The Runaway

When I was 13 I ran away from home.

It started all very strangely. Earlier in the day I had gotten in trouble for taking some rare coins from my Dad’s collection and using them as currency towards multiple rounds of Asteroids at the local arcade. My father collected coins of all types, mostly American silver: Mercury dimes, Buffalo nickels, ancient quarters and the like. It was the quarters I was most interested in of course. I had been sneaking a few here and there for some time, and when it was discovered, I was given the spanking to end all spankings. As I sat crying in my room, I realized that I would make them pay, oh yes, I would make them pay for the insults given to my backside. I would run away from home.

After the punishment, my Dad went over to a neighbor’s house to help with a car repair issue. My Dad was and is very capable with things like and that and was always called upon to help neighborhood folks with mechanical problems. Mark was playing in the backyard and Mom was nowhere to be found. Grabbing my PeeChee folder from the side of my bed, I scrawled a hasty good bye to the world. I threw in the obligatory “you won’t find me, so don’t try” and “I know you don’t love me”. Of course they didn’t…why would they spank me over some quarters!

I grabbed the $1.75 I had stashed for future video fun and jammed it into the pocket of my shorts. Pulling on a tee shirt and sneakers, I furtively made my way down the hall, grabbing a roll of scotch tape out of the junk drawer. Tearing off a piece, I taped my getaway note to the front door and fast-walked down Ingraham street to where my future surely awaited. I cast thoughtful glances at the houses and landmarks that made up the street upon which I grew up, knowing that I would never see them again. Perhaps, after I had grown up in a world that understood me, I would come back to this place and to my parents, where they would clasp me in forgiving arms proclaiming to the heavens that they had been wrong all along, and that they were so happy to have me back. I would nod slightly, then leave again to let them ponder the child they had wronged.

$1.75. I guess my first thought was food for the trip. Although I knew that $1.75 wasn’t very much, I also knew that somehow good fortune would follow me. It had to. I was making my own life and following no one’s rules. Down Hickey Avenue, left on Webb to Lake Mead Boulevard.

At the intersection sat a 7-eleven store. Many were the summer days that we kids would ride our bikes here to get penny candy or sodas on our way to the junior high swimming pool. On Halloween, they would hand out free slurpees to kids in costume. The owner knew everyone and was always very kind. I made my way inside the store and went back to the cooler where they kept sandwiches. For 99 cents you could buy a turkey sandwich cut in half and stuffed into a triangular plastic pouch. I grabbed one, a bag of 25 cents Doritos and a 50 cent coke. I then realized, after my purchases, that I had 1 penny left over. Well, it didn’t matter. I had what I needed for now and the rest would take care of itself.

Down Lake Mead Boulevard I went. Why I chose this particular direction I don’t know. We had often ridden our bikes down this street on our way to Sunrise Mountain, the desert covered range not far behind our house. Or to friend’s houses. Or to 7-Eleven. I kept walking, munching on my sandwich. I wondered if my parents found the note yet. I feared that my Dad would come roaring up in his truck behind me, snatch me away from my sandwich, and take me to a place where all bad kids go. I didn’t really know what that place was, but I pictured myself later in life living a miserable existence, relegated to a life of crime, attending Vo-Tech, the Vocational school in the Valley that kids went to when they couldn’t handle real high school. In fact I was walking in that direction right now. Maybe it was fate.
But no…my dad didn’t show. Did I want him to? Did I want him to save me from myself? I don’t know. So I kept walking. Soon, I came upon the Bel-Air trailer park about 2 miles from our house. I was always fascinated yet horrified by trailer parks: did they not want a regular house? Could they not afford it? Did they go to Vo-Tech as kids and therefore not grow up with normal people? Are they eating 99 cent turkey sandwiches from 7-Eleven? Whenever we drove by with our parents, there always seemed to be stuff all over the yard; toys, water hoses, plastic wading pools. Why didn’t they put anything away? Not that our house was the model of neatness. Quite the opposite, in fact. But at least we didn’t live in a house on wheels. And didn’t tornados always target trailer parks? Not for me. Later in life (maybe a couple years later) I fell for a sweet girl from Butler, Pennsylvania named Alice Lunn. She was in 8th photography club with me and I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. Once, sh invited me over to her “house” and upon arriving on my bike, I realized that she lived in a trailer. I immediately made assumptions about her family and character, perhaps even about her sexual mores, if I even had thoughts like that at 13. Suffice it to say I didn’t like her after that, an attitude that thankfully did not last into adulthood or even much sooner.
I kept walking, past the barking, dusty dog chained to a wheel on the trailer, past the fake Astroturf “planted” in front of the trailers as a hopeful welcome, past the pink flamingos jammed into the dirt that covered everything.

Soon, my legs became tired. I sat on the sidewalk under a tree and sipped what was left of my warm Coke. Sandwich and chips long gone, I pondered what exactly I would do now? I watched the cars speed by, east and west, headed towards homes, work, friends, family.

Family.

Then I thought: what really had they done to me to deserve me running away? I knew what I had originally done in stealing the coins from my Dad was bad, so who was I to leave? The reality of the situation plus a sheer sadness over what I would be missing filled me, and I started to cry. I realized that in not seeing my Mom and Dad and Mark, I would be missing out on so much. So I started back.

Lake Mead Boulevard…left on Webb, right on Hickey Avenue. Then left onto the warm embrace of Ingraham Street. As I made my way home, I passed by Troy Shaw’s house. Troy was my best friend growing up and I heard his brother Scotty whisper “didn’t he run away?” “Quiet, Scotty” Troy replied protectively. My parents had obviously spread the word, but Troy had me innocent until proven guilty, as true friends do.

I approached my house. I crept up on the left side, ducked under the dining room window and through the gate. As I turned the corner and came into view on the patio door, I saw my mother on the phone with a wild, frantic look in her eyes. Suddenly, upon seeing me, as I slid the door open, I heard her say, “Wait..he’s home!”. She hung up the phone and ran to me in a smothering embrace. All I could hear her ask, as I fought back my tears is “why? why?” and I didn’t really have an answer. The crumpled getaway note was lying on the kitchen table. Looking over her shoulder I saw my father in the background with his arms crossed, looking grim and yet happy that I was home. I had shattered, for a few hours, the small yet important existence that he had tried to carve out for his family. Away from stepfathers and stepmothers on both of their sides of the family, away from bad influences, from drugs and predators, from bad grades and bad examples. This had shaken him, and I could tell that in body language and by his facial expression, which wore a concerned and devastated look. I left my mother’s impossible embrace and went over to him.

I’m sorry Dad

I know, Son. Just don’t ever do that again.

I won’t.

I knew that I could keep that promise, because he did not punish me in any way. No spankings, I wasn’t grounded…nothing. This confused me for a time. I had gotten spanked to the high holy for taking some coins. Wasn’t there some medieval torture that would be visited upon me for causing the family an insane amount of worry? After a while I realized that the disappointment my father felt in me and a way himself was enough…more than enough. That time truly was the end of spankings and transitioned into a time where his words and looks were more than enough.

I stayed in my room most of the day, then made my way out to the TV room, in an effort to guage whether I would be accepted into the good graces of all. My mother had fallen into an afternoon nap, driven to exhaustion as it were by the day’ events. My father and brother sat watching TV on the couch, and after sizing them up, I walked over and joined them. We sat there for a while, and then my father put his arm around me. I knew that I could never do anything so stupid ever again, because in the wild world of 7-Elevens, Vo-Tech kids and trailer parks, he was the one would save me from all…including myself.