hidden

by Tomas Mournian

  “Hey!” I pound on the door. The giant metal creature lurches, moves back. It’s going to leave without me.

  “HEY!” I pound harder, running backward with the bus. “LET ME IN!”

  Abruptly, the bus stops—not because of me, I realize, but because the driver needs to make a two-point turn and pull onto the road.

  “LET ME IN!” I shout, pounding hard, one last time.

  The door wheezes and … opens.

  “Go on, get in,” the driver says, impatient behind his silver aviator glasses. Like I was lingering or taking my time. I grab the handicap bar and pull myself up, into the stairwell. Behind me, the door shuts and seals out the hot air.

  I head to the back. I sit and look back, out the rear window. The red brake light licks the black asphalt. The bus rolls into the desert, moving away from Las Vegas, an empty giant slot machine made of bright, blinking lights.

  Head. Rest. Eyes. Shut.

  My vision goes white, blank as a movie screen, same as when the red curtains pull back and the theater dims. An image flickers on the white screen and—

  The movie starts.

  The boy drives a cherry red Karmann Ghia. Sunlight explodes on his hair. He’s smiling, singing.

  I look in the rearview mirror. A woman sits in the car’s tiny backseat. Wind ruffles the scarf tied around her head. She wears glamorous sunglasses, bright red lipstick and a low-cut white dress with a red cherry print.

  “Mom?”

  She smiles but says nothing. She doesn’t need to: I know she’s over my shoulder, there, a guardian angel, Djinn, or protective pagan faerie.

  My eyes tear up.

  “I miss—”

  “Shhh,” she whispers, and drapes sleep over my eyes.

  Then, just as quickly as it appears, the image vanishes and the white screen goes black.

  Three angels hover over the highway. They guard the bus. The bread box shape rolls down the two lane blacktop. They watch the gray beast lumber toward the morning sun, bright orange over the desert landscape.

  My head slumps against the greasy window.

  Sleep, death, bliss.

  Chapter 7

  “SAN FRANCISCO, LAST STOP, SAN FRANCISCO!” “You!” A hand grabs my shoulder, shakes me. My ass squirts—poop. Yup. Baby Boy shit his pants. Bound to happen. Now it has. I held it in for as long as—“Get up! You gotta get off.”

  “Mom?” I rub my eyes and look up. No, not Mom, the bus driver. Not even—he’s the maintenance guy. His name tag. Earl. I push myself, roll off the seat. I’m so not ready to wake up. I’m so tired I could sleep for another hundred years, but Earl’s not leaving my seat until I vacate it.

  I step off the bus. The door slams. Some welcome. Isn’t this city famous for its hospitality? And sourdough bread? My stomach’s knotted with hunger. Where’s my loaf? While I’m at it: Where’s the Golden Gate Bridge? The “fabulous” Victorian architecture? And the streets filled with queer people? Just guessing but Gay Pride’s been rescheduled.

  Thus far, San Francisco is fog (gray), pigeons (gray) and concrete (gray and covered with white pigeon shit). The only people I’ve seen are a crazy woman pushing a stroller with a dog and dozens of office drones who wear dark blue business suits and carry briefcases.

  Two cops slowly cruise by on bicycles. They wear shorts. I’m distracted by their muscular legs. Their walkie-talkies squawk. Starfleet’s Calling. “All points bulletin! Be on the lookout for an Arab boy who answers to Ahmed! He’s escaped from Serenity Ridge! He also answers to Ben!”

  The cops roll forward. Even if I’m hearing voices and imagined the Ahmed APB, I know they’ll snatch me if they see me. Intuition. I. Gots. To. Go. I step around a corner, vanish into the shadows and escape my paranoia. I look for a pay phone. But that just leads me back into the dirty bus station. It’s the same setup as Vegas minus the slot machines. Same trash, same bums sleeping on the same benches. “Hell,” I’ll testify (Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Or whoever you’re into, just get me out of here), “is The Bus Station.”

  There. Pay phone. My grubby hand digs into my grubby pocket and fishes for the scrap of paper. I hold it up. I read the telephone number and scrawled instructions. “Hi, my name is Ben.” Any chance I’ll have to permanently escape Serenity Ridge rests in these seven digits—and my new, generic American identity. I chant my name: Ben. BenBenBen. A Ben in the Road.

