Red lights flashed incessantly, making the scene outside appear like a demented Halloween ritual, even though that day was a few months ahead. The lights briefly lit the interior walls as they poured through the windows. What with everything else, the effect was disorienting, and Peter found it added to his sense of confusion.
Men were tramping through the house as if they owned it. He’d been asked, brusquely, which room was his and then been told to go into it and stay there. Peter hadn’t obeyed quickly enough and so was encouraged by the guy speaking to him—encouraged meaning being taken by the arm—to move into the room. He was pushed down onto his bed and told, “Stay!”
He could hear things going on, cupboards being opened, drawers being pulled out and then closed, lots of men talking, even electronic sounds, radio voices speaking in the clipped and coded manner he heard on cop shows on TV, followed by bursts of static.
Then a guy not in uniform but wearing a badge hanging out of his sport coat’s breast pocket came into his room.
“You the son?” he asked, briskly.
“Huh?”
“Are you Joe Simpkins’ son?” This time Peter could hear impatience in his voice as he separated each word.
Peter intentionally hesitated a second before answering. “Yeah, and you are…?” If the man could sound impatient, Peter was able to color his voice with sarcasm.
The man’s brow wrinkled. “What’re you, some sort of wiseass? How old are you anyway?”
“What? You get to ask questions, and I don’t?” Peter scowled at the man. “The way conversations work, you ask me something and I answer. Then I ask you something and you answer. I answered your question. Still waiting for you to answer mine.”
“Just what I need—dealing with a smart-mouthed ten-year-old when my shift should have ended an hour ago—and I’m just on loan here anyway. Wasn’t really my bust,” the man muttered while glancing around the room. Then he turned back to Peter. “Detective John Saunders. Narco Division. Now, who are you, and stop wasting my time.”
“I’m not ten! I’m twelve. And my name is Peter Simpkins.”
“That’s better. OK. So, Peter Simpkins, you got any relatives in town here?”
Peter shook his head.
“Well then, kid, pack up some things. Clothes for tomorrow, a toothbrush, pajamas if you wear them, and something to do, like an iPad, or, heavens above and don’t laugh, a book.”
Peter felt something in his stomach. Nerves, he decided. “You arresting me?”
“We’ll talk about it in the car. Hurry the hell up. I can’t spend the night wiping your nose. We’re leaving in five minutes whether you’re packed or not.”
“Screw you, too!” Peter rose from the bed in a flash, anger on his face.
The detective didn’t move, just watched him, and then said, “Watch your mouth,
sonny boy. You don’t want to pack? Makes no difference to me.” He looked at his
watch, then back at Peter. “Four minutes.”
In the car, sitting up front rather than isolated in the back feeling like a prisoner where the cop had wanted him, Peter was silent as they pulled out of the driveway still being bathed on and off in red then blue. Detective Saunders turned and headed downtown.
After several minutes of silence, Peter asked, “What’s going to happen to my old man?”
“He’ll be tried for narcotics trafficking. He’s a big-time dealer. He’ll be going away for a long, long time. You’ll be an adult, probably with kids of your own, before he ever breathes free air again.”
Detective Saunders expected some reply, but all he heard—and he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it—was Peter muttering, “Good!” When he looked over at the boy, the kid was just staring out the front window.
“Where’s your mom?” Saunders voice carried a slightly softer tone for the first time. Slightly. Impatience still rode heavily on the top.
“Who knows?” Peter was about to say something else but then stopped.
Saunders glanced over again at the boy sitting back in his seat, appearing to have shrunk some. In his house, he’d shown attitude, a lot of spirit. Perhaps, Saunders thought, his situation was dawning on him.
“You asked me if you were under arrest. You’re not. But you’re a minor. We can’t leave a minor alone when we arrest the parents and don’t have anyone else to take responsibility. So, I’m taking you to the station. Normally, we’d have a social worker set you up with temporary, emergency-foster-care people for a situation like this, but this is a Friday night. Late Friday night.” His annoyance was showing again. “All the social workers turn off their phones so they can escape for the weekend. All except the one on duty, and she’s in bed with the flu. So you get to enjoy the hospitality of the city jail for the weekend. Lucky you. Which is why I told you to bring something to kill the boredom.” Then, after another glance and seeing Peter scowling at him, he added, “What’d you bring, a couple of Little Golden Books? Maybe The Poky Little Puppy? Tootle?”
