The Broken Lives

The sun set over Central Park, casting a shadow on the last two inhabitants. But they didn’t seem to mind, they just kept on talking. Anyone passing by would have cautioned the kid about conversing with the homeless, they might have even told him to get along to his home. But no one came. Earlier that day, I had been sitting on my favorite bench when, this kid just sat down. People sit on the bench with me all the time, but they only stay as long as it takes them to notice who they were sitting by. But this kid, now he was different from the moment he sat down this kid was curious. Oh wait, he was obsessed. From the moment he sat down, his eyes didn’t leave my face. I let this go on, because I thought he would be the same as the others. So, I took a nap. But when I woke up, guess what, he was still there. Now I was really starting to wonder. By now, his parents should have come and gotten him. I had heard of this, parents leave their kids behind, then they come, and get us arrested for kidnapping. I started to gather my stuff to move across the way because I don’t need to be arrested ant that’s when he spoke.

“Hey.” The kid tried. “Hey, where are you going? Every time I see you, you are sitting on this bench, come on, don’t leave because of me. I don’t want to make you.”

“Oh, whoa, don’t waste your breath kid, I’m not worth it”

“What do you mean you aren’t worth it, I’m not worth it, at least my parents don’t think I’m worth it” The kid was starting to get riled up.

“What are you talking about kid, what do you mean, your parents love you.”

“Ok, lets make a deal, if you can convince me t hat your parents don’t love you, then I’ll stay. But if not, I’m gone.”

“How long will you stay?”

“As long as you are here.”

And with that, I settled down to hear the kid’s story.

“Ok, my name is Billy and I live in Jersey.”

“Wait, you live in Jersey..why are you here?”

“I ran away. What, did you think I was here on vacation?”

“Oh…just keep talking, we’ll deal with this later.”

“Ok, I live in Jersey, that is, until yesterday. Now I live in Central Park with you.”

“Why did you leave?”

“That’s what I’m going to tell you. Ok, it all started a few weeks ago. I started to notice my parents, they weren’t the same. I mean really, not the same. One day, I went down to breakfast and they were both sitting there eating. But they hadn’t set a place for me.”

“Are you sure they didn’t just forget to set you a place?”

“Well, that’s what I thought, so I just ignored it. But for the next few weeks, it kept going. Also, they just stopped talking to me. I decided to ask them about it. So, last night, I didn’t go down to dinner because I wanted them to notice, and come talk to me. But they didn’t. After about an hour of this waiting, I realized that it was up to me to talk to them. As I was climbing down the stairs, I heard a car leave. I ran to the door to signal to them to get them to stop, but they didn’t even look back. So that’s when I left.”

“You’re telling me that you left because of that?”

“They didn’t even look back.” Billy had tears in his eyes now. “ So I packed up and came here.”

“This is a mistake kid, you need to go home.”

Billy just sat there calmly starting ahead.

“Come on kid, I’ll even walk you to the ferry.”

“So you don’t believe me?” Billy asked, wiping away a few stray tears.

“I didn’t say that…I believe your story, but you failed to convince me that your parents don’t love you. Is there any other reason you left?”

“I just told you everything, what else is there to tell?”

“Let me tell you what, it’s getting dark, so in the morning, I am going to walk you to the ferry. I presume that’s how you got here?”

Billy glumly nodded his head.

“And then, you can go home and talk this whole thing out with your parents. Sounds like a deal doesn’t it?”

Billy said nothing. So together we set off to find a place to sleep for the night. We settled on a big oak tree. “Oh, by the way, my name is Logan.” I said.

“Cool” was all that Billy could utter. I laid down and was surprised when Billy laid down right next to me and asked, “Have you always lived like this?”

“No, I used to have a family like you.”

“What happened to your family?”

“Well, I guess they just didn’t want me anymore.”

