Running Away: the First Day

Of the time when I was a runaway, the first three days seem to be most memorable to me. It is so, perhaps, because those first three days are the only days I can clearly discern from the two months of hunger, cold, dirtiness, and exhausted wandering, where one day blurred with the next. Do you want me to tell you about my first day?

I will first have to tell you about why and how I decided to run away, with the first reason more justified than the last. The first and foremost reason was the constant, heart-wrenching pain of having to obey my father. He asked me to do things that no father should ask of his daughter. I could not turn for help to anyone because my father trained me to think that such an action would be betrayal of the family. And just to make sure, in case my love for my family was not strong enough, from time to time he would casually stop me with my back against the wall, and lightly knock my temple with his curled, scarred fist.

That one morning, he glared at me the whole time I did my morning exercises, hazed hatred in his dark, staring blood-shot eyes. He came over and kicked me. I ran to the bathroom, crying, and cut off some skin from my wrist with scissors, just to show that I felt bad enough to die when he treated me like that. And then I came out and washed the dishes. When he

finally saw the mark on my wrist, he only scolded me. He told me I was selfish to get upset. I tried hard to believe him. So I did not really think about running away until the second reason came up and forced me to consider the idea seriously.

I failed all my classes one fall semester. And the report card was about to come in the mail. If he read it, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would first beat me up like I have never been beaten in my life, like he often punished my brother when he was younger. And then he would tighten up his discipline, and keep me locked up inside the house all the time, watching me, hovering over my shoulder with his belt, like some sort of a suspicious prison guard. He would take my failure as an excuse to punish me farther. With no freedom to read the paperbacks that my brother and me hid all over the house in secret spots, unable to take any more lone walks by the Brighton Beach ocean, then how could I escape the troubled torrents of emotion?

I could think of only one way to escape this future, and that was to run away, as far away as possible, anywhere, as long as it was away from my father. On the morning of the first day of classes of the Winter Interum, after the Christmas vacation, before that report card came in the mail, I dared to put the hesitant thought into action.

And this is the second excerpt.

They noticed me here, after a while, these others. I did not think that anyone paid attention to me, riding these trains. I have been wandering have and forth thoughtlessly along the subway station, and I have suddenly become aware of the two of them, standing in a distance, looking at me. “I have never seen a kid bum before.” One of them said to the other with bemusement. Startled at being found out, I quickly walk away.

I prefer to be alone. Many times over, I have learned that sometimes, not every time but sometimes, it is just not safe to trust people. The more they know who you are, if you open your heart and show them, the greater is the pain when they decide to hurt you. People cannot make up their minds. One moment they are your friends, and another, when it is more convenient, they could care less about anyone but themselves. It must have been my father who taught me this.

I am trying to sleep, my head resting heavy against my hands. I sit on this hard, yellow plastic seat and think that I agree with him, in at least this one thing. I carefully avoid attention, even if it comes from the other homeless. Let that strange man with a bag of goodies pass me by on a train. Listen to him, how loud he is, calling to everyone on the train: “Free food! Free food! Anyone hungry? Come get it!” I remain unmoved, fighting the urge to raise my hand. What would happen if I dare?

An old, black, bearded man five seats away from me, bites the bait. He lifts his hand. “Hey!” He says. The do-gooder gives him a wrapped burger. “I have more,” he says loudly, and shakes his bag. I grimly watch the man pass by me. Even if he has seen me before, and suspects, I know he will not dare to approach me because of uncertainty. The fear of embarrassment, of intrusion into someone else’s privacy, is so very strong.

The homeless man bites the burger, and then spits it out, angry. “What’s this? I don’t want this nasty shit!”

The beggars stir my envy. If I would dare to cast myself upon human mercy, and sit on some corner with a large card-board sign proclaiming my situation, I could be lucky enough to get a dollar or two, enough to buy something to eat. I cannot, though. If I do, they will call police and take me back home.