Somewhere it's Not

Somewhere it’s Not

By J Read

Copyright 2014 Joy Read

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

Mind me, she said.  She always said that.  Screamed it, shouted it, said it with belts.  Mind me.  And I tried...I truly did.  But in the end, it proved too heavy a burden, for me.  I left that house at 16, with a few bits of clothing shoved into an old backpack and a wallet that contained $5 and a condom.  I suppose I missed out on the lesson of Priorities in Preparedness.  I didn’t even remember to pack socks.

I didn't go to a friend's - I knew they'd check with friends, first, so that would hardly prove a strategic move.  There was an abandoned building, decayed and gutted, about ten miles from our trailer in Sacramento.  I walked there, in the late afternoon sun, thinking how strange it was that it was spring and that was the season where things were supposed to begin and start up again, and here I was, beginning, but it felt more like jumping from a burning building into darkness.  I slept there on the second floor, which was reachable only by a long, 4x4 board that I pulled up with me every night once I'd made the climb, to make sure the homeless men on the ground below couldn't make their way up.  At first, I was scared to death of them - their insanity, their moans, their shouts, the way their unkempt haggardness made them seem more monsters than men.  I hadn't expected their arrival, that first night; it never dawned on me that I might not be the only disenfranchised denizen of the building.  And when I heard the shuffling sounds of footsteps approaching and the shouts back and forth, everything inside of me went cold and tight.  The sun had just gone down, it was just about 7:30, and I spent the entire night sitting up with my back against a corner, hugging my knees to my chest and shivering; listening; eyes wide and skin prickling as if trying to work as a radar system.  I tried to stay perfectly still and quiet - you don't realize how hard that is until you sit on concrete and trash for eight hours, fighting back every sneeze and cough.  When morning came, they left - trickled out, one by one, some of them mumbling to themselves, others silent.  After they'd gone and I peered out over the edge of the broken concrete, to be sure, I wondered where they were heading to; where they went, every day, filing out at eight in the morning as if they had someplace to be.  I wondered if it was just force of habit, perhaps; like living as a ghost, condemned to repeat the same patterns they had established when they were alive.  And then I wondered if it wasn't perhaps much simpler than that - perhaps the police came by, during the day, swept the area, checked around.  So I grabbed my backpack and shimmied down the board, reminding myself to pull it up with me when I returned, that night...in case.  But when I stepped out of the building, I stopped.  Where the hell was I supposed to go?  It all felt so uneasy and surreal, like I was playing a role in a movie that no one had given me the script for.  Everything I'd had the day before - house, school, friends, bed, shower - all these things had been flash burned out of my existence, leaving behind voids or empty silhouettes.  I'd thrown them all out, deliberately and necessarily, and they were gone.  And without them, what was I?

That first day was the most difficult - a statement that will sound bizarre, when you compare it to the days that were to follow.  But it was; largely due to the fact that I had no idea what was to come, and that is always the worst of states to be in.  Even if you know that what is coming is horrific, it's better to recognize the scales on the demon than not know what demon may be there.  I was hungry and cold and exhausted, and couldn't make up my mind between the necessity of food, or a blanket, to spend my $5 on.  Every time I'd come to a decision, I'd rethink it, panic, and change my mind.  Between my growling stomach and my gnawing indecision, and the paranoia with which I scanned every corner and street for police, all day, I was at my wit's end by early afternoon.  I decided to head back.  At least I would be able to sit still, rest; and as long as the board was up and I was tucked back in a corner, how would any overzealous cop know I was there?  I passed behind a few fast food restaurants along the way, peeked and peered in their dumpsters, wrestling with the very real fact of hunger without money and the very real emotions of disgust and shame.  In the end I managed to scrounge up some food that still resembled what it was meant to be.

When I got back to the building, I climbed the board and pulled it up; put on every layer of clothing I'd brought with me; ate my dinner a la garbage; and huddled against what might have once been a water pipe.  The sun went down and the bums came home to roost, trickling in as they had trickled out.  I listened to them, dozing off and coming to, while they mumbled and shouted and shuffled.  There were no conversations, there was no camaraderie or commiseration, not among these homeless.  No one asked anyone how their day was, whether it had been hard, whether they'd had any food.  They were these ghostly, independent bodies, neither aware nor unaware.  There was the occasional shouted epithet or tirade, brought on by booze or mental illness - who could tell, and who could blame them?  They were the lowest tier of the Forgotten and Discarded.  And I felt like a fraud for sharing their encampment.  

Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard one of them shout, "So goddamn fucking sick of being goddamn fucking hungry!" And in response, another shout telling the shouter to fuck off and suck his dick.  And I thought of Vietnam; I thought of Hanoi, where they'd kept my grandfather.  I thought of refugee camps.  I wasn't in Life, anymore.  I was in some alternate reality where Hell reigned over the haunted.  Life inside my house had been depraved and dark, enough; but it was a different depravity.  Even if that was simply because that depravity had walls.

The next morning, I lowered the board and propped it against the edge of the broken cement, once it hit the ground below, grabbed my backpack and shimmied down again.  With every last item of clothing still on, I made my way to the supermarket - though now the added layers weren't for warmth.  Underneath my baggy sweater, in the front pouch of my sweatshirt and in the pockets of my carpenter's jeans, I stuffed everything from fruit to cereal bars.  You might be wondering why I didn't bring any food with me, when I left - but if I had an answer for that, I would have offered it up already.  Why bring a condom?  Why pack two pairs of shoes but no socks?  I suppose it just comes down to the fact that, the moment I decided to leave, was the moment that everything in me snapped.  Things like common sense and rational planning often don't apply, in moments such as those.

I was terrified I'd be caught, and by all rights I should have been.  I was a terrible thief; might was well have had a flashing sign above my head that announced what I was doing, what with all of my shifting, furtive glances and my quick dash for the exit.  But I made it out into the early March sunshine without so much as an Excuse me, Miss.  And as soon as I did, I took off running, in case some bagboy-cum-detective thought to follow me out for a closer examination.  I went back to the abandoned building and stashed the food up near my sleeping area, leaving some for the men below.  It wasn't much, and I had no idea how many of them there were, but it wasn't an option to keep all of it for myself.  I don't know how to do those kinds of things...I've never understood people that could.

There wasn't any pondering as to where the food had come from, when they returned.  A little fairy's been here, one of them said.  You're a fucking fairy, fucking faggot, said another.  And that was all.  I was relieved, by that; I'd half expected some sweeping manhunt to be conducted, whereupon one of them with spidery limbs would scramble his way up to my hiding place and toss me down to the wolves.  I closed my eyes to the sound of crinkling wrappers and crunching jaws.

It went on like that for the next three days, with a few minor variances.  And then I got that Feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I knew I had to keep moving, leave, put more distance between myself and that rundown trailer in Sacramento than just a pathetic ten miles.  I'd had them since I was old enough to be cognizant of such things - the Feelings.  They weren't frequent; weren't constant; and when they did come, it was when I only had just enough time left to make things different.  But to leave, I'd need money, and that meant prolonging my stay, even if just for a day or two.  I'd have to beg for it, I knew - my skill level at thievery may have slightly upgraded to that of Marginally-Not-Terrible Shoplifter, but I was nowhere near the level of Bank Robber of Burglar.  I stole a marker from the corner store and wrote out that sad and well-used message on a piece of cardboard I'd found behind the building, then wandered from parking lot to off ramp.  By the time I got back to the building, I'd amassed $10.75, one sandwich and a bag of potato chips...and the Feeling was stronger, almost making me nauseous with its anxious intensity.  My take for the day would have to do; I knew I didn't have the luxury of waiting any longer.  

I decided I'd sleep for a couple of hours and then leave; it was only three in the afternoon.  But my lack of real rest over the past week had taken its toll, and my body couldn't stand up to it anymore.  When I woke up, it was already dark and I could hear the usual scufflings and mumblings, below.  I noiselessly crept over to the remnants of a window, to check my watch by the moonlight.  It was just after midnight.  I reeled back and felt a rush of panic, while my brain tried - pointlessly - to set things back to calm.  You'll just leave in the morning, it said.  But I was out of time, and I knew that.  What few people in my life have ever understood, is that my Feelings are more closely related to knowledge than to emotion or sensation.  And I knew, if I waited for daylight, I'd most likely have waited too long.  It was also better, easier, to travel in the darkness - unseen, unnoticed.  No, I had to leave that night.  The best I could do was wait till there was no more noise below, and hope they were all asleep.  

