The Long Path

  I was living in northern Virginia in the suburbs of Manassas Park, seventeen and full of a rebellious nature, when I decided that I no longer wanted to obey the rules that everyone wanted me to follow. Everyone being my parents, my teachers, and the local law enforcers. I hated them all.
  My parents and I couldn't communicate. It was me, my mother, and her husband, my stepfather. I had been removed from living with my father at age fourteen over a school yard incident involving me threatening a bully with a rather large fold out hunting knife an uncle had given me for my birthday. Call it fate or bad luck, I awoke late again for school and in a rush for the ever early school bus had decided to wear the previous days pants that were coiled loosely on the floor, with that knife still in the pocket that was used for whatever a free spirited kid with a knife, a huge plot of wooded land in the country and nothing to do, does. Threats were made, actions were taken, no one got hurt except for maybe some pride and urine stains, and I was suspended from school.   
  I remember the day well, as I was scared out of my wits, not so much for having the school principle come down on me but from the fear of having to face my father. My father, a man of few words when it came to discipline, could make you tremble in fear with a stare and make you run for the hills with his skills of a belt. Who in the end, thought it would be best if I moved to live with my mother. He dropped me off in the Greyhound bus depot, with a box of clothes, watched to make sure that I got on the bus and was gone from sight before I could take a seat and look out the window. No goodbyes, no good lucks, no try to make your life better speeches. Just gone. It would be three years before we would speak again.
  So, between the ages of fourteen to seventeen while living with my mother seems like it was one argument after another. I got into trouble for smoking cigarettes, for skipping school, was sent to juvenile detention hall for possession of marijuana, roaming the streets after curfew, and the like. So I was no stranger to the local law enforcement. As for my school issues, I could do the work well enough, and it wasn't so much that I had a problem doing it, I suppose I just wanted to cause some kind of disruption from not doing it.
  I was probably about six months into my school year, when I received the news from the principle that I would need to retake my final year of high school over again on account of missed days. Granted some of these were days that I had missed on purpose, but most of the days were accounted for being late to school. As was my habit on most days to awaken late, any time that you missed from a full day of school without a note of some kind was counted as a day missed. Regardless if it were five minutes or five hours. Not feeling the deep need to undergo another year of hell I soon dropped out of regular school and signed up for the GED program, which I never studied for, and passed with flying colors, which isn't saying a lot when your discussing Virginia's GED program.
  So it was not long soon after an argument at home would force me out into the world, out onto to the streets to defend for myself. I didn't have any friends to turn to, as I didn't have many friends in high school, and the few I did associate with had problems of their own. I did what I could to make do. I stayed in abandoned houses and wandered the streets, avoiding my usual hangouts so I wouldn't have to admit to anyone of the situation that I was in. Some days, I would wait for my parents to go to work and sneak into the house with a spare key that I had made, and steal what food and clothing I could, staying long enough to wrestle the cold from bones, and maybe try to get a quick shower. I'm sure my mother was privy to these actions, even though we have never discussed it.
  One day, as I sat outside a fast food restaurant using the building as a shield to fight against a brisk wind that found its way through two hooded sweatshirts and a knitted cap, with back pack out in front contents sprawled about as I tried to look for an extra pair of socks or something. A women emerged from behind me with a bag full of food, offering it arms outstretched as far as possible as if I would attack her like a rabid animal might. Part of me wanted to say no. Maybe it was my pride, maybe I was headstrong enough to believe that I didn't need to except her charity.
  These thoughts would soon vanish beneath the sounds my stomach would make from the smell of all those greasy cheeseburgers and golden fries. The heat wafting from the bag on that cold day was enticement enough, let alone the prize of food inside. Having to swallow your pride goes down easy, if you help it along with a mouthful of cheeseburger. So I accepted even though I felt ashamed. How pitiful a creature did I appear to warrant such charity? Although I knew my situation was of my own doing, I was greedy to accept her comfort. Any comfort, I proposed in those days, was better than none.
  The weeks following this, I found if I made my life more noticeable to people, with out having to stand with a sign or beg, they would bring me food, hot coffee, sometimes even cigarettes and alcohol. I would find areas of high foot traffic and plop down looking the most miserable that I could in the hopes that someone would take notice. Someone usually did. Granted there was probably no homeless youth in the area, let alone any homeless anywhere around there, so I'm sure I stood out well enough to make notice no matter how bad I made myself look. It was all I could think of on how to survive.
  I had ideas of getting a job, working till I could afford a place to live, bring myself up, so to speak. But those dreams were soon dashed apart after my first employment interview, staring at that big blank box on the application that wanted to know where I lived. I had never really thought about it before. I had worked part time jobs as a youth before leaving home, and had just always wrote my home address. But what did I write now? Would they send my paycheck stubs there? Would I get into trouble if I lied? Would they hire me out of pity if I didn't? I left before the actual interview started, scared and ashamed. How would I get to work on time, with no alarm to wake me? Different clothes to wear for everyday? Ha, I'm sure they smelled me when I walked in through the front door. So I was left to my own devices, as it were. I continued my usual routine of looking displaced among the normal people of society.
