The Gift-Giver Read online

  6. Runaway

  On Monday morning me and Mickey and Dotty took the shortcut through the playground to school. As we passed the swings we saw Sherman sitting by himself on a bench. Before we could say hello, he just got up and ran. "What's wrong with him?" Mickey said.

  "That boy is going crazy. Running from us like he's scared."

  I told Amir and Big Russell when we was all walking back home from school what happened. Russell said, "That's what he did last week. And I saw him this morning too and he did the same thing to me. Guess he scared I'm going to get him for missing the game."

  I said to myself, You know good and well Sherman ain't afraid of you.

  "Something must've happened to him," Amir said.

  "Like what? He just afraid, that's all," Russell answered.

  "Is he afraid of me and Mickey and Dotty too? He ran from us."

  Russell looked at me. "As ugly as you girls is, who wouldn't run from you?"

  All the boys started laughing. Sometimes I hated Big Russell. He was so mean. Amir was the only boy who didn't laugh.

  Dotty put her hands on her hips and stuck out her mouth. "You a big, fat hog, Big Hocks."

  She flew down the street and me and Mickey went right behind her.

  When we got to Mickey and Dotty's stoop I said, "Dotty, why you say that to him? Now he's going to bother us all week long."

  Russell never hit girls, but he'd tease you, pull on you and embarrass you in front of everybody. We was in for a miserable week. I sat on Mickey and Dotty's stoop. "Now I can't even go back home until Russell leave my stoop."

  "We going upstairs now," Mickey said.

  "See how dirty y'all are? I got to go back over to my building with that Big Russell on the stoop and you and Dotty is safe in your house."

  "Big Russell ain't gonna bother you. See you later."

  Dotty just kept popping her gum and acting like she didn't even care. Sometimes I think that girl ain't got sense enough to be afraid of nobody. Not even Big Russell.

  When they left I heard someone from down in the basement calling my name. I looked over the railing and saw Sherman sitting outside the basement door on a box.

  "What you doing down there?"

  "Shush. I don't want no one to know I'm here."

  "Why you been running from people?"

  "I don't want no one to know my business."

  "What business?"

  I ran away.

  "You ain't go far. Your family is in the next building."

  "I ain't run from there. I ain't got no more family. They broke us up."

  "What're you talking about? They who?"

  "The authorities. They say my grandma too old to take care of us, so they put us in different homes."

  "You mean with other people in your family?"

  "No, with strangers. In a foster home."

  "Foster home? Where your brothers and sisters?"

  "We all in different homes."

  I never heard about things like foster homes before. "Where's your mother and father?"

  "I ain't got none." He looked like he was gonna cry so I didn't say nothing else. I thought everyone had a mother and father.

  "I ran away from the foster home. I hate it. Nobody can make me stay there."

  "Why don't you go back to your grandma?"

  "'Cause that's the first place they'll look for me. Don't tell no one what I told you. Can you get me some food?"

  "Where you sleeping?"

  "In the basement. That old super so drunk most of the time he don't even know I'm here."

  "But it's nasty down there."

  "I know. But I ain't going back to that foster home. I can make it on my own. Could you get me some food? And don't tell nobody. Especially them old simple twins you hang out with."

  "Okay," I said. "I'll try to get you something. But it's gonna be hard sneaking food out my mother's house."

  "You can do it. You ain't dumb. But don't tell no one. Not even Big Russell."

  I felt very sorry for Sherman. I never heard of no one being taken away from their family. I always thought Sherman's mother and father just lived somewhere else.

  Sherman went back in the basement. I looked over to my stoop. Big Russell, Amir and some other boys was still there. I knew Russell was gonna bother me because of Dotty. But I figured I'd be like Amir and just face what was coming.

  When I got to the stoop Big Russell says, "Look at Long Tall Sally. You better tell that little tack-head Dotty I'm gonna get her for what she said."

  I ignored him and went upstairs. Mama was in the kitchen like always. "I was just getting ready to call you in," she said. There was no way I could sneak food out. I sat at the table.

  "Ma, down in the basement at 130 there's a cat just had kittens. They hungry."

  "You always messing with some stray animals. You can't bring no cats in here."

  "I just want to feed them."

  "We ain't got no cat food."

  "Give me a sandwich then."

  "If you don't get out of here with your nonsense. Here, take a bowl of milk." She put some milk in an old plastic bowl.

  "Can I have some crackers?"

  "Crackers? You just want them crackers for yourself. You ain't even had dinner yet."

  "No, Ma, it's for the cats. You know them old alley cats eat anything."

  "Just hurry back from them cats. We can hardly afford to feed ourselves."

  She turned to the stove and I grabbed some crackers and an orange. She'd fuss if she saw me, but she was always giving somebody food. One time Mrs. Grant, our neighbor with five children, asked her for two slices of bread and she gave her the whole loaf. My father got mad about that.

  When I got outside all the other boys was gone and only Amir was there. "Where you going?" he asked.

  "To feed some cats."

  "I'll walk you."

  "I don't want no company."

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "Nothing."

  "Where's the cats?" he asked.

