As I continue yelling threats and insults and whatever else comes to mind, the boys scatter, picking bikes up off the ground and pedaling away, throwing a few insults over their shoulders as they go. I can’t tell if they’re intended for me or for the kid on the ground, covered in dirt and blood.
Once it’s just me and the kid alone in the alley, I realize I have no idea what to do next. The boy is sobbing, one arm still covering his head, the other held tight to his chest. It feels weirdly invasive to be here, like I’m trespassing on something private, but leaving seems worse.
A bike lies abandoned a little way down the alley, a thick branch caught in the spokes of one tire. More for something to do than anything else, I walk over to it and assess the damage. It seems to still be in decent shape—a lot better than its owner, anyway. I toss the stick aside and wheel the bike over to the kid, who’s still turtled up on the ground.
“Is this your bike?”
He doesn’t answer, and after spending an awkward few seconds just standing there, I lean the bike against a brick wall and kneel down beside him. “You okay, dude?”
In response, he emits a kind of sad little whine, like a dog who’s been locked in a hot car. His hair is the same color as the dirt that streaks his face and clothes, and the holes in the knees of his jeans and the elbow of his shirt all reveal ragged scrapes leaking fresh blood. Up close, I realize he may be older than I previously thought.
“They’re gone, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just you and me. And I’m not gonna hurt you.”
At that, he finally opens his eyes, his lashes wet with tears. Slowly, he pushes himself upright, still cradling one arm to his chest, and I see that his wrist is red and beginning to swell. He sniffs, wiping his nose on the cuff of his shirt, leaving a smear of red across his face. I don’t even think he realizes he’s bleeding.
He blinks up at me, looking bewildered, but flinches away when I reach out my hand to help him up. “I’m fine,” he mutters, not meeting my eyes.
“Okay.” He’s clearly not fine, but I get wanting to pretend he is. “What’s your name?”
“Karl.”
“I’m Justin. Can I help you get home? Where do you live?”
He looks me up and down. “I don’t know you,” he announces, saying it like an accusation.
“I’m from out of town,” I say, giving him the same lie we’ve been giving everyone else. “I’m visiting a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Rose Yin.”
I can tell her name means something to him, as his shoulders relax just a little. “I know her.”
Hoping that means he might trust me, I try again. “What’s your phone number? I can call your parents.” I gesture toward the pay phone in front of the post office. It’s been an adjustment, not having a phone in my pocket all the time, but I think I’ve got a couple of quarters.
“Don’t call them!” he yells, his voice suddenly panicked. Then he adds, almost in a whisper, “They can’t know.”
“Okay.” I rack my brain, trying to think of what to do. I’m the last one to force him to go to his parents if he doesn’t want to—experience tells me that involving parents can often create more problems than solutions—but I can’t just leave this kid here with a mangled bike and a possibly broken wrist.
“You want to come with me?” I suggest, pointing back in the direction I just came from. “I’m staying just a few blocks from here. We can probably find some ice for that wrist.”
To my relief, Karl nods. I help him to his feet, then go retrieve his bike. He’s in no condition to push it, so I do.
“What grade are you in?” I say as we walk. I don’t actually care, but I know if I were him, the last thing I’d want to talk about is what just happened, or the boys who were chasing him. And small talk feels less awkward than walking in silence.
“Seventh.”
“At, uh, Stone Lake Middle?” I almost called it Warren Middle; the middle and high schools share a campus, so when the name of one changed, so did the other.
He nods. “I hate it there.”
“It gets better,” I say automatically, parroting the same words that I’ve heard repeated over and over by well-meaning adults and overly earnest social media campaigns—only to realize after I’ve said it that I’m in a unique position to know it’s all a lie. The future isn’t better than this. The future is a mess.
Not for the first time, I ask myself why I’m so eager to get back there. Is there anything good waiting for me in 2023? Or am I running toward my own destruction, simply because it’s familiar?
I don’t have an answer, and the lack of knowing scares me. But what can I do? The future may suck, but I know I don’t belong here. Maybe I don’t belong anywhere.
“Are you in high school?” he asks.
“Technically.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m enrolled, but I’m not currently attending.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one’s making me.”
He laughs at that. “I wish no one would make me,” he says wistfully.
“Careful what you wish for,” I say, smiling humorlessly to myself. “School doesn’t seem so bad compared to some of the alternatives.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I can’t think of anything worse than school.”
“Sure you can. I mean, wouldn’t you rather be in school than . . .” I think for a minute. Probably not a great idea to finish that sentence with stuck in the wrong time period. “Inspecting manure?”
“What’s manure?”
“Animal poop.”
Karl laughs. “That’s not a job.”
“It totally is. Some people get out of bed every morning to go inspect poop.” Thanks, YouTube, for that horrifying nugget of knowledge.
“Why?”
“Some people use it for, like, gardening and stuff.”
Karl’s eyes get wide. “So when everything smells bad after the gardeners come, that’s because they used poop?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“Gross.” Karl laughs, looking delighted.
We spend the next few minutes coming up with more jobs worse than school: sewer cleaner, maggot farmer, and the person who cleans vomit off roller coasters all make the cut, until it seems like Karl has mostly put the incident in the alley behind him. He becomes more animated as we walk, moving on to talk about his favorite comic book （Spider-Man） and movie （E.T.）。 I get the impression that this is a kid without many—or possibly any—friends, and that he doesn’t get the opportunity to talk about the stuff he likes with an actual human being very often. I don’t weigh in much, but just nodding along and adding the occasional oh wow seems to be enough for him.
He’s so absorbed in what he’s talking about that he doesn’t even seem to be aware of his surroundings until I turn his bike into Mrs. Hanley’s driveway. He freezes on the sidewalk, his eyes suddenly wide as his gaze jumps between the house and the burned garage, the police tape lightly flapping in the breeze.