Authors: Edward Lazellari

Awakenings (36 page)

“Running away?” said a voice beside Daniel.

Stinky’s breath traveled like a cloud of sewer gases—everything about this man was rancid. This guy would sell him out for a sandwich and a bath if he got the chance.

“Visiting my aunt,” Daniel replied.

“I had an aunt once,” the man said.

Daniel pretended to read the newspaper.

“I ran away once, too,” Stinky continued. “I was a little older than you, though … seventeen. Went to California. Life was good. I partied and screwed to my heart’s content. You going to California, kid? ’Course, it isn’t like the way it was when I was there. Flowers, free love, and few Republicans.”

“Wasn’t Reagan a Republican?”

He looked at Daniel with a spark of admiration. “You’re pretty smart for a punk-ass kid. What the hell you running away for? Stick around here and finish school, you might get into Johns Hopkins or something.”

Do they have an annex in Costa Rica?
Daniel wondered.

A police officer approached their bench, his twenty-year love affair with the doughnut evident as it hung over his belt.

“Hey kid, you traveling alone?” he asked.

Daniel’s heart dropped to his stomach and lodged in his throat at the same time.

“Kid’s with me,” Stinky said.

“Yeah, right,” the cop said. “You running away, kid?” the cop asked Daniel.

“I said he’s with me,” the homeless man repeated.

“This true?” the cop asked Daniel.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. Stinky was going to want something for this. Fair enough.

The cop did not look convinced.

“Officer,” the homeless man said, “this is my sister’s kid. I … I fell off the wagon. I’m not the best example of a righteous citizen. He came down here to get me.”

“Where are you headed?” the cop asked.

“Washington,” Daniel cut in. He regretted giving that much away, but he had the ticket as proof and he couldn’t afford to get arrested.

“May I see your tickets?” the cop ordered.

Daniel waved his pass and tried to think of an explanation for Stinky. To his surprise, the homeless man pulled out his own Greyhound bus ticket. The cop scrutinized the tickets before handing both back to Daniel.

“You better hold on to these, kid,” he said. “Your uncle’s liable to cash them in for a pint.”

Stinky laughed.

“Okay,” Daniel said, confused. He looked at Stinky’s ticket: Washington, D.C., at 10:20
P.M.

As soon as the cop left, he handed the man back his ticket. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You look like a kid who could use some time to sort things out.”

“Is it that obvious?”

The man shifted his weight on the bench and sat upright.

“Cop thought so,” he said. “Look, it’s none of my business why you’re taking off. I had my reasons when I was younger and you have yours. But the world’s a fucked-up place, kid. Sometimes traveling with a friend makes it a little better. I’m heading south. You’re welcome to come with me for as long as you want. There’s a hot meal, a shower, and a bed in North Carolina if you want it.”

“What’s in North Carolina?” Daniel asked.

“My sister’s place. Except, I kind of ran out of money and have to thumb it from Washington. Every little bit helps, right? Maybe we’ll get lucky and pick up a ride.”

Not with your stench,
Daniel thought. The guy was smart. Daniel had enough money to buy food along the trip, and friends don’t let friends go hungry. Stinky had earned his meal ticket. If not for him, Daniel would be on his way to a police station now.

“Okay,” Daniel said. “For now.”

The man put his hand out to the boy. “What’s your name, kid?”

Daniel hesitated, wondering if the stench would rub off on him. Ignoring the hand would be an unceremonious way to begin a new partnership. He shook Stinky’s hand, which was cold and clammy. “It’s Daniel.”

“Daniel. Dan. Dan the Man. Good to meet you, Dan.” Stinky shook Daniel’s hand heartily. “I’ve got a good feeling, Dan. Yessireebob, a good feeling. Helping you out will be like a karmic repair patch to my troubled and not so noble life. Just want to say thank you. You’re helping me put my life back in order.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Daniel said, feeling like he’d missed something esoteric. “Uh, what should I call you, Mister…?”

“Dretch. But my friends call me Colby. Yessiree, Dan the Man, everything from this day forward is going to be just fine.”

EPILOGUE

The hum of the bus on the road had a soothing effect on Daniel. Or perhaps it was just the act of being in motion—moving away from the place that had caused him so much grief in his life.

The effects of the episode at the station had worn off. The speed with which it overcame him was troubling. The last thing he needed was health problems. There was more to it than just anxiety, though. Those images were as real as memories—as though recalling an experience. Daniel had a good recollection of his past until he was about three. He didn’t remember any of that stuff during the incident.
What was happening to him?
He rested his head against the window using his rolled-up sweater for a pillow.

His new friend Colby slept in the seat next to him. There was something crafty about him—the way he talked—as though he knew more about the situation than he was letting on. At the same time, there was something comforting about having him on the aisle, like a sentinel positioned between Daniel and the world.