I expected some more questions, but after a long silence, I looked over and saw that he had fallen asleep. Looking more closely at him now then I had during the day, I realized that he was a very good looking kid. I also noticed the bruises that lined his arms and legs. I could only imagine what his chest looked like. My thought that he left his parents because of abuse was confirmed. What kind of person would do that to such a cute kid? I was starting to rethink our journey to the ferry tomorrow because it didn’t seem like it was in any of our best interests. We’d talk tomorrow.

When I woke up, I looked around, only to find his spot empty. I stood up and saw him quietly sitting on the bench we were sitting on yesterday. It looked like he had been waiting for me. When I started walking over to him, he got up and came towards me.

“I asked you last night, and I want to ask you again, are you sure that there isn’t another reason why you left?” I asked.

“I said last night, and I’m going to say it again, no.”

“Ok, I am just going to ask you. Did your parents beat you?”

An immediate silence followed. Billy turned his head away from me and started to nervously count his fingers.

“They did?” I asked, even thought I was sure of what the answer would be. He turned his head towards me and nodded it. I scooted towards him just in case he wanted someone to hold on to. And he laid his head on my shoulder. Soon after, he lifted his head and looked at me with an I-have-a-brilliant idea look. “Have you ever thought?”

“Well, I think so.” I replied.

“No, I mean, just thought. Have you ever just sat down and thought, I mean for fun?”

Happy to see his change in mood, I tried to reply in a similar manner.

“You know what Billy, you are one weird eleven year old.”

“Nine,” He blurted out.

“Huh?”

“I’m nine not eleven.”

“Holy..wow…I am truly sorry. You are truly one crazy nine year old, and I think I have a remedy for that.”

“What would that be?”

“You’ll have to see, crazy kid.”

“Do we still have to go to the ferry?”

I had to think about that one before answering him on that one.

“We’ll have to see about that one also.”

And so we walked. By the time we could see the playground, I could see the anticipation building in his eyes, and when we got there, it flowed over. He ran over, hugged me tentatively and whispered in my ear, “Thank you so much. In nine years of living with my parents, they never made a trip to go to the playground. Now in my first day with you, I get to go to the playground. Thank you.”

And with that, he ran off to climb the monkey bars. A woman just arriving with her kid sat down next to me.

“Cute kid you have there.” She said.

“Oh, he’s not mine. He’s a friend’s.”

“Oh,” and she was silent.

I made no other attempt at conversation. Billy came over and sat down beside me. He didn’t say anything, he just sat.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“Yah, I think so.”

“But we just got here.”

“Well, I don’t know, you probably have other places to go.”

“Come on… keep playing. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

But he stood up, and pulled on my sleeve, signaling for me to follow. We started to walk out of the park and I stopped him and asked him where he was going. He calmly said, “Ferry,” and kept walking. I stopped him again. “Do you really want to go back?” I knew what the answer was going to be. ”No.” He told me.

“Well, why are you going there?”

“Because you said that if I failed to convince you that my parents didn’t love me, then you would make me go back to the ferry.”

“Well, you did convince me. But instead of the ferry we need to go someplace else.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yes, we need to get you to a police station about the abuse.” As I said these words, I already started to reconsider them. I couldn’t go to the police because I would get arrested. For some prior offenses, but then, I couldn’t send Billy in alone, because I may never see him again. Weird to think that I was becoming attached to a kid I had hardly met. I guess it is probably the resemblance between him and my son. But I’m not the one who decided against the police station.

“No,” Billy said. “There’s no way I’m going to report them, or go back.”

“I was just thinking about what I just said, I agree, you shouldn’t go back.”

“Really, you think that I don’t need to...”

“Thank you.” He said.

We’ll need to figure something out, but for now, let’s eat.”

I could tell from his face, that this was a great idea. I hoped that he wouldn’t be offended by my choice of food. A few minutes later, we came to the alley behind McDonalds. I scanned his face for any signs of disappointment. Amazingly enough, I couldn’t make out any disappointment. I asked him why.

