Off the Grid Read online

  “I’m Ernest, by the way. Ernest by name but not by nature.” He laughed at his little joke. “I’m not exactly your guardian angel, buddy. But let’s figure this out. You say your father’s in the hospital, and they put you and your mom up somewhere.”

  “Yeah, a tall building.”

  “Lots of them around. But let’s head toward the hospital and see if you recognize anything.”

  So we started walking. He had a bit of a limp, so we went slow. And he was right. About twenty minutes later we were circling the streets around Regional General Hospital when I recognized an old, dirty brick building. “That’s it,” I said. “You want to come in and meet my mom?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “No. I got places to go, people to meet. I’m just happy you found your way home.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He turned and I watched as he hobbled off.

  My mom was happy to see me. She could read me like a book. “Rough day?”

  “Yeah. Rough day.”

  She gave me a sad look. “Maybe we made a mistake raising you like we did.”

  “I love everything about the way I grew up,” I said. “I want to go back.”

  “We never expected this would happen to your father. We have to stay here for now. He’ll get better, and then we’ll go home.”

  But I had this gut feeling that even if we could go back home, something had changed, and it could never quite be the same. I told my mom about school, about the fountain and about Ernest.

  “Let’s go visit your father,” she said.

  We walked the couple of blocks to the hospital and went inside. My mom took me to the cancer ward, and we walked into a room with several beds. Behind some curtains, my dad was sitting up in bed. He had tubes going into his arms, and he looked pale and weak.

  “How was the first day at school?”

  “Not so bad,” I lied.

  “It’ll get better,” he said. My mom was fidgeting, adjusting the bedcovers and then running her fingers through his hair. “Hey. School, city, forest, whatever. It’s all about your inner resources.”

  I’d heard a million of these little speeches before, had grown tired of them but had them memorized. And right now I didn’t mind. It was good to hear him say stuff like that. “I know, Dad.”

  “Just use your instincts and your survival skills.”

  “There were no wolves or bears at school, Dad.”

  He smiled. “Sure there were. You saw them. Just keep your distance and stay downwind of them.” He coughed and closed his eyes for a second. I could see he was in some kind of pain.

  “We’ll all get through this,” he said to me. “And then we can go home. We gotta get some firewood cut and split before winter.”

  My mom leaned over him and gave him a hug. I did the same. Then we sat for a while in silence, listening to the other sounds in the hospital.

  Chapter Five

  My mom said I had no choice. I had to go back to school. So I went.

  DeMarco was waiting for me outside the school. “Good to see you, Code. The look’s improving. Not much, but it shows some hope.”

  I was wearing my father’s old hooded sweatshirt, the one he used to wear when he worked in the garden on cold days. I had seen other kids at school wearing something like it.

  “Ready for day number two?”

  “Not really.”

  “Listen. Just try your best to stay under the radar. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Listen. I know the ropes.”

  “You mean because you’re black?”

  “Yeah, but I’m also gay.”

  I must have looked puzzled.

  “I like other guys.”

  I shrugged. I understood what he was saying. It was just that he was the first gay person I had ever met, and I was trying to sort things out and make sense of the new information. I figured my best bet was to not overreact to anything that surprised me. But I guess I looked a little stunned.

  “I’m assuming you’re not of the same persuasion?”

  I shook my head.

  “Being black and being gay does draw attention to me. People want to get on my case. So I have to learn to deflect the bad stuff. I have to make sure it all bounces off me. Now, if you hang out with me, you’re gonna get some of the flak yourself. Might be another strike against you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, first you show up here after crawling out from under a rock. Then you piss off some white-girl vegetarian by talking about hunting. Now you hang out with an openly gay guy.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Well, if you hang out with me, people will start thinking you’re gay too. So what we have here is a gay Bambi killer from the sticks.”

  It took a while for it all to sink in, but when it did, I started to laugh. The laughing felt really good. I guess I was a bit loud, because that got us some eyeball attention. But then DeMarco started to laugh as well.

  And I felt that maybe my second day of school wasn’t going to be so bad.

  I asked DeMarco a few more questions about what he meant by “under the radar,” and it began to sink in. “So what you’re saying is that I need to be under the radar but not completely off the grid.”

  He grinned and said, “Now I think you’re starting to get the hang of it. Pretty soon we’ll be able to shake those pinecones out of your hair and you’re gonna fit right in.”

  With a bit of DeMarco’s coaching, I got to all my classes, lay low and made it through the day. After school he had to go to his job, so we parted ways and I promised him I wouldn’t drink from any form of public water trough on my way home.

  But as I walked off toward the apartment and another visit to the hospital, I heard some people taunting DeMarco. There were three of them—heavyset guys with attitude. I recognized one of them as that creep Austin. DeMarco was trying to get past them, trying to pretend they weren’t there, as was his style. They had names for him, names that sounded nasty.

  My life in the woods had made me physically strong. You also develop a strange confidence in yourself in tough situations where you need to get physical. Sometimes there’s no one around to help you, so you need to be prepared.

