Jeremy Pierce squirms on his cardboard “mattress,” pulling up the sleeping bag under his chin. The snores and moans of the other kids in the makeshift camp under the 880 freeway ripple the dark. Once in a while he scores a bed in a shelter or crashes in an abandoned building. Traffic rumbles over them. They are runaways and throwaways, but they look out for each other sharing food, money whatever they can scrounge. When Dusty, the skinny girl from Denver, was sick, two of them carried her and left her at a hospital emergency room.
Jeremy lights a match —5am. He is the only one with a watch, a gift from his grandparents for his fifteenth birthday. It’s the one thing he’s managed to hold on to. He shivers. How the hell did I get to this place? I screwed up big time. His mother had warned him to shape up. He let his grades drop, and she hated his friends were dopers. He would stay out late or not come home and was constantly fighting with his father. They couldn’t get along at all. When the police brought him home that last night, he was high on Ecstasy. He liked that feeling of euphoria while it lasted. His father kicked him out the next morning.
At first, he thought it was cool to be free and on his own with no rules. He hitched to Oregon with another kid he met and they hooked up with other street kids. He got by on panhandling and working as a day laborer when he could get work. He had brought his guitar and sometimes sang on the street in front of a store. Later when he made his way back to the Bay Area, he’d sing at a BART station. He liked Bob Dylan and made a few bucks singing his songs. His voice wasn’t bad, in fact strangers often told him he had a really good voice, and he had an audience around him on a good day. Jeremy hoped and prayed maybe his mom would take BART to the city some day and see him busking and take him home but that didn’t happen for real. It was only a dumb fantasy.
Jeremy saw plenty of bad stuff on the road and it made him sick to see what kids did to get by. He knew enough to not get hooked up with bad drugs and saw what happened to kids who did. When a huge rat skitters over his legs he yells “NO!!! GET AWAY!” He flails and scrunches in the smelly sleeping bag practically suffocating himself. ears roll down his cheeks. I ‘gotta go home. I can’t take this shit any more.
Ginny Pierce stands at the sink, absently scraping crusted oatmeal out of the saucepot, staring out the picture window at the perfectly landscaped yard teeming with hyacinths and daffodils. Stupid cheerful daffodils. I want to yank them out. Sweet boy…where are you? It’s been two years, four months and three days. She counts out the time to herself every single day since Jeremy took off after her husband kicked him out. That makes his absence more real. The pain eats away at her. Oh Jeremy.
Wait. Oh my God! She drops the pot in the sink with a loud clang. Can it be? Ginny blinks her eyes convinced her bruised, shattered heart has conjured a mirage. A skinny, ragged boy with a huge grin is standing in the yard holding a backpack and a guitar case. He drops them on the lawn then waves his arms wildly and runs towards the house. Ginny fumbles with the sliding patio door.
“Jeremy… is it you? Is this a dream?” She pulls him in her arms, laughing and crying.
“Mom, it’s me. I hid until Dad pulled out. You don’t have to cry. Please don’t cry. I really hate it when you cry.”
Ginny snivels and stands back to scrutinize him closely as only a mother can do. His hair is bleached and spiked; he has big holes in his jeans, wears a dirty tee shirt with a faded Nirvana picture on it and a ring protrudes over his left eyebrow. “You’re so skinny and you…” She wrinkles her nose and unconsciously covers it with her hand.
”Mom, when you’re on the road you don’t get three squares and darn I missed my spa appointment.”
She hugs him again not wanting to ever let him go, not caring about his rank smell. “You’re still a smart ass,” she mutters quietly and nuzzles his grimy neck. It was his wary, empty eyes that made her insides quiver. Where has he been? What has he done to get by? She is afraid to find out.
“Mom, could you make me a he-man woman-hater’s breakfast. I know it’s not Saturday, but maybe you can make an exception.” He hadn’t forgotten her huge Saturday breakfasts and their silly code name for them. Jeremy dreamed about this meal a thousand times when his empty stomach growled.
She doesn’t say another word, marches to the Frig like a soldier going to battle yanking out butter, bacon, a carton of eggs, then setting a frying pan on to heat. She pulls out slices of bread from the bread box, throws on the bacon, gets another pan for the eggs. She sticks the sliced sourdough bread in the toaster like a frenzied short order cook. The kitchen fills with sizzling, intoxicating smells within seconds and Jeremy almost can’t take in the richness of the aromas he remembered so well.
His mom looks older with more gray in her short hair. An uneasy wave of guilt washes over him for what he’s put her through. Oh God, I’ve missed her— my funny, sarcastic mother. I’ve missed this room— even her silly collection of leprechauns. After I eat, I’m showering forever. I hate not being clean. Then I have lots to say to her. I’ve changed— I’ve grown up. Sleeping on the streets hasn’t been easy, but I’ve learned some things about myself. I can do better.
