Chapter Twenty-Four
posted in Novel |
Here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.
I really want you to know how much I appreciate the comments you’re leaving about this.
I realize that writing this is much more meaningful for me than it probably is for you. I’m still not entirely sure why I’m doing this — other than some need to show how it is possible for someone who grew up with violence as their code to find their way to an understanding about peace, and how using violence will never lead to peace. How this happens is still to be written, so I hope you’ll stay with me on this long project.
Be well — be in peace,
Ron Rink
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During the summer of 1943, I did make two more attempts at running away, but still wasn’t smart enough to elude the cops. I did have a little more success the second time since I managed to stay away for over two weeks. Those were two weeks of warm summer days and nights so I didn’t feel I needed to sleep in the bowling alley every night. I still spent a good percentage of my mornings and early afternoons working at the track to pick up some extra money, but I did something different than usual later in the day.
Rather than riding my bike in the evenings, I’d leave it either in the storage area behind the bowling alley, or at another place behind one of the stores on Seven Mile Road where I could hide it safely. Then, I’d get on a bus and ride to another part of town in the late afternoon. I went in a variety of different directions. Once I got off the bus, I’d walk into the neighborhood areas, staying away from the main streets. I was beginning to learn that the cops rarely cruised the neighborhood side streets, but stayed more along the main drags. I also felt the cops in my own neighborhood would be more likely to spot me than those in neighborhoods some distance away.
I went mostly into the Hamtramck and Highland Park areas because they were more built up with older, established neighborhoods. And, since both Hamtramck and Highland Park were separate cities from Detroit, they had their own police forces, which made it less likely that they would have the same information as the police from the Detroit force.
Most of the homes in these neighborhoods had garages behind the houses, and alleys behind those garages. Late at night, those alleys would provide safe pathways to those garages where there were cars which would provide clean, comfortable and dry places to get a decent night’s sleep.
The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the fact a lot of the people in Highland Park and Hamtramck worked in the factories. The factories were usually running twenty-four hours a day. Since they were making tanks and other vehicles for the war, many people worked on the night shifts.
One time in Hamtramck, I was sound asleep in the backseat of a car when I heard the garage doors start to scrape open. I shot straight up in the seat and, even though it was very dark, I found myself staring into the face of a man who looked as frightened as I was at that moment.
He let out a “Hey” and started to back away from the car, stumbling over his own feet as he scrambled to move away from the garage.
I let out an equally surprised “Hey” and started to slowly open the back door of the car.
It only took a split second for my sleepy mind to figure out the only way out of the garage was going to be through the open garage doors where he was standing because that’s how I got in. There was no other door.
“Hey, I’m sorry, mister. Let me go okay?” I pleaded as I slowly stuck one foot, followed just as slowly by the other foot, out of the back door of the car.
“You get outta here,” he yelled in a very pronounced accent, which I assumed was Polish since Hamtramck’s population was almost one hundred percent Polish in those days.
As I stood up and took a couple of tentative steps toward him, he took a couple of equally tentative steps back. His eyes looked like huge saucers and his hands were held in front of him as a way of letting me know he wanted me to stay away from him.
“Just let me go—I won’t cause any trouble—I was just sleeping, that’s all.”
“Okay, go—go on—get outta here now!” he said as he backed even further away, waving his hands around and pointing towards the alley.
I side-stepped past the car, then sidled around the garage door opening to get past him and took off running past the garage, out his back gate, and down the alley as fast as my feet could carry me.
Sleeping in people’s cars in their garage was ideal for staying warm and being reasonably comfortable. There were some nights when I’d choose to sleep under someone’s front porch, but I only did it if I was desperate. Most of the houses in these older neighborhoods had porches that ran across the entire width of the front of the house. The area under the porch was often used as storage or as a place to collect miscellaneous junk.
Some of the under-porch places were closed in with wood with little doorways on the sides, others were left open and others had a lattice enclosure. When I did choose to sleep under a porch, I always picked a house where the area under the porch was closed in. I felt more secure that way.
The main drawback was the creatures of the night didn’t care for me intruding on their space, especially the rats. I would wake up feeling something brushing against my bare arm or my leg, only to see a huge, hairy rat with its bright, beady eyes sniffing at me. It got to the point where if I couldn’t find a place to sleep in the backseat of someone’s car, I’d just walk the neighborhood until morning.
On the last night of my two-weeks of success as a runaway, I rode my bike out to Seven Mile Road to hide it. As I was waiting for the bus, it started to rain. I decided I’d be better off in the bowling alley instead of either walking the streets or sleeping under porches. So, I got my bike and headed over to the bowling alley hoping to make it before the rain picked up.
My luck ran out when the cops spotted me and picked me up.
I spent that rainy night in my bed at home.
It would also be my last attempt to run away that year.
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