Being Henry David

2

Yeah, I looked through that damn book. I sat for a good twenty minutes and flipped through every single page. There was nothing. Not a train ticket, not a receipt, not a name. Nothing.

So. What now? Burying my face in my hands, I fight an urge to rock back and forth, crying like some lost little kid. Instead, I’m distracted by the feel of soft stubble on my chin. Not much of a beard, but apparently enough to shave. My fingers explore my cheeks, nose, eyelids, and ears like a blind person. I don’t even know what I look like yet. Would I know me if I saw me? Got to find a mirror.

As soon as I step into the men’s room, the strong smell of piss and disinfectant stings the inside of my nose, and some guy is puking in one of the stalls. Ignoring this, I freeze in front of the mirror. I blink, and the guy in the mirror blinks back. Stuffing Walden into the back waistband of my jeans to get it out of the way, I lean in to stare at the stranger. Damp hair, black and straight. Messy. I rake my fingers through it. Eyes light, maybe gray. He’s tall and lanky, but his shoulders—my shoulders—are wide and I look strong. That’s something anyway.

“Hey, ugly,” comes a voice. There’s a skinny kid leaning against the wall by the urinals, one boot up against the concrete, dirty blond hair falling into his eyes. His clothes look like they could use a washing. Or better yet, a Dumpster.

“Hey, asswipe,” I say back. Among the things I’ve just learned about the guy in the mirror are: One, I could easily take this loser. And two, I’m no rock star, but I’m definitely not ugly.

The kid’s mouth twists to one side, and his eyes blaze. I just want to be left alone. But if he wants to start something, okay then. I’ll fight him. My hands curl into fists as I wait for him to make the first move.

“Yeah? Wipe your own ugly ass,” he hisses. He takes three steps toward me, eyes never leaving mine. We stare into each other’s faces, neither giving any ground, not one centimeter, not one twitch of surrender. Then before I can react, he pushes me forward with hard palms, trying to slam me against the concrete wall. I barely waver.

“That was lame,” I say.

He gets close, peers into my face, his mouth a tight line of aggression. I stare back, not flinching, not even blinking.

Then he smiles. He laughs and slaps me on the shoulder and I’m so tensed up, I almost react with a fist to his jaw, except that his attitude seems friendly. Weirdly friendly.

“I’m Jack,” he says. “Don’t ask for a last name, because I don’t have one.” He crosses his arms across his chest and smiles at me, and I realize that I’ve passed some kind of test. My fist relaxes, finger by finger, joint by joint.

The puking guy stumbles out of the stall to shuffle toward the sinks, and Jack and I give him plenty of room. His eyes are bloodshot, cheeks caved in like a decaying jack-o’-lantern, his flannel shirt grimy. His glassy eyes drift toward me, and he gives me a slow smile. The few teeth he has left in his mouth are black nubs.

“Later, boys,” he says. He lurches out the door.

Jack ignores him. “So who the hell are you?” he asks me.

Good question. Who the hell am I? I clear my throat, adjust my jeans to buy some time. And I feel the bulk of the paperback book stuffed into the waistband. A picture of the cover swims into my mind again. I see the lake, the trees. Then the title and the author’s name.

“Henry,” I blurt out. “Henry David.”

Jack pauses, and for a second I think he’s going to call me on it. I probably didn’t say it with enough conviction. Henry. Henry David. Next time, I’ll do better.

“Henry,” he says doubtfully, trying it out. “You don’t look like a Henry. I’ll call you Hank.” And just like that, I become Hank. “So, Hank, I think it’s about time for a midnight snack. You got any money?”

I shrug. “A little.”

“Good. You can buy us some food.”

I narrow my eyes. This guy has some balls. “Why don’t you buy us some food? Since it was your idea and all.”

“Relax, Hank. Give me something, and I’ll give you something. Like maybe a warm place to sleep tonight. Don’t you think that’s worth the price of a hamburger, for chrissake?”

The ten dollars in my pocket isn’t a lot of cash, but it’s enough to buy Jack and me sodas and two cheeseburgers each at a fast food place in the terminal. Judging by the way he stuffs the first burger into his mouth and lets the ketchup dribble down his chin, he’s hungrier than I am or a slob. Or both.

“So what are you running away from, Hank?”

I pull a pickle out of my burger and pop it into my mouth. I can’t remember food ever tasting so good. But then, I can’t actually remember eating anything before this.

“What makes you think I’m running?”

Jack smirks and swipes at his chin with a paper napkin.

“You’re hiding out at Penn Station. Any second, you look like you could either bust into tears or stab a guy in the neck. It’s the look.”

“The look.” I echo.

“Yeah, the one you get when you’re a runaway, especially at the beginning.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I take a huge gulp of soda to wash down the lump in my throat.