  Now, before you think this is an easy lifestyle, where people line up to lavish you with delicious food and drink, all the while you just lounge about waiting for the next meal, think again. If spending hours sitting in one spot, usually on the frozen ground, fighting the biting wind, while trying to frown and cry and looking most displeased until your face aches, all in the hopes that some random passerby might give you a piece of left over meal, cold as the winter day is, sounds like an easy way to live you are sadly mistaken. There were days I didn't eat. I had swallowed some of my pride, willing to accept a silent handout, but I hadn't found the ability to actually ask for money. Maybe I thought I was too good for begging for coins. Begging was reserved for homeless old men, wearing their dated clothing, smelling of filth, booze, urine, and things far worse. I was nothing like them, I was going to beat the odds. There were the nights i didn't sleep either. I would awake in the middle of the night, frost clinging to my clothes. My knees would pop and snap from being curled up for so long, chilled to the bone. Too cold to sleep, I would have to force myself to get up and move around, to get the blood flowing. I would often ponder lighting a fire in maybe an old metal bucket or something just to fight the chill back, but someone in passing might see the light, or worse, I could catch the place ablaze.
  It was usually at night, when I would break down and sob uncontrollably to myself. Alone and of having no idea what I was to do. I was not prepared for any of this, and it was a learn as you go process.
  Once, I had seen my mother in passing. Our eyes locked as she drove past me as I sat there in front of a strip mall trying to get another free meal. It felt like time slowed to a crawl, where there was nothing, just a void, me and her, mother and son, staring at each other. As she drove on I quickly jumped up and hid behind a large dumpster as she quickly made a U-turn and drove into the parking lot, searching for me. She parked and ran to the place where i had been sitting , asking shoppers as they walked past if they had spied to where I had fled. Why was I hiding? Surely she only had the best intentions for that meeting? Couldn't I run to her and hug her and be her son and all would be forgotten? Maybe it was shame I felt. Maybe it was anger. Maybe I knew my experiences couldn't be forgotten that easily, that it could never really be like it was before. With tears in my eyes, I ran off into the biting wind.
  A day later a old man with kind eyes, carrying several boxes and parcels stopped to sit on the bench I was using. Conversation was instigated on his part, but not of my obvious situation. Idle banter like two old friends was a comfort to me. I didn't talk to anyone, as their were no one to really discuss anything with. We chatted about the weather. Finally, he asked if I wouldn't mind helping him carry his boxes for him to his shop, which he would pay me for of course, as he stated he was old and wasn't long for this world in a joking manner. Now, part of me was put on edge, as images of things that might transpire as we arrived at his destination , but then another part of me thought, money would be nice, even if it was a few dollars to help this old man with his packages. And, even if things went to not my liking, surely I could escape the clutches of this old timer. So off we went, equally sharing the load, talking as we went to his shop that seem quite a bit father than just a few blocks.
  We arrived at a rather generic looking building. Possibly a storefront at one time, with a huge picture glass storefront window painted over from the inside. The heat was the first thing I noticed as we stepped through the doorway. After sitting in the cold all day,it was like stepping into a volcano. I put his boxes down and he thanked me for the help, and asked me to wait in the shop so he could find some money for me. He disappeared behind a curtain and left me to meander about the shop. There were tables, simple fold out ones and some shelves along the walls, but no items for sale. If there were items for sale, they were still packed up somewhere, because the room was full of boxes of different sizes, not really organized, just kind of stacked in places there was room.
  The old man returned, to my surprise, with a folded twenty dollar bill, and a cup of hot black coffee in a little styrofoam cup that I accepted, but didn't drink. I quizzed him about his shop, which really wasn't a shop at all, but a collection center for The Salvation Army. It was his job to accept donations, sort through the boxes and find items that people could use as opposed to stuff that no one could use. He had been homeless, was offered a job, and lived above the collection center, and basically worked for very little, but had a roof over his head and some spending money. The shop was also a place where they gave out vouchers for Greyhound bus tickets, to help people that were "displaced" get back home to their families. Then he asked me if I need to get back home, and before I could think I blurted out that I did. I don't know what I was thinking. I was home, in a sense. But maybe I could get away from here, away from everything.
  The problem with the free bus ticket is, you have to supply information of the family or relative that you're going back to. So you can't make up the story that you're from Florida and you want to get a bus ticket "back home" for free. So I gave them my fathers name and information, hoping that 3 years was long enough to forgive someone, I climbed aboard the bus a day later and off I went.