  I lift the receiver, drop two quarters and carefully (quarters being hard to come by right now) punch in the number. Rings one, two, three—“Click, the Page Net account you’re trying to reach is out of service. Message four four—”

  I replace the phone and slump back against the casket-shaped booth. I’m fucked and so tired, I’m ready to give up and call my father. His number’s the only one I know by heart. Even if I knew it, my real mother’s number would be unlisted. Stuart? He’s the one who got me into this mess. Think. Who to call. I pick up the phone and dial 4-1-1. “Directory assistance, city and listing please.”

  “Oh, um …” I blank. Why am I calling? I stand there, hold the phone and breath. Very stalkerish.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  I imagine the operator asks, Is this an emergency? I want her to ask because I want to tell someone, even a stranger, “In fact it is an emergency. I escaped from Serenity Ridge, a Nevada Residential Treatment Facility where I’ve been locked up and subjected to treatments meant to turn me from gay to straight.”

  “Page Net,” I remember. “San Francisco.”

  “Please hold for—” The operator cuts herself off. Left, a flash of blue. Cops! I drop the phone. CALM. DOWN. Not a cop. Businessman carrying a briefcase and dressed in a dark blue suit (another uniform). I’m surrounded by clones. 4-1-1. Redial.

  “Page Net, howmayIhelpyou?” I read the number. “How may I help you, Ms. Smith?”

  “I have a question about my bill. I wanted to double-check the home phone number with the one you had on file?” I hear my upturned voice and wince. I sound like a girl. I’m worried I sound like I believe my own question.

  “One moment, plea—” The operator’s voice is gone; another automated voice comes on and recites the number. I drop my last coins in the slot, dial and listen. Ring one, two, three … ten. I’m about to hang up / give up. Click. The line picks up.

  “Hi, I’m—”

  Bleep! A machine. Silence. Maybe someone’s listening. Maybe there is a place. Maybe it’s safe. Maybe—

  “Hi, this is, uh … me. Ben. I’m at the bus station. Downtown? Someone gave me your number—well, your other number—but it was out of order. Anyway, I’m gonna wait here. Um, well, I guess I’ll hide in the men’s room. Last stall. On the right. I’ll stay there till you show up. I’m wearing orange kicks and a safari hat.”

  I stretch out my message. I hope, if I keep talking, someone will hear me and pick up.

  Beep!

  The machine cuts me off. I hang up.

  Chapter 8

  Left, a big man steps around a corner and walks toward me. His look shouts, “Bounty Hunter.” I look around. There’s nowhere to go. I am trapped. I step back, duck into the men’s room, run to the last stall. I could be on a spaceship: It’s one of those industrial bathrooms. The reflective silver surfaces are scratched. I close the door, careful not to make a sound. Then, I wait, and stare at my schizo-scratch’up’d reflection.

  Rubber sneaks skid-screech on the floor. I look through the crack in the door: a boy. He looks around the bathroom. Too late, he realizes, “I’m trapped.” I see it on his face: There’s nowhere to hide. Dead. End. We hold our breath. A second set of footsteps breaks the quiet. Click-click-click. Official sounding. Dress shoes. Or, Shirley Temple.

  I peek through a crack. A man, his back is turned away from me, grabs the boy and holds a knife to his neck.

  “I want my money’s worth.” He pushes the boy against the sink and yanks down his jeans. The bunched-up denim pools at his ankles. He tries to move, but the thick fabric stops him.
>
  The man squeezes the boy’s neck. The trench coat cloaks their bodies. I know what’s happening coz I see the boy’s face in the broken mirror. His eyes are shut, his mouth screwed up with pain.

  “Ah!” The man’s head drops back, his body shudders. The boy’s hand grips the sink. The man steps back and zips up. The boy drops to the floor. Blood and shit dribble out of his butt.

  The man ignores the boy and reaches for soap and water. Calm, he washes his hands. The boy looks up. Our eyes meet. He puts up his arm.

  “Help—” the boy rasps, a strangled cry for help. His arm drops, dead next his limp, lifeless body.

  The man turns, away from the sink, to the stall. I can’t see his face, just his eyes. Blank, they’re android blue and tell me he feels … nothing. For the boy, for what he just did.

  “Ah!” I cry. I can’t help it. It’s just a peep, but the sound gets the man’s attention. He grabs the knife and steps toward the stalls.