  I know I promised Sherman I wouldn't say nothing, but I couldn't help telling Amir. Somehow it seemed okay to tell him. I'm good at keeping secrets. That's why everybody tells me the gossip, 'cause all I do is listen.

  "Amir, can you keep a secret?"

  He smiled and nodded his head. We walked over to the basement. When Sherman saw him he yelled, "You big-mouth thing. I knew I shouldn't trust a girl. Why you bring him here?"

  "It's okay," I said. "Amir ain't gonna say nothing."

  Sherman looked like he wanted to cry. "Why you bring me milk in a bowl? I ain't no cat."

  "That's what I told my mother you was."

  Amir said, "Sherman, I'll get you a blanket."

  Wonder what kind of house he live in where he can just take out blankets, I said to myself.

  Sherman stared at me and didn't say anything. I sat on the box with him until Amir came back. He had a blanket stuffed in a shopping bag. Sherman didn't seem so mad now. He went inside the dark, stinking basement and I went home.

  I could hardly eat for thinking about Sherman. How was he going to live in that basement?

  The next morning I left earlier than usual. I went to 130 and called through the basement window. Sherman came to the door.

  "Here's my lunch."

  "Thanks. I'm sorry for what I said to you. But please don't tell no one else."

  "I won't."

  Amir came over also and gave Sherman an apple and a sandwich.

  Sherman eating better than me, I thought.

  Me and Amir walked to school together.

  "He's got to go back. He can't stay in that basement," Amir said.

  "Why not? Long as he gets some food. He ain't got no mother or father. I'd die if that happened to me."

  "No you wouldn't. Someone take care of you."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just know."

  "You mean you was taken from your family too?"

  "In a way."

 
; "But you with them now, right?"

  "Well, not my real family. A substitute family."

  "A substitute family? That's crazy. I'd do just like Sherman. Run away and take care of myself. Get my friends to help me."

  "He'll get put in one of them homes for runaways."

  "It ain't fair, Amir, to take people from their family. That's like slavery. He should do what he wants."

  Amir looked at me serious. Finally he said, "Sherman can't keep his family together hiding in that basement."

  "How he gonna keep his family together, Amir? He just a kid."

  "He could do it. He got to want to do it. And he got to keep himself together, otherwise he can't help them. He keep messing around in the streets he won't be able to do nothing for nobody."

  "He can't do nothing for them now. They already all split up and separated."

  "Doris, look. When you keep your mind on seeing someone again or being with them, then how can you be split up? You be thinking about them and they be thinking about you."

  "That still don't mean you really together, Amir."

  "But you are together. Don't you understand? And, see, when you determined that you gonna make something be, you can make it be."

  "Amir, you a magic boy or something? How Sherman gonna make it be?"

  "He goes back to that foster home. He keep track of where his brothers and sisters be. He make sure they keep track of him. And he just keep thinking about the day when he's able to be on his own and bring them together again. But if he be running the streets, he gonna lose track of where they are. They gonna lose track of him. He'll forget why he was out there in the first place. He may even forget he got a family."

  That was the first time I ever heard Amir talk so much. "Amir, you sound like a mother or father."

  He laughed. "Doris, we got to make Sherman go back where he supposed to be."

  After school I wanted to go see Sherman, but Mickey and Dotty was with me. I think Amir wanted to go see him too, but Yellow Bird and Big Russell was with him.

  I got a chance to go around there later and gave him a piece of fruit I snuck out of the house.

  That's how it was for a few days. Me sneaking food out the house and running down to the basement when I got a chance. Amir did the same thing. I started getting worried that my mother would begin to miss the pieces of fruit and crackers I took. I could hear her now. "You know we just one step away from welfare."

  And Sherman didn't seem right. He looked mean and skinny. And I'm sorry to say this, but he was smelling kind of rank too.

  One afternoon we all sat on the stoop of my building. Two big, red-looking policemen came over to us. "Do you kids know a boy named Sherman Shepard?"

  "Yes," we said.

  "You seen him around here?"

  "No," I yelled before anyone had a chance to answer.

  Mickey said, "I saw him four days...."

  "No, we ain't seen him," I butted in.

  "We ain't seen him all week," Amir said.

  The policemen looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and left.

  Big Russell said to me and Amir, "Why didn't you tell them we saw him outside the schoolyard last week?"

  "Sherman ran away from his grandma and if the police catch him they'll send him to reform school," Amir said.

  "How you know?" Russell asked.

  "He told me."

  "How come he talk to you and run from everybody else?"

  Amir opened his eyes real wide. "I don't know," he said.

  Someone else said, "Well, Sherman got away from that mean grandmother of his. But what happened to his brothers and sisters? They run away too? That's a whole lot of runaways."

  Me and Amir looked at each other. "Nothing happened to his brothers and sisters," Amir said. "I saw them yesterday."

  Russell stared at Amir like he knew he was lying. "Where you saw them?"

  "On the block."

  "What time. I was out all day and half the night, my man. I ain't seen nobody from that family."

  "Well, it must've been when you went home to eat, or go to the bathroom."

  I laughed. Amir sure was slick when he wanted to be.

