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The small-in-stature young boy sat huddled on the curb, his head
crunched into his folded arms – a picture of dejection. The town
clock in the belfry of the nearby church had long ago struck twelve
midnight. A car, a short block away, turned onto the street and
momentarily the boy was caught in the glare of the car’s headlights.
Unlike other similar nights, the boy continued to sit motionless.
The car slowed and cautiously drove around the child and parked
beyond him at the curbside. Still the dark form remained huddled.
Raised voices from within the car carried across the space in the
clear quiet night but the doors remained closed. Suddenly, the
voices stilled and the passenger side door was flung open and then
slammed shut. The car slowly drove away, almost reluctantly.
High heels clattered to where the boy still sat, unmoving. The woman
angrily toed the boy’s body and with that, he tiredly raised his
head to silently acknowledge she was there.
“What’s the idea of spying on me like that? You know you’re supposed
to be in the back of the house when I come home. Now you’ve gone and
spoiled it for me; he’ll never come back again. And this one had
money and could have taken care of us real good. I don’t know what
I’m going to do with you.”
She swept up the porch stairs and, when he didn’t follow, she turned
and shrilly called to him to come. Dragging his feet, the boy, with
his head bowed, slowly followed her as she entered the house and
turned on the light.
Keeping up her railing, she looked at him for the first time and was
taken aback at what she saw. “What in heaven’s name have you been
doing? You’re a mess!” she cried. She lifted his bowed head. From
under the brim of his dirty cap, two teary eyes appeared as he tried
to turn away.
“What kind of a scrape have you been into? Have you been making
trouble?”
The tousled head shook “no”.
“Then how did you get so dirty - and that black eye? Who have you
been fighting with? I hope not with Mrs. McCarthy’s boy or she’ll
put us out on the street. Did he get hurt?”
“No, it wasn’t Bobby.”
“Then, who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me that. You’d better tell me now before the cops come
to arrest you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Go to bed. I’ll settle with you in the morning..”
Without a murmur, the boy took a pillow and small throw blanket from
a chair and meekly lay down on the unkempt couch.
The mother retreated to the only bedroom in the small house and
slammed the door behind her.
The house and its occupants lay quiet.
Sometime during that night, a small boy determined his own fate - he
would have no more of this life. He rose from his makeshift bed and
softly closed the door behind him as he went to seek for himself a
better world.
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