Authors: Todd Strasser
No Place (22 page)
42
No one’s parents are perfect.
Some fathers have bad judgment.
Some lose their tempers.
Some can’t seem to hold a job or be successful at work.
Some mothers think they’re supposed to be successful at work. And then change their minds.
But most parents try to do the right things for their families and communities.
Most, but not all.
In an office in the Median Police Department with Detective French and an assistant district attorney, Dad finishes telling his story.
“So when you put Purcellen in touch with that gang, you had no idea what he was planning?” the assistant district attorney asks.
Dad shakes his head.
“You didn’t wonder?”
“I did. I asked, but he told me it was none of my business.” Dad hangs his head. “It was a mistake. I never should have done it.”
“Bad judgment isn’t a crime, Mr. Halprin,” the assistant district attorney says. “If it was, we’d all have criminal records.” He stands up, says he’ll be in touch, then leaves.
“Now what?” I ask Detective French.
“We’ll investigate.” She rises from her desk and offers her hand. Dad and I shake it and he heads for the door. I let him go ahead—“I’ll catch up in a second, Dad”—then turn back to Detective French. Our eyes meet and I give her a questioning look. She remembers that day we spoke in Starbucks because I mentioned it when I first told her that Dad wanted to speak to her about Aubrey’s beating.
“We’ll contact the Burlington police,” she says. “It’s their jurisdiction. But, Dan, keep in mind that gangbangers have a way of vanishing when word hits the street that the police are looking for them.”
In other words, I shouldn’t hold my breath.
“What about the house Mr. Purcellen gave us?” I ask. “Isn’t that evidence?”
“I imagine Mr. Purcellen’s lawyers will claim you were squatters who had no right to move in,” she replies. “It’s your father’s word against his, Dan. Unless we can find witnesses or develop corroborating evidence, there’s very little . . .”
She continues talking, but I’ve tuned out. It’s not her
fault. I know that if she had the time and resources to build a case, she would. Not just because it’s her job, but because she believes in justice. But now that we live in the United States of Part-Time Law Enforcement, there’s only so much justice to go around.
43
In
The Grapes of Wrath
homelessness meant being on the move. When the Joads got to California, they lived in Hooverville, then Weedpatch, then a boxcar, until the rains brought flooding. At the end of the book they were moving again, this time in search of higher, drier ground.
I’m amazed at how calm Mom is after Dad takes her for a walk and tells her the story. Maybe she’s just used to him messing up, and knows that he only did what he did for our sakes. Still, she says we can’t stay in that house, garden or no garden. We’ve barely unpacked, so our stuff goes back into storage. When I call Mason and explain we have nowhere to go that night, his parents say we can stay in the apartment above their garage.
* * *
Dealing with Talia turns out to be a nonissue. She’s aghast at the story her father told her of how my father tried to
blackmail him into giving us a house by threatening to blame him for the ransacking of Dignityville. In fact, Mr. Purcellen would have gone to the police had Talia not begged him to reconsider. But now that Talia accepts “the truth,” she doesn’t know how we can continue to see each other.
For an instant I’m tempted to tell her the other side of the story, but then I remember what Detective French said: It’s her father’s word against mine. And besides, it’s over between Talia and me. I’m finished pretending.
* * *
More than half a million people march on Washington over Thanksgiving to protest financial inequality in this country, and millions more attend rallies in towns and cities all over. I pitch in the Fall Classic. Pro scouts are there and I hear later that a couple of players actually do get draft offers. I guess they’re the phenoms. But at least the scouts see me, and a few say I show promise and they’ll keep an eye on me.
So maybe . . . in a couple of years . . . if I keep working hard and improving . . .
* * *
I wish I could say that the police were able to connect Mr. Purcellen to Aubrey’s beating and what happened to Dignityville, but that hasn’t happened . . . yet. There have been rumors, though, and those alone must hurt. Sometimes in the hall Talia looks pale and glum. I feel bad for her.
* * *
It’s basketball season now. The trees are bare and every morning there’s frost on the ground around Mason’s house. Dad’s getting lots of little jobs reffing games after school and at night. They don’t pay a lot, but the games are short, and sometimes on a weekend he can work three or four of them a day. Mom has a job cooking in a vegan restaurant. I’m a little nervous that she’s going to insist on going vegan at home, but so far she hasn’t.
I signed the letter of intent with Rice, so that’s all set for next year. And I’m working a few evenings a week and weekends as a busboy at Ruby’s so I can save some money between now and then. Noah and I hang out when we can, but it’s awkward with Talia being Tory’s best friend. It’s just as well. They can make whatever plans they want now without having to be concerned with whether I can afford to join them.
Meg’s dad is in a hospice. She says he doesn’t have much time left. I’ve been hanging out with her a lot; we’re definitely beyond friends. Sometimes I toss a tennis ball with Aubrey to help him get his hand-eye coordination back. He’s already talking about starting another Dignityville on private land so no town money has to be involved.
In the meantime the Fines will be moving into a Habitat for Humanity house that was donated to the town after Dignityville was destroyed. The owners of the house said
that before Dignityville they’d had no idea how many people in Median were homeless.
I’ve heard that some other houses were donated as well.
So I guess some good came out of Mayor George’s “worthy experiment” after all.
EPILOGUE
It’s too bad that the baseball tournament had to be on the same weekend as the march, but I still think I made the right choice. For me.
There are people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and maybe even Aubrey Fine, who somehow know they’re meant to change things in a big way. I don’t know how they know it, but they do.
On the bus coming back from the tournament, I found another quote in
The Grapes of Wrath:
Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. . . . I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad—an’ I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready.
An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.
Some things have changed since the Great Depression—the police are here to protect the homeless and the people who strike for better pay, not to beat them up.
But it’s weird how a lot of things haven’t changed. Nearly a third of our country is living at or near the poverty level, and on the news we keep hearing that homelessness and unemployment are close to the highest they’ve been since the Depression. Some people still go hungry, and many can’t afford medical care.
I just can’t help thinking about how
The Grapes of Wrath
is based on events that happened nearly a hundred years ago.
How is it possible that so many of the problems people faced back then are still the problems we face today?
TODD STRASSER
has written many critically acclaimed novels, including
Famous, If I Grow Up, Boot Camp, Can’t Get There from Here, Give a Boy a Gun
, and
Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date
, which was adapted for the Fox feature film
Drive Me Crazy
. He lives in a suburb of New York City. Visit him at
toddstrasser.com
.
Simon & Schuster • New York
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Also by Todd Strasser
Famous
If I Grow Up
Boot Camp
Can’t Get There from Here
Give a Boy a Gun
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Todd Strasser
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Jacket photograph by Clayton Cole/Getty Images
The text for this book is set in Berling LT Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strasser, Todd.
No place / Todd Strasser.—First edition.
pages cm
Summary: When Dan and his parents can no longer pay their mortgage, they end up homeless and living in a local tent city. It’s a bad situation, and it only gets worse when the leader of the tent city is brutally beaten. Who is trying to shut down the tent city, and why?
ISBN 978-1-4424-5721-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5723-2 (eBook)
[1. Homeless persons—Fiction. 2. Poverty—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S899No 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2012043701
Contents