  My heart beats so loud, I’m sure he can hear it. There’s nowhere for me to hide.

  Click. Click. Click.

  He walks down the line, tapping the knife on each stall door.

  Click. Click. Click.

  He walks the line, opening each door.

  I squat on the seat. His shadow moves along the floor. He stops, one stall from mine.

  Creak …

  The door swings open, its shadow moving over the floor. This is way worse than any movie. I can’t pick up the remote and press Pause. Real life, I need to act.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The man’s heels tap dance on the floor. My stall’s last in the line. He knows. I know that he knows. And he knows that I know. Both of us know. Someone saw and now they’re hidden in the last stall.

  Click—

  The door handle turns. Slow. Time. To. Die.

  No.

  Last second, I dip and slip under to the next stall, moving back as he steps forward—

  Click—

  The knife taps, metal-on-metal door.

  Tap—

  I slip under the partition. The safari hat’s knocked off—

  Creak—

  The door opens. I don’t know what’s worse. Capture, rape or death—or the knowledge right before one or all happens. I’m starting to believe death is my destiny. Another runaway, found on a bus station in a pool of blood.

  He raises the knife, ready to kill, and I know he will if he sees the hat. Act, Ahmed, you have one chance. Live or die, you choose—

  I reach, grab it—

  And the door slams, WHOMP! Heels click-click-click, he barges into the empty stall. The shadow turns and turns and turns, an animal furious about losing its prey. Or, a ballerina, spinning along in a jewelry box, crazed by the music.

  Ballerina or predator, IDK because I’m gone.

  And this time, I don’t need anyone to tell me.

  I don’t look back.

  Chapter 9

  I know I can’t ask for help. I just follow a cute guy to an escalator. It stretches so far down I can’t see where it ends. Down, the bottom, a train pulls into the station. Orange and white doors slide open. Black letters spell out CASTRO. Castro’s Ground Zero for The Gays. For safety (or, something like it) the Castro’s my Number One destination. I hope.

  I step inside. The doors slide shut. My eyes meet blue robot eyes.

  The train pulls away. I know him. I’ve seen those blue eyes. But where? I want to take another look. Maybe he wasn’t bathroom stall man. It’s official, I’m losing my mind.

  “Civic Station! Ciiiivick Station! Next stop! Civic Station.”

  I jump off. I figure, I’m safer above ground than trapped underground. The escalator’s slow. I hurry, up-up-up, pushing past more men in dark blue suits.

  “‘Scuse me, ’scuse me.”

  At street level, I see a sign: YOUTH DROP-IN SHELTER. Yeah! Safety! Salvation! Forget the Castro, I don’t need you. I cross the street without looking. I enter. I belong here. If anyone’s a Drop-In Youth who needs shelter, I am.

  The receptionist is a black girl with cornrows. She sits at the front desk, regal as a queen on her throne. She doesn’t look up from the computer screen. Scrabble.

  “How may I help you?” she says, the voice of an off-duty gospel singer. I guess it’s not totally obvious who I am: a runaway teen ISO shelter. She’s confused me with the cable guy? I bite my lip. I’m outside, on the street. I need to get back there, behind the Plexiglas and locked door.

  “Oh, um, I’m here about shelter?”

  She looks me over, like I’m some reality TV reject, calculating statement with the obvious fact of my youth. The phone rings. She answers it and smiles. I can tell, she’ll forget about me.

  I make my helpless face. It’s not tough to pull off. I am helpless.

  I try not to, then I do: look over my shoulder. Is he outside? The stalker-rapist? Easy, he could reach inside, grab my arm, snatch—

  BZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

  The door clicks. I step inside. It’s official: Ahmed’s off the street.

  “Wait there.” She gestures over her shoulder, at a bench. I stumble forward. My legs give out. I collapse on the wood slats. I lean back. I close my eyes.

  “You’ll need to wait there for an intake counselor. It might be a while.”

  I nod, Okay. I don’t care how long it takes. So long as bulletproof glass separates me from the street. Here, I can see anyone who walks through the door. Like, for example—oh, shit!—Mr. Blue Eyes. His mouth moves, voice muffled. Underwater.

