Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (11 page)

“Mexican food really needs to be eaten on a table,” he said by way of explanation. “Well, by everyone except Paco here.” He indicated Emilio, who immediately flipped him off. I laughed, loving their easy camaraderie, and felt the knot in my chest loosen just a little. “Okay, now let’s talk about your problem.”

“What’s the kid’s problem?” Tony asked, opening his white Styrofoam container and pulling out a hard-shell taco. It smelled absolutely wonderful, and suddenly my ham sandwich didn’t look so appealing. Lettuce and tomato fell out of the corn shell when he bit into it, and a dribble of grease ran down the back of his hand. He licked it off and looked at me expectantly.

“I need to find a job, and it seems that they’ve all been taken by college students,” I said before biting into my sandwich, promising myself that right after I found a job, I’d get Mexican takeout. Carolyn had always cooked for me, and I could make grilled cheese or frozen pizza, but nothing like authentic tacos. So, until I found something, I’d be living on sandwiches, frozen pizza, and boxed soups. After my last two take-out containers disappeared before I could finish them, I figured out that with seven other guys in the house, I’d have to keep what I could hidden in my room.

“Okay, so what can you do that some philosophy major can’t?” Tony asked around a mouthful of rice. He washed it down with a drink of his beer, and I thought about his question. I didn’t think I could do anything better than any other high-school graduate.

“Well, I’m one test away from a brown belt in karate, but the only place I found in the paper that had a position open required at least a high-level brown. I’d starve to death before I could test up that high,” I remarked with a snort.

“Apply anyway. What’s the worst they could say?” he asked, looking at me seriously. “I mean, think about it. If you don’t apply, there is no way you’ll get the job. If you apply, at least you have a chance. They may say no, but there’s no harm in asking. You need to talk yourself into a job, Brian. Tell them why they’d be crazy not to hire you. Put your big-boy pants on and grow some balls.”

“Tony,” Emilio said in a low, admonishing voice.

“What? You want to see the kid starve? Get evicted? Go back to whatever hell he came from? I don’t.” Tony drained the last of his beer and stood up, stretching. Leaving his food on the table, he went into the kitchen for another beer.

“I’m not sure I’d have put it quite that way, but he’s right,” Mike said, throwing an amused glance over his shoulder. “Life isn’t just going to hand you what you want, kid. You need to grab it, fight for it.”

“I’ll go apply for it tomorrow,” I said.

“What else don’t you suck at?” Tony asked, taking another taco out of his container. “Computers?”

“No, I don’t know a lot about computers,” I said, shaking my head and ripping open the bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. Emilio had turned me on to them a couple of days ago while we had sat in front of the television watching some reality show, where he declared that one day he would be on television. I had agreed, mostly to placate him, and he had raised his glass to me in a mock toast.

“Kid, you need to figure them out. There’s one over there. I’m sure if you spent some time on it, you’d pick it up fast enough,” Tony told me as he popped open his second beer and took a long drink. A low, quiet belch erupted from him, and he smiled as Emilio rolled his eyes.

“There are some tutorials on the GLBT Center website if you need help,” Leo said as he came out of the office. “Tony’s right, not being very comfortable using a computer will be a disadvantage at any job you apply for.” Reaching into my bag of chips, he snagged one and popped it in his mouth. “Okay, I’m going up. Night, guys.”

“Night, Leo,” we called behind him, and he waved over his shoulder.

“He’s been keeping an eye out for you. We all have,” Mike said quietly. “If any of us hears about an open job, we’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” I said with sincerity as Mike squeezed my knee under the table. I jumped and he winked at me, not in the lewd way he normally did, but more in a friendly, joking-type way before he spoke again.

“That’s what friends do.”

T
HE
shelter looked like a high-school cafeteria. Half the area was full of huge metal lunch tables, where a few stragglers sat finishing their breakfasts in attached chairs. The other half of the room was full of bunk beds, each with a flat pillow and threadbare blanket, sitting in almost organized rows. It was a very small space that the shelter volunteers had made the best of, but it was still heartbreaking to think of Jamie forced to live in a place like that. With about two dozen bunk beds, it looked like the shelter would only hold about fifty of the city’s thousands of homeless.

