Kicks

I stared down at my kicks. Simple, no-name things. Worn. Blue and serviceable. They’d lasted many, many months. I’m not certain where I got them… the thrift store? Some friend who’s feet kind of were near my size? It didn’t matter now; they had protected my feet for hundreds of miles of biking and walking to and from my many jobs; they’ll last another bit.

Right now, they were at rest, these kicks of mine; seemingly separate, independent beings from my feet which filled them. Resting on top of the serviceable industrial grey running boards of the train rocketing me northwards, back to Massachusetts. Away from my hopes and dreams, and onwards to a long, dark journey home.

My gear surrounded me. Cluttered garbage bags, my backpack, a lonesome suitcase. Tran, my only friend, had stared down at me, askance, when he picked me up to drive me to the train. “No luck?” was all he had asked. He needn’t say more. My tears were enough. They filled me; my core seemed to be nothing more than a pool of hot wet stuff that would overflow at any given moment.

Tran loaded my gear into the boot of his car. My only friend after months in DC biking from one job, to the internship, to another job to try to keep the rent paid and power on in the run-down apartment I, and several other interns, were slumming in. Tran was a guy who needed his road bike serviced at the shop where I worked; he was also the only honest and truly kind person I had met.

He dropped me at the train station. Stopped me, before I ran away from everything, and held me by my shoulders for just a moment. Kind, warm eyes looking down at me. “You’re sure” was all he asked, one more time. And then he let me go… step by lonely small step, I checked my tickets and chucked my heavy gear into the train, and swallowed down the knot of failure and pain that seemed too big for my body to hold in.

I had one stop on the way home, on the way away from my internship that had consumed me these past many months. One overnight of unwelcome lonesomeness to collect whatever scrap was left of me at my university that was no longer my home. A victim of the American education system; my family had been judged too wealthy this year for all my many scholarships to sustain me any further, but without those grants and scholarships, I simply could go no further. There is no safety net for kids like me, the ones with no connection and aren’t the right kind of poor.

The train shuddered onward in the darkness. Around 2am I was ejected into the cool night air of Boston; now needing to find my way to my school for a 10am meeting where I was allowed a supervised collection of my belongings and then back to Boston for a final flight home.

Waiting for the taxi, I just collapsed onto the black metal bench. Hard, and cold, and a bit damp from the night. The air was acrid, in the way of cities. Moist air coating the nose, a kind of musky scent that stays in your nostrils and mind, damp on the bench.

I sat there for a time. Staring down at my kicks again. Now on red brick ground. Beautiful. Whoever made these roads. I admired their skill. The strength and work and labor it took to build them. These kinds of roads weren’t common back home. The suburbs of the West. For all it had tested me, I loved Boston. I loved DC. I loved the East. Going home was a failure of everything I had set out to do years ago, alone and with no money to my name. But, here I was.

As I sat there, I noticed a small black notebook. The kind schoolkids often tote around to write in. It sat, discarded on the ground. As though someone had intended it for the wastebin a little further over to my left. Lonely, sad little thing. Sitting there…its Moleskine cover shining with the dampness of the night.

I thought I should ignore it, at first. But, I mean. Why not read it? I picked it up. Breathed it – cold and damp, but not old or moldy. Likely it was discarded here earlier today.

I fanned out the pages of it. A journal… no, wait, a story. Someone’s love story? Pretty little hearts doodled in the margins; bubble letters artfully drawn and filled in with swirls and more hearts. Sweet and cute. Hm. I read it, so personal and invasive. I really ought not to. It was written clearly by a young girl with her first crush.

Wait. I paused, putting the pieces together. This journal belongs to a, a child. A girl who believes herself to be in love. My mind put out warning signals. My hands grew a bit damp as I thought what this might be. I flipped to the front, looking for anything identifying the girl. A name tucked in there. Chloe.

Chloe Simpson of Boston. Simple enough, but she seemed young by the entries in her journal; and full of love and naïve passion. I should know. Enough men had pressed me looking for more than was on offer.

The taxi is here. Up my kicks and I hauled ourselves; loading the boot of the cab and thinking how sad it is that it was nearly everything in the world to me and barely filled his trunk. On a whim, I tucked Chloe’s journal into my pocket. My mind was humming with the puzzle of this girl’s journal and the subtle clues that she had met a man online, a man she wanted to meet and see, someone she drew bubble letters and cute hearts over.