  “No, sir, I will not let you in, I do not care who—”

  I open my eyes and shit my pants for the second time. Mr. Blue Eyes looks at me. Miss Gospel Singer’s big head blocks his face. I see those blue-blue eyes. Ice cubes. They bore into me. I drop my head, chin to chest, but he’s seen my face, taken his picture. His eyes move down, to his left. Mine follow. There, hidden from her sight line, he pushes back his trench coat and strokes the knife handle.

  I pass out.

  Chapter 10

  I wake. I’ve been moved to an office. A white lady with fake dreadlocks sits behind a messy desk. Before she opens her mouth, she bugs me. Reword. She bugs the shit out of me. I know her type. Even so, I give her a Once-Ovah (my version of racial profiling). Tragically, Ms. Irritata thinks just because she invested in dreads and shapeless hemp “fashion,” she’s doing “good work.”

  Reality? She’d look so much better with a blond bob and dark blue suit. She could work in a bank. Ms. Irritata’s a classic, fat-ass example of white-people’s-crimes-against-humanity, the most serious count against her being Really Bad Fashion (not to be confused with “bad ass”). Call me classist, racist, ageist—maybe even a little bit antifeminist—but that’s what I see.

  Rat-a-ta-tat. She types (loudly) on a laptop. She’s probably chews her food loud, too. And farts in public, clueless to the sound because she wears a Walkman and listens to Sade 24 / 7. Three strikes. Silent, I sentence her to twenty years. I glance at the screen. My life hangs in the balance and she’s … searching for apartments?!?

  “Uh—”

  “I’ll be with you …” Her bored-but-brisk tone’s meant to make me—oh, hi? Runaway teen? In shelter?—feel like I am the one bothering her. Done, she looks up. “How may I help you?”

  “That man, he—I—” I don’t know how to tell her. I’m not even sure I saw what I saw. Clearly, I’m supposed to tell her what happened, why I’m here and what I want.

  “Two minutes,” she says, impatient as a waitress at lunch hour. Then what? I wonder. You need to take the eggs off the stove? Run a mini-mile marathon? Her left eyebrow cocks, Mr. Spock style. “Your pimp said—”

  “Pimp?” I am confused. The left eyebrow drops and she cocks the right. If she takes requests, I want to see her do it real fast. Work it, Ms. Irritata, work your fancy eyebrow dance! “He? Who?”

  I stop. Fuck her, there’s no way I can explain everything in two minutes. Besides, where would I
start: Haifa’s Hasidim helmet hair? The supermodel dykes? Bloodthirsty dobermans? Gunshots? Illegal immigrants? Downtown Vegas, rent-a-cops and slot machines? Or—oh, yeah!—Mr. Blue Eyes. Deadly, you’ve heard about him? He carries a knife, and rapes and kills boys in the men’s room.

  “Can I stay here?”

  “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what happened.” She narrows her beady banker eyes. Now I get it. I’d better barf up some trauma now or get the fuck out. She expects me to wrap my story with a little bow and hand it over. Here, for you, Ms. Irritata, for your collection. Merry Christmas! But I don’t celebrate Christmas, Jesus is the same as Buddha, and the twelve disciples were all drunks.

  I do, however, remember the telephone number. I tap the digits in my palm, silently repeating the sequence. To her, I prolly look like a crazy kid who thinks he’s the male Helen Keller. I don’t care what she thinks about me: I know what I think about her, starting with the upper lip: “Lady, hasn’t anybody ever told you that you should get your mustache waxed?”

  “Listen, um—” Busted! She doesn’t know my name. She has so many other items on her mind. Dry cleaning. Organic groceries. What’s on cable TV tonight. Where’s the vibrator (to go with the cheesy lesbian porn). Clearly, I am the least of her worries. “What’s your name again?”

  The safe sex poster hangs crooked on the wall, directly over Ms. Irritata’s dreads. I noticed they’re flecked with lint. Cool! I choose the smiling boy on the left.

  “Edward,” I say. We’re friends. Why stand on ceremony? I ask, “Can I stay here?”

  “Edward, by law, after seventy-two hours, we are required by law to notify your parents.”

  The hair prickles on my neck. She should know this stuff. She should be prepared for kids like me. Be ready to roll out the red carpet. Know there are those of us who don’t want their parents notified for—a lifetime would not be long enough—of their whereabouts.

  “Unless you disclose your circumstances, we can’t help you.” She smiles. Or, grimaces. I can’t read the face. She has gas?