Home From Chattanooga

Home from Chattanooga

By Anna Clay

I am a runaway. I started when I was four years old. I just wandered out of my yard and down the street while Mom had her back turned. My parents eventually found me, happily playing in my neighbor's sandbox. Despite the severe spanking, I continued to run away every chance I got.

By junior high, I had learned the fine art of skipping school, sort of a mini runaway. Even though I almost always got caught, those six giddy hours of being unaccounted for seemed worth it. After that, I graduated to sneaking out at night, walking through the neighborhood, dashing behind the bushes when cars came by.

It was in the summer between junior high and high school that I pulled off my greatest runaway.

A little after midnight on a Friday evening in July, I snuck out of the house and met up with my two best friends, Billy and Tom, in Old Man Peterson’s pasture. It was a warm evening, and we lay on our backs staring at the stars. The moon was low in the sky, and a light mist was rising. The rhythm of the frogs and crickets in the trees behind us lulled me into a state of sleepy contentment. I didn’t want this night to end.

“Let’s run away.” I said.

“Run away?” said Billy. He rolled over on his side, propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me like I was crazy. “Why?”

“I don’t know. ‘Cause we can, I reckon.”

“Sounds like a wiener to me.” Said Tom. He always said that, it was one of his sayings.

“Jeez, you guys are crazy.” Billy lay back down, putting his hands under his head.

“No, really.” I sat up. “Let’s run away, let’s go the mountains, and build a cabin. We can live off the land. You know, chop wood, carry water, all that stuff.”

“Hmmm…well, when you put it that way, it don’t sound like such a bad idea.”

We decided that we would sleep in the woods that night and hitchhike up to the mountains in the morning. Tom had three older brothers and he knew where their hangout was. Lucky for us, they had built themselves a little wooden platform and left a couple of sleeping bags and blankets underneath. We slept peacefully under the stars that night, dreaming of mountain adventures.

The next day we started out, taking the sleeping bags with us. We had about $30.00 between the three of us, and for some reason we thought that was plenty. We made our way to the expressway and stuck out our thumbs. We stood there all day, broiling under the hot sun. Finally a big ol’ semi tractor trailer truck stopped and picked us up. We rode with him up I-75 North until he pulled off at an exit out in the middle of nowhere and let us out. It was dark by then.

We spent that night in the grass alongside I-75, just outside of Chattanooga, only we didn’t know where we were. We were exhausted and hungry and had no idea how far it was to the nearest anything. We huddled together, listening to the sounds of traffic. Every once in a while a big truck would rumble past and it felt like the wind was going to roll us away.

Sunday dawned gray and still and warm. We were a pretty sore sight by then, bedraggled and dirty, standing by the freeway, making a halfhearted attempt at hitchhiking. So, it’s no surprise that the State Patrolman pulled over when he saw us.

We ended up in the Chattanooga juvenile detention center. I don’t know what happened to Billy and Tom, but a big black woman in a deputy’s uniform took me to the girls’ dorm. She made me shower with icky smelling soap and gave me an old dress to wear, then walked me down to the cafeteria. They fed us meat loaf, mashed potatoes, butter peas, rolls, and sweet tea, which was a lot better than the food I got at home.

After lunch, they took us to a big room, where we got to watch TV all day. I was pretty much the only white girl there, and at first I was little scared. Most of the girls were really nice to me though, and it didn’t take long before I was dancing to the sounds of the “Soul Train,” right along with them. It’s kind of funny, how I felt more at home there with those girls than I ever did at my own house.

Dad came to get me that night. He didn’t say a word to me, just walked out to the car and got in, shaking his head. He never did ask me why I ran away and I didn’t volunteer to tell him. He tuned the radio to the Braves game, and we both fell into the familiar rhythms of the announcer - 'the pitch, the swing, and it’s a strike' - neither one of us talking. I reckon that’s why baseball games last so long, to get a father and daughter home from Chattanooga.