It felt like forever, of course - waiting always does, whether it's a kid waiting for Christmas or a teenager waiting for a rundown wasteland of hobos to fall into a drunken stupor.  I stayed by the window, checking my watch constantly, making myself crazy in the process.  At a little after 1 a.m., everything finally and permanently quieted down.  I crawled silently to my things in the corner, packed up, started zipping the backpack shut and then immediately changed my mind as the noise echoed like thunder in the silence.  And then I realized - the board.  How in the hell was I supposed to lower that silently into the darkness, let alone avoid hitting a sleeping man below?  I crawled to the edge and peered over, but could only make out the barest of shapes, and several of them right below my ledge.  I was trapped.  And feeling trapped is, and always has been, the one thing on this Earth that sends me into panic.  I have to know that I can get away.  If I don't have that knowledge, it feels like my bones begin ticking down to explosion.

I sat back on my ass and wrapped my arms around my legs, breathing, thinking (which was more like desperate mental clawing), and looked over at the window.  That would have to be my exit.  Most of the glass was gone, just a few jagged shards remained.  And it wasn't too high up...or at least, I didn't think it was.  But when I had eased through the opening and was looking down, swinging my legs, it suddenly looked a whole lot higher, indeed.  And what the hell was I supposed to do if I broke my legs or knocked myself out?  Where the hell could I go?  Hello, I'm a teenage runaway with no insurance, but could you just patch me up for free and not call my mother or the authorities?  Thanks so much.  I looked down for a little while longer, combing through my options and trying to come up with one that hadn't been there before.  That's when I saw the headlights driving down the main avenue that led to the road we were on.  There were three sets of them, all in a row.  And I knew.  I looked back over my shoulder, feeling almost apologetic for the sleeping strangers, then tossed my pack to the ground and jumped to follow it.  I didn't land well, but I didn't exactly break anything, either; and quickly I grabbed the pack, zipped it, and hobbled/ran towards the back wire fence.  I had just climbed over it when the headlights turned into the dirt in front of the building, and the floodlights switched on.

There were trees in front of me, not a thick grove but enough of them to keep me somewhat hidden from the lights.  I heard voices echoing behind me - cops rousing the trespassers who had no choice but to trespass.  They faded, as did the glare of the lights, and then I was out of the trees and in a vacant dirt lot.  My ankle was killing me.  But I pushed through to get out of the wide-open area and onto the street.  Then it was just a matter of building-ducking and alley-walking.

During my day excursions, I'd seen the bus station downtown, and I made my way there.  But things look quite different at night than they do in the awareness of day, and the pain in my ankle was proving distracting.  It took me an hour to find it, at which time I learned there wasn't another bus out of town for thirty minutes; but there was nothing to be done about that.  I walked up to one of the only two open ticket windows and asked the woman what the cheapest fare was.  She sized me up and all at once I wondered just how I'd thought this was a good idea.

How old are you, honey?

18, I lied.

You have I.D.?

I wondered if she'd seen the shift in my eyes.  I - lost it.  My wallet was stolen.  That's why I don't have much money left.  The odd thing was, once I started, the words just seemed to choose themselves and spill out of me like water from a pitcher.  I'm trying to get back home, I just came up here to see a friend for two days.  But...

Where's home?

Los Angeles.

You took the bus all the way from L.A. to here?  And didn't get a roundtrip ticket?

Lady, I'm 18 - you wanna pick apart all of my stupid life choices?  'Cause we'll be here, a while.

She sized me up again, and I was suddenly very aware of how dirty I must have been - my clothes, my hair, my skin, all caked in the drift and dust of seven days on the street without a shower or a toothbrush.  I gripped the strap of my backpack tighter and wondered if I should just start backing away, tell her nevermind, run like hell before she could turn to her left and say, Hey, Joe, does this kid look like an underage, homeless, runaway teen to you?

She stared at me a moment longer, then said, From here to L.A., the fare is $37.

I...don't have that.

What do you have?

$15.87, I said, immediately wondering why I hadn't reserved just a few dollars of that total.

Well, that will get you to Fresno.  But that's all.

I looked off to the left, for no other reason than that's where my eyes wandered while I was thinking.  I guess that'll have to do, I said.

I looked back at her and dug out the cash, half of me thankful she'd seemingly let the I.D. matter go, and the other half thankful I'd stuffed the money in my pocket and hadn't placed it in my wallet that supposedly had been stolen.  But as I slipped it into the metal dish below the window, I looked up and saw her looking at me, not making a move towards the money.  I forced myself to just meet her eyes and not