Finding Me (4 page)

As I walked, I thought about how I could make it on the streets. In order to last out there, I knew I had to get some stuff together. So one day while I was wandering through a neighborhood, I saw a bat that some kid had left in his front yard. Without even thinking, I snatched it. That evening I returned to the park and slept with all ten fingers wrapped around it. This was my new weapon.
If anybody comes after me
, I thought,
I’m gonna take ’em out!

After three more nights under the bench, I knew I needed to find a warmer place. I was freezing my butt off. To ward off the cold, I put on every piece of clothing in my bag and wrapped that thin fleece blanket around my shoulders. But even after I did, the cold still cut through all those layers. And I was also pretty scared to be sleeping alone in a park—more like
terrified
. So with my bat gripped tightly in my hand, I started roaming the streets to look for a place where I could set myself up. That’s how I found the bridge.

Actually, it wasn’t really a bridge—it was more like a highway overpass. In fact, I had to scoot down some grass on a steep little hill just to get underneath it. Once I made it down there, I knew right away that it was exactly what I was looking for. Private. No cops. And no other homeless people already down there. Every time a car whipped by on the freeway above, the overpass shook.
Even better
, I thought. I figured the loud sound from the engines would drown out any noise I made.

Later in the afternoon I laid my bag and bat on a short row of bricks beneath the underpass, and I slept. For five hours straight. Yes, it’s dangerous for a girl to sleep under a bridge, but it felt a helluva lot safer than sleeping under a park bench! Plus, when you’ve been in bed with a sicko, you’re not used to feeling safe. I hoped the bridge was outside of town, but I did know that it wasn’t too far away from where my parents lived. It seemed like my dad had driven us around the area before. I just hoped I was far enough away so they wouldn’t find me.

When I awoke that night, I looked everywhere through a nearby neighborhood for something else I could use to protect myself. In the backyard of one house there was a huge blue plastic garbage can with a lid.
Heck, yeah
. There were no lights on in the house, so I took my chances that everybody was gone for a while. I tipped the can to dump it and dragged it across the yard and onto the sidewalk. It was almost as tall as me, so I had a hard time lifting it. I had to be careful not to make noise so I wouldn’t wake up the whole neighborhood. Finally I got it all the way back to the grassy hill. I rolled it down the hill and watched it come to a stop, and then I crawled down after it.

Late that night I turned that can into my bedroom. I left it on its side so I could scoot in. Once inside, I spread my fleece over me. Only my feet hung out over the edge. I was a little bit warmer inside the can, but it was still cold. My teeth chattered and my stomach growled. I wondered what was happening to Eddie and Freddie, left behind at the latest house we’d moved to.
Who was taking care of them? Who was making sure Mikey got bathed and fed?

To distract myself, I pulled out a notebook and pencil from my backpack. Holding the paper up to my face in the pitch dark, I drew one of my favorite things, a butterfly—or at least I thought I did. When I looked at the page the next morning, it didn’t look too much like a butterfly. It looked like a two-year-old had scribbled on it.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was starving. Other than a turkey sandwich I’d ripped off from a grocery store a couple of days before and a few scraps of food I’d found here and there, I hadn’t eaten a crumb. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten it was Thanksgiving; when you’re homeless, you tend to lose track of time. It’s not like you have a calendar, and I didn’t own a watch. Anyway, that morning I happened to pass the Baptist church. The delicious smell of cooking coming from the open front door made my mouth water. That’s the real reason I stopped.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” the tall black man asked after he followed me downstairs to the church’s dining hall.

“My name is Michelle.” I didn’t look him in the eye because I was embarrassed about how funky I smelled. I hadn’t bathed since I’d left my house seven days before. My brown shoulder-length hair was matted on one side, and the other side was sticking out all over. My black T-shirt was covered with lint and dandruff. “You know what?” he said. “I might have a coat that fits you. After you eat, why don’t you come with me and we’ll take a look?”

“Thanks,” I said, looking directly at him for a second. For a minute I wondered why he was being so nice to me, but then I realized he was just a friendly church type.

I stuffed my face at the southern-style buffet. The crispy fried chicken was so good, it practically melted on my tongue. I dug into mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I sampled the baked macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and corn. And the biscuits! I must have gobbled up five or six of them. For some weird reason there was no turkey, but I didn’t care. I ate so much, I had to unbutton the top button of my jeans. As soon as I devoured the first plate, I went back for a second. Then a third. I didn’t want to look greedy, but I didn’t know when the next time would be that I could eat again. And everything was delicious; it seemed like the best meal I’d ever had in my life.

As I was cramming in another buttermilk biscuit, the man with the triangle haircut stopped by. “People tell me I look like Arsenio Hall because of my hair,” he joked. “Do you think I look like Arsenio?”

I smiled, nodded, and put another bite in my mouth.

“Slow down there, honey,” he said. “If you eat any faster, you’re gonna hurt yourself!” I kind of laughed with my mouth full of biscuit.

When the dinner was over, Arsenio kept his promise—he went to a bin of used clothing and pulled out a puffy orange coat with a hood. It was at least three sizes too big, and it hung down past my knees. But when he gave it to me, it was like he handed me a check for a million bucks. That’s how amazing it was to go back to the bridge with an extra layer. Plus a full stomach. And a little bit of hope that maybe the whole God thing wasn’t just a bunch of bull.

