City Kid

The ground began to rise almost immediately. Within ten minutes we were on steep rocky ground. Another ten and I was panting. I pulled off my sweater and tied it around my waist. Luke obviously had a destination in mind. This was no casual stroll.

We were almost to the top when the water tower came in sight. I remembered now seeing it from a distance, a large blue-gray metal tank ballooning against the sky, supported by thin splayed legs. Strange that it had been out of sight as we walked toward it.

Luke climbed in underneath the water tower and sat down. I hesitated and then sat next to him, feeling the chill dampness of the earth seep into my jeans almost immediately. There was no board or blanket. Luke would have been very cold if he had stayed here any length of time; there must be some other type of shelter. I looked upward. The metal legs that supported the water tank had small cross bars, not visible from a distance, but up close you could see they formed a ladderlike structure.

Luke had brought me only partway. I stood and began to climb up the water tank. Three quarters of the way up the four legs were joined by a kind of platform; someone had put a piece of plywood over the metal grids. I crawled out on the board and caught my breath at the sight of Falls City spreading out beneath me.

The great falls that had once provided power for the silk mills tumbled and spat foam high against the sky; old, intricate, elegant church spires pierced the smoke puffs of the factories. From here the decay and squalor were not visible, and the city glowed with a luminous dreamy beauty. It was also possible to see beyond Falls City; the highways leading in and out were clearly visible. How had Luke found this place?

It was obvious that Luke was not going to climb up and join me, so I climbed back down and sat beside him on the cold ground beneath the water tower.

“It’s nice,” I said. “And a good lookout. You can see when anyone’s coming.”

Luke sat expressionless beside me. How had he learned to keep his face so still? There was nothing in his eyes at all. Was that because he felt nothing, or because he’d learned to cover it so well? I rubbed my thumb across the moss that grew under the water tower and tried to feel what Luke was feeling. What would it be like to be seven years old and have only a water tower for comfort?

Luke spoke suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “My father brought me here. My real father,” he added quickly.

“I don’t know about your father.”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t see him much anymore. Mom and him are divorced and he’s got a new wife now. She’s got three kids.”

We sat without talking again. What was there to say? I watched Luke’s small, handsome face for some opening, but it remained closed and immutable. His round brown eyes stared straight ahead, never flickering; his arms were wrapped tight around his knees.

After a long time he turned to me and said, as if he couldn’t bear to keep it inside any longer. “This is where he used to shoot up.”

“Shoot up?” Why couldn’t I do better than echo his words?

But Luke barely noticed. Now that he’d begun, the rest tumbled out in a torrent. “He’d stay here, underneath, see, and I’d go up there to the seat and watch out. I’d call back and tell him if there were copper cars or anything and when it was okay I’d call down and he’d get out his stuff and make a little fire and get it all ready – and then he’d do it.”

For the first time, Luke’s face changed, crumpled more than changed, and his teeth began to chatter. “I stayed up there on top watching out – and anyway, I didn’t like to watch the needle.”

I nodded. My own body was trembling. What a way to live. How old would Luke have been then? Five? Six?

“We’d stay till it was almost morning, till it got light; then he’d take me back to the project so I’d be there before Mom and Alice and Frank woke up.”

Well, at least I understood one thing. My face had no expression now, either. It’s a lot easier not to cry that way.

“Your mom didn’t know you stayed out here?” I asked. Somehow we could talk under the water tank. There was a feeling of safety and it took less effort to find the words. I didn’t feel as if I was intruding when I asked the question.

“Mom’s sick a lot,” Luke said. “She doesn’t shoot up.” He sat up straight and looked me in the eye. “Honest,” he said. “She never does. She drinks some and smokes stuff and she gets sick. She throws up a lot, but she doesn’t ever shoot up.”

“Who cooks? Who takes care of your little brother and sister?” Wrong. Luke turned away, defenses back in place.

“She does,” he said. “Most of the time.”

I stood up, or partway up, and crawled out from under the water tower. I stretched, my body cramped from sitting and emotion. I looked at my watch. Four o’clock.

Inadequacy and urgency churned inside my stomach. There were less than two hours of daylight left and I had just begun to understand a little of Luke’s problems; I wasn’t even close to any solutions, but he couldn’t stay out here alone much longer, and his home, what there was of it, was far away.

I walked around the water tower trying to think. How was I going to help Luke? I climbed up to the platform, searching for clues, but the enormity of the problem was even greater there. Down in Falls City, in its schools, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of children like Luke and behind them was a society of poverty, ignorance, and neglect spawning new Lukes nightly.

I climbed back down and was glad to see that Luke had come out from under the tower and was sitting on a ledge of rock to one side of it. I sat beside him, feeling the warmth the rock had accumulated from the sun, remembering the fire at the factory. This is what we had come to talk about. I couldn’t think of a subtle way to begin, but I knew I had to ask.

“Did you start the fire at the factory, Luke?”

He shook his head. I waited, but that was all.

“Were you there?” I was insisting. I knew it. I also knew it was a risk, but I had to do it.

This time Luke nodded.

“Why? What were you doing in a shed behind the lipstick factory?”

“I wasn’t in it. I was just by it.”

“All right. Beside it. Why, Luke? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Luke scratched at the flat rock where we were sitting with a smaller stone. He hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t feel like goin’ back to school. You didn’t even come like you said and anyway, ’member I told you I had a secret place?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “You told me that when you gave me the lipstick tube. I was sick, Luke. I’m sorry.” I took the tube out of my pocket and held it in my hand. Maybe it would bring us luck.

“That was the place. I had a little dugout place beside that shed and I kept things there. Some of the tubes I found, a ring my dad gave me … special things.”

I nodded. There was probably no place in the project apartment that was safe from the explorations of his small brother and sister. I remembered a little cedar chest complete with brass hinges, a lock, and key that my grandmother had given me, a place for secret things.

“Now they’re all gone,” Luke said. “I sent Wendell back to look, but he says they musta gotten burned up.”

“What’s Wendell got to do with this?”

“He came there while I was looking at my things. Wendell’s always following everybody. Then he –”

Luke stopped abruptly.

“Luke,” I said. “It’s important that you tell me what really happened. Wendell told the police you set the fire.”

Luke looked at me, his face still without expression.

“I never did. Wendell done it his own self. I just went there ’cause I wanted to look at my things. The men all started work again at one o’clock, so no one was out by the shed. But then Wendell came and said he had something to show me, something that would make me feel real good. And he got out matches and a spoon and then he made a fire …” Luke’s voice cracked, but he kept on, “and then he got out a needle, sorta like the one my dad used to have, and I yelled at him.

“I couldn’t help it and then I ran and I guess I made too much noise ’cause Wendell ran, too. And then the fire kept burning – and it got bigger and it got up into that ole wood and next thing I knew, the whole shed was burning.”

I nodded silently, seeing it clearly – the small fire feeding on the grass, licking the dry wood of the shed.

Luke chattered on. “We got out of there fast. Me and Wendell. I just kept runnin’ till I got here. Nobody ever caught my dad here and I knew they wouldn’t catch me. I lost ole Wendell on the way, but it doesn’t matter. Wendell’s not scared of nuthin’!”

“Luke,” I said, “there are papers in your file at school that say you’ve set a lot of fires. Is that true?”

Luke scratched with the stone. “Maybe some little ones. Leaves in the street.”