My flight’s not for 36 hours. I’ll just try to return her journal to her and know that everything is well and safe. The distraction energized me in a way. Chloe, somehow, seemed to me the fragile heroine in need of saving that I wanted to deny was my own story. I told myself stories about her the whole Taxi ride to school. Pictured her schoolgirl face. Some awful man steeling her away. Who knew?

The taxi dropped me sometime in the wee hours of the morning. What time was it? 3:30? 4? But the local corner mart was open; lights shining in the darkness. I stuck my hand in my pocket…lint. Rummaged around my pack a bit until I came up with around $1.50 in pocket change. Walked over there to get a soda, maybe a Snickers, we’ll see; and some information.

Got there with my bags of stuff. Okay, yea, I know I looked rough; burly guy behind the counter probably thought I was going to steal something. But I just got my Snickers, paid him fairly and asked for the white pages and the pay phone.

Found the page for Simpson. Geez. There were probably a hundred of them! I didn’t think I had enough coins to start making calls. Studying the addresses, I borrowed a map from the guy at the till and drew an imaginary circle around where I found the journal earlier. Five. There were five ‘Simpsons’ that lived in a two-mile radius of the bench.

Rummaging about in my pack again, I came out with four more quarters. Not enough to call all five, but maybe I’d get lucky.

The first two were nothing; no Chloe’s and wonderment at why I would call. The third, however, a woman whose voice was thick with tears answered. “Hello?” her shaky voice reached out across the lines and into my ears.

“Hi Mrs. Simpson,” I chirruped brightly, realizing I hadn’t practiced what I was going to say and was now going to stammer and sound inane. “Hi,” I repeated, “I, I know this may be random, but is this the residence of Chloe Simpson?”

The shriek and thump as the phone hit the ground on the other end told me I had found her family. I could hear muffled voices over the dropped phone; men, the woman who answered, and finally footsteps approached rapidly. A gruff voice picked up the line, “This is Officer Clemens, who is this?” He demanded of me.

“I, I’m, I’m…” whew, my hand was all sweaty, even my feet started sweating in my kicks. When was I ever going to stop stammering? “I’m Junior,” I finally replied, giving my nickname that most people had called me since about 9 when I stopped growing. The words blew out of me in a rush of syllables and breath, “I found this journal, you see, under the bench, and her name was in it, and I thought maybe she might be in trouble and I, I…” I trailed off. Realizing how stupid I was again. I didn’t know how to help this girl. I was a kid myself, just trying to not focus on my own problems but help someone else instead.

“Where are you,” the officer responded, “I’m coming to get that journal from you.”

An hour later, I found myself facing a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee in a diner down the way and a short, gruff Officer Clemens across from me scowling down at the journal I found. “Why’d you think she was in trouble?” He asked me.

I explained the shorthand way girls talk about boys, the notes on the side margins, the swirly letters and the way she wrote the mans name. I said, I thought maybe she was a kid like me; younger, most likely, but caught up with an older man. “B…but,” I stammered still, thinking again that I was just foolish, “I don’t know, it was just a feeling.”

A good feeling, apparently. The Officer started making calls, while I was grateful for my breakfast. Turns out, he knew the guy. Repeat offender, luring young girls and selling them upstream after getting them hooked on heroin or crack. They knew where to find her, thanks to my finding the journal.

I wished him the best and thanked him for the breakfast. My belly full and my heart content, I turned to face the nightmare that would shape the rest of my day.

I felt a clap of a hand on my shoulder and turned to look up at the officer. “I’ll give you a lift,” he said, and on the way pried the story out of me about where I was going and why. I explained about the scholarships, how they were pulled because my parents had gotten a raise the year before. Not enough to help me pay for schooling, but enough to disqualify me as poor. I said my goodbyes and my thanks again, and glad they were able to find the girl and return her home. I sincerely hoped the best for her and her parents.

Slowly I made my way to the meeting I dreaded, where I was to confirm I didn’t have the money required to stay in school and withdraw.

Walking into the office, I heard murmuring. The secretary made me wait in front of her desk. Once again, I found myself staring down at worn out kicks.

“Come on in here,” came the call from the secretary, “I have some interesting news.” “Did you help a family in Boston with their daughter earlier today?”

Yes, I nodded, mute.

“Well, her father is a wealthy man, and has offered to pay the amount missing from your tuition next year and until you finish up.”

This is the point where I faint, and my kicks point skyward. Mr. Simpson paid the full $20,000 to see me through to completing my degree. Chloe and I became the kind of friends some call family.