Peter sat up a little straighter. It hadn’t occurred to him that the detective was good at getting kids to talk when they were resolved not to. “What? You like picking on defenseless kids? Enjoy putting them down? You get a thrill doing that? I’ve heard about cops like you. Bullies. That’s why you take the job, huh? So you can boss people around, intimidate them, knock a few heads, and get away with it? Make you feel like a big man, doing that to kids?”
“Where’d you get all that lip, kid? It’s not going to serve you well, I’ll tell you that. It’s going to end up getting you a lot of bruises.”
“Yeah, and you’d like to be there helping out, huh?”
“Me? I never hit a kid!”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. You sure seem like the gentle type. Hah! Well, you wouldn’t be the first to kick me around. I know about bruises. My dad had it down to a science. Really good at it.” Peter stopped then. Rather abruptly, Saunders thought. Perhaps the kid was thinking about that. Thinking that it wouldn’t be all bad, living somewhere else. Or maybe thinking about something else.
««« »»»
At the station, only a couple of night-shift people were on duty; most of the shift was on the streets. There was a large squad room that was mostly deserted and dark. Two cops were doing paperwork at desks located on one side of the room; just one bright bank of fluorescent tubes spilled harsh light over them. Saunders led Peter across the room to the back, then through a doorway into a hall. At the end, it led to a hall running perpendicular to the entry hall. This one had cells on both sides. A few had prisoners in them, all of whom looked up and eyed Peter.
“Sorry to have to leave you here, kid.” He didn’t sound like it. “Pick whatever room you want for the night. Someone will come in the morning to feed and process you. Can’t leave you to roam around. No one here to watch you, and you’re the Police Department’s responsibility. Means we lock you in for the night until someone comes tomorrow.”
Peter looked at the hostile place. Then he looked up at Saunders. “I got to pee. I don’t want to do it in here with these guys watching. Can’t I at least have some privacy for that?”
“Sure, kid. Down at the end of the row of cells is a john. Go help yourself. I’ll wait here for you.”
Peter didn’t bother to say thanks. He walked down the corridor, passing a few men who had remarks for him, and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
It was a small room with a toilet and sink, a low-wattage, naked light bulb up above and nothing else. Peter took the two seconds required to see the entire place, and smiled. He locked the door, climbed up on the toilet seat and then the tank behind it so he could reach the small window above, a window that was open a crack to allow the room to air out. There were no bars on it because it was too small for an adult to get through. It wasn’t too small for Peter. He managed to shove the window open all the way, pushed his bag of clothes through, then wriggled his way out. He hung momentarily on the window sill before dropping the short distance to the ground below.
Before escaping into the night, he turned back, looked up at the window, and said, “Fuck you, Detective Saunders!”
But he said it in a very soft voice.
««« »»»
He hadn’t really figured out what living on the streets would be like. He had thought about doing it previously, however. Every time his father got drunk and beat him, or lost a lot of money gambling and beat him or was mad about something and beat him or did the other thing he did, Peter thought about it. Now, he was doing it again. Would it be a great adventure or something horrible? He didn’t know. But it was what it was; he didn’t have a choice, and so be it. He wasn’t going to live in some damn jail cell; that, he knew for sure. And he could take care of himself. He had been doing so since his mother had split four years ago.
Every time he thought of her, he got angry. Sure, he understood. She didn’t like the beatings any more than he did, and she hated what his dad did for money, and she’d had enough of the arguments, the screaming at each other. He understood why she’d left. But why leave him behind? He never would understand that. He could feel sad or abandoned or worthless because of what she did. He wouldn't let himself, however. He replaced all that with anger. He’d been angry since he’d been eight.
