The Lost Boy

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    I cleared my head of any feelings I had about the Nullses -or anyone else – as I glanced out the car window. My eyes blinked. For a moment I thought Gordon was driving me to Daly City. “Are you going in the right direction?” I asked in a squeaky voice.
    Gordon let out a breath. “David, ah … we’ve run out of foster homes. The only one left is a home by your mother’s.”
    I felt a lump creep up my throat. “How close?” I whimpered.
    “Less than a mile, ” Gordon replied in a dry voice.
    I nodded my head as Thomas Edison Elementary School came into view. I calculated the distance from my old school to Mother’s house to be under a mile. I could feel my chest begin to tighten. The thought of living so close to Mother made my heart skip a beat. But something seemed out of place. I nearly pressed my face to the side of the window. The school looked radically different. “What happened?” I asked, shaking my head from side to side.
    “Oh it’s a junior high school now. That’s where you’ll be going.”
    I let out a sigh.
Doesn’t
anything
stay the same anymore?
I asked myself in a sarcastic voice. A flicker of excitement over seeing my teachers that had rescued me soon vanished. Only when Gordon wheeled his car away from the school, in the opposite direction of Mother’s house, did I breathe a little easier. I felt as if I had stepped into a time warp as the Chevy Nova chugged up streets that were lined with houses of the same style as Mother’s on Crestline Avenue. I couldn’t believe how small they seemed. Strangely, though, I felt secure. I let out a smile as I marveled at the tall palm trees in the front yards of the single-story homes that seemed so tiny now. I couldn’t believe it had been nearly two years since my rescue. I rolled down the window, closed my eyes and breathed in the moist, chilly air.
    Gordon parked his car at the top of a steep hill. I followed him up a set of red-colored stairs to a house that looked identical to Mother’s. When the front door opened, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Gordon leaned over to my side. “You going to be all right? You’re not prejudiced, are you?”
    I shook my head as my mouth hung open. “Prejudiced?” I asked. I had never had black foster parents before. A tall lady shook my hand and introduced herself as Vera. I automatically took my position on the living-room couch as Gordon and Vera talked in the kitchen. My eyes darted in every direction, searching every corner, every beam of Vera’s home. The entire floor plan seemed the same. I remembered that the walls of Mother’s house usually reeked from the thick, choking smell of cigarette smoke and the heavy stench of animal urine. But Vera’s home had an open, clean feeling to it. The more I gazed at Vera’s home, the more I smiled.
    Minutes later Gordon sat down by me on the couch. With his hand on my knee, he warned me that Mother’s house was off limits, with a radius of one mile. I nodded my head, understanding the meaning of Gordon’s order. But I was frightened of Mother finding me. “Are you going to tell her where I’m at?”
    “Well, ” Gordon began, as he fought to say the right words, “by law I am only required to inform your mother that you are residing in the city limits. Other than that, I really don’t see a need to tell her anything else. As you can tell, I’m not a big fan of hers.” Then his facial expression changed. “And for God’s sake, you make damn sure you stay the hell away from her! Am I clear on this?”
    “Like crystal, ” I replied, giving him a salute.
    Gordon playfully slapped my knee as he got up from the couch. I walked him to the door and shook his hand. Having Gordon leave me in a strange home was the hardest, but most familiar, part of our relationship. I always felt a little scared. He seemed to always sense it. “You’ll be fine. The Joneses are good people. I’ll check in on you in a few weeks.”
    Vera gently closed the door behind Gordon, then led me down a narrow hallway. “I’m sorry, but we weren’t expecting you, ” she explained in a kind voice, as she opened the bedroom door at the end of the hallway. I stepped into a vacant, white-walled room containing a twin-sized mattress on one side of the wall and a box-spring on the other. Vera reluctantly explained that I would be sharing the room with her younger son. I gave Vera a false smile as she left me alone in the room. Very slowly I plucked my