Lost and Found

Part 1:

Whatever you think when you see me, it’s probably wrong. When you see me, you might think that I am uneducated, or have mental issues. I really don’t.  I am currently staring up at the starless night over the stoop of the Public Library on forty second street. It bothers me sometimes how there are no more stars that you can see in New York.

You’re probably wondering where my parents are right now. Let’s just say that they live underground. I’m extremely thin because you can’t actually steal very much food at a time. My dinner tonight consisted of a half a turkey sandwich that I got at a grocery store. I’ve gotten quite good at stealing by now. I’ve had four years of practice. My name is Jessie by the way, Jessie Hamilton. I don’t live at the library. I don’t live anywhere. It can get kind of lonely. If I am lucky, I can find a house with no gate and sleep on the stoop. I always wake up before the people living in the house because it isn’t easy to sleep on a stair and I wake up in the middle of the night two or three times anyway. On the rare occasion that the family or people come out first, they usually scream and I run away. My appearance isn’t very enticing. I haven’t showered in four years, I only have one pair of clothes, and I am ghostly thin. It isn’t comfortable, but it keeps me alive. I have learned to live with it. I settle down on the stoop, look up at the lions that look so real, and before I think anything else, I am in the middle of a dream.

My parents and I are eating dinner and laughing. My parents always could make me laugh. My dad had this twinkle in his eyes and a bunch of laugh lines near his mouth. My mom was actually a comedian professionally. We spent the majority of our time laughing. I was eight at the time. I was going to school then. When we had finished dinner, I began to show them something on a chessboard. I had always loved chess. It was my passion. We laughed again. Then I heard a slow crumbling sound. A piece of the ceiling cracked and a bit fell onto the table. It wasn’t very much, but it still left a hole in the ceiling. I realized that it was warmer than usual. I heard shouting from the floors above. It sounded something like ‘getting higher’.  I saw my mom’s face; she looked scared. The color drained from my dad’s face. He tried to get us out the door… But it was too late, the ceiling started crumbling down. My parents stood paralyzed. I didn’t notice, so I just ran out the door onto the fire escape. A second later and I would have been crushed. I turned around to look through the door, and the last thing I saw was my dad hugging my mom and reassuring her as the ceiling collapsed on them. I realized only then that the shouting wasn’t ‘getting higher’, it was ‘Fire! Fire!’. I climbed down the ladder and ran.

I ran. I didn’t care where I was going but I needed to get away. Away from everything I ever knew. Away from everything ever. I just couldn’t cope. I haven’t said a word ever since.

Part 2:

I woke up in cold sweat, tears on my cheeks. I had had this dream before. I shouldn’t really call it a dream at all. It’s more like a flashback. Because I don’t have any relatives who care about me, there were no MISSING PERSON signs anywhere. I’ve lived on my own for four years. I looked up at the color of the sky. It was just dawn. I knew I would have to get moving in case the family living here was a bunch of ‘early birds’. They rarely were. You might be wondering why I don’t just stay at one house every night. It’s because I don’t really leave behind the best smell. I know that if I try to go to a new house every time, it won’t just stink up one house forever. That would be mean. Can you imagine just going down your front stairs and smelling a homeless kid? That would suck!

I get up in search for breakfast. If I’m lucky, I can find a grocery store that is closed that I can break into. Then I might even be able to find a real breakfast for once. I look around. No dice. I go a couple of blocks, but all of the stores have big heavy locks. It’s like they know I am going to go there and steal food. So disrespectful! (That was a joke, I’m not a jerk and I’m not stupid.)

