The Less Fortunates

by Charles C Martin

2

  Night fell and the bell sounded, like a dying whale, as it always had. Then came the sound of the dorm door being locked twice. There was a faint click from the outside, and instant pitch black swarmed the room. Time ticked along, and I had trouble going to sleep that night. The room was filled with twenty six sets of bunk beds side by side. There was little to no chatter. They sucked away our spirit for such things. It wasn’t summer camp.

  With my head on my pillow I wondered if Forest would actually do it. A big fat ass cockroach slowly moved across the ceiling, stopping every six inches to feel around with its antennas. Just then I heard soft footsteps approaching. The sound of someone climbing the ladder to my bunk creeped me out. Forest’s head popped up by my feet. This was reaching an entire new level of awkward. I had the greatest urge to heel stomp his face. But my luck, the kick wouldn’t knock him out, and it’d take the overweight nightwatch five minutes to get in here. I’d be dead by then.

  “Joey!” said Forest in a loud whisper. I sat up.

  “I need the info,” he said.

  “Dude, this is awkward. I just want to go to sleep.” I pulled the covers over my face.

  This was so messed up. Now what in the hell were the guys in the bunks around me thinking. Life sucked. Such bullshit.

  “I need your help, man. Joey!” I felt him shake my foot, and I shot up.

  “Dude, don’t freaking touch me!”

  “Joey, I have to get out of here tonight with Becca. I need your help.”

  I took a deep, pissed breath, “Okay.” I motioned for him to come onto my bunk. We both sat cross legged, facing each other. It was so damn bizarre.

  He wasn’t a friend, not even close. The only way I knew him was from the time he stomped my head into the floor like he was trying to break it open. Now he was sitting across from me, in my bunk wanting to learn about sailboats.

  I looked around the room and noticed a kid a few bunks over staring at us. I motioned for him to turn around. “Alright. There are a lot of details I don’t remember, but these are the basics. A sailboat has a weighted fin on the bottom called a keel. It keeps the boat from tipping too far over when the wind hits the sails. Then you have a mast.”

  “The pole?” asked Forest.

  “Yeah.”

  “The sail attaches to the mast at the bottom. There’s a rope that goes from the boat to the top of the mast. It has a clip on it. Clip it to the sail, pull the rope, and the sail goes up.”

  “What about wind direction?” asked Forest.

  “As long as the wind isn’t blowing in your face, the boat will move forward. There are ropes in the back that control the angle of the sail. Move it around until you find the right spot to make the boat go faster. Ummm. And don’t put the sail up until you motor away from the dock. To start the motor it’s just like a lawmower. It has to be in neutral to start. You use the lever to go in reverse or forward.”

  “Is it hard to steer?”

  “Not really, but it’s backwards. Pull the tiller left it goes right. Push it right, the boat goes left.”

  “How do we get to the marina?” asked Forest.

  “Hit 72nd until you get to Old Cut. Go south half a mile. Can’t remember the name of the road, but on the corner there’s a gas station and this shop that sells pink flamingos, like the kind people stick in their yard. You can’t miss it. Turn left, and it dead ends at the marina. I know you’re sneaking out tonight, but if you actually make it to the dock, don’t untie the boat until the sun starts to come up. You need the light.”

  “What boat?” asked Forest.

  “You’ll see four long docks labeled A through D. Go to the C dock. All the way at the end on the right hand side is an old twenty seven foot O’Day. There’s a faded orange trim line all the way around it. It’s one of the boats that never goes out. There are a lot of nicer boats there, but I think if you take that one, no one will notice, at least for a while.”

  “Now how do we get to the Bahamas?”

  “There won’t be a GPS or anything like that. The boat might have a compass, might not. If it does, just head east. Sooner or later you will hit an island. If not, remember the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Sail toward where the sun rises and away from where it sets. At night I found out the moon rises in the Northeast this time of year. Head toward the right of it. To make sure though, look for Orion in the stars. That’s due east.”

  Forest handed me a small notepad and pencil he had with him. “Can you draw Orion?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I drew three dots representing Orion’s waist and the rest to form the warrior with his bow.

  “When will you leave?” I asked.

  “Two AM. Need you do one thing?” asked Forest.

  “What?”

  “The fire alarm on the wall behind your bunk. When I whistle, pull it.”

  Damn. Forest knew there was no way to sneak out at night through a window or door. They were all locked and barred. An event would be needed to get everyone outside. Setting off the fire alarm made sense. There would be chaos, and that was always the perfect time to go missing. I wasn’t worried about getting caught pulling it. There was an unwritten rule at Havana - no one rats. It had nothing to do with ethics and more to do with minding your own business unless you wanted to get the hell beat out of you. I had always wanted to pull that fire alarm anyway.

  “Yeah, I’ll do it,” I said. That was only in an hour and a half. Forest nodded and crept out of my bunk.

  In my bunk, I stared at the fuzzy looking white spikes on the ceiling. Usually I could turn the drab scene into a sunny adventure in the Bahamas. Not anymore. No daydreams. Instead I felt a dark cloud move over my thoughts as they shifted to childhood drama. Nothing was worse at the Havana School for Boys than lost hope, no matter how small.

  Maybe I was lucky? It was a good plan, but when I really thought about it, a ridiculous amount of major shit could happen. Not the kind of shit where I go to sleep at night and wake up and everything's okay. Starving, dehydration, diarrhea, throwing up, disease, sharks, that kind of shit. Adding Forest to that list of shit made it over the top.

  I wondered if he was actually just talk and was already asleep. My doubt only increased, and my eyes grew heavy. Then suddenly I heard a whistle, and they shot wide open. Forest was standing about fory feet away with a backpack on. Damn, he was dead serious.