“Yeah, you do. You’re scared shitless, but you still figure being on the streets is better than being at home.”

Jack stuffs another bite of cheeseburger into his mouth and pokes a finger at my chest. “You can’t bullshit me, ’cause I’m the same as you,” he says with his mouth full. I’m nothing like you, I want to tell him, taking in his filthy clothes and the dark smudges under his eyes from dirt or lack of sleep. But what if I am a runaway, and things were so terrible where I came from, I blocked them from my memory? My fingers seek out that sore spot on my head under my hair, with its dried blood and goose-egg lump. What happened to me?

“I’ve heard all the stories. Let me guess yours.” He looks me up and down. “Don’t tell me. You’re a foster kid who aged out of the system.”

I shrug, not sure what else to do.

“Wait, wait, I got it,” Jack says. “You did something, didn’t you?”

The lump on my head begins to throb.

“Ah, we’re getting close,” Jack crows. “What’d you do, break into a house? Steal a car?”

Sweat breaks out on my upper lip.

“Oh, I know. Maybe you killed somebody.”

He laughs after he says maybe you killed somebody, loving his own crazy joke, and I try to join in, but my face is frozen. My pulse hammers in my ears and something dark lurches in my chest like a beast waking from a deep sleep. A wave of dizziness breaks over me and I grip the edge of the table so I won’t fall off the chair.

“Dude, you okay?” Jack’s thin face drifts in and out of focus.

A trickle of sweat trails between my shoulder blades. I wipe my upper lip with the back of a shaky hand. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You looked like you were about to have a seizure or something,” Jacks says. “You one of those epileptics?”

I take deep breaths, needing hits of oxygen. “Just dizzy, that’s all.” My mouth is desert-dry, so I grab my soda and gulp it down. Slowly, I feel my heart and breathing return to normal, and I sense the black thing in my chest (what the hell was that?) hunker down and go quiet.

Jack squints at me, but then jerks to attention like a deer smelling a predator, turning toward the entrance of the restaurant. The two transit cops I met earlier are standing there. Their glances sweep the room and lock in on us. They start toward us, and Jack freezes. Red hitches up his pants over his belly.

“You back again, Jack?” asks the cop with the mustache. He smiles, but the grin looks more menacing than friendly.

Jack slouches down in his chair. “Just enjoying a delicious meal, officer, like any other paying customer. No law against that, is there?”

“No, but if you overstay your welcome, we’ll have another conversation. Understand?”

Jack nods, his eyes sleepy. “I most certainly do, officer.”

Mustache Cop’s gaze trails over to me. “You enjoying that book, kid? You seizing the day?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I can see that. Just watch yourself with Jack here. You look like a good kid, and I don’t want his influence rubbing off on you.” His eyes drill into mine, like he’s trying to extract something.

“Yes, sir.” I say again. Lame.

Finally, without another word to us, the cops finish surveying the restaurant, then seeming satisfied, they leave, radios crackling in their wake.

“I hate those guys,” Jack murmurs to me. “They seem to like you, though. Must be the preppy kid look you’ve got going on. And those running shoes. Bet they cost you like two hundred bucks.”

I examine my innocent gray sneakers as if they hold some story they can tell me about myself. Jack looks too.

“Is that why you talked to me?” I ask him. “You think I’m some rich kid?”

“Not at all,” Jack says, his blues eyes all wide. “I talked to you because I could see you were lost and needed a friend.” He stands up and tucks the second cheeseburger in the pocket of his green army jacket. “Let’s go. I got a place where we can crash for a couple hours.”

Jack starts walking toward an exit and I stay frozen in my seat, not knowing what to do. When he notices I’m not following, he turns and stares at me, annoyed.

“Look, it’s past midnight in New York City, Hank. You really want to be here at Penn Station all alone with the crazies?”

Somebody else might have said, you go ahead, I’ll stay here. Somebody else might have trusted his gut, which was telling me Jack could only lead me to trouble. But I’m not somebody else, and I don’t have a better plan. Jack has decided to be my friend, and that’s all I’ve got. So I go with him.

Out on the street, the sounds, smells, and lights of the city at night crash over me like a wave. Stale car exhaust. Glaring artificial light. Horns honk, people shout, and from far away a car alarm drones. The city itself is like some kind of huge, restless, living organism.

Jack leads me through the charged air, turning left down one street, then another. The place is alive with people and noise, even though it’s past midnight. Taxicabs clatter by and honk for no apparent reason. A guy in a dirty black jacket sits on a milk crate playing an acoustic guitar, and I stop to watch his fingers fly across the frets, his right hand picking and strumming. A woman drops a dollar bill into his open guitar case. Jack comes back and grabs my arm just as I empty out the coins in my pocket.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “He was really good.”