“Well, I think it’s better to eat old food from a dumpster, then to have parents who don’t even remember you at meal time.” He responded. A few minutes later, we were both sitting next to the dumpster with a half a hamburger in each of our mouths. Through a mouthful of hamburger, he managed to get out, “Tell me about your family.”

I knew that we would be to this question eventually, but I hadn’t planned on how to answer it. “Well, we lived in Chicago, in a big house.”

“A big house in Chicago?” He asked almost sarcastically.

“Ok, good point, it was a house on the outskirts of Chicago. I was a dentist. A good one, I had a lot of clients. My family was also wonderful. I have…had a son that would be nine like you. But my wife, oh my she was fine. We met in high school, and we were in love. We married one year after high school and things were great until almost six years ago to the day, that’s when she kicked me out. Things had gotten really bad, my practice had started to slow down, and I found this miracle cure called alcohol. I think my wife even started to forget about me, mostly because I spend almost fourteen hours a day at the office. And my son, I don’t even think he knew my name. She let this all go on for a few years, and then that night came. Wait, why am I telling my life story to a kid almost as old as my own son? Are you still interested?”

“Yah, go on.” Billy was sitting there with the same bite of hamburger in his mouth from the beginning of my story. He looked as if he had been deeply pondering what I had been saying. So I went on.

“I came home at ten o’clock that night, and I think that was her last straw. When I walked in the door, I was greeted by a cold stare and a suitcase. I knew that this all had to happen sometime, but I had really hoped that it wouldn’t. So I listened to her explanation but I was surprised when she handed the suitcase to me. I left, but I didn’t have any where to go. So I came here. I started out living in a hotel, but then my money ran out. So I decided to live in Central Park. And I have been there ever since.”

“Are you sure she wouldn’t have given you a second chance?”

“No, she kicked me out.”

“Well I think she would have given you a second chance. In fact I’m amazed you aren’t living in Chicago right now.”

“I don’t think that it would be the best for my family.”

“Whatever you say.”

We left that topic alone and finished our hamburgers. Sitting there with our wrappers in our hands staring at the ground when Billy finally piped out, “What are we going to do now?”

“It depends on what you want to do.”

“Whatever you want to do, what do you want to do?”

“Whatever you want to do.”

“If you don’t decide soon, I’m getting on a train to Chicago and I’m going to tell your wife about you.”

“Let’s go swimming.”

“Sounds great, where do we go?”

“I know of this cool place, but it isn’t exactly a country club.”

“I’m ready.”

So we started to walk. After a few blocks of silence, Billy started to talk again.

“I have a question for you.”

“Ok.”

“Do you ever wish you had your old life back?”

“Well…I’d like to say no, but I do. In fact, I think about it every day. Before I ran into you, it was all I thought about.”

“Well, if you really want your old life back, then why haven’t you gone back?”

“Like I already said, I don’t think that it would be a good idea.”

“But you said you wished you had your old life..”

“No more talking about that.”

“But why, you really…” Billy was stopped abruptly by a large hand hitting his face.

“Oh my god, Billy I am so sorry, I have no idea what got into me. I am so sorry. You left your parents because of that, now I am doing the same thing. I am so sorry.”

“I understand, I am sorry that I pushed it.”

“No way, my fault…it is my fault, it isn’t your fault at all.”

“If it helps at all, what you did is nowhere near as bad as what my parents did.”

“I really hope they didn’t, but the point is it is all my fault and I should have never done that.”

“It’s ok, just don’t do it again.”

We continued walking, but there was no more talking, just a mutual silence. Finally Billy tried to change the mood.

“Tell me about this swimming place”

“Well, it has water in it.”

Billy playfully punched me. “Of course it has water.”

“It has a lot of shade, and comfortable grass.”

“Sounds fun, how far is it?”

“What, are you getting tired?”

“I’m not tired, I’m just asking.”

When we reached the swimming area, we were both tired enough to need a good swim. When they arrived, we looked around at the lush grass, and the beautiful water. Billy seemed almost too excited. But then his smile faded, and a worried look crossed his face.

“I don’t have a swimming suit.”