The man’s smell was not as bad as when they had met; though reactions from the passengers passing Colby on their way to the toilet in back suggested Daniel had only acclimated to the stench. That was fine by him. Lots of fine-smelling people had let Daniel down in his thirteen years. One trustworthy companion, if that’s what the man turned out to be, was worth a rank whiff.

The stars were bright against an inky sky over the Parkway between Baltimore and Washington. Mankind used to look into the heavens for portents of the future, but the light, traveling incredible distances, was actually a cosmic fossil of a billion years past. Whatever civilization circled a star by the time its light touched our eyes was probably long dead. Still, Daniel concluded, a talent for divination would have been useful—his future looked like a blank page, and he had no pen.

Everything that lived came from the spark of a great fire ignited long ago, a big bang. The universe existed in a cycle of expansion and contraction, recycling itself from its own dead matter over an incalculable number of years. One day, the sun would go nova, destroying the solar system, and the spent matter would collect into clouds that would at some point form a new star. If this was the way of the universe—a destructive end in order to begin anew—then why not the same for Daniel? Why couldn’t
he
rise from the ashes of his own past?

“Stuck in a cycle?” Colby asked.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Daniel responded. “Thought you were asleep.”

“Don’t have much use for sleep,” Colby said. “I might have more than I bargained for soon enough.”

It was the first thing Colby had said that had the gravity of unadulterated truth.

“You sick or something?” Daniel asked.

“In a way. We all have our crosses to bear. Yours is fairly obvious.”

“Really? What’s my story?” Daniel asked. He was intrigued by the man’s level of insight. There was more to this bum than what he projected.

“The cops want you for something.”

Daniel regretted the game already. The man was, perhaps, too perceptive to be a safe traveling companion.

“You don’t say,” Daniel remarked, trying to play it cool.

“Relax, kid. I don’t plan to sell you out. It was obvious back in the station.”

“And this doesn’t scare you? To get caught helping me?”

“How do you know I’m not running from the law, too?” Colby lobbed back.

“Good point. Still—”

“You have a good chance of dropping off the radar before any cop gets his hands on you.”

“Had experience with the law, I take it?”

“On both sides. I used to be a cop once. Long ago.”

“You don’t even know what I did.”

“Doesn’t matter. Theft, rape … even murder, the logistics are in your favor,” Colby explained. “Sure, they’ll put an all-points bulletin out on you, but there’s nothing remotely unique about you. Get a crew cut, change your jacket. You’re about thirteen, right? In four months you’ll be two inches taller.”

“You seem awfully certain,” Daniel said.

“The police force is outnumbered about a thousand to one in every city,” Colby continued. “Only a third of the force is ever on duty at one time—unless there’s a special event like the president coming to town, and then, they’re all busy trying to keep his ass safe instead of looking for punks like you. You just have to be smart.”

“Like?”

“Like don’t get off at Central Station. Place is full of police. There’s a stop before that. We get off there … avoid downtown.”

Daniel hadn’t thought of that. It made perfect sense, though, and that scared him. There was a world of things he didn’t understand. There was also a lot more to Colby than met the eye.

“Thank you,” Daniel said.

The man smiled.

“I like you, kid,” Colby said this in a somber tone. Perhaps Daniel reminded him of a son. “You need time to sort out whatever mess you’re in,” Colby continued. “We could all use some time to ponder our messes.”

“What if the mess is unsortable?”

“Yeah, that happens. You’re a smart kid, Dan. There ain’t two people on this bus with your wits. You have a … a bright future.”

It was the first time Colby had outright lied to him. Daniel ascribed it to his companion’s desire to perk his spirits. The boy took some cold comfort in the fact that he could read Colby so well. At least he’d have a chance if Colby planned to set him up.

“Good night, kid,” Colby said, and turned aside, making a big deal about getting comfortable in his seat.

The lie put the notion of a future back in the boy’s head. Daniel always believed he was destined to do something important. The belief that he could work his way out of the ditch that had become his life was what drove him to always try harder. He never imagined things at home would turn out the way that they did. He did not deserve to end up in a juvenile facility, or worse, death row, for what happened to Clyde. Clyde had choices too, and he often chose badly. He was the instrument of his own misfortune.

Daniel watched the lines on the road fly by. North Carolina was a ways off. The trailer park Colby’s sister lived in was at least somewhere to go for the moment. Daniel would decide what to do from there. He knew he was wiser than many people twice his age. There was no reason he could not apply what he knew toward a fresh start—like the recycled remnants of an old universe giving birth to the new. For the first time in a long while, longer than he could remember, Daniel felt hopeful about the future.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

AWAKENINGS

Edited by Paul Stevens

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lazellari, Edward.

Awakenings / Edward Lazellari. — 1st ed.

p. cm. — (Heroes of Aandor ; bk. 1)