“The kids?”
“Yeah. The young people living in the woods off Riddell Road—out by Kitsap Mental Health. You know, Adam and the young guys you’ve seen in here.”
After scanning the room, I said, “They’re not here today.”
“You up for a spring walk in the woods?” C asked, standing up.
“Why not?” I said, picking up my tray and heading to the trash can. We said our adieus, and I thanked Katie again for my rocks.
“Not staying for the movie?” the Major asked as we passed him.
“You got popcorn?” C asked.
“Not this time,” Major Baker laughed. “But that’s a good idea. We are going to show it a couple more times next week.”
“I’ll see it then. And thank you for showing it,” C said as the Major walked briskly off toward the chapel.
And we were off on our next adventure.
Chapter 21
THE HILTON
C and I parked the van in the parking lot of the mental institution because the trail through the woods to the kids’ camp was just up the road. We walked a couple hundred yards along Almira Drive, until C located the entrance to the path.
Willow bounded along in front of us. Finally I asked, “Are you sure this is the way?”
“This is the trail, all right,” replied C. “They just don’t want to be found. It’s just around the corner.” Moments later I could see big blue tarps through the trees. “Hello! Anybody home? It’s C,” he called out.
Four boys and a girl were sitting on wooden crates around a small campfire. They waved and smiled as we emerged from the woods into the clearing. “Hey, Jason. I see you guys are still here,” said C as we got closer.
“They haven’t chased us out yet,” Jason said. He was maybe sixteen or seventeen, wearing a weather-stained Seattle Mariners baseball cap.
“Where’s Adam?” asked C.
“I’m in here, C.” A muffled voice called out from inside a tentlike structure made from two or three large tarps tied to the trees with frayed rope.
“So you’re home,” C responded, stepping toward the makeshift door cut into one of the tarps. Willow and I followed along.
Adam was heating water in a pan on a rusty, dented Coleman stove as we entered. He turned and bowed at the waist. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said.
C introduced us. “This is Richard, and his dog, Willow.”
“Yes. I’ve seen you around. Nice to meet you. I’m just making some tree bark tea. Would you like some?” He turned back to the near-boiling pan of water.
“Yes, thank you,” C responded.
“Richard, how about you?”
“Sure,” I said.
Willow had wandered off to the side of the tent and was sniffing at several trash bags. I called her back.
“It’s okay,” said Adam. “She smells the food in those bags. I’ve got cereal, eggs, bananas, and stuff in them.”
C sat down on one of the large upside-down buckets. He pulled his pipe from his pocket, placed it in his mouth, and blew the sediment from it. Reaching into his pocket for the plastic pouch of smoke, he began filling his bowl. “What’s the latest?” he asked Adam.
“Well, we’re still about ten,” was the reply. “I haven’t seen Justin or Heather for a couple of days, but their stuff is still here.” He paused as he prepared our tea. “I hope they haven’t fallen into harm’s way. The police haven’t rousted us for about a month and a half, so that’s about due. We just take it one day at a time.” He handed a steaming cup to C, brought me a cup, and returned to the stove to pour his own. When he finally settled down on a seat, C handed him the bag of smoke. “Thanks, C,” said Adam, taking his pipe from his shirt pocket and reaching out to accept the gift.
As the two began their smoking ritual, I used the moment to take a look around. The sun shining through the tarps gave the room a lightblue hue. Adam had stored his clothing in some clear plastic trash bags in one corner of the tent. A loud female voice broke the silence: “BOB, REPORT TO LAWN AND GARDEN. BOB, LAWN AND GARDEN”—it was the loudspeaker system at the large Fred Meyer complex at the edge of the woods.
“We hear it every fifteen to twenty minutes,” Adam said. “Probably somebody wanting to buy a gallon or two of Weed-B-Gon. Jesus! No wonder all the fish are dying in Hood Canal and Puget Sound with all the weed killer people are using.” He took a hit off his pipe. “They are probably going to spend a million dollars on a study to find out what is killing the fish, when all they really have to do is go down the street to Home Depot and ask them how much weed killer they sold last year.”