“Did you expect me to be that sophisticated? Do you have any extra clothes with you?”

“No.”

“Well that means that we are going to have to strip.”

And we stripped down to our underwear. I tried to get a closer look at the bruises on his chest, but I wasn’t quick enough and Billy jumped in before I had the chance. I was a little bit more cautious and was easing in slowly when Billy splashed me. I jumped in, and tried to splash him, but again, he was too fast. I looked around confused when I felt a hand on my back. I turned around and splashed in his general direction. I heard his playful cries when I didn’t feel any splashes in return, I stopped. I swam over to him, and let him catch his breath.

“Ok, ok I give...you win.” He panted.

We swam over towards the shore until we could both sit comfortably partially under water. It must have been a strange sight, a frazzled homeless man and a young boy, sitting half naked in a pond, talking. But hey, it worked.

“This is great. How many times have you come here?”

“Oh, I have only been here a few times.”

“Well, thank you for taking me here.”

“You are very welcome, thank you for giving me a reason to come here.”

“I’m sorry about pushing the subject earlier.”

“Please stop saying that you are sorry, when it was all my fault.”

Again, an awkward silence followed, but I think that signaled the end of talking about that subject, thankfully.

“How do people like you make money?” Billy asked.

“What do you mean, homeless people?”

“Yea.”

“Well, we usually hang out at street corners begging for money. Haven’t you seen beggars?”

“Well, I have, but I was wondering if you had any other was of making money?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“You haven’t tried at all?”

“Well, no, I didn’t really want to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just didn’t want to.”

“Then tomorrow, I know what we should do.”

“What’s that?”

“We need to get you a job. It would be easy, all we need is to get you in there.”

“I don’t think so, no, we don’t need to do that.”

“But why?” Billy was starting to put on his little kid attitude now, in order to get his way.

“I really don’t think that anyone would want to hire a person like me.”

“Oh come on, they don’t care, we are going to do that tomorrow.”

“We’ll see.”

“You know you want to.” Billy was goading me now.

Doing a little subject changing, I proceeded to ask Billy more about himself.

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Come on, we were talking about getting you a job.”

“And I said we’d talk about that later, but really, what do you like to do for fun?”

“I like to read a lot, and I like to write sometimes.”

“What do you mean sometimes?”

“In school when they make me write essays, those aren’t fun, but when I’m bored, I have a lot of fun writing stories.”

“That’s great, did you bring any of these stories with you?”

“No, sorry but maybe I’ll write one for you.”

“That sounds wonderful. Is there anything else you like to do?’

“Not really, those are the main ones.”

“This is crazy. I love to write also. When I was a kid, I really loved to write. I wrote a lot, but then I started to stop.”

“I hope I don’t stop writing.” Billy continued, “Why did you stop?”

“Well, things kind of started to get bad with my family. And I found myself running out of time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry? You are crazy.”

“I was just trying to be nice. You are just as weird as me.”

And we went on like that until he had used every insult we knew of. By that time, the wind had picked up, and we were starting to get chilly. So we eased ourselves up on the shore so we could dry off. We continued our conversation up on the shore while we were drying off.

“So kid, have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“I’m nine.”

“Hey, I was just asking. You might have.”

“No, but a lot of girls like me.”

“How do you know that?”

Come on, they told me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Whatever.”

“They really told you? In my day, they didn’t have the nerve.”

“Yep, they just told me.”

“Did you like any of them?”

“Oh, there was..no.”

“You sound like quite the lady’s man.”

“Remind me why we are talking about this?” Billy was visibly starting to get aggravated.

“Woh sorry, I didn’t know that was such a touchy subject.”

Billy was silent.

“Ok.” I remarked. I was amazed at his sudden change in mood. Earlier, he had been so happy. Now all of a sudden, he was getting defensive. Unable to think of anything to say, we both just sat there in our underwear on the shore. Billy was either mad at me, or like me, at a loss of words. Since I wasn’t occupied with anything else, I took this opportunity to examine Billy’s chest. The bruising wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was still bad. It looked like he had to endure a lot of pain in order to get these bruises. Why did they beat him, was the predominate question in my mind. Not that there is ever any reason to beat a kid. I decided to take my chances, and ask Billy about it.

