Winter on the Run

Henry knows he is safe here. Just another kid among other kids. Lots of moms here too. Some dads with a mom, but no just dads. Got to be aware of everybody, but especially the moms. Dads don’t give a fuck.

The kid in the maroon parka is the one to watch. He’s about Henry’s size and age. Look at him! Running everywhere, sliding down the slide, swinging on the swings, climbing all over the jungle gym, back to the swings; the kid never stops. He will get tired soon, but before that he’ll get hot, start to sweat, then he’ll take off the parka. Drop it on the grass, or, better yet, on the sand behind the swings. The kid’s mom is deep in her book. Lots of moms occasionally shout things like, “Be careful Tommy! And “Not too high, Elizabeth!” This one sits and reads.

Henry keeps his distance. If maroon parka is on the slide, Henry is on the jungle gym, the monkey bars, or some place else the kid isn’t. Henry never lets himself be alone. He knows he’ll stand out. He’s the one child on the playground not wearing a jacket. Not yet. Though there is a jacket laying out there, Henry didn’t see who left it there. If you don’t know who left it, you don’t know who’s watching it. And it’s yellow. No. He’ll wait. He is not going to go through another night like the last one. He woke up freezing and covered in frost this morning. He's going to get a maroon parka.

He could have avoided all this. He knows it. For one thing, he should have planned ahead. He should have brought warm clothes. You don’t just leave home without a plan! Henry knows that now. Some food would have been a pretty good idea too.

Enough, he tells himself now. It’s done.

He keeps moving around. A little running, a little climbing. Can’t stand around out here and shiver. If he looks cold, someone will notice him in his T-shirt. And it is cold. He can see his breath. He heard one of the moms telling her daughter, “We can’t stay long, it’s too darn frigid!”

Henry thinks about that word as he climbs the ladder on the slide. Frigid! What a word! Henry knows his mother is frigid. He knows this from listening to his dad screaming at her. Whatever frigid is, it is not a good thing to be. Gets you a beating.

Mittens would be nice. Gloves. Something for the hands. Everything you touch on a playground is cold. The thing is, no kid's going to take off his mittens. Not today. He might take them off just long enough to remove his parka, but he'd be sure to put them right back on again.

Henry reaches the top of the ladder and sits down to survey the scene below. Every kid out here has on some sort of mittens and wool hat. What is it with wool hats? Henry never had a wool hat in his life. The second he thinks this, he realizes his ears are about to freeze off! A wool hat would be another good thing to have!

He spots the kid in the maroon parka. What the hell is he doing? He’s looking around at his feet, searching for something. He looks over at his mom and screams in a loud, panicky voice, “I lost my eye! I lost my eye!”

He lost his eye?

Henry and everybody else in the playground are now looking at the panic-stricken little boy in the maroon parka. His mother rushes to her son's aide. “Children! Billy has lost his glass eye!” Every kid out there stands perfectly still while their eyes search around their feet. They all look as though they're expecting to find themselves standing on something horrible. They all look for it, but nobody seems too anxious to actually find an eyeball.

Henry can't stay out here in the cold any longer. His time is now. He slides down the icy steel slide and makes his way without running to his secondary target. The yellow jacket looks forgotten. He's going to scoop it up and keep walking, but what does he find lying on the grass inches from the jacket? You get one guess. He stops cold. He can’t believe his rotten luck. It would have been the perfect grab!

Henry picks up the yellow jacket. He feels in the pockets hoping for a wool hat, but oh, no. He’s not that lucky. Well, you take what you get in this world and a girl’s yellow jacket is better than no jacket.

Still, he must decide. It’s either give the kid back his goddamn eyeball and go home to a beating or take the jacket and sleep like a baby behind the post office…

He knows the answer. Anyone who knows what it's like to be Henry knows the answer. With the jacket rolled in a ball hidden in his arms he walks slowly, without causing attention toward the rear of the post office where he plans to sleep like a baby.

855 Words