Deciding to Live
No
one noticed the rat terrier walking sideways down the street. No one noticed,
because their attention was riveted on the boy walking alongside the dog. He
was tall, athletic, with dark, unkempt hair. His most prevalent features were
his eyes. The emerald green irises stood out brilliantly from his jet black
hair and light skin. All of his features were perfect. The boy with the dog
could have passed as a god from Greek mythology. His name was Hiram.
It wasn’t something new for Hiram to steal the attention
of every person on the sidewalk; he was used to it. In fact, he’d walked that
same stretch along the same street almost every day for six months; passing the
same people and attracting the same stares every day. At first it bothered him;
he shied away from their gawking eyes. Don’t
people have anything better to do than gawk at the new kid? He would ask
himself. He almost considered finding another way to and from his new house,
but something told him it wouldn’t be any different. So he continued to take
that same sidewalk, and soon got used to the stares.
Although Hiram was impossible to ignore, only a few
people had ever actually talked to him. Sure, people were polite and said
“hello” when they passed them on the street, but that was just small-town good
manners. No one actually talked to him. One who did was his landlady, a sweet
old lady named Sophia who had been lonely since her son died 20 years earlier. She
reminded him of his grandmother who had passed away when he was only five or
six. She fussed over him, just like his grandmother had. He appreciated her
fussing.
The
other was his boss; Phil. Phil ran a small-scale construction and landscaping
company and had hired Hiram when he first moved to their small town. He figured
that with his athletic build and lowly circumstances, Hiram would provide a
good, cheap worker. His expectations were far surpassed by this strange boy, as
Hiram would work as hard and as long as he was needed, while only expecting to
be paid the bare minimum. Phil liked the kid and, although he never asked
questions about his past, he talked to Hiram when he got the chance. He asked
him about his day and often asked for advice on projects, just to get insight
on how Hiram thought. He was constantly impressed how perceptive Hiram was.
Even
though he appreciated Sophia’s and Phil’s interest in his life, he was still
lonely. His rat terrier, Henry, was his only real friend. Henry had found Hiram
on his walk to work one day, and had been by his side ever since. Henry
followed him everywhere, with his strange sideways stride. Hiram didn’t know
why he walked that way, but he loved the strange little dog. He was a good dog
that never left Hiram’s side. While Hiram was at work, Henry stayed out of the
way, and just watched. Even with Henry, Hiram missed his family and friends,
but he couldn’t go back. Life was terribly lonely for seventeen-year-old Hiram.
Before
six months ago, Hiram’s life was a lot more complicated. At first, life seemed
to be going fine. He loved his school and had many friends. He was a popular
kid, who was a friend to everyone. His home life was also good, with family
dinners at his grandparents’ house every Sunday and family night once a week.
Although his father had died when he was young, his family was very strong. He
couldn’t imagine his future including anything but a scholarship to play
football at his favorite college and a wife and kids soon after that. Then one
day, it all changed. All of his hopes and dreams came crashing down around him.
Hiram’s situation started the same way many bad things
start; with someone being the wrong place at the wrong time. Hiram,
unfortunately, was that someone. On his way home from school, taking all the
usual shortcuts through the alleys and parking lots, he happened to end up in
the wrong place. As he turned to enter an ally, he witnessed something that
would change his life. In that ally, he witnessed one of the city’s most famous
news reporters murdered viciously by a gang member. He couldn’t believe what he
had just witnessed, but he couldn’t forget it. He saw the murderer, and even
worse, the murderer saw him. They recognized each other. The gang member,
Robby, had played football for a few years with Hiram before he got kicked out
of school for selling drugs. In junior high, they had actually been pretty good
friends. Hiram couldn’t believe the turn that Robby’s life had taken. He
couldn’t believe that this brutal killer was once a fun-loving, talented kid.
He ran and called the police, telling him how his once friend just killed an
innocent person. It was hard, but he knew it was the right thing to do.
The
following weeks were hectic as he was interrogated and called as a witness in
court. After the final ruling from the judge and jury sent Robby to life in
prison, Hiram figured that things would go back to normal. They might have, if
Robby hadn’t been a part the most notorious gang in the city; the Supremes. There is a saying that there is honor
among thieves. This is also true with gang members. They knew that Hiram was
the reason one of the brothers in the gang was locked away, and they weren’t
happy. They wanted Hiram to suffer.
The
week after the sentence was when the harassment started. The gang tagged
Hiram’s house and his mom’s car. They sent threats of physical abuse through
the mail. The police told him and his family that it wasn’t uncommon for the fellow
gang members to lash out after one was put in jail and that it would stop soon.
“I’ve
seen it before,” the police chief said. “They’ll find someone to replace the
poor sucker, and then he’ll be nothing to them. They’ll forget you.”
