Falling for Colton (Falling #5) (6 page)

I drift back to sleep and wake up as the bus is squealing to a halt. I blink, rub my eyes and pull myself together. It’s late morning, and I’m in New York City. I stand up, grabbing my backpack, and then I notice that the zipper is open, just a little. Not a lot, but enough that I notice. This is weird, because I know I had closed it. And it’s the little things, right? Whenever I close my backpack, I always zip it all the way to one side or the other, because that way if things shift inside the zipper won’t accidentally rip open. I had that happen once in sophomore year. I had all my books with me because my locker was in the farthest upper ass-end of the school and I wasn’t about to schlep up there after every class. I’d gone to shoulder my bag and it had popped open and spilled everything everywhere. Embarrassing. So after that I always zip it closed to one side. Never at the top.
 

And now, the zippers on my backpack are up top, in the middle and open just a bit.
 

The dude pushes past me and hops off the bus real quick, disappearing into the crowd of the Port Authority bus station. The speed with which he flies past me and off the bus lights a little fire of suspicion. So I sit back down and open my bag.
 

I see crackers,
 

A can of Coca-Cola,

Clothes,

But no cash.

FUCK.

“FUCK!” I shout it out loud.
 

“Excuse me, young man. No call for that kind of language.” An old black woman, graying dreadlocks tied back by a large rubber band, looks at me.
 

“Sorry. But that asshole stole my money.” I gesture at the seat where he’d been. “Or someone did.”

She gives me a sympathetic look. “I didn’t see nothin’, honey. Sorry.”
 

I want to cry. I don’t, I can’t, but if I could, I probably would. “People, man. Fuckin’ people.”
 

She shakes her head, her thick queue of hair swinging. “Hard luck. Sorry, honey.” And then she’s gone.
 

No one else says anything, or even bothers to look at me.
 

I’m broke. Totally broke. I dig into my pocket and find a single crumpled five-dollar bill.

Alone in New York, homeless, and now broke with five bucks to my name.
 

Nothing to do but handle it, I guess. I trudge off the bus and scan the crowd for the old guy, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The crowd of people is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. People of every age, race, and size mill in a never-ending sea, and finding one face, even one I knew well, would be impossible. So finding one man I hardly noticed when I first boarded the bus? Impossible. Besides, he’s probably long gone by now, with my cash.

I follow the crowd out of the station and onto to the main road, ignoring the hustlers trying to take advantage of kids exactly like me: young, homeless, and scared. I may not be book-smart, but I know better. I push past them, pretend they don’t exist.

For a second I lose my breath. Reality hits
hard
.
 

I’m in New York Fucking City. The road is a river of cars, many of them the iconic Yellow Cab. The sidewalk is crammed with people. The noise is deafening. Engines, horns, brakes, voices. A whistle sounds off to my right, and I turn to look, see a policeman blasting on his traffic whistle. I follow my instincts and end up at the intersection of Eighth and West Forty-second. I have no idea what that means, or where in the city I am.
 

Where do I go? What do I do?
 

I’m hungry. I’m used to eating a lot more than granola bars and apples and shit. I work out a lot, so I’m used to bulking up on protein shakes and eggs and meat, lots of protein to pack on the muscle. I have to shit. I’m tired.
 

What the hell did I get myself into?
 

How the hell am I going to survive? My throat is tight. My chest aches and my eyes burn. I only slept fitfully on the bus, so I’ve been awake for…shit, almost two days.
 

I tell myself to calm down. To think. Be rational. I can
do
this.
 

The first thing I need to do is get a job. This is the Big Apple, there’s got to be a garage or something where I can pick up some work. Changing oil, sweeping floors, shit, anything. I’ll clean toilets.
 

First thing, though, is to start walking and find a garage.
 

One foot in front of the other, I follow Eighth Avenue and just keep walking and watching. I end up in Central Park, which is beautiful and interesting, but not what I need right now. I walk back out to the city itself, along a street I think is called Central Park West. I have no clue where I’m going so I start turning up streets at random and end up on…Sixty-fourth. I stop at the corner of Broadway. The real fuckin’ Broadway. And, for a moment, as I take in the lights and the people and the magic, I forget why I ended up here in the first place.
 