  Russell laughed too. "Amir, with them eyes you could see things no one else is seeing."

  Amir just smiled. "You got that right, Russell."

  I went upstairs. My mother was in the kitchen so I had to make believe I wanted to feed the cats again.

  "Ma, can I have some milk for the cats?"

  "Girl, food is too high for me to be feeding them old alley cats. Just give them a little. And this is the last time."

  When I got back down everyone had left for the playground. Just Amir was there. We went to 130.

  Sherman came to the door. We all sat on an old crate. Amir said, "Sherman, you got to go back to the foster home before you get in trouble. The police was looking for you today."

  "You ain't said nothing, did you?"

  "No. But you better go back."

  "I ain't living with no strangers."

  "Are they mean?"

  "I don't know. I ain't lived there long enough to find out."

  "They might be nice. Some foster families are okay."

  "How you know?" I asked Amir.

  "I always lived in foster homes."

  "You don't have no mother or father either?"

  Sherman looked hurt. I was sorry I opened my big mouth.

  "No. My mother and father is dead," Amir said.

  Sherman said, "Ain't no strangers could be my mother and father. My grandma is my mother and father."

  I thought about his grandmother. She looked like she was mean. She never talked to no one. I wondered how he could love her.

  "Sherman, you could still visit your grandma," Amir said. "You'll get used to living with a new family. If the people are mean then ask to go to another family."

  "I ain't going back."

  "Reform school is worse. It's like jail."

  "Who's going to look after my grandma? She old and sick."

  "We will," Amir said.

  Hold it, I thought to myself. I don't know nothing about that old woman.

  "Come on, Sherman, why don't you go back?"

  "How can I live with strangers like that?"

  "You just watch them. See how they do. Then you know how to act. Some of them okay."

  "What if they ain't right?"

  "You tell someone. You get out of there."

  "Yeah, you run away."

  "No. That ain't gonna do no good. Cops pick you up. Reform school is worse."

  "How you know? You been there?" Sherman asked.

  "Yes."

  I couldn't believe it. Amir in reform school?

  Suddenly we see the same two policemen coming down the block. Sherman scooted back in the basement.

  "Hide behind the furnace," Amir said.

  Then he whispered to me, "Doris, tell Sherman what I told you about keeping his family together."

  "Amir, I..."

  "Don't say nothing now."

  Me and Amir sat there.

  "Hey, sonny," the cop said, looking at Amir. "You know a boy live around here name Sherman Shepard?"

  It was funny how they didn't remember they already talked to Amir earlier. I wondered how anyone could forget his face.

  "Yes," Amir answered.

  "You seen him around?"

  "Yes. I saw him in the park this morning. I'll show you."

  Amir walked down the street with the two policemen. Sherman came out the basement and we died laughing.

  "Boy, that was close," Sherman said. "Maybe I need to hide out somewhere else for a while."

  I was thinking about Amir. "Why don't you go back to that foster home.

  "No! I ain't going back there!"

  "But, Sherman, you know, like Amir was saying...."

  "Doris, don't tell me about what Amir be saying—I AIN'T GOING BACK!"

  "Amir said you keep messing around in the street you won't be able to do not
hing for your family."

  "What do he know?"

  "I don't know, Sherman. Sometimes he talk kinda weird. But suppose something do happen to you? Sleeping in basements and on roofs. What about your family then?"

  His face looked like a piece of material that somebody crumpled up. I said to myself, Sherman, please don't cry. You gonna make me cry too. "You keep running away and your brothers and sisters ain't even gonna know where to find you."

  He didn't answer for a long time. He turned his back to me so I couldn't see his face. I felt like I had a lump the size of a baseball in my throat. He sniffled real loud, then he turned around.

  "I hate it in that foster home."

  "What about your brothers and sisters?"

  "I don't know."

  "You gonna upset them more when they can't find you 'cause you don't have an address."

  "I'll go back, but if I don't like it I'll run again."

  Sherman went over to Third Avenue to catch the bus crosstown—back to his foster home. I was glad he went.

  But I wasn't happy for long. Mickey and Dotty's mother saw me come out of the basement with Sherman. Her mouth flew open and she grabbed me. "I'm taking you straight to your mother. Fooling around with some boy in the basement. What is this world coming to?"

  "But, Mrs. Johnson, I wasn't doing nothing."

  She didn't even listen to me.

  "I can't let my Mickey and Dotty play with you no more."

  You think them twins is angels, I said to myself. That woman pushed me all the way home. She couldn't wait. She started talking before my mother even opened the door. Mama's eyes turned red. Her lips got skinny like a long piece of thread.

  "Ma, let me explain."

  "It better be good." She was shaking.

  "Ma, Sherman ran away 'cause the authorities took him from his grandma and I was giving him food 'cause he was living in the basement and he was hungry and he ain't got no mother or father."

  "Why you lie to me telling me you was feeding cats?" she yelled.

  "I didn't want him to get in no trouble. Me and Amir was helping him."

  "You was down there with two boys?"

  I started to cry. "Ma, he ain't got no mother or father. I thought you was suppose to help someone like that."