The police station in Terrytown was in the center of the city. As it wasn’t a large city—only about 40,000 people—and as he didn’t spend any more time at home than he had to, he’d explored the city from top to bottom and knew where he wanted to go now. He stayed in alleys as much as he could because he figured that Saunders guy would either look for him or send a bunch of cops looking for him in patrol cars; he wanted to be off the streets so they couldn’t spot him.
He was heading for the city swimming pool. It was in a downtown park where there were a lot of places to hide. Besides the pool, there was a bandstand that he could crawl under, restrooms that were open 24/7 with bushes around them that he could get behind, a small creek with a bridge over it that he could get underneath, and enough trees that if nowhere else looked promising to him, he could just get behind one of those and not be visible from the street.
He stayed in the shadows, stayed on the lesser streets, and at this time of night didn’t have many cars to hide from. He did see two police cars slowly passing by, but both times he managed to get behind something before they were near enough to spot him. He wasn’t very big.
The park was eerie at night. He’d never been there before in the dark. He was exhausted and picked a tree well away from the street to sleep behind because it was easier than anything else and the park was deserted, as far as he could tell.
He lay down, used the bag he was carrying as a pillow, and was asleep almost immediately.
««« »»»
He woke up with his head jarring against the ground. Opening his eyes, he saw a boy, a teenager, who, after having yanked the bag of his stuff from under Peter’s head, was opening it to see what was there. “Hey!” Peter cried out.
The older boy glanced at him, then turned the bag over and shook it, dumping everything inside on the ground.
Peter scrambled up. “What’re you doing? That’s my stuff!”
The boy barely even looked at him. He was pawing through Peter’s possessions. He grumbled, “Clothes! Oh, wait, here’s something.” He picked up the Little League trophy Peter had received this year when his team won the Minors Division league championship. “Might get fifty cents for this. How much money you got on you?”
“What’re you doing?” Peter repeated.
The older boy now stood up straight. He was a good eight inches taller than Peter. “I’m looking for my fee. You slept in my park last night, and you have to pay to do that. So, how much money you got?”
“I don’t have any,” Peter said. It was a lie. He’d had a ten-dollar bill in his room and had taken that with him. It was in his pocket. But it was all he had, and he needed it if he was going to eat. He was expecting to spend the weekend on the streets, and the ten dollars had to last.
“We’ll see,” said the teenager and reached out for Peter.
Peter was small, but he was quick. He also wasn’t one to give up easily. He’d learned the ins and outs of not being caught when his drunk father had come at him. He dodged away from the teen’s hand, then scooted backwards.
“OK, I guess I’ll just keep all these clothes, then. Ought to get something for them.”
Peter was standing ten yards away. He faced the teenager and said, “That’s my stuff. You can’t take it. I’ll go to the cops.”
“Sure you will. A kid sleeping in my park is a kid with nowhere else to go. He doesn’t go to the cops. But you can have the clothes. Just pay me my fee. Five bucks to sleep here. Every night.”
Peter had a quick mind. It only took him a moment to decide. “OK. Five bucks. I have to go get it, though. If you’re here when I get back, I’ll give you ten, five for last night, five for tonight.”
“Where you going to get the money?” the larger boy asked. He could sense an opportunity.
Peter could almost read his mind. But Peter was good at lying, a skill he’d practiced for years, and good at making things up as well. His head had always served him well. “How you think I’m going to make it? I hang around public restrooms, and when I see a man go in…well, you know?”
“You’re giving blow jobs?”
Peter wasn’t even sure exactly what that was. But he’d overheard older kids using the term and heard stories about kids making money doing what he thought it was and that came to mind now when he needed it. He didn’t want to give away his lack of knowledge, however, so rather than answer, he took another look at the kid who was in decent clothes and didn’t appear to be starving.
“Is that what you do?” Peter asked, his curiosity tweaked.
The kid smiled. “A guy’s got to eat. You?”
“Not giving them,” Peter said. “Selling them.”
The teen nodded, then said, “OK. I’ll give you till noon. Then I sell all this stuff. You’ll still owe me five dollars, though, because I have to do all the work of selling this crap. If you want to sleep here tonight, it’ll be ten dollars.”
