In the front seat Anthony turned around to me. “The police station, remember?”
I nodded. Outside, tears were streaming down the old woman’s face while she smothered her granddaughter in a bear hug. In the car, Anthony motioned for me to wait before we got out. I guess he wanted Tears and her grandma to have some time alone.
After a while we got out of the car, and Tears introduced us to Grammy Emma, who couldn’t stop thanking us for bringing her granddaughter home. Then she invited us in. She tried to call Tears’s mom to tell her Tears was okay, but there was no answer. We sat in the kitchen of the trailer. The window had white curtains and was lined with little flowerpots. Grandpa David shuffled in using a cane. He was a tall, bent man with a big hooked nose and big ears and strips of white hair on the sides of his head.
Grammy Emma served us milk and sugar cookies with different-colored sprinkles. She offered Anthony coffee. He asked for tea and she put water on. She talked about the cucumbers and Zucchinis and green beans she grew in her garden the previous summer, and the ribbon she won at the county fair for best strawberryrhubarb pie. She talked about the new medicines that were making Grandpa David feel better and shake less. She seemed really happy but tense. Tears didn’t say a thing. Grammy Emma didn’t ask her about New York City. She didn’t talk about Tears’s mom and stepfather or what Tears would do now that she was back in Hundred. You could see she was trying really hard to make Tears feel comfortable, but her talking so much just seemed to make everyone uncomfortable.
Anthony finished his tea and I finished my milk and cookies. Almost a whole day had passed and my stomach didn’t hurt once. Now it was time to go. Tears wrinkled her forehead and started to bite her lip. You could see she was worried about being left alone with her grandparents.
“You sure you don’t want to stay the night and get a fresh start in the morning?” Grammy Emma quickly asked Anthony. “We’ve got room.”
I think she was scared that Tears was going to change her mind and want to go back with us. But also scared about Tears staying there. Anthony glanced at Tears and looked like he didn’t know what to say.
“It’s okay, Grammy,” Tears said. “It’s a long way back. They should probably get going.”
“You sure?” I said. “I guess we could stay.”
“No.” Tears shook her head. “This is something I know I have to do.”
I stared at her for a moment. I don’t think I ever realized how brave she was until she said that.
She and Grammy Emma walked us out to the car.
“Will I ever see you again?” Tears asked.
Right up till then it didn’t occur to me that we might not see each other again. But somehow I knew it would probably be that way. I’d go back to New York and she’d stay here. We’d be too far away from each other. I felt a pang in my chest. So this was the real end of our little asphalt tribe. It was still hard to believe what had happened to everyone. Maybe I wouldn’t have believed it. Except I’d been there. I’d seen it. I’d … lived through it.
Why had I lived and not 2Moro? Or Rainbow? Who knew why? Maybe it was just luck and nothing more.
Tears was waiting.
“I’ll call you,” I said.
We hugged, then Grammy Emma hugged me and she got all teary again and said, “Thank you so much again for bringing Nikki home.”
I got in the car with Anthony. We waved good-bye to Tears and Grammy Emma and backed out of the driveway. I rolled down the window and waved until they were out of sight. Then I turned forward and watched the road. They were gone. Tears, Rainbow, Maggot, Jewel, 2Moro, OG, Pest, and Country Club. Two to homes where people loved them, two to hospitals or the nut house, and four to unmarked graves in places where no one would ever find them again.
“Are you happy for Tears?” Anthony asked as he drove.
“Maybe.”
“You’re sad?”
“It’s nice to have someone who cares about you,” I said.
“Don’t you think anyone cares about you?” Anthony asked.
“Not the way Grammy Emma cares about Tears.”
Anthony didn’t say anything for a while. We passed lots of farms. Lots of bare brown fields and tall blue silos and farmhouses with gray satellite dishes on windowsills.
“You’re right, Maybe,” he finally said. “It could be that in your life right now there is no one who cares about you the way Grammy Emma cares about Nikki. That’s something only family can give, and if you don’t have family, you don’t always get it. But it doesn’t mean you can’t care about you. You’re a good kid and you’ve had some bad breaks in life. But you can still make it. All you have to do is try.”
“It’s hard to try when no one else cares,” I said.
“I care about you,” Anthony said. “And I’ll tell you something interesting. If you care about you, then other people will start to care about you too. People like people who care about themselves.”
I wasn’t sure I understood that, but I was thinking about something else. “Could I turn on the radio?”
Anthony sighed. I guess he was imagining another eight hours of the same music we made him listen to on the way to Hundred. “Sure. Go ahead.”
