It's October 12, 2002. You're guessing the weather is probably in the low 60's. A bit windy. You wonder what's happening in Brooklyn, with everyone else, you wonder if anyone was frustrated that you left. Anyone like Stacy, but you couldn't stay there anymore. You didn't like it there. You're thinking about this while taking a walk in a park. "Greenland Park" the sign said "Where Everything is possible." The sign had a seven in all four corners.You wonder what life would be like for someone who just sat under that sign forever. Someone like you. You decide that you don't want to think about home any more so you keep watching your surroundings and walk.
You see a McDonalds and go in. What you see makes you freeze stiff. There's a television and you see your picture on it. "Twelve year old boy named Timothy Spellman was reported missing. The police's lead on him is that he ran away due to the suspicions that his fellow orphan friends have picked up and reported. They have no trace of him. His foster parents are being searched and questioned as suspects. They found liquor and marijuana tucked away in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Apparently the foster mother Lucy Bands, has been using drugs and threatened the children to keep them from speaking on it during inspections. The foster mom was taken in, likewise the foster husband Gorge Bands claims to not have known anything about the drugs and that he used the bathroom in his room. The situation is to be further inspected, though the police believe that he's headed over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan his necklace was found on the other side of the bridge. The boy ran away on his birthday. His friends at his foster home told the police that he spoke of running away numerous times before which makes sense for him to do so on his birthday because an inspector comes on the foster kids birthday with a present. They believe that he wanted the people to know he was gone and had ran away..." You drowned out the news and thought "man these people are good." You had to keep moving if you wanted to remain free. Free from the beatings from drunk foster parents, and Gorge the foster dad..."That liar," You thought. Thinking of him lying makes you angry, you start to walk really fast. Kind of stomping along the way.
You see a man and a woman walking together and they have three kids with them. A boy and two girls. A family. And better yet a family that actually wanted and loved each other. Parents that wanted and loved their children. You wonder who your parents were and why they didn't want you. You think about the lucky orphans with the story of their parents dying and them not having anyone else. Then you think about the unlucky ones, like you that have parents that just plain out didn't want you and just gave you up. "What type of person has kids and feels that way?" You think. You find an alley and you sit there and think. Think about your plan to escape the police who are impending on you to end your journey. Think about your life and how you're going to make it better on your great journey that you're planning to take. You fall asleep in the alley.
"How do you know all this?" I asked
"Because I'm you."
The blur that i've been staring at and listening too clears up and I start to realize that I was listening to myself, then it blurs up again and I'm looking at my foster mom, drunk, chasing me away. From a life I didn't want or deserve. A life that no one wanted or deserved.
********************
I wake up. Cold. Gather my book bag. Step out of the alley and I start walking.