I wait until a store opens, run inside, and get an apple from the fruit section. I put it up on the counter, and pretend to look through a wallet in my pocket. I am careful not to let the clerk see my face because then he can report me. The clerk scans it and gives it back to me. I stop pretending to look through my fake wallet, grab the apple, and run out the door at the speed of light. I hear the clerk shouting at me. He must be low on money, because he actually comes out of the store and starts chasing me. Just my average chase that could get me into juvie hall! I turn the corner almost a block ahead of the clerk. I run around the pole of a subway station and climb down a couple of stairs. The clerk came charging around the corner like a bull. He runs right past the subway and down the block, shouting like a maniac. I calmly climb up the stairs and find a place to eat my breakfast. My stealing often moves me around the city. I like eating near Washington Square Park, so I go over there. On the walk over, I think about how screwed up my life has been. I’m not complaining, if that’s what you think. I don’t whine. I just like to acknowledge the facts, sometimes to get me back down to earth. The walk from 39th street (where I got the food), to Washington Square, takes about an hour. It helps me feel pensive. I love walking, and I always have. Sometimes, when I walk, I find a newspaper and see if there’s a big chess tournament going on. I look down the page to where the notation of the chess game is. I look through the game and imagine myself playing. I look for ‘!’, which means incredibly strong move. And I look for ‘?’, meaning blunder. I try to correct the blunders, and analyze the good moves so I get really deep into the game. I reach into my pocket and pull out a dirty sheet of paper. It is wrinkled and torn. It’s my favorite chess game ever. It’s between Patrick Dirk, and Marcus Abrams. It is one of the most advanced games ever. The only ‘?’ was only a blunder because it affected something fourteen moves later in the game! I go over the game looking for something I might have missed over the past five years when I got it. Yes, I know you think it’s that I’ve kept a piece of newspaper over five years because of one stinkin’ chess game. But that’s not all of it. I got this piece of newspaper about six months before my parents death. It was my favorite gift from my parents. It’s what I remember them by. I feel a tear roll down my cheek, and I see a wet drop on the page. I hastily put it back in my pocket. By now, I’m a couple of blocks away. I see some construction over on the street that I usually take. But there is another entrance to the park. What the heck. I think to myself as I walk in at the other entrance. I’ve never been at this place in the park. There is this plant in the middle of a little circle of space, with leaves bigger than my torso! There are chess tables all around the circle. There are some guys playing chess at some of the tables and eating bagels. There is one table that is open and an old guy is sitting there. He looks me over. “Do ya play chess kiddo?” he called over to me. I know I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but this man looked so harmless and nice. I nodded enthusiastically. “Got any money?” he asked as I sat down. He smelled awful. Though I shouldn’t be talking. I shook my head. I saw him look hungrily at the apple I was holding. “Winner gets the apple?” He said, hopefully. I thought about that one. He had been playing for a long time if he was just sitting here waiting for a game. But then, I knew how to play. I was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I nodded. “Good,” he said. “Don’t ya talk?” I shook my head. “Are you one of them mute kids?” He asked. I shook my head dismissively. “Alrighty then,” he said dropping the subject. I liked this guy. He didn’t push things too far. He showed me the clock and said, “Equal time. See?” I nodded. This was speed chess. He gave us each ten minutes! I normally played with an hour each. I would have to make quick decisions. He shuffled two pawns behind his back and stuck them out in front of him, in his fist so I couldn’t see which one was white, and which was black. I picked his right hand. It was black. “Alright, I’m white,” he said casually. “It’s okay if we talk while we play?” I shrugged. I was going to be quiet, but if he wanted to talk, that was okay with me. I pressed his clock, signalling that I was ready. He moved his kingside pawn two squares forward. This is the most common first move. I moved my kingside pawn two forward. His queen, which was now free to move, went on a diagonal, pinning my pawn. I glared at him. He was playing the ‘four move checkmate’! Who did he think I was?! This was just plain disrespectful. He said, “Is it your turn? I think it’s my turn.” I pointed to the clock, which showed it was my turn. “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “How’s about we take a lil break?” I thought he was joking. We were two minutes into the game! But I took my attention off the game. I looked up at him. He was serious. If he wanted a break, he could have one. I nodded. “Great,” he said. He immediately started telling me about himself. He told me that his name was Manny. He told me that he lived by himself. After a bit, he asked me if we should play again. I nodded. I was about to make my move, when… Beeeeeeeeep! Beeeeeeeeeep! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!  My clock runs out. “Oop!” He says. “Good game.” He snatched the apple. I didn’t even know what was happening. He had won. OH. MY. GOD! The clock was going while we were talking. I had been tricked. I knew I had just been robbed. I felt a tear on my cheek. Wow Jessie. I thought to myself. Crying twice in one day! Lame! I knew it was lame. I just couldn’t help myself. I was starving. When Manny saw me crying, I think he suspected something. You don’t see a twelve-year old kid crying because someone took his apple. He knew something was up. “Anything about you that I might wanna’ know?” By then, I didn’t even care about being secret. I was hungry. I could see my ribs through my skin. I nodded. I wasn’t making any sound, but I was bawling. There were four whole tears on my cheeks. One of them rolled down my cheek and fell off my chin. It landed on the ground with a soft: ‘POP’, and it made a mark on the ground. Manny handed me the apple. “Got parents.” I cried harder and shook my head. “Live in an orphanage?” I shook my head again. “Got a house?”I started sobbing. Then everything went black.