I pushed the buttons until I found a song. When that song ended I found another song. The music was like food to my ears. If I didn’t like one song I could pick another station. It was so easy and so much fun. After a while I looked at Anthony. He was grinning.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You can’t get enough of it, can you?” he said. “It’s such a simple pleasure, but you’re so completely absorbed in it.”
“I don’t usually get to pick the music,” I said.
“Maybe, listen.” Anthony got serious. “If you lived somewhere—I mean, practically anyplace with a roof—you could have all the music you wanted. It’s free. All you need is a radio. Didn’t they have music at the Youth Housing Project?”
“I guess.”
“If you lived there you could have it all the time.”
I turned to another song. Living there meant obeying those stupid rules about when I had to eat and sleep. Then again, at least I’d have a bed. And getting food wouldn’t be a job that sometimes took all day. They’d just serve it.
It started to get dark. Anthony held the steering wheel with one hand. He yawned and covered his mouth with the other. “You hungry?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t think we can make it all the way back to the city tonight,” he said. “We should probably stop around Lancaster and have dinner and find a motel. Then finish the trip tomorrow.”
“When we get back could I live in your apartment?” I asked.
Anthony didn’t answer right away. I guess the question caught him by surprise, the way it came out of nowhere. I was kind of surprised myself. Finally he said, “That’s quite a request, considering I don’t even know your real name.”
“Jesse.”
Anthony smiled. “That’s a nice name.”
“So could I?”
“To be honest, Jesse, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Besides, I’ve lived by myself for a long time and I’ve gotten used to it. I think the right place for you is the group home. They can teach you all the things you need to know.”
“But then I have to follow their rules.”
“Yes, for a while. But when you get out, you can make your own rules. At least some of the time.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like you could get a night job and sleep all day if you wanted. Or you could get a day job and skip breakfast. And you wouldn’t have a curfew. You’d get to decide how much sleep you needed.”
It was dark now. All we saw were the car lights and the signs along the side of the highway.
“The world’s big, Jesse,” Anthony said. “There are lots of places to live, and lots of ways to live. What you have to do is find the place that’s right for you.”
A bright g
reen sign high above the trees on the side of the highway said something about Lancaster. Anthony steered the car toward the ramp and started to slow down.
“Can we go to the ocean?” I asked.
“What?” Anthony asked, like he thought he hadn’t heard me right.
“The ocean. Can we go see it?”
“When?”
“Tomorrow?”
In the dimness of the car Anthony pressed his lips together. “Are you serious?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I guess we do have to go through New Jersey on the way home. Why do you want to see the ocean, Jesse?”
“I just do.”
“It’s the middle of the winter, Jesse. It’s going to be very cold.”
“So? I’m homeless, remember? I’m used to that.”
We spent the night in a motel. Anthony got a room with two beds. In the morning we drove to a place called Belmar in New Jersey. It was a cold gray day and Anthony drove through the empty town to an empty parking lot. Next to the parking lot was a long wooden sidewalk with some benches, and on the other side of that was the beach, and past that were waves and the most water I’d ever seen.
I stared through the car’s windshield.
“What?” Anthony asked with a puzzled grin.
“You can drive right up to the ocean?” I asked.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought it wasn’t allowed. Can I go?”
Anthony looked through the windshield. The sky was one shade of gray. The ocean was a darker shade. The waves crashed into dull white foam on the shore. “Be my guest.”
I got out of the car. A chilling wet wind blew off the ocean and right through my clothes. It smelled salty and a little fishy. I gritted my teeth and crossed the wooden sidewalk to the beach. The waves crashed and sea spray flew into my face. My shoes sank into the sand, so I pulled them off and left them where it was dry. I walked to the edge where the sand turned dark with seawater. It was icy around my bare feet, but I didn’t care. That detective was right. This wasn’t like seeing it on TV. This was feeling and smelling and hearing and tasting. Not like anything I ever imagined. Different from anyplace I’d ever been.
A big wave crashed and the suds raced up the beach and around my ankles. I felt the icy chill and my feet sank deeper in the wet sand. My teeth were chattering, but I didn’t want to leave. I knew I was feeling something I never felt before. Anthony and that detective were right. There were probably a lot of different ways to live. And probably a lot of different places, too. Maybe it wouldn’t be a pretty trailer with green trim like Grammy Emma’s, or an apartment with yellow curtains like Anthony’s, but it didn’t have to be the street, either. Maybe OG was wrong. Maybe, if you tried, you could get somewhere.
“Jesse?”
I turned around. Anthony was standing on the beach with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Come on,” he said. “Before you get sick.”
“Okay.” I turned back up the beach. My feet felt numb and I couldn’t stop shivering. But the funny thing was, I had a feeling I wouldn’t get sick. I might even get better.
Todd Strasser, Can't Get There from Here
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