The kids were laughing about something outside. “I did not!” I heard Jason say.
“Yes, you did!” a girl’s voice countered. “You said, ‘Run, bunny rabbit. Run before they get you. Run, bunny. Run, run, run’ in your sleep. Everybody heard you, didn’t they, Mike?” Mike confirmed that Maria was right.
Adam, C, and I laughed.
“This is excellent, Adam, as usual,” C said, holding up his cup of tea. “I’ve really enjoyed sharing the stuff you gave me last time I was out here.”
“Well, thanks. It’s just something I experimented with,” Adam replied, cupping both hands around his mug. “I heard somebody bought this land,” he continued. “Someone read in the paper they’re going to level it and put in a go-cart track, a baseball batting cage, and a miniature-golf course.”
“I haven’t heard that,” C said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“It’s supposed to be all lighted for night use,” Adam added.
Our conversation was interrupted by a youthful voice calling out, “Hey, Adam!”
A young man stuck his head in the tent. “C, Richard—this is Gentry.” Adam made the introductions.
“It’s my turn to go get water,” Gentry said, holding up a couple of empty plastic milk cartons. “Maria’s coming. We’re going to the 76 station because they let us fill these up last time. We’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Adam replied.
These young people were living like the Suquamish Indian tribe had lived here in these woods two hundred years before, I thought to myself as Gentry closed the makeshift door and left. The tribe now had the biggest gambling casino in the Seattle area, providing their patrons with free ferry rides and limousine service eighteen hours a day, three hundred and sixty days a year. Adam’s “tribe” had dug a latrine and went plowing through dumpsters at night for tarps, chairs, and anything that could be used in camp. There was water to carry, food to share, and chores to be done, and each took a turn guarding the village. But the biggest shift over the past two hundred years was that this refuge in the woods was now surrounded by Burger King, Napa Auto Parts, the Dollar Store, PetSmart, Outback Steakhouse, and Bob and his weed killer. Adam appeared to be the oldest and the leader of this tribe.
“How many other camps are there now?” C asked Adam.
“Oh, I’m not sure—five or six, I think,” he replied. “Mars—you know Mars?” C nodded. “He used to be here, and he moved into the woods behind the dealerships on Auto Center Way. I think they have about eighteen people living there. Howie has a camp of about ten that I know of out behind the fairgrounds. But, man, he’s paranoid. He gets high on coke and wants to move the camp in the middle of the night. I try to stay away from him. This is the Hilton; Howie’s camp is a Motel 6.”
“BOB—ATTENTION BOB—BOB TO AUTOMOTIVE. BOB TO AUTOMOTIVE.” The perky voice on the Fred Meyer loudspeakers intruded upon the village again.
“They’ve chased Howie out more than once. The police did a sweep back in there a couple months ago and took their tarps, chairs, blankets, food, and everything during the day. They were getting ready for a monster truck show and a pro wrestling event at the fairgrounds and wanted to make sure the homeless weren’t around.”
Adam’s smoke was now gone, and C passed his young friend the bag, saying, “This is pretty mild stuff.”
The irritating sound of
a car alarm going off in the distance filled the silence as the two focused on their pipes again, blowing away the residue, packing the weed just right, then lighting and inhaling.
“It’s good,” Adam said of C’s stash. “You don’t smoke?” he asked me.
“Naw,” I said.
Adam stood up from his white plastic bucket and stretched. He was tall, with long, thin brown hair and a bristly beard. He walked over by the Coleman stove again and pushed the button on a small plastic radio. Strains of classical music filled the tent. “Oh, great! Classical,” said C.
“You like classical, too?” Adam asked.
“Love it!” was C’s reply.
I had seen and heard a lot of strange things while riding around with C, but a homeless boy whose taste in music runs to baroque? I had to admit that this was a bit surprising. Hard rock or country would have seemed much more likely. But then I had never seen a young man functioning as the mayor of a tent city for misfit teens, so how could I guess what his musical tastes would be? Far be it for me to judge any of this experience. The world obviously had many surprises in store for me yet.