  I rubbed my eyes hard to help me wake up and glanced at the fire alarm on the wall. I would just jump out of bed, yank it, and jump right back. Simple. But I wasn’t moving and didn’t know why. Forest whistled again. I could feel my heart pumping. All I had to do was pull a fire alarm. How hard was that? Why wasn’t I doing it? This wasn’t like me to punk out or something. No, no way man. I willed myself out of bed, took two quick steps to the little red box, and got ready to ignite one big Two AM freakout.

  I looked at Forest and could make out his faded shape in the dark. He nodded. I felt fear trying to kick my ass again. No way. I stopped thinking and pulled. Clink. Again, Clink. The handle came off, fell to the floor, and two screws rolled by, waking up Stevie.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” yelled Stevie still half asleep.

  “Shut Up,” I whispered. Those cheap slackers. There are like forty kids asleep in a locked room and the fire alarm doesn’t work?

  This was a deal breaker for Forest, at least for the night. It wasn’t like he could jump out of a window. It would be at least a twenty or thirty foot drop after he figured out how to rip off the bars. Plus the door to the hall was locked, and it had an alarm anyway. Down two flights of stairs was another locked door and security. It was already over. Forest looked at me and put his hands in the air. I shrugged and pointed at the fire alarm on the floor. I tried. He looked aggravated, oh well. I climbed back into my bunk to get some sleep.

  Before I could close my eyes I heard the sound of metal scratching the floor. My eyes widened when I realized Forest was pushing a bunk over with tw
o guys sleeping in it. The bunk slammed to the ground and Forest screamed, “Fire!”

  I was stunned and felt like I was watching a movie. Everyone in the room jumped out of bed like they were being shot at, and most of them ran into each other. It was total chaos. Forest tipped over another bunk. There was screaming and half the guys started pounding on the door to be let out.

  To my surprise the door opened rather quickly. The security guard looked like he had spilled coffee on his shirt and motioned us out.

  “Go! Go! Outside now!” he yelled. Forest was toward the back of the pack, and I was right behind him. We all squeezed through the narrow stairway and a few of the smaller kids almost got crushed. Another security guard was holding the front door open.

  “Line up outside! Now!”

  Forest got lucky. It was the two fat guys. There was no way in hell they could catch him on foot. I doubted they would even try.

  We entered the yard, lit up by two halogen spotlights meant to deter thieves from breaking in and stealing some outdated computers. The boys in front of me all stopped and turned around to canvass the building for flames. Forest kept on running right through the crowd toward the woods across the street. I saw Chris and Luke standing next to the old fountain.

  “Joey, over here!” shouted Chris. Something happened in that moment that I couldn’t and would never be able to explain. I gave them a quick glance, said, “See y'all later,” and kept running, right behind Forest. As we crossed the street a driver slammed on their horn, and we flew into the woods like wild cats.

  We couldn’t see shit. Forest quickly turned north toward the girls’ school. Again, for some reason, I just stayed with him. Twigs snapped while we dodged pine trees and tripped over small logs. What really sucked was the small branches that I could spot during the day, I couldn’t see at all at night, and I kept getting whiplashed across my face.

  We made it a few hundred yards and Forest stopped. I crashed into him and we both fell to the ground.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked Forest.

  “I guess I’m going with you, man.”

  For the first time ever I saw Forest smile. Don’t get me wrong, the corner of his mouth went up about a centimeter, but to me it was a sign he was human. In that moment I actually felt a bond, though small, had formed. Something unusual, like the kind of bond that can only be formed when two people share an extraordinary experience together.

  Forest stood up, and we changed to a slower pace as we neared the girls’ school. We approached a large Banyan tree behind a point across the street from the girls’ dorm and hid behind it. The girls’ school was similar to ours. Three stories high with dilapidated windows, but a better paint job. We watched two female security guards pace around the outside of the building on their Walkie Talkies. They kind of reminded me of overgrown girl scouts.

  “They have to let them out, man. It’s their protocol,” I said.

  “Unless they already know it’s a fake alarm,” said Forest.

  A few minutes ticked by and nothing. Forest’s eyes were fixed on the front door.

  I heard a voice and looked behind us. The woods were thick but there were small hole like windows where we could spot action on the street. I saw what looked like two men walking up the street with flashlights. A glimpse of that ugly ass navy hat and I knew who it was.

  “Cops,” I pointed.

  They already know we were missing. That was fast. The two female security guards walked up the street. “What’s the deal?” shouted one of the ladies. A cop with a mustache lifted his right hand to the side of his mouth, “False alarm. Two boys on foot.”

  Shit.

  “Tell the girls to get back in their beds,” said one of the guards to the other.

  Forest clinched his fist and bit his knuckle. The cops turned back to our building. They didn’t seem like they were in much of a hurry. They wouldn’t be able find us in these woods at night, at least not without dogs. The dogs were probably all out drug sniffing on 79th.

  Forest looked as intense as I had ever seen him, and that was saying something.

  “I've got a knife,” said Forest.

  “What?”

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out a black bowie knife.

  “A big one,” he said. The blade was at least eight inches long. It made me wonder how he managed to keep that knife hidden at school. I also didn’t see how it helped us now.

  “Nice knife,” I said.

  Forest put his backpack down and gripped the knife like he was getting ready to stab something. He moved his head around, peering through the trees at Becca’s building. For the first time I noticed a long scar that ran underneath his jaw line. It seemed like an odd place for a scar like that.

  He looked at me for a moment then back at the building and said, “In fifteen minutes we bang on the door. I’m gonna knock out whichever one opens it. I’m gonna put my knife to the throat of the second one. As soon as I do, grab the taser from the one on the ground. Shoot the lady I have the knife on. Then tase the one on the ground too. I’m gonna run upstairs and get Becca. Just keep tasing both of them. We’ll tie em up and get out of here.”

  What the hell?