At little further up the block I see a sign that, after some puzzling, I make out as “Emergency Auto Repair”, and I go in.

Leaning thick forearms on scratched counter is a big, bald white guy. He’s got tats, earrings and is wearing blue coveralls. “Help you?”

“Yeah, I’m looking for work. I’ve got a lot of experience with automotive repair, I can take apart and reassemble—”

“Not hiring. Sorry.” He pushes upright and crosses his arms over his chest.
 

“For real, I can do it blindfolded. I’ll work the desk, I’ll clean the floors—”

“Said we ain’t hiring, kid. Fuck off.” His stare is cold, flat.
 

“Do you know anybody who is?” I ask, aware that I’m pushing my luck.

“No. Scram.” He moves as if to come around the desk, which tells me this won’t end well for me if I don’t leave
right now
.
 

I leave and end up retracing my path back south, this time walking along Columbus, where I see another auto repair shop on Fifty-fifth. This place has a different vibe. Behind the counter is a woman with limp dishwater blond hair, a rough-looking lady who’s obviously seen better days.
 

“Hi. I’m looking for work.” I start talking before she’s even acknowledged me or said hello.

She doesn’t even bother to look up from the computer screen. She’s wearing glasses, so I can see in the reflection that she’s playing solitaire. “Piss off, kid.”
 

“I need a job, ma’am. I work hard, I know engines—”

“We’re not hiring. Unless you got a car that needs fixing, go away.”

I leave and keep walking, but I have no clue where I am or where I’m going. Lost. Tired. Sore feet. Hungry. Scared. And then I have an idea: I’ll find a phone book with Yellow Pages, and start looking up all the garages and repair shops in the area.
 

I duck into the next doorway I see—it’s a Chinese restaurant. I ask to use their phone book and the little old Asian guy tosses it to me without a word. I take it and sit down at an empty booth. I take a deep breath and summon all my attention, then I flip open the four-inch-thick book.
 

Fuck. Tiny-ass words. How the hell are you supposed to read this shit? Jesus. I turn to the Yellow Pages but it takes for-fucking-ever to find the auto repair section, and even longer to copy the addresses down on the scrap of paper I asked for. My handwriting looks like a five-year-old’s. Childish scribbles and scrawls.
 

All told, it takes me over half an hour to find and copy out five addresses and phone numbers.
 

I ignore my exhaustion and hunger, mainly because I don’t really have a choice. After leaving the restaurant, I stop at a little kiosk on the sidewalk that sells magazines and cigarettes and such and ask for a map. The young Hispanic guy behind the counter says he doesn’t sell maps but tells me to try a hotel, which sometimes have tourist maps. So I go in search of a hotel and finally find one. The map they give me is basically a cartoon, but it provides me with a basic understanding of the layout of the island of Manhattan, I realize; it’s probably better for my illiterate ass than a real map, to be honest. Maybe I should venture out of Manhattan and try to look for work in another area—maybe Brooklyn or the Bronx.
 

Tomorrow, I decide. That’s a long-ass walk, I’m guessing.

In the meantime I manage to find the five auto repair shops on my list. They are scattered across the city, dozens of blocks apart. I spend hours and hours just walking, but not one person will even give me the time of day.
 

Not hiring, kid.

Sorry, we got all the help we need.

Piss off, kid.

Come back in a couple years.

Go away, kid.

It’s late evening by the time I decide I have to sit down before I pass out. And that’s when I start to wonder where I’m going to sleep tonight.

Central Park, maybe? It’s big, so there’s got to be somewhere I can catch a couple hours of sleep.

Of course, when I finally decide to try it, I’m a half-hour walk away. By the time I get there I hurt all over, and then I have to hunt through the park for somewhere to crash. There are people everywhere, even at this time of the night, walking, running, biking, rollerblading, in couples and alone and with dogs. I see a cop on foot, friendly looking, thumbs hooked into his gear belt. Smiling at people, waving, just strolling through the park.
 