“I usually save the batteries so I can play the radio at night,” Adam was saying, “but today is special because you and Richard are here.” He explained how he’d found the radio in the dumpster behind Fred Meyer and hated leaving it when he went into town—the police might do a sweep and take everything. He’d lost everything last time, all his books and his clothes. He’d heard them coming and hidden in the bushes. There were two cops and four guys they hired for six dollars an hour from AmeriCorps. He recognized three of them from Sally’s. It only took them about an hour to toss everything into big black plastic bags and cart it off.
BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP—the sound of a car alarm once again invaded the woods. “BOB, GO TO LAWN AND GARDEN. BOB TO LAWN AND GARDEN” followed soon after.
Adam walked over to the radio and turned the volume up a notch. “Beethoven’s fifth symphony; I like this,” he said, attempting to ignore the sounds of what some call civilization. He poured himself another cup of tea and looked at C. “Would you like another cup?”
“Sure,” said C, handing his cup to Adam.
“Richard?” Adam was holding out the scorched and battered pan.
“No. I’m okay for now,” I answered.
“You seen anything of Mojo?” C asked Adam.
“Not for a couple of months, I guess ...”
As Adam and C resumed their conversation, my mind wandered off, as it often does. I thought about my life when I was Adam’s age.
I had a job making $1.25 an hour as a printer’s devil at the Urbana Citizen newspaper in Ohio. On a day like today, my main concern—something that had consumed my very being for the entire week—was whether my girlfriend, Bonnie, was going to put out when we went to the New Moon drive-in movie that night.
Bonnie was sixteen, and she was my dream. She had long blond hair and was a member of the Flag Corps of the high school marching band. She looked stunning in her short black skirt and long red boots as she flipped the flag to the music, then held the pole straight out and marched forward while the band played the high-school fight song.
I had the entire night planned out in my mind: I would pick up Bonnie at six. She would hop into my 1952 dark-blue Ford Fairlane, which I had spit-polished twice in the previous four days. She would sit close like she always did, and we would go for burgers and fries. We would talk about the silliest things. She thought “Cookie” Burns was a dream, and The Beatles were her favorite band. I never disagreed.
I had given her my class ring from high school.
We would listen to the radio on the way to the New Moon—Chubby Checker singing “The Twist,” Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline,” The Coasters’ “Yakety Yak,” Jimmie Rodgers’ “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”—and we would turn the volume up all the way for The Big Bopper and “Chantilly Lace.” I would always sing along with The Bopper, lowering my voice: “Chantilly Lace, with a pretty face, and a pony tail hanging down, that wiggle in the walk ...” and Bonnie would giggle and put her hand on my leg.
It was hero night at the New Moon—a double-header of Zorro and Tarzan. But we didn’t come to the New Moon for the cinematic experience. After we struggled to attach the big aluminum speaker to the Fairlane window, Bonnie moved closer to me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.
She was a siren. Some gene had been passed from Jezebel herself directly down to Bonnie. She let me know just what she wanted as I looked into her eyes, pressed forward to kiss her precious lips, and reached inside her white cotton bra for the buried treasure. Her breathing would quicken and a sultry, sensuous moan came from deep within as she reached out to touch me ...
“Hey, Richard. Richard! What are you smiling about?” C’s raspy voice interrupted my trip back to the New Moon. I wanted to reach out and wipe the fog off the car windows.
“Oh, I was just thinking of a pleasant place I was once,” I said, somewhat sheepishly. “I think it was 1963 or ’64 ...”
“Geez! I wasn’t born yet,” C kidded.
“It was my age of innocence,” I said. “There were no McDonald’s, no Wal-Marts. The television stations put test patterns on at midnight ... no radio talk shows, no CNN, no Fox News—”
“Helene is coming!” Gentry interrupted me by pushing the plastic tent flap open.
“Great,” said Adam, hurrying out. C was right behind him.