Part Three:

When I came to, I was lying on an uncomfortable couch. It’s cushions were really hard and uncomfortable. The leather was peeling off. There was a dirty counter over in the corner of the room. There was a grimy cot with a bunch of dust on it. Manny hung over me, like a mom with a sick child. “You good, champ?” he asked. I shrugged. Then I pointed around the room and gave a puzzled look. “Oh. This- This is my house,”  Manny said, as if he were describing his prison cell. “It’s not much,”  I got the feeling that this was the only room in the house. Well, I thought, it’s better than no home at all. Although, I had seen people in their houses and I envied them. I didn’t feel that way about Manny. I know that this is below average. It’s better than what I had, but it doesn’t meet the standards. “Did you go to school, kid?” he asked. I nodded, then he nodded. “So-” he paused for a second, as if he were thinking. “You’ve been living on your own for a while,” he said, while nodding like he was figuring it out while he was saying it. “How long?” I held up four fingers. “Four days?” I shook my head. “Four weeks?” I shook harder. “Four months?” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Four yeeeears,” Manny said, holding out the ‘e’ sound in ‘years’ like he finally got it. I rolled my eyes. “How are you alive?” I pretended to pick-pocket something from my own pocket. Then I took a pretend bite out of something. “Stealing food?” Manny asked, slightly intimidated, and slightly impressed. I nodded. “Look kid, you’re not going to last long if ya don’t talk,” he said matter-of-factly. I shrugged. “Can you try saying a word?” I made a whining sound, like a little kid, but clearly showing that I didn’t want to. “C’mon,” he said. This time, I realized that he was right, and that there was no point in not doing it.

“Hi,” I croaked. My throat was really dry from lack of water.

“Here,” Manny said, as he uncapped a bottle of ‘Whataaaaaah’. It was my favorite thing to drink when I had a family. I knew it actually didn’t do anything, and it tasted the same as any other bottle of water, but I always thought that the one that said ‘BRAIN’ actually made you smarter. I drank heartily, finishing the bottle while only lifting my lips from the water twice.

“Hi,” I said more normally. “My name is Jessie. Jessie Hamilton. Both my parents died in a fire on 34th street four years ago. I almost died, too. I sleep on people’s stoops at night,” I said. It might seem weird that I’m giving all this information to a stranger, and that I just so willingly gushed it all out. But it felt good. It felt like I was cutting off the peak of a mountain, that had been clogging up a volcanic eruption for four years. Like moving a pawn that was blocking a bishop or queen. Like uncapping an air tight bottle, so that it makes a woosh! noise. Me talking, was like the volcanic eruption, or the bishop, or the queen, or the air in the bottle. I needed it to get out there.

“Whoa there! Hold up! How come you can’t talk one second, and the next second you’re spouting information like a lemon that just got squeezed?”

“I don’t know. It just felt good to get it out. I haven’t said a word since my parents died,”

“Well, do you like living alone on the streets?” Manny asked, with his hands on his hips.

“Heck no!”

“Well, I can’t keep you so…” he trailed off.

“Are you going to find foster parents for me?” I asked, hopefully. I know that everybody feels bad for someone if they have to have foster parents, but if you’re actually in that situation, then foster parents would seem like paradise.

“Well… It would take a lot of work. I don’t have the time to spare. You can’t live with me because I can barely take care of one person, let alone two,” he got a far away look in his eyes for a second.

“Well, what about an orphanage?” Next to foster parents, an orphanage is the second best thing. Manny’s eyes lit up.

“An orphanage? Yes! Yes, an orphanage! That would work. Would that be okay with you?” his eyes were pleading with me.

“Of course! That would be great.”

Part 4:

So that’s how I ended up at MacBeth’s orphanage. Everyone seems really nice. Mrs. MacBeth is really warm and sweet. She and the other people that work there educate us themselves. There are classes for people that have and haven’t gone to school. The whole thing is set up really well. Even the food is okay. Right now, I have to do a homework assignment. We have to write about some experiences in our lives. It should be about five typed pages. Okay, I’ll start now.

Part 1:

Whatever you think when you see me, it’s probably wrong…