Gone (Michael Bennett 6)

Getting out of the van with Seamus, Jane wondered if the town’s name was supposed to be ironic. Because there wasn’t anything sunny about it. It wasn’t even a town, really. Just a collection of ramshackle houses, a barnlike building that looked like a bar of some kind, and a place that sold snowmobiles and dirt bikes.

What it looked like was something from a serial killer movie, she thought. Right down to the creepy, weird sound of an unseen wind chime tinkling as they got out of the station wagon. Even the shedlike building they used for the food bank looked weird, she thought as she grabbed a case of Chef Boyardee. It looked like a caboose.

The caboose of a train that was smart enough to cut out of this godforsaken place a long, long time ago, Jane thought.

They were going up the stairs with the heavy boxes when she saw that there was another collection of buildings, to the rear of the food bank. It was a trailer park. A huge, excessively run-down one. As she watched, there was a sudden roar, and a heavy woman riding a motorcycle shot out from between two of the decrepit structures.

If they got out of this alive, she’d never complain about the farm again, she decided as she dropped off the cans and went back for more.

It took them about half an hour just to get the boxes inside the food bank caboose and unpacked. The food was mostly divided between canned stuff—Campbell’s soups, SpaghettiOs, Del Monte fruit—and dry goods: macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, hot cocoa. When they were done arranging the shelves, it looked like a grocery store.

A line of people from the trailer park formed quickly. It was obvious they were in bad straits. Whites, blacks, Hispanics. All of them poor. All of them about as desperate as migrant workers out of work got.

Jane and Eddie ran around behind the counter, putting together the orders, while Seamus and Brian worked clipboards, checking IDs of people who were on the church’s food bank giving list.

They were just about all out of food when the gang of trailer-park kids came around. There were about seven of them, ranging in age from eight to thirteen, as desperate-looking as their parents. They wore filthy T-shirts and jeans, filthy sneakers. One of them, a dopey-looking white kid with an Afro puff of curly brown hair, didn’t even have shoes, Jane noticed in horror from behind the counter.

“Hey, you guys like baseball?” the oldest of them, a short Hispanic kid, said with a nice-enough smile. “I’m Guillermo. We got a little field back here, and we were wondering if you guys wanted to play.”

Before they could answer, Guillermo turned to Seamus, showing him the dinged-up aluminum bat he was holding.

“Would that be OK, Father? Could they play some baseball with us?”

“That would be fine, kids. Just don’t go too far. We’ll be leaving soon enough.”

Jane stood behind the counter, frozen. She stared at her grandfather like he was crazy. She didn’t want to play baseball with California’s version of Children of the Corn. She was twelve! And a girl!

“C’mon, now. Jane, Eddie, c’mon out from behind there,” Seamus said. “You’ve been a big help today. You can play for a little while with them while Brian stays here with me to clean up.”

Jane and Eddie looked at each other.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Guillermo said, patting Eddie on the shoulder as they left the food bank. “It’s this way.”

They went behind the food bank caboose, toward a stand of pines and oaks. Behind about twenty yards of trees was their field. It looked comically bad. There was a flat plain of red dirt with a tree for first, a large, dangerous-looking rock for second, and a rusted hunk of metal that might have once been a motor for a refrigerator for third base. The newest-looking object in sight was a tall fence that bordered the outfield, with barbed wire running along the top.

Eddie looked at the fence and then at the circle of poor kids standing around them, staring silently. For the first time, he noticed that none of the kids had a ball. Did they use rocks or something?

“Um, you want to choose sides or what?” Eddie said to Guillermo.

Guillermo laughed.

“No,” he said, shoving Eddie hard in the chest. “I want your money. Cough it up, you little bitch.”

CHAPTER 37

“WHAT?” EDDIE SAID IN amazement. “Wait, you’re joking, right? C’mon, are we going to play, or what?”

Guillermo shoved him again, harder.

“I’m not kidding. Give me your money.”

“Don’t forget his iPhone, G,” said the kid with no shoes. “You know some do-gooder city kid got an iPhone, dawg.”

Guillermo grabbed Eddie roughly by his shirt and poked him hard in the chin with the tip of the grungy metal bat.

Jane started crying then. This wasn’t happening. How could this be happening?

“Give me everything you have, or I’m going to knock the shit out of you,” Guillermo said.