Okay, correction, Central Park is fucking mammoth. I’ve been walking these damn paths for what must be an hour, and I’m totally lost. There are a lot of paths and a lot of open space.
 

Dark is coming on fast. There are fewer and fewer people around and eventually I feel like the only person around. Then a few more late-night types emerge—a guy on a bike passes me, wearing a helmet with a light attached, a runner with a headlamp, a couple walking a huge dog, each carrying flashlights.

Finally, after much searching I find a bench located in a shadowy alcove, under a canopy of trees. Before me I can see the tops of the towering buildings—tiny squares of light peeking up over the tree line in the distance.
 

I toss my backpack on one end of the bench, lay my head on it, curl up and try to get comfortable.
 

Fuck, it feels good to lie down. My feet ache. My stomach growls—I haven’t had a proper meal in two days.
 

I miss home: a real bed, real food, shit, I even miss Kyle, just a little.
 

This is the last thought I have before sleep takes me away from my aches and pains and the deep loneliness I feel.

* * *

Whack
. “Yo, wake up, man. Can’t sleep here.”
Whack.

Each
whack
is accompanied by a sharp, painful smack of a hand to my shoulder. I roll, sit up, and I’m blinded by a flashlight, a body behind it, a cop. Blackness behind him, silhouetting the angles of his cap.

I shield my face against the blinding flashlight. “All right, all right. Can you get that out of my face?”
 

He lowers the flashlight and shines it at my chest, the bench, my hands. Checking for weapons, maybe. His hand isn’t quite on the butt of his gun, but near it. Ready to palm it and blast me, probably. Or maybe not.

“Up.” His voice is deep, and judging solely by the sound of his voice, I’m guessing he’s black. “Get a move on, man. Outta the park.”
 

“I don’t know the way out of the park,” I say.

He shines the beam of light to his left, illuminating a cross-path in the distance. “Take that, it’ll lead you out.”
 

“Okay, thanks.” I shoulder my bag as I stand up. I stretch and work the kinks out of my back.
 

“Must be new here if you’re tryna sleep on a bench in the park.” He’s making small talk, waiting for me to get moving.

“Yes sir. Just got here yesterday. Today, whatever.”

“Nowhere to go?”
 

I head toward the path he indicated. “No sir. On my own.” I may be a teenager, but I was raised by upper-class parents, and they taught me to show respect for cops. Saying “sir” is ingrained.
 

“Between you and me, kid, you ain’t gonna catch any sleep on a bench. Find an alley, or under a bridge somewheres. Watch your back, but you gotta better chance that way.”
 

“Thanks, Officer.”
 

He watches me as I turn onto the path, and then I see his light flick off, and he keeps walking. Humming a song, a tune I recognize from the radio.

The city streets are better lit than the park, but it’s not the rural night landscape I’m used to. No stars, no silence, no crickets. I used to sit out on the dock back home, late at night, listen to crickets and owls and the waves, and stare up at a sky full of stars. Now I’m in the big city, and the only sounds are cars and horns and ambient urban blare.
 

I have no choice but to walk and walk and walk.
 

Again, I’m not sure where I’m headed. I’m just walking to stay awake. Walking to be doing something.
 

Several hours later the sky turns from black to gray and begins to lighten, and I’m still walking. Trudging like a zombie. I crossed a long-ass bridge at some point. Water way below, girders above, semis and taxis roaring past. I’m not in Manhattan anymore, but I’m not sure where I am. The buildings are smaller—there are no highrises here. I notice more graffiti on the walls. Fewer taxis. Security bars on the windows, not as many lights, more trash in the gutters.

Barely past dawn, I see a tall, thin black guy wearing mechanic’s coveralls cross the street ahead of me, carrying a lunchbox. He’s got big bright purple headphones on his ears, the cord trailing down into the open front of his coveralls. He has a bit of a limp, and I can see that his eyes are scanning his surroundings, his head constantly swiveling. He sees me approaching him and halts, tenses.

He tugs the headphones down around his neck.