In spite of the bombardment of noises and smells, I memorize every turn, including two more lefts onto smaller streets, just in case I need to find my way back to the train station.

“Where you taking me?” I say at last.

“Relax, already. We’re almost there,” Jack says.

One more turn, and we walk down a narrow alley littered with scraps of wood and rusty pipes. A light shines down onto a big green Dumpster at its end.

“Home sweet home,” says Jack.

“What, you live in a Dumpster?”

“Behind it, prep boy. They’re doing renovations on the second floor, so it’s full of construction stuff. You wouldn’t believe what they throw away.”

Behind the Dumpster, I see a lean-to shack made of broken slabs of wood and sheets of plastic, propped up against the brick wall like a crooked little fairy tale house.

Jack goes over to the shack and pounds on a slab of cracked drywall that makes the roof. Colored beads hang from the front of the shack. Apparently somebody tried to decorate. “Hey, Nessa, you home?”

There’s a rustling inside the shack, and a girl emerges from behind a ragged patchwork quilt serving as a door. Her hair is long and black, and she has heavy makeup smeared around her pale eyes.

“Hey, Jack,” Nessa slurs, either sleepy or wasted.

“How’d it go tonight?”

Nessa shakes her head and tugs at her huge gray sweatshirt. “Not so good.” Her legs are skinny, bird legs in thick black tights. She’s probably fourteen or fifteen years old, but even with all that makeup, she looks like a little girl. She catches a glimpse of me, hovering there behind Jack.

“Who are you?” she asks, looking me over with huskydog blue eyes.

“I’m Hank.”

“Cool. You’re cute,” she says and gives me this sweet smile.

Jack ducks into the shack, leaving Nessa and me standing there. I wish I knew how to turn the volume down on the sadness in this girl’s eyes. I wish I could take her out of this dark, smelly alley and tuck her away someplace safe.

“Uh, thanks,” is all I can think of to say. “So are you.”

Brilliant.

Jack comes out carrying two blankets and a pack of cigarettes. He offers me a thin wool blanket. It’s gray, full of holes and smells like mothballs and piss, but the night is chilly, so I take it, hoping it’s not crawling with bugs or something. Wrapped up in the blankets, we lean back against the Dumpster. Nessa nestles between us, and Jack hands her the cheeseburger he saved from our snack at the terminal.

“Aww, thanks, sweetie,” she says. “I’m starving.”

“Hank bought it.”

“Then thank you, sweetie,” she says to me, and I nod as if it were my idea, wishing it was. She chews the first bite with her eyes closed like it’s a gourmet meal instead of a cold, greasy burger.

I take the cigarette Jack offers, poke its tip in the flame of his lighter, and puff. Smoke in my lungs feels familiar. I must be a smoker, then. We sit there for a while just smoking together, and something inside me relaxes for the first time.

“Check out the moon,” Nessa says.

It takes a moment to see it past the glaring lights of the city, but then, there it is, big and full, glowing orange like an omen. Good or bad? I wish I knew.

I look at Nessa’s pretty profile as she tilts her head to look at the sky. “Makes me think of this book I really liked when I was a little kid,” she says, her voice quiet. “I think it was called Goodnight Moon.”

Jack snorts. “Yeah, except out here, it would go something like, ‘goodnight junkies, goodnight rats, goodnight Dumpster, goodnight trash.’”

Nessa smiles at him, but her voice is still dreamy. “Remember that book, Hank?”

“Nope,” I say.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jack says. “Every kid knows that book.”

I shake my head and take another drag of the cigarette. “I don’t remember.”

We smoke in silence for a bit, so quiet I can hear faraway sirens and the crackle of our cigarette paper burning down.

“Mom used to read it out loud,” Jack says, still looking up at the moon. “That was before she died and Dad stopped caring whether I went to school or not or whether I was alive or dead. Until the day he came after me with a shovel. Then I was pretty sure he wanted me dead.” Jack gives me a sidelong look and this weird smirk. “Whatever. Everybody out here has a story.” Jack swipes at his face with the wool blanket. “So what’s yours?”

Nessa stands up and stretches. “Leave him alone. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to talk about it?” She rubs her eyes with fists like a sleepy child, further smearing her makeup. “I gotta sleep. Are you going to stay with us a while, Hank?”

“Maybe a little while,” I say, though I have no idea. A part of me wants to stick around, like I have this crazy idea I can protect her. Nessa says good night and disappears into the shack.

“Everybody has a story,” Jack says, as if there’d been no interruption in our conversation. “No matter how bad it is, I guarantee I’ve heard it before.”

“I doubt it.” I stare up at the moon for a long time. Jack and Nessa have taken me in, the only friends I have on this planet. The night is gentle, holding its breath, and at least for this moment in time I feel safe. So I decide to tell him. “My story is that I can’t remember my story.”

