Eventully I learned to like my Newsie life. I even learned to live with the early hours, somehow it worked. It was just what I wanted. Freedom. Until one day when I was selling around my old neighborhood, I was pulled into a house. Even though it was my own, I was still scared. I knew damn well who it was. "Just wait till I find out where your hiding I swear you will pay for the embarrasment your mother and I felt"
I decided I had enough of him and his lip. I rose to my full 5'8" and raised my fists. It was a miricle that I tricked him into running into a wall which is where I decided to make my escape. Since the situation couldn't be any better and worked out to my advantege, I helped myself to some "Spare Change" and took a snack. I never told anybody about the events that took place that day and I only went back the next day to learn my aunt had died, and against all the wishes of my friends, went to the funeral and only approached my mother and told her that I planned to stay a newsie for good.
She was upset with my decision but then again relized how it would be in my best bet. She did wonder how people didn't know at that very time I was a runaway but then again , I dressed nicely so nobody from my old nosey neighborhood would relize. We went back home pretty quickly after that where my mother said "Now, I hope you behave better here then at the funeral."
"What?? It's not my fault the klutz fell over my foot and tripped into an open grave" I argued back I WAS right- I couldn't control what my stepdad did. A slight smile spread across my mother's face "Yes sweetheart , but you didn't have to yell Start Shoveling Boys as he tried to climb out" I started laughing at how well she imitated me when "The Klutz" walked in and wondered what was so funny "Mom, do you hear a dog howling?"I asked.
Well my comment got my shooed(is that a word?) upstairs. When I got to the banister, I was hit by all the photographs and memories , I got a homesick feeling and my mind floated back to when everything was not quite normal, but better then things seemed 4 months ago and now. Then a voice started saying where you are now is a close to perfect as your gonna get at this time kid. I stayed upstairs until about 11:30, wrote a quick note for my mom and left. When I got back to the lodging house, I started going through the things I brought. I found an old card my dad gave me for Christmas one year that my mom must have put in my bag that said "Jessie, I will love you until the day I die, maybe even more then" For the real first time since he died, I felt a lump rise in my throught, What I thought was strange though was a letter my dad wrote that seemed like was written AFTER he died. The last part especially got me.
It read "I can't wait to see you both, but stay down there awhile. I'll wait for my family forever" I later heard my step-dad left our family and my mom recently moved away I think back to Boston, and I'm sorry to report that haven't heard from her since.