“I already said that.” Peter pegged the kid as not being too bright, which was OK with him. Worked better, in fact. “Noon,” Peter agreed, then said, “Put the stuff back in the bag. I expect to take it with me or you don’t get the full ten.” He turned and walked off, not bothering to look back.
««« »»»
Peter walked home. Where home used to be. There was yellow plastic tape all around the house now with writing on it—Crime Scene -- Keep Out -- Police—repeated over and over. There were no policemen around that he could see, even after checking the few cars parked on the street.
The doors were all locked, and his key was inside. He walked around the outside looking for an open window, but there were none. He went into the backyard which was full of junk. His dad hadn’t cared about keeping the place neat and had used the area behind the house and garage to throw stuff he didn’t want to deal with. It was easy to find an old liquor bottle in a heap of trash near the back door. He picked it up, climbed the steps of the back stoop and, trying to make as little noise as possible, tapped on the window in the back door repeatedly until it broke. He used the bottle to remove all the glass he could, then reached through the hole and unlocked the door.
He went through the house, finding all the money in the places he knew his father hid it, then a couple of things from his room he wanted, including a blanket and another jacket, and then he was ready to go.
He used duct tape to cover the empty place where the window he’d broken had been and threw the broken glass in the trash. He fixed the door so it would lock when it was closed, then closed it and was off for the park.
When he got there, the other boy was nowhere around. That was good. Peter looked around and found the perfect spot to wait. He checked the cheap watch he wore and saw it was 11. He was hungry but couldn’t take the time to go eat now. Food would have to wait. He sat on the grass against one side of the bandstand. It was octagonal-shaped, and he sat against one side at a corner. He waited.
Just before noon, he saw the older teen crossing the lawn. Peter had guessed correctly; the teen was approaching from his left and would reach the bandstand before coming close to Peter. The kid looked like he was 16 or 17. Not bad looking, either. Peter had found himself looking at boys that way recently.
Peter stood up so the boy would see him and waited as he came to him. He stopped, confronting Peter. “You got my money?”
“You got my clothes?”
“Yeah, under the bandstand. My ten dollars first.”
“OK,” said Peter. He turned and reached behind him and picked up the bat he’d used to hit .409 in Little League. He’d got the positioning just right. As he turned back to the boy, he began his swing and had good bat speed by the time the boy saw what was happening.
Peter’s bat hit the boy right where he was aiming, in the side of his knee. The boy hit the ground with a shriek.
Peter stood over him. “No one steals from me and gets away with it. I’ll call for an ambulance after I leave. From now on, this is my park. I’ll let you sleep here free, though, because I’m nicer than you and there’s lots of space here. I imagine you’ll be on crutches for a while. See ya later.”
The boy was sobbing, holding his knee. Peter turned and walked away, around the bandstand, looking for an opening. The bottom sections were all lattice boards, painted white. He tugged on each one as he went past them and finally found one that opened. Inside he saw his bag of stuff, which he retrieved.
The boy was still lying in the grass, holding his knee, when Peter left the park.
««« »»»
Peter stopped at a McDonald’s and bought a lunch large enough to make up for his missed breakfast. He didn’t have a cell phone, and finding a pay phone these days was just about impossible. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt he needed to get help for the kid in the park. He wasn’t sure how to do it while staying anonymous. Then he found a way. There were three teenaged girls at the next table, and they were giggling, all talking at once. When their number was called they all jumped up together to get their food, and one of them left her phone on the table. It took him but a moment to call 911, report a kid in the park who seemed to have injured himself and disconnect, putting the phone back on the table. He finished his lunch in no hurry, threw his trash in the bin and walked out. He knew it would be some time before anyone got in touch with the girl whose phone he’d used, if they were able to do that with a cell phone.
««« »»»
Peter slept in the park that night. He had time to scope the place out first. He set himself up under the bandstand, finding a way to secure the one loose lattice board from the inside, so he felt fairly safe. And he had his bat. Couldn’t swing it well where he was, but he didn’t think he’d need to. No one knew he was there.