaimed.

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