“Billy, do you mind if I ask you some questions about your parents?”

It took him a second to react, it took him so long, that I was about to ask the question again when, “What about them?” Billy asked quietly.

It would probably be best to take it a little bit at a time, so I responded with, “Anything, just tell me more about them.”

“Well, my dad, he is a construction worker. He isn’t usually home, but he is sometimes home before I go to sleep. And my mom is a lawyer.”

“What else, what do you guys do together?” I realized my mistake, just after I had asked the question.

“Do we have to talk about this?” Billy was starting to look uncomfortable. I realized the connotations that the question would have for him, and I decided against pushing the subject.

“If you want to know, I’ll tell you, but I don’t really want to talk about them.”

“That’s ok, I don’t really want to know anymore.’

“Thanks.”

I guess I misjudged that one. It may be harder to get information from Billy then I had thought. We were finally dried of, so we redressed and set off to find lunch. We weren’t all too hungry, se we just started to wander with hopes of eventually finding a place to eat. After a few minutes, Billy voiced his suggestion, “How about a soup kitchen?”

“What?”

“I said, why don’t we go to a soup kitchen?”

“Because you are with me, you don’t want to go to a soup kitchen, trust me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to go to a soup kitchen?”

“It isn’t a good place. There aren’t good people there.”

“If there aren’t good people, then why are they giving free food?”

“I mean the people who eat there, they aren’t nice people.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They have some problems some even they can’t control.”

“What are their problems?”

“If you stop asking questions, we’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Weren’t you listening to what you said, we’ll go eat in the soup kitchen, just stay close to me when we are in there.”

“Why stay close?”

“Problems…”

“Oh, I remember.”

So on we walked until we came to the closest soup kitchen we knew of. The local Methodist church ran this one.

“Oh remember, stay close to me.”

“Gotcha.”

We opened the door and walked into a room with an interesting mixture of smells. Alcohol, cleaning supplies, and vomit, all missed in with the inviting aroma of beef. Odd world this is when we were welcomed, the one thing I had forgotten when I weighed the consequences, was the fact that I had recently acquired a child who should be in school right now. But Billy beat me to the punch on that one.

“Oh yeah, our school is doing a project where we find a homeless person and try to change their lives.” Billy said.

Our greeter pulled Billy aside and whispered in his ear, “Kid, watch yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

These people, they are unpredictable. If they are nice one minute they can be crazy the next.

“I trust him.”

“Well, then good luck to you. We’ll be watching.”

We slipped past the greeter, and found an empty table in corner of the room.

“That guy’s an idiot.” I muttered under my breath.

“If he’s like that, why does he work here?” Billy asked.

“People are weird…people are weird.”

“Are the homeless people like he said?”

“What, do you think I’m going to turn on you?” I added a “Boo!” at the end for effect.

“No, but are they? Would anyone be nice, then turn around and be mean?”

“There are some people in this world that would do that.” Now, we were both thinking about the people in our lives that matched that description. Billy was thinking about this parents, and I was thinking about my wife, my beautiful wife. Billy returned me back to this world.

“Look someone is coming.”

“Oh yeah, they are coming to take our order.”

“You can choose your food here? I thought it was just soup.”

“They usually have soup also but still, the menu is a measly selection.”

“Hello, today we have sloppy joes or tomato soup. Which one do you want?” the volunteer asked.

“We both want the sloppy joes I believe,” I looked over at Billy for verification and I supplied with a nod of the head. “Yes, sloppy joes, thank you.”

Billy was half-staring at another group of lunch guests sitting near the center of the room. It looked as if they were all wearing the exact same kind of coat. A long woolen trench coat. And they all had long, thick beards with chunks of sloppy joe as the last remains of an early lunch. Billy tried with all his might not to stare, but somehow his eyes kept going back to the center of the room.