“Excuse me?” I asked one of the volunteers carrying a bucket and sponge to wipe down the tables. He appeared to be in his late thirties and wore a deep-purple polo and khaki pants. Setting the bucket down on a nearby table, he turned to me and smiled.

“I’m sorry, son, but the soup kitchen won’t open again until this evening,” he informed me politely.

“No, I’m not here for that,” I said, holding up the enlarged picture of Jamie I had made from the computer the night before. “I’m looking for this guy. Have you seen him? He would have been here in the last few weeks.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually here when people start filing in. I help during the day when they’re all out. You’ll want to talk to Father Quinn or one of the women who hands out food. They see everyone who stays here overnight.” Picking up the bucket again, he went back to work after wishing me luck. At the far end of the room, where empty trays still sat, I didn’t see anyone working. There were a couple of doors in the back of the room on either side, so I went back to look. The first was a broom closet, so I tried the other side of the room and found a hallway. The walls were a faded mint green, and the cracks in the cinderblock reminded me faintly of the orphanage.

“Can I help you?”

The voice came from behind me, and I spun around to see an elderly man in a black short-sleeved shirt with a small white tab in the front of the collar. His sparse, neatly trimmed white hair shone in the low light.

“Have you seen this boy?” I asked, handing him the picture of Jamie. He studied it for almost an entire minute before handing it back.

“I meet with every soul who passes through those doors. I talk with them about trying to get into one of our programs, I pray with them, and I try to help them find their way again. This boy has not been here.” My shoulders sagged, and I folded the picture back up and put it in my pocket. My defeat must have been evident as I turned away because at once he called me back.

“Come with me. Maybe I can help,” he said and led me back to an impossibly small office with duct-taped chairs and a desk that looked like it might have been new sometime in the late sixties. The tile on the floor was cracked, and the books overflowing the shelves seemed like they’d seen better days, but the office was clean and even friendly. I don’t know what I expected; maybe that he would do a few computer searches or call a few friends. I didn’t expect him to sit back in his chair and ask me to tell him about Jamie.

“We were friends back in Alabama. Well, more than friends,” I started, trying to ignore the shame of telling this priest I was gay.

“There are no judgments here, son,” he said softly, encouraging me to continue. I told him about Jamie, about how I felt, and about Jamie’s parents. The tale ended with Jamie’s mother catching us and moving him to San Diego. Finally, I told him about the letter and how the boy at the center had told us about Jamie coming to San Diego with nothing but the clothes on his back.

“How big this city is scares me. I may never find him,” I told him finally, voicing my fear for the first time. It was possible I would never find Jamie. My abstract vision of San Diego, as a boy from a tiny town in Alabama, was nothing compared to what I’d found when I got off that bus. With so many people and so much going on, Jamie could be on the next block and I would never know.

“That is possible,” he conceded. “Do you have a list of shelters that you’re searching to start?” I nodded and handed him my printed list from the Internet. He looked it over and added a few more. “I might start with Leo and Margaret over at the gay and lesbian center in Hillcrest. They help a lot of gay runaway boys.”

“Leo? As in Leo Horshiwitz?” I asked.

“That’s the one. Have you already been over to the center?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“No, I live at his boardinghouse on Eighth. I moved in a couple of weeks ago.” To my surprise, he sighed.

“Leo does a lot of great work in the community. I’m just not comfortable with how he uses sex to keep that place running.” The memory of those men having sex in the bathhouse made my face flush. I could not stand here and talk about that with a priest, so I tried to change the subject.

“I’ve talked to him about Jamie. Do you have any other suggestions?” I asked.

“I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but a lot of young boys that end up on the streets here survive by selling their bodies, so there are places where you could start looking.” The wind left my body in a harsh gasp. I refused to believe that Jamie would consider it. I didn’t care how many teenage boys the priest saw go through here.

“Jamie wouldn’t do that,” I told him firmly, offended by the fact that he’d even suggested it. “He was always shy about sex. There’s no way he’d become a prostitute.”