  Austin and his goons had blocked DeMarco’s path as he was walking down the sidewalk. DeMarco was smiling, though, and doing some kind of little dance as he spoke to them, acting like it was all a joke. But then Austin shoved him hard and knocked him down. That’s when I decided to get involved. I broke into a run and put two fists in front of me as I smashed into Austin and hammered him until he fell. He hit the ground hard, and I came down on top of him.

  I expected Austin’s two buddies to come at me so was surprised to find DeMarco grabbing my arms and pulling me up. “No, man. Not like this. Don’t be stupid,” he said.

  Austin’s friends hung back, but I could tell they were ready to pounce. “Just a little misunderstanding,” DeMarco said to them.

  The door of the school opened and a couple of male teachers headed our way.

  “C’mon, Cody, let’s get out of here.” DeMarco tugged at my sleeve.

  Austin was on his feet now. He looked at me and then DeMarco. “Faggots!” he shouted, and then he spit on DeMarco. The teachers were yelling something, but Austin and his two friends were on the run. DeMarco tugged at me again and started running in the opposite direction from the other guys. I ran with him until we were a couple of blocks away, and then we stopped to catch our breath.

  “Not the way to play the game, Caveman. Thanks for coming to help, but you fight back against a dog like that and he comes back to bite you another day when you’re not looking.”

  The next day I was summoned into Mr. Costanzo’s office. There sat Austin and a cop and a man who introduced himself as Austin’s father and pushed a business card into my hand. His old man was a lawyer. You could tell Costanzo didn’t like the situation any bet
ter than I did. Austin’s father did the talking and then turned to the police officer, who seemed as uncomfortable with the whole scene as Costanzo.

  The cop said, “Cody, you’ve been charged with assault. Do you understand what that means?”

  I didn’t really, but I was thinking of DeMarco, my only friend in this insane place, and I figured if I tried to explain what had happened, he’d get drawn in. “I understand,” I said.

  The policeman, a kind of no-nonsense guy in his twenties, walked me out to his car and put me in the backseat. Driving me to the police station, he said, “Just doing my job, kid.”

  I was questioned by a detective in a suit, but I didn’t really have anything to say except DeMarco’s words: “It was a misunderstanding.” In the end, the detective just got frustrated and said, “I’ll see if your friend’s father is willing to drop the charges. But people will be watching you. You’re not off the hook. If this happens again, if there is a pattern here, then we get serious. So keep out of trouble.”

  The same cop who had brought me in took me home and explained to my mother his version of what had happened. After he left, my mom gave me a hug. Then she looked me in the eye and said, “I’m sorry. We haven’t prepared you for any of this. We have to get you back home.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can take care of myself. We can’t leave until Dad gets better.”

  But when we visited him at the hospital that night, he was on some kind of medication that made him sleep, and he didn’t look like he was on any road to recovery. My mom and I just sat there silently for two hours.

  A man in a white coat walked in and introduced himself as Dr. Musgrave. He said that he had taken over my father’s case. “I believe we are on the right path here,” he said. “It’s a pretty serious regimen of medication, but it’s necessary. It’s going to take some time.”

  “But he looks worse, not better,” my mom said, looking over at the pale face of my father.

  “The medication is attacking the cancer cells, but it’s also pretty hard on the healthy cells.”

  Mom looked like she was about to cry.

  “How long will he have to stay here?” I asked.

  “I can’t say,” Dr. Musgrave answered. “We have to wait to see if the treatment is working.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?” I asked.

  “Then we try something else,” he said. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

  Dr. Musgrave got up to go. He looked at me and then at my mother. “I won’t lie to you. He may be in for a rough ride. He’s going to need both of you to be strong.” And then he left.

  I wanted to express the anger and confusion I was feeling, but I didn’t have the words to do it. I wanted to find someone or something to blame for making my dad sick and ruining our lives. But I didn’t know who or what. So I ended up blaming myself.

  Chapter Six

  When I left the apartment the next morning, I decided not to go to school. I figured it might be a way to avoid more trouble. Instead, I found my way to the public library and sat down by the water fountain out front. I watched as people hurried by. Everyone seemed so unconnected to the world around them. Some were talking on cell phones, some were texting, and most just seemed in a rush to get somewhere. I didn’t see a whole lot of smiles in that crowd. It wasn’t my world, and it was a world I really didn’t want to be part of.

  No one looked at me. I played a game of trying to make eye contact with people, but as soon as they saw me looking at them, they looked away quickly. And then I started thinking about my dad. We were here because of him, because of his cancer. I wasn’t sure I trusted Dr. Musgrave or anyone else at the hospital. Maybe we were doing the wrong thing. Maybe we should just get the hell out of here, go back home and let my dad heal there. Up until now, we’d been able to cure or recover from any injury or illness that had come our way. Up until now, we’d been able to handle anything on our own.