“Billy…Billy.” It took him a while to register that I was talking to him, but when he did , he turned his head back toward me with that dazed look in his eyes.

“Huh?

“You were staring you are fine. I just wanted you to know that you were staring.”

“Oops, I didn’t really notice.”

“You’re fine.”

“I really have to pee, do you know where the bathroom is?”

“No, let’s ask him” I pointed to our server who was coming towards us with our Styrofoam plates of food.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the bathroom is?” Billy asked.

I was impressed with his courage. AS a kid, I never had enough courage to talk to anyone I didn’t know.

“Walk through that door by the kitchen, and keep walking until you reach the double doors. Right before the double doors, look to your left and you’ll see the men’s restroom.”

“Thank you.” Billing announced. He got up from his seat and almost ran to the door by the kitchen. I tried my hardest to wait for Billy before I ate my food, but it smelled so good. About ten minutes later, after finishing my sloppy joe, Billy wasn’t back. It was kind of weird, but I let it go until I counted the group in the middle and saw that one was missing. It might be nothing, but considering where we were, I needed to check. I walked through the door, and I instantly heard trouble. Over the sounds of the kitchen, I could hear Billy crying for help.

“Hold on Billy, I’m coming.” I yelled.

I turned right, and could see the entrance to the men’s bathroom. I burst open the door, and ran in. Standing in the corner of the bathroom was Billy and the missing man from the center of the room. The man had his arm around Billy’s neck, and was trying to shove Billy into the closest stall. The man was muttering something into Billy’s ear, but I couldn’t hear it. Billy was starting to cry now. For some reason, seeing somebody make Billy cry, really made me mad. I grabbed the guy’s arm that was around Billy’s neck, and wrenched it back. Billy broke free, and ran behind me. I punched the guy hard in the side of his face. I heard a hideous crunch as I broke some sort of bone. His drunken attempts at punching were almost laughable, but I wasn’t laughing. I got another punch in one his face before I grabbed him by his collar and shoved him down to the floor. His nose was bleeding, and the corners of his mouth were dripping blood. Billy was standing in the corner, still crying, and shaking from the combined shock of being attacked, then having me attack his attacker.

“Billy, turn away, don’t watch.” I yelled.

I watched Billy turn away and then I turned back to my victim,.

“I’m going to hit you for every second you touched my boy, Billy. I have decided to be nice, I’m going to say that you were only touching him for about, let’s say...two minutes. So that makes…one hundred twenty hits. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t wait for him to try to respond, and started to hit him.

“One..two..three..four..” With every hit, I could see the consciousness drain from him. Or maybe it was the life. After seven hits, Billy cried out, and ran over to me.

“Stop…please stop.”

“Why? He hurt you.”

“I know but...but I don’t want you to kill him.”

I looked Billy straight in the eyes, and saw fear in his eyes. I looked down at the man to see if he was anywhere close. His eyes were both starting to swell and now there was a puddle of blood pooling around his body. Billy was right, I had gone too far. It was crazy, I had almost never gotten in a fight, and now I almost killed a debilitated man because he was touching a kid I met less then three days before. I quickly washed my hands, then we left the bathroom. Billy tried to wipe the tears from his eyes, but wasn’t very successful. He was also still shaking. On the way out, I grabbed Billy’s plate because we would be more conspicuous if he tried to carry his plate. I looked back as we were leaving and saw that someone was trying to get us to stop, but we needed to leave the area, so I held the door open for Billy, then I grabbed his hand, and together we ran away. We ran until it felt like I was dragging Billy behind me. We slowed to a jog, then when I saw that no one was following, we stopped.We crossed the street into a little park where I figured we could talk a little easier. We found an empty bench near the center of the park, and sat down. Billy was still shaking a little bit, but it was probably from the run. We both were quiet except for the heaving of our chests while we were catching our breath. Then Billy spoke. " I see what you mean about their problems."