That day the church workers sent us off with another gift—a bag of stuff that local charities had donated. There was a comb, a little bottle of shampoo, a toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste. Do you know what it’s like not to brush your teeth for
days
? The inside of my mouth felt like I’d spread a stick of butter all over it. It was gross. I took the bag of stuff back to my trash can and put it in the back of the bin. I wanted to make sure no one stole my new prizes.

That night at Thanksgiving dinner one of the volunteers had made an announcement that the church gave out a free meal every weekday at around 5 p.m.
Sweet
. That was the main reason I went back the next evening. And the next. And the next. In fact, hardly a day went by that Arsenio and the other members didn’t see me hustling down the street trying to make it there in time for dinner (like I said, I didn’t have a watch!).

I even started going over there on Sunday mornings. They didn’t serve food then, but there was music. And it was just beautiful. I stood in the back as the choir sang “Angel of Mine.” I had never heard anything like it. Their voices wrapping around the melody lifted my soul, and for a few minutes I was able to forget about my desperate situation. When those men and women in robes swayed and sang, something warm and happy brimmed up in me. I felt soothed and calm, uplifted even. People in the pews turned to smile at me and at each other. At that moment I felt connected to every single person in that church.
If there
is
a heaven
, I thought,
this must be how the choir there sounds
.

“Come on in here, girl!” a couple of the older women told me one morning when they saw me standing in the back. Their smiles looked so kind, but at first I didn’t want to sit next to anyone. After a couple of weeks, though, I began scooting onto the last pew to listen to the service. From there I figured most of the people probably couldn’t smell me. After that I started cleaning myself up a bit beforehand in the church’s small single bathroom.

How do you take a “bath” in a church restroom? Let me explain. First you lock the door. Then you get a stack of paper towels. Next, if you’re as short as I am, you empty the trash can and scoot it over to the sink so you can stand on top of it. From there you turn on the faucet, dip your head under the running water, and rinse it the best way you can. The whole time you pray that no one will knock on that door or shout out to ask why you’re taking so long.

You quickly use paper towels to dry your hair and face. Then you wet more towels to wipe down the funkiest places on your body. After that you put the trash can back, snatch up all the paper from the floor, and stuff it into the can. On your way out you grab a bunch of paper towels you can later use to stuff down in your pants during that time of the month. Then you sneak back into the church with your hair still a little wet, hoping that “Angel of Mine” is coming up next.

I could have taken a quick bath in a restroom at a McDonald’s, but I didn’t want to chance it. I figured that if I did my bathing at a church, I might not get thrown out if someone realized what I was doing. Church people are usually nicer than that. In fact, some of the ladies probably knew I was washing off in there, but they never said anything about it. On most weekends I was able to clean up a little in their bathroom. Plus I got to eat a lot of scrumptious fried chicken and hear the best music I’d ever heard in my life.

M
Y
PLAN
TO
KEEP
to myself had worked out: no one ever bothered me under that bridge. But all of that changed late one night.

“I see you’re in need of money.” It must have been a long time after midnight when I heard a man’s voice from inside my trash can. My eyelids snapped opened. I grabbed my bat and scooted to the edge of the bin, with just my head sticking out. I was ready to jump up and swing at whoever this was.

A guy was standing there. From what I could make out in the darkness, he looked like a mix of black and Latino. He had on a black leather jacket with some baggy jeans and sneakers, and he was about six feet tall.

“Wait a minute—you don’t have to do that,” he said when he noticed me clutching the bat. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

I stared up at him.

“How old are you?” he asked.

I don’t know why I answered him, but I did. “I’m fifteen,” I told him. “Why do you need to know that?”

In the moonlight he had one of the whitest smiles I’d ever seen. “By the way, I’m Sniper,” he said. “I might have a job for you, but I needed to know how old you are.”

I figured a homeless person was only ever offered two jobs: a gig that came with sex or drugs. “I guess I don’t have to ask where you got that name,” I told him. “Do you go around beating people up or something?”

He laughed. “You’re so funny,” he said.

I didn’t see what was so funny, especially when a strange guy was standing in my spot. I wasn’t sure if I should climb out of the trash can and try to run or stay inside and hope he’d go away. Then again, he didn’t give off a violent vibe, so I decided to stay in the can for another minute.

“I sell weed and E,” he added. “I’m looking for a runner.”

I don’t know if I want to screw around with something like this. It could get scary,
I thought. But I was broke. I was starving and cold as hell. And I felt desperate for some money. Maybe I could just do it long enough to get together some cash for my own place.

“Why don’t you come with me and we’ll talk about it?” he asked.

I crawled all of the way out of the bin and got up on my feet, staggering a little because my legs were numb from the cramped way I’d slept. I stuffed my things into my backpack, tied the fleece blanket around my waist, and looked at him.

“What’s your name?” he asked, eyeballing me up and down the way people do when they’re trying to figure out if I’m a dwarf.

“It’s Michelle.”

“Follow me,” he said. I’m not sure why I trusted him; I just had a gut feeling that he wouldn’t hurt me. You would think I would’ve been scared out of my mind, and looking back on it, I should have been. But I was so sick of sleeping in a trash can and never having enough to eat that I was desperate. So I followed him up the grassy hill.

On the other side of the overpass he walked me to where his car was parked. The windows were completely tinted—a definite sign that he really was a drug dealer. He then opened the back door and pointed for me to climb in. I did.

“I’m on my way to do a deal tonight,” he said. “I want you to stay real quiet in the backseat, okay?” I nodded. “There’s no reason for them to know you’re with me. Later on I’ll take you to my place.” He shut the door, opened the driver’s side, and slid behind the steering wheel. In the car’s interior light I saw that he was probably around eighteen years old.