I lingered in Adam’s tent for a few moments, looking at the books lying beside his sleeping bag and his few other possessions. I didn’t know how he got here, or if he would ever escape this life, but I admired him for being able to smile. I knew I couldn’t have survived in the woods like this when I was seventeen. I didn’t remember children living like this at all back then. Had I just been oblivious, or had the world changed?
And now, while Adam, Maria, and the others were hoping just to be left alone in this small patch of tranquility, other children their age had been taught to race past this type of haven to their first job at McDonald’s, and then on to another job at Target, and another at one of the mall stores ... Soon, of course, they’d have to race to the bank to cash their checks to make their car and insurance payments ... To what end was all this leading?
I headed out to join the others. As I ducked through the door and let the flap fall behind me, I saw three women enter the camp carrying cardboard boxes.
“Are you guys hungry?” asked Helene, a short woman who appeared happy to be setting down her large box. “Whew! That was heavy!” The other two, also struggling, set their heavy burdens on the ground.
“C and Richard, I would like you to meet Helene,” Adam said, stretching his long arm around the lady, who then reached out and gave him a hug.
“And this is Charlotte, and Jean.” Helene went over to the other women and held each hand as she introduced her compatriots. “We have brought you some lunch. We’d better eat it while it’s hot,” she said, ripping open the top of the box and lifting out plastic tubs of food. The ladies had thought of everything. Paper bowls, plastic forks and spoons, salt and pepper all appeared as they set up lunch. “Please join us,” Helene said, looking at C and me. “We have plenty.”
“I can’t say ‘no’ to a lady who says ‘please,’” C said, and he and I both accepted a bowl of homemade stew.
“We have rolls and butter in this box,” Helene continued, “some Coke and apple juice in the other.”
“And I’ve got Hershey bars, graham crackers, and marshmallows for s’mores in my backpack,” Jean chimed in.
C sampled the stew and looked at me. I tasted a spoonful and took a bite out of the homemade buttered roll. “A five-star picnic,” I concluded.
“Most definitely!” C concurred.
Helene watched Maria wipe her mouth on her shirtsleeve and got up and pulled a bunch of napkins out of a box. “Here, Maria,” she said, handing the girl a napkin. “I forgot to pass these out.”
&nb
sp; “Okay, Mom, we’ll use our napkins,” Adam said, laughing. “Helene has been like a mom to us,” he continued, looking at C. “She brings us lunch and dinner a couple times a week and even does our laundry sometimes.”
“Goodness!” C’s eyes widened in amazement. “Laundry? That’s kind of you! All this is so ... well, very kind of you. Why?”
“This is just a small payback for what someone I never met did for my son,” Helene answered. “He ran away when he was fifteen and went to California.” She described how he’d lived in the woods around Mount Shasta. A woman of about sixty came upon his camp one day while hiking. She befriended him, and for three years, four times a week, she hiked the four miles in to his campsite with food, clean socks, and books. She even went there on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. “She saved his life,” said Helene. Then one day, she convinced him it was time to see his mother. She drove him all the way home, dropped him off at the curb, and drove away. Helene had never gotten to say thank you. Her voice began to tremble.
Jean, sensing the need to lighten the moment, said, “Let’s have some s’mores!” She broke out the crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows, and C whipped out his always-sharp knife to fashion some marshmallow sticks.
For a couple of hours we all sat by the smoldering campfire and talked. Helene seemed a little uncomfortable when Adam and C dug their marijuana pipes out of their pockets for another smoke. But Jean asked, “Do you mind if I have a hit? It’s been, well, maybe thirty years.”
Adam, somewhat shocked, smiled and said “Whoa!” and then passed his pipe politely over to her. She took a drag and held it in for a moment before exhaling. “The last time I did that, I was a junior at Kent State,” she said. “I was there when Governor James Rhoades sent the National Guard in.”
“Kent State—where is that?” Jason asked.
“It’s in Ohio,” Jean responded. “I was there when they shot the students.”
“Shot the students?” Maria asked.
“Yes, the National Guard shot some students during a demonstration.”
Breakfast at Sally's Page 23