Hiram
didn’t think that was the case. What neither Hiram nor the police knew, was
that Robby’s older brother was second-in-command of the Supremes. This had been
personal. Two months passed and the threats and graffiti didn’t stop. One night
they woke to a brick crashing through their front window with a note saying
that bad things would happen if Hiram didn’t find a way to make it up to the
Supremes. Still the cops routinely checked everything out and promised that
they would keep an eye on the house. After a few days of nothing new, the cops
quit patrolling Hiram’s street routinely. Then one day Hiram came home from football
practice, no longer taking shortcuts through alleys. He saw that their front
door was ajar. As he got closer, he saw, painted on the door in blood, the
words,
“You
sent our brother away, we returned the favor!”
Hiram
entered the house, though his mind told him he wouldn’t like what he found. He
walked in to see his mother and sister on the kitchen floor, both lying in the
blood coming from the bullet holes in their chests. Timed seemed to come to a
halt, and every tiny detail was seared into his memory. His emotions shut down;
he couldn’t cry, couldn’t be mad; all he could do was look on in disbelief. The
look of sheer terror on both of their faces; frozen there forever. The little
gold locket that he got his sister for her twelfth birthday was gone. He
continued down the hall, noticing bloody handprints streaked down the walls. He
found his fourteen-year-old brother in the open closet. He had tried to hide.
Pure,
unrelenting rage finally hit Hiram like a freight train. He hated himself for
not being there to do something, for being in that ally and sending Robby to
jail. His fists clenched so hard that his nails dug into the palms of his
hands. He hated Robby and his gang brothers. He hated the police for not doing
a better job. As he stood there in the hall, eyes shut to the horror around
him, breathing hard and fast, a voice whispered to Hiram that there was no way
that he could hurt the gang members. All he could do was let them be and to run
for his life.
His
instincts told him to call 911, and as soon as he explained what had happened
to the dispatcher, he packed up all his important belongings and money. He
grabbed all $300 from the stash his mom thought she had kept hidden from them.
Then, he made his way out the back door and to the bank five blocks away. First
he emptied his entire savings account, then, with his mom’s ATM card and PIN
that had been hidden with the money, he drained her life savings.
Then,
he left. He didn’t have any family members that he knew of to run to. Even if
he did have an aunt or uncle, he wouldn’t go there. That would only put more
people in danger. He couldn’t go to any friend’s homes for the same reason. He
left all he had ever known. He had nothing more to live for. A football
scholarship wasn’t important anymore. He had learned enough in school and from
his mom to get by. His family was dead; he would be next if he stayed.
From
there, he hitch hiked and rode buses to some hick town in the middle of nowhere.
The Supremes wouldn’t have even begun
to know where to look for him. They never would have suspected that he would
cross several state lines in his journey. They couldn’t have known that what
they did transformed Hiram into a survivor. It took a few weeks for him to get
where he felt he would be safe. One town at a time, Hiram made his way west.
In
those weeks of travelling and six months of living in the new town, he had
almost put the events behind him. Of course, what happened isn’t something that
he could forget. He still felt hatred towards himself, the gang, and the
police. But it no longer consumed him as white-hot rage. He thought about his
family every day, but not the way that he found them. He thought of playing
football with his brother on cool summer evenings. He thought about all the
piggyback rides he had given to his little sister and all the long talks with
his mom on the back porch. These good memories were what he clung to through
the tough days. They got him back to sleep when nightmares woke him with
flashbacks of that terrible day.
Perhaps,
he thought, this small town that was so easy to become familiar with, had made
it easier to get over. He got into routines easily and could focus on other things.
It was also so different from the city he had known. So different, that there
wasn’t a lot of things that reminded him of home. The hometown football games
were really the only thing that was similar. Even though he would rather have
forgotten everything, he couldn’t bring himself not to go to every game. Going
to the games actually helped him to remember the good times, rather than the
bad. Every game he was able to lose himself in, and he found that it was a
pretty good therapy to go. Maybe next year he would ask if he could help coach.
He learned a lot in those six months, and yet
it took him six months to realize why everyone stared at him. He knew he was
different; he had shown up randomly with no explanation, no plan, and almost no
money. His looks alone could stop traffic. These things made him different, but
he realized that the biggest difference between him and everyone else in that town
was that he was alone and didn’t do anything to change that. It was an
epiphany, in a way, when he realized that he could not be accepted if he didn’t
try to be accepted.
On
that day, walking down the street with Henry, Hiram realized that he could
start over. No, he couldn’t go back and erase what had happened, but he could
make a life in that little town. On that day, he changed, and for the first
time in six months, he would talk to someone he had walked by every day, but
never replied to. It was a girl with long brown hair and blue eyes. She lived a
few houses down from him and always politely greeted him as he walked by
“Hi,”
the girl said, as polite as always.
“Hi,”
he said, his heart racing nervously. “I’m Hiram.”
She
smiled back, pleasantly surprised that he replied with more than a nod of the
head.
“It’s
nice to meet you, Hiram. I’m Lacey.”
And with that, things began to change. Every day they
talked a little bit more. And every day, Hiram’s life changed a little more. He
knew he would never forget, and he didn’t want to, but he knew that he had to
move on. On that day, with that simple reply, he decided to truly live.