  That’s when I noticed someone lying on his side, asleep on a wooden bench. I got up and walked over, circled the bench. Yep. It was Ernest. Maybe I should have just let him sleep, but I wasn’t sure he was okay. So I touched him on the shoulder, and his body jerked. He sat up and looked around, dazed and uncertain.

  “Ernest,” I said. “Sorry, man. I was just checking to see if you were okay.”

  Ernest blinked a few times and then shook his head. He focused on my face and took a breath. “Cody, right?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  Ernest sat up. “I haven’t been okay in years. But thanks for asking.”

  “You slept here last night?”

  “I think so.”

  “Weren’t you cold?”

  “Of course I was cold.” He hawked up some phlegm, leaned over and spit on the ground. “Hey, why aren’t you in school?”

  So I told him about the trouble I had gotten myself into.

  “Yep. Trouble will find you. It always does. Probably nothing you can do about it but be prepared for it.”

  “You sound like my father,” I said and then told him about my visit to my dad and what the doctor had said.

  “That’s why you have to be strong for your old man. That’s why you need to go back to school.”

  It seemed like an odd sort of thing to say, coming from this guy. But he was probably right.

  “So you made an enemy,” Ernest continued. “We all do that sometimes. You’ll need to be ready to do what needs to be done if your enemy persists.”

  “I’m just going to try to avoid him.”

  “Good plan. But have a backup. Now get your ass to school.” It was an order, not mere advice.

  I smiled. “Okay,” I said. He was right. I didn’t know where else to go anyway. So I walked to Citadel High and waited for the bell to ring. I checked my schedule and then walked the crowded hallway until I found my English class. DeMarco smiled and waved when I entered the room. “I was worried, Caveman. I thought you’d got lost again in the urban jungle.”

  I decided not to tell him about the meeting in Costanzo’s office or about the police. That was my problem, not his.

  When noon rolled around, DeMarco said he had to go home to check on his mom, who wasn’t feeling well. So I sat down in the noisy cafeteria, but I didn’t have a lunch or any money to buy anything. I watched as kids dumped barely eaten meals into the trash and thought about grabbing something from there. But I knew it would only draw more attention to me. More of the wrong kind of attention.

  I saw Alexis walking my way and started to stand. I didn’t want any of whatever she’d have to say. But before I could get moving, she sat down across from me. “Sit,” she said. “Just sit down, Cody.” Her voice was insistent. So I sat down and waited for her to pounce.

  “I heard about yesterday,” she said. “I heard you got into a fight.”

  I shrugged and waited for a lecture about nonviolence.

  “I heard you stood up for DeMarco.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Not too many kids take on Austin or his buddies Jacob and Todd. They’re like the local mafia.”

  “Unfortunately, it got me in trouble with Costanzo and even the police.”

  “That’s not fair,” she said.

  “Guess it’s just the way it is.”

  She looked at me in a completely different way now. More like the girl who first introduced herself to me. “Cody, I’m sorry about the other day.

  “That’s okay.”

  “Can we still be friends?”

  “Sure.”

  The bell was ringing. “See you around,” she said. “Just don’t tell me any more stories about shooting deer or skinning rabbits.”

  Chapter Seven

  I tried to settle into my classes and make sense of what I was supposed to be learning. My parents had homeschooled me since I was little and had taught me well—writing, history, math, science. Most of it was related to what we needed to know to survive, but my mom had a thing for poetry and novels, so I�
�d read widely. They had brought a big library of books with them when they moved out to the woods and built our home. Sometimes my dad would pick up new books in town that he’d ordered through the mail.

  Most of what I saw in my classrooms didn’t make sense. Kids sat at their desks looking bored or sneaking glances at their phones. Teachers lectured about things that didn’t seem important—not to me anyway. So I kept to myself and tried to roll with it. Mostly I worried about my father and wondered how we’d ever get back to our old life.

  DeMarco walked with me between classes. He seemed to be well liked by many other kids and introduced me to some of them. I never knew what to say. My social skills were a bit lacking. But I found myself looking at girls. I sure liked looking at girls, and I guess it showed. DeMarco noticed. “Yep. Definitely not gay,” he said.

  And I found myself thinking about Alexis. I was glad she liked me again. Lesson learned. Best not to say too much about the world I had come from. Better to try to fit in. I can do this, I said to myself. But what I really wanted was for my father to get better and for all of us to go home.

  At the end of the school day, DeMarco went off to work and I decided to wander a bit. I wanted to see more of the city and get a feel for the place. After walking for a while, I noticed some kids on skateboards, and others who were begging for money and saying they were homeless. I stopped to talk to a guy about my age with a dog. His sign said Nowhere to live. Can you spare some change?

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any money I can give you.”

  “It’s okay, dude. But thanks for stopping.”

  I petted his dog, a large friendly looking German shepherd. And I couldn’t help saying, “I don’t quite understand. Why don’t you have a place to live? What about your parents?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t know my parents, bro. I can’t live with them. This may not look like fun, but leaving home was the best thing that ever happened to me.”