The heater blasted out its eighty-degree setting and I was still shivering. A record cold they say, but in Chicago, it was hard to believe that a day in history could be colder than today.
Everything thermal from my socks and underwear to my coat and mittens, and yet here I was shivering, pushing my six-year old Camry to the very edge. Every time I stopped, the engine sputtered like a wheezing old man, but I had to be out here; Justin ran away again. Now, of all days, temperature hovering around negative eight, windchill at negative thirty-two, and on this day, he decided to run again.
Streets were edged with four-foot drifts, the streets and sidewalks coated with black ice. Justin’s been at the shelter for little more than a week and this was the third time he’d run. Three times in a week! When I find him this time, I’m shipping his ass out to the Audy Home as an incorrigible. I don’t need this. The shelter had enough troubles without this crap.
As I spun around in the streets, I turned the corner at Thirty-Fifth Street near Cellular Field and there he was, sitting on the curb in his size-too-small threadbare coat, unlaced gym shoes, and no socks.
As I pulled over and got out, he didn’t move, a surprise in itself. Justin was a runner and here he sat like a fighter who couldn’t answer the bell, barely looking up. I knew he heard the Camry rattle to a stop.
“Justin!”
His head never budged, his body stone still. Approaching him, I received a different vibe. My anger transformed into an outlying curiosity of some sort.
He stood up, resigned to his fate, an emotion he never displayed in the short time I’d known him. Up until now, all I knew about him was his reticence and his obligation to run and run frequently. He was first found roaming the streets with clothes that could barely keep him warm. At the shelter he was quiet, moody, and left every chance he got. His silence was always irritating, especially at groups. The counselors were more than ready to declare him mentally unstable.
“What’s wrong?” He looked up to me, tears frozen on his face. His eyes red and swollen, his bottom lip trembling. I grabbed his arm and said, “Let’s get back to the shelter.” He snatched away from me and drifted down the street.
“What’s with you?” I screamed. He had yet to whisper a single word. He turned and started walking; not running, but walking. He tossed a look back at me, stopped and waited. I followed. He continued his journey into the Robert Taylor Housing Projects. These projects were slated for demolition, but a couple of the ten-story structures remained open while others were boarded up and abandoned.
Leading me to one of the abandoned ones, he pulled back a wooden slat and held it open for me to enter. I hesitated. This kid had done nothing in the time I knew him to foster any amount of trust, but for some reason that changed. I entered. The hall was littered with filth, animal excrement, used condoms, and hypodermics, a treasure trove of bad choices and broken dreams. Quickly he followed me in and led me up the stairs.
We ascended to the third floor and walked to apartment #312. The door already cracked open. The disarray and clutter overwhelmed me. Once inside, he didn’t hesitate and slipped into a backroom. My breath danced out of my mouth on slender vapors of the cold air.
In the back was a woman lying on a thin, worn mattress, covered in a thinner blanket, wearing a summer coat. The sight stopped me dead in my tracks. Justin knelt next to the form and looked at me. “My mother,” was all he said, then started crying uncontrollably.
I pulled out my cell and dialed 911. I got Justin into the other room while we waited and he told me the whole story of how they were evicted, how the police picked him up trying to find food for his sick mother. He didn’t want to tell anyone because he was scared that it would get her in trouble, so he remained silent and would escape the shelter in order to bring her food and water he stole from the shelter or shoplifted from stores.
The ambulance finally arrived. In the backroom they pulled back that blanket, they found the body of a child, no more than two or three years old, curled up next to her mother. The sight broke me to tears and I instinctively reached out and pulled Justin closer to me and hugged him, swearing to myself that this was one young man I would personally protect and care for as long as he was under my care.
Arnold Edwards graduated from Quigley South Seminary (1965) in Chicago, Illinois, and then from Southern Illinois University (1969) with a BA in history. He has authored stories appearing in Black Lace Magazine, Cricket, YAWP Magazine, Downstate Story, and Gemini Magazine, as well as several screenplays and teleplays.
We’re thankful for our Patreon supporters.