Ginny remembers the pancakes, the last component for the breakfast and heads to the pantry for the box of mix. Before she starts measuring, Jeremy says, “Mom, forget the pancakes. Really, this will be more than enough.” He heads to the kitchen sink, carefully washes his hands and forearms with hot water and dish soap leaving a dark ring above his elbows then dries them on a clean towel that he folds and puts aside. He takes his old place at the kitchen table on the right side.
The front door rattles. Ginny looks at her son in a funny puzzled way, then gasps in recognition, “Oh no… it’s Dad!” Jeremy’s face turns white. He gets up so quickly he knocks over his chair, ready to bolt through the patio door but it’s too late. They hear him approaching. They look at each other.
“Gin, I forgot the folder for the Whitehead account. Must’ve have left it by the computer. Hey, it smells damn good in there. What do you have…” He enters the room with a swoosh, his hard driving 6’ 2” masculine presence sucking the air out of the kitchen. Ginny stands guard in front of Jeremy grabbing the iron frying pan she was about to use for the eggs like a weapon. Her eyes and face tell him not to come closer.
Ed Pierce stares at his son then his handsome face reddens. His meaty hands clench at his side. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you not to show your face in this house until you straightened up. Ginny, why are you making him food? He’s not some goddammed invited houseguest.”
Ginny stares at her husband of twenty- six years filled with a hot rage she didn’t know she had in her—not nice, reasonable Ginny Pierce, former PTA president, faithful wife, regular church attendee, prize winning gardener. Don’t dare mess with my son again was the message she broadcast loud and clear, her fierce expression like a mother bear guarding her cub. “Ed, the boy is starving, and he badly needs a shower. After he eats and cleans up, we’ll talk tonight. I don’t want you to say another word. Not one word!” Her voice is filled with a quiet menace that sounds dangerous.
Her husband starts to answer her, then backs off shaking his head in disgust. He grabs the missing file slamming the front door on his way out. Jeremy stares at his tiny 5’3” mother in awe. He can’t remember when she’d ever stood up to his father.
Ginny goes back to the stove to crack the eggs, but Jeremy sees she is shaking. She finishes making his breakfast and brings the overflowing plate to the table.
He barely feels like eating after the shock of seeing his father, but his growling, empty stomach has a mind of its own. At first, he tries to eat slowly like his mother used to admonish him lifetimes ago but remembers being on the road, afraid someone could take the food away, like it happened so often, so he gobbles it down. Jeremy doesn’t speak as he eats, and his stomach fills up fast, not used to big meals.
Ginny watches him carefully but doesn’t say anything while he is eating. She is overwhelmed with mixed feelings, joyous that he is back in her kitchen and determined to carry out the plan she has been hatching for a long time. When he is done, he gets up from the table and takes his dishes to the sink. “Leave them Jeremy I’ll care of them.”
“Mom, I’m going to shower. Are there any clothes in my drawers?”
“Yes, all your clothes are there. I knew you’d come home. Take towels and a new soap from the hall closet. There’s shampoo in the shower. Leave what you are wearing in a pile in the hall. I’m throwing it all way.” He nods and heads upstairs craving that hot shower as much as the breakfast he just wolfed down.
While Jeremy showers, Ginny goes to her hiding place in the back of her buffet in her dining room bringing out the bulging envelope of cash she has been accumulating from scrimping and saving. She must have over $5,000 that she made from cutting coupons, consulting on friends’ gardens, and helping out young mothers in the neighborhood with babysitting. They love her and pay her well and helped to make her stash.
Her husband has no clue she is going to leave. She’s had it with his bullying of her too. He never laid a hand on her but his verbal abuse has gone on too long. Ginny knows her husband has always blamed her for not being tougher on Jeremy. Maybe there’s some truth to that but she doesn’t care. He is her son and he is here now and she won’t let him go again. She will take him to rehab or wherever he needs to go.
Ginny knew that she would need a place to stay and cash until she finds a job and starts divorce proceedings. She has already been talking to a lawyer. While Jeremy showers, she calls her friend Tina who owns an apartment rental agency and lets her know she needs a place today. She met her at her gym and has been staying in touch with her regularly. Tina knows Ginny might have to leave in a rush and doesn’t ask a lot of questions. She tells Ginny about several possible places, and they decide on a two- bedroom furnished apartment which should work well.
Ginny has been thinking about this plan every night when she wakes up in the middle of the night not able to sleep worrying about her boy imagining him cold and alone or injured or drugged out. Yet Ginny was positive he would come home. She knew it in her heart. She knew it in the marrow of her bones. She isn’t going to let her only son slip out of her arms again. Ed doesn’t know it yet, but this time he’s not just kicking Jeremy out again. She’s going with him.
Jeremy comes down the stairs after nearly an hour. She almost doesn’t recognize him. His skin is red and clean from scrubbing. He smells fresh and she sees a glimmer of her old Jeremy in his eyes. “Sit down son. We have to talk.”
Joanne Jagoda 