We slipped out of the bed, ripped those old sheets into
thirds and tied them together. We were on the third floor and knew it was a
long way down. We tied the end of the sheetrope onto the bedpost. Jimmy eased
up the window and I pushed the sheet out, trying to peer down in the darkness,
but I couldn’t see anything. I gulped, “Them is awful old sheets. Suppose they
break? I weigh plenty.”
Well, you’re smaller than I, Jimmy answered, and besides we
can’t back out now, if the guard catches us, he’ll give us a whipping for sure
for tearing up the sheets.
Yah, he would, I agreed, wishing I had thought of that
before, not after, we tore up the sheets.
You go first, Jimmy urged.
Well all right, I said, and grabbing the sheet real tight,
feet first, I slid over the window sill. My heart was in my mouth, as, with a
prayer, I kept close to the wall, edging down about three feet and then I hit
something solid I was on the fire escape with relief, I whispered, Come on,
Jimmy, its okay.
Down came Jimmy and we went down that fire escape, with
jimmy repeating over and over again, Let’s get out of here.
Let’s I answered, as we helped each other climb over the
wall, into the San Francisco
fog.
At first the fog seemed friendly because it would hide us,
but soon, it was only cold and damp, and we had no place to go. We wandered
down the streets, this way and that. When dawn came, we found an old sewer pipe
and crawled into it to hide. It was a long, cold day, with the wind blowing the
fog into the pipe. We shivered, our teeth chattered, we were hungry and
lonesome, but we were free and that’s the grandest feeling in the world. We
talked about the boys at the home and what chumps they were to stay.
When it was dark again, we crawled out of the pipe, with one
thought we had to eat. Jimmy had only a father. He lived in Oakland
so we went down to the San Francisco
docks, to where the freight cars were ferried across the Bay. We managed to get
into a refrigerator car, where, if anything had gone wrong, we would have been
suffocated, but lucky for us nothing did. We made it to Oakland and to Jimmy’s home. His dad was at
work, so we fixed up about a dozen scrambled eggs, some milk, and other stuff.
Then we found some of Jimmy’s old clothes, a coat, shirt and sox, and with all
the bravado of a couple of twelve year olds, we were ready to face the world.
We headed for the freight yards where we caught a train to Sacramento. We’d done all
right for ourselves at Jimmy’s home, now we’d see what we could do at my home.
As soon as I hit Oak Park,
I saw some of the old gang and they told me, Phil the police have been here
looking for you. Talking to your mom.
That was enough for me I wasn’t going back to Boys Aid. Jimmy
and I high-tailed it back to the freight yards and hopped a freight train
headed north. We managed to reach Roseville
before we were picked up in the freight yards by the R.R. police.
They took us to the police station and asked us plenty of
questions to which we gave no answers. Already I had learned one of the most
valuable assets of a crook and that was to keep my mouth shut. They threatened
us. We sat there and defied the officers. They slapped our faces. We had
nothing, but nothing to say. They retaliated by throwing us in jail.
No comments:
Post a Comment