“You’d be surprised what you would do to survive when you have no other choice.”

A
S
I
flipped through the channels for the twentieth time, I finally understood why people had jobs during the day. Daytime television was an utter nightmare. If I had a job, I’d work just so I didn’t have to watch it. I snorted as a folding chair went flying by the host of the talk show that was currently on. If it had hit him, it would have been so much more interesting, but of course, they probably choreographed the whole show. That was too bad.

A tinny disco song began to play from behind me, and I turned around to look. Leo had left his office door open, as he did most days when the rest of the guys were out. Normally, I would be out too, but it was raining. The other guys were either at work or hanging out somewhere, because Leo and I were the only ones home.

“You found me,” he answered the phone in his normal jovial tone. The talk-show host started to take control of his show back as I heard Leo stand up and start moving things around in his office. When he spoke again, his voice had lost all its normal good humor.

“Jesus, and they beat him to death?” he asked. I turned off the television, listening intently even though I knew it was rude. “Yeah, had we placed him at any point?” He paused as he listened, and I heard him pull his jacket off a hanger hard enough for it to bounce against the closet wall. “No, I’m on my way. Call Margaret, and let’s see if we can get a presence there. We don’t want another homeless murder to be invisible to them because they think no one cares.”

Stunned, I tried to process what he was saying. Someone had murdered a homeless guy. I refused to let my mind make the connection. There were thousands of homeless people in San Diego. Just because one of them was killed, it… it didn’t have to mean it was Jamie.

Leo walked out of his office, and I stood off to the side as he looked up. Our eyes met for a long moment, and my mouth finally formed the words I needed to ask.

“Is it? Could it be… could it be the boy I’m looking for?”

“I don’t know anything about the guy, Brian. It’s unlikely, but I can’t tell you it isn’t because I just don’t know,” he replied, his voice sounding tired and sad.

“Can… can I go with you?” I asked quietly, and he put his arm around my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze.

“I’d like for you to come with me,” he told me as I pulled away to grab my shoes. “We have to let the city know that the homeless aren’t invisible, they aren’t just going to sweep this man under the rug and make his death insignificant.” I nodded. I don’t think, with the possible exception of Mosley and his friends dragging me into the equipment room, that I had ever been so scared. Only I wasn’t scared for me.

The ride over to the shelter was quiet, and when he pulled into an empty space on the street, I turned to look at him, unable to make my hand move toward the handle of the van door.

“Where are we?” I asked instead. “Is he… is the man… is he here?” My hands were starting to shake now. I’d only ever seen a dead body once before in my life. At three years old, I had sat next to my mother’s body, feeling the warmth and life drain out of her onto our living room floor. I didn’t want to see that again.

“No, we’re here to talk to the man who runs the shelter, and maybe to a few reporters. Come on,” he encouraged me, checking his side mirror before opening the door and stepping out onto the deserted street. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and turned the handle. The door swung open, and I opened my eyes again as I stepped out. Closing the door quickly, I followed Leo to the corner, and we turned right. A small building with faded paint and a sign that read Relief Mission stood on the right. A small crowd of people gathered before the open door, a mixture of men in suits, women in jeans, and harsher-looking men and women in ripped and faded clothes. They all seemed to be talking at once, trying to drown each other out in adrenaline and emotion.

“Jim,” Leo said, putting his hand on a man’s arm and motioning him to come away from the small crowd. “Did you know him?”

“Yeah, poor George,” the man sighed. “He was in the Gulf and just had a hard time adjusting when he got back. But there was no way he would just stand back and let a woman be hurt.” The man was shaking his head, his eyes far away, as he seemed to lose himself in thought.

“What happened?” Leo asked, and I felt my knees start to give. It wasn’t Jamie. Even if he had picked a new name for himself, no one would mistake him for a Gulf War veteran; he was far too young. I sat down hard on a bench near the door, and Leo came to sit beside me. The relief I felt started to make me feel a little light-headed. I couldn’t believe how relieved I felt, actually, since I had no idea where or even how Jamie was.