“Say what?”

“I don’t remember anything.” I lower my voice. “Not my name, not where I came from. I woke up at the train station a couple hours ago, just before I met you, and that’s the first thing I can remember.”

“Seriously?” The glow of Jack’s cigarette hovers motionless. “You mean, like you’ve got amnesia?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess so.”

“Wow.”

“I mean, I know stuff. Like, before I ate it, I knew cheeseburgers tasted good. I know about money and train stations, that I live in the United States of America and speak English. I know general stuff about the world. But I don’t remember anything, you know, about myself.”

“Hmmm.” Jack purses his lips as he contemplates this news. “That is so messed up, dude.” Then his face twitches into a smile.

“I know.” Recognizing the weirdness of my situation, I smile back. When Jack starts laughing, at first I’m a little pissed, but then his laugh is so damn contagious, I’m laughing too. Something in my chest feels lighter with the laughing. Sharing my secret makes it less scary somehow.

“So Henry David isn’t your name.”

“Nope.” I pull Walden out of my waistband and hold it up to show Jack. “I just found this book next to me when I woke up, so I used the name of the guy who wrote it. Other than the clothes I’m wearing, it’s the only thing I own. I think it must be a clue.”

Jack shrugs and takes a deep drag of his cigarette.

“Either that or some random person left it at the train station and you just happened to find it.”

My jaw clenches. “No way,” I say. “It’s a clue.”

“Take it easy,” he says. “Okay, it’s a clue.” He stubs out his cigarette on the bottom of his sneaker. “So what are you gonna do? Go on national TV and be Amnesia Boy? The media loves that shit. You’ll be famous by dinnertime tomorrow.” From far away, we hear a police siren. “Just don’t say anything about me,” Jack says. “I like to keep a low profile. Way low.”

“Yeah, I think I need to do the same.”

Maybe you killed somebody.

Keeping a low profile is about the only thing I’m sure of. That, and the fact that I woke up with this book next to me. Therefore, it has to mean something. I touch the cover picture of pine trees at the edge of a lake. That’s where I want to be.

“Okay, Hank, or whatever your name is, I need to check in on Nessa and crash for a couple hours. Grab some drywall and make yourself a little shelter. Cool?”

“Cool. I’ll be fine.”

Jack salutes, then disappears into the shack. He andNessa whisper for a while, then there are soft sounds that could be laughing or crying. After that, silence.

Staring up at the moon, I try to feel sleepy, but now that I’m alone, my mind is racing and I’m wide awake with my heart hammering against my ribs. There are skittering sounds on the other side of the Dumpster, probably rats. The wind shifts, and even though the Dumpster is mostly full of construction trash, I get a strong whiff of rotting food and random nastiness. I pull a huge plank of particle board out of a pile next to the Dumpster, lean it against the back wall of the alley, and huddle underneath like it can keep me safe. I try to stop my hands from shaking.

To calm my twitchy brain, I take a little internal inventory, try to piece together what I know about myself so far. Okay, so I’m a teenage guy, probably somewhere between sixteen and eighteen years old. Hair, black; eyes gray. Not bad-looking either. There was only that quick glance in the men’s room mirror, but I know that much. I like burgers and soda, and I might be a smoker, although that cigarette left a weird taste in my mouth that kind of makes me want to gag. I have a bump and a cut above my forehead that stings if I touch it. I get real fidgety around the cops.

And there’s a black beast inside me that doesn’t want me to know stuff. It guards my memory, clawing at my insides and going for my throat if I get too close. So why did the beast wake up when Jack said, maybe you killed somebody? Is that what it won’t let me remember?

The black thing in me surges again, and I feel a pounding headache coming on. “Stop,” I whisper. “Go away.” But it crouches there, waiting to creep closer so it can attack, now while I’m alone and vulnerable. No. There’s a light shining down from the side of the building, bright enough to read by. So I open my book, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and that’s what I do.

This Thoreau guy wrote it in the mid-1800s, so the writing is a little weird for me at first. I have to read some paragraphs over a few times to figure out what he’s trying to say. But then I start to get into it.

Walden, as it turns out, is named after some pond in the woods in a town called Concord, Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau was in his late twenties when he went there to get away from the world and live alone in a little cabin for a couple years. He listened to the birds, walked around the pond, and just thought about stuff. Living off the grid, whatever grid there was in 1845.

Instead of the stink of the alley and the echo of sirens and honking taxicabs, while I’m reading the book it’s actually like there’s fresh air rustling leaves in a tree over my head. I hear the water and birds singing. Somehow, I know this place in Henry’s book. I can remember being outside like that, in the woods, near a lake. It’s familiar in a way I feel to my bones. It’s the closest feeling so far to home.