Street Boy

By Linda T Legg

Written to develop empathy for the less fortunate in younger readers, Street Boy is the story of an eight-year-old who lives in a refrigerator box on the street with his mother. The story is set in the early nineties, before the advent of the internet and cell phone. Hiding from what she perceives as the Warfare Office, Mama fears that the suits

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Nov 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643452791

Book preview

1992—The Box

He pulled the newspapers up around his head and breathed into his hands to get them warm.

Tonight is going to be another cold one, he said softly. And he wished that his momma would hurry up. She had gone shopping and had left him at the box to wait for her.

Street Boy knew that when Momma went shopping, she didn’t really buy anything because they didn’t have any money. He knew that it was better for him to stay behind because he couldn’t run as fast as she could. And sometimes, she had to run from the shopkeepers who had seen her lift something.

Anyway, he knew all about Momma’s shopping, but she didn’t want him to know. She wanted to pretend that she could buy things for him like other mothers. But he knew. He would pretend, though, that he didn’t know.

Suddenly, Street Boy heard something in the alley, outside his box. He got very still and listened with all the attention he could muster. Is it Momma coming back? he wondered. The sounds were scuffing and scraping. Not Momma, he thought, too little. Maybe a rat. A wave of fear gripped his stomach. He hated rats. He lay very still, hoping it would go away.

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to a time when he woke up screaming in pain. He and Momma were sleeping in a box almost like this one. A rat had chewed its way in. It had bitten his finger while he was sleeping, and he woke up screaming. He remembered his momma yelling at him, What is it? What’s wrong?

It was dark in the box and she couldn’t see the rat.

A rat, Momma! A rat’s got my finger, he’d cried.

She had felt his arm and then found the rat, its teeth still clenched on the finger. She had squeezed it until the rat let go. Then before it could turn to bite her hand, she had thrown it as hard as she could, out of the box and against the wall of the building. They had found its body the next morning, dead in the alley.

Now, Street Boy lay as still as he could, hoping it wasn’t a rat and trying not to have an accident in his pants. The fear clamped into his belly and seemed to squeeze his stomach. He started to sweat. He clenched his teeth and prayed, Oh, God, please, please don’t let it be a rat.

He started talking to himself inside his head. Come on now. Even if it is a rat, it has to chew through the box first. If it starts chewing, you can just get out of the box. Then he heard something sniffing. He knew then that it wasn’t a rat. This had to be bigger than a rat. A dog probably; maybe a large cat, but not a rat. His muscles relaxed.

Street Boy took a deep breath. He realized then that he had been holding his breath. He breathed again slowly and deeply. The sniffing was getting closer.

I wonder what it’s smelling? he asked himself. Then he remembered the two hotdogs he had in his jacket pocket. Momma had gotten hotdogs for breakfast that morning. He had eaten the whole pack except for two. These he had decided to save for later; Just in case, as Momma always said. The animal in the alley must be smelling the hotdogs.

Suddenly, the whole box shook. The head of a gray and black German shepherd appeared over the top edge of the box. So he stood up. The dog was so startled, it dropped down to the ground. Then it backed away from the box a few feet to see what this human would do.

Street Boy looked the dog straight in the eye. Momma had taught him to do that. She had said, Never let a street dog know you’re scared. If you do, he might attack.

So he stood with his shaking knees locked straight to keep him upright and stared at the dog. In his mind, he was thinking about what to do next.

The dog stood staring at him and sniffing. It put its nose in the air and wiggled it around a little. Street Boy knew it was smelling the hotdogs. He thought about yelling at the dog to scare it. But this didn’t look like the kind of dog you could scare that way. Yelling might make him turn mean. Instead, Street Boy decided to give him the hotdogs. He reached slowly into his pocket and opened the package with his fingertips. He slipped out one of the hotdogs and held it up for the dog to see.

Here, boy, he said as calmly as he could.

The dog looked hungrily at the hotdog and stepped forward. Street Boy tossed the hotdog to him. He didn’t trust the dog enough to let it come up to him. The dog seemed to swallow the hotdog whole. Then he looked at Street Boy again with his nose wiggling as he sniffed. His eyes had changed. And Street Boy noticed that now, his tail was wagging.

He realized then that this wasn’t a street dog. It was somebody’s stray. The street dogs were never seen to wag their tails. They were mean. Momma had told him to stay away from street dogs. She had told him about a time in another city when the street dogs had formed a pack. She told him that everybody was afraid of them, but nobody would do anything. Then, one night, they had attacked a wino who’d passed out in an alley. The dogs had killed him. Momma said that after they found the body, the dog catchers came and caught the dogs. But they couldn’t get close enough to put a loop around their necks. They had put out baited traps to catch them.

Anyway, this wasn’t a street dog. He was too friendly. Street Boy regretted giving the hotdog to him. He felt as though he’d been taken. He’d been saving these hotdogs just in case Momma didn’t get anything for supper. And here he’d given one away because he was afraid of a stupid stray.

Well, he thought, he’s not getting the other one. Quickly, Street Boy bent the hotdog in half and stuffed it into his mouth. He threw the empty wrapper to the dog. The dog sniffed it, licked the juice off, and then looked up at Street Boy again. By then, Street Boy had swallowed the hotdog. So he held up his hands to the dog and said, No more. See?

The dog looked at him and then sniffed the wrapper again. He put his nose into the air and sniffed at Street Boy. Street Boy stood very still for a while, looking straight at the dog. But he didn’t show any friendliness. They couldn’t have a dog hanging around. It would be just another mouth to feed. So Street Boy made his face like stone and stared at the dog.

Finally, the dog decided there was no more food to be gotten here. He sniffed around the garbage cans a little and then drifted up the alley. When the dog turned up the alley, Street Boy got back under the newspapers and lay very still for a few minutes. He then realized that he needed to go to the bathroom. He got up again slowly, checked the alley carefully for any movement, and then pulled himself out of the box. The far corner of the alley was where he and Momma took care of business. It was too dangerous to go far from the box at night, but the corner was far enough.

When he returned to the box, he got ready to jump in. But then he hesitated. He stood there a moment, looking around and listening to the night. He could hear cars on the street one block over. He could faintly hear people yelling at each other in the apartment building. He heard some winos up at the end of the alley talking. He knew he should get back in the box and hide again, but he was so tired of just lying there, hiding. He wanted to stretch his muscles and look around.

He and Momma had only been in this alley for two nights. They had moved here because Momma thought it would be safer. The alley where they used to live over behind the bus depot had become a place for drug dealers. They had been awakened several times by pushers selling stuff not twenty feet from their box. So Momma had decided to move. She had picked this alley because it had only one way out. It wasn’t really an alley at all. It was just a place where people in the apartments brought their trash.

But it was safe because the druggies, Momma said, wanted to use alleys with two ways out, not just one.

So this place would be safer from the druggies. But it wouldn’t be safer from the winos. They liked the box alleys because there was no traffic. They could drink and sleep without being disturbed. The cops never came into box alleys. And so the chances of getting picked up would be much less. Momma was afraid that someone would see Street Boy. She was afraid that someone would report them to the Warfare Office. If that