CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“IT WON’T BE FOR long,” Henry coaxed Sandy. “I just need a place to stay for a few days to figure out what to do next.”
“What’s the problem?” Sandy countered, shaking her head. “You just let them take Bobby and put him in foster care. Then you’re free to do what you like.”
“I’m the only family he’s got now. We have to stick together,” Henry explained.
“What is this, a Hallmark movie? This is real life. Families don’t stay together anymore.”
“Well, I want me and Bobby to stay together.”
“Good luck,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“So can I stay at your place for a day or two? Just until I find somewhere else?” Henry asked again.
“Don’t you have any friends?” Sandy demanded.
“Not really,” Henry admitted. There was no one at the new school. No one that he could ask. “But me and Marty were pretty tight in juvie…”
“So? I don’t owe you anything.”
“I know, I just thought…”
He had hoped to use the family connection to convince her, but he could see that wasn’t going to work.
“John and I don’t see eye to eye,” Sandy pointed out. “Don’t expect anything from me, just ‘cause you and him were friendly.”
“What about for Bobby?” Henry challenged grumpily. “You said you like him, even if you don’t like me.”
“Yeah, he’s cute. But I also told you I don’t want a kid,” she reminded him.
Henry flopped down on a park bench and watched Bobby play in the sand.
“What am I gonna do?” he said in frustration, his voice cracking a little.
Sandy shrugged unsympathetically.
“You’re fourteen, Thomas, you’re old enough to take care of yourself. Plenty of kids on the street our age and younger. There’s lots of ways to make some money, keep yourself alive.”
“I know,” Henry agreed, “but I don’t want to be involved in anything… wrong.”
Sandy looked at him in disbelief, and he was afraid he had hurt her feelings. It wasn’t like she earned her living honestly.
“Who do you think you are?” Sandy demanded incredulously. “You’ve been in juvie, you’re running errands for John’s enterprises, you’re shoplifting, and you’re kidnapping Bobby. You don’t want to do anything ‘wrong’? Who do you think you’re kidding?”
“Bobby’s mine. I’m not kidnapping him,” Henry protested, fastening on that.
She shook her head impatiently.
“I ain’t gonna argue law with you. But he isn’t your son, unless you’re lying to me, and courts don’t give custody to kids like you unless they are the real parents.”
“Yeah,” Henry said thoughtfully.
Sandy’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you cooking up now?” she questioned suspiciously.
Henry looked at her, frowning. His thoughts were racing ahead.
“You have contacts, right?” he asked
“What kind of contacts?” Sandy said, her brows drawing down. She swept her long red hair over her shoulders.
“Someone who could give me documents saying that Bobby’s my son.”
“Why would you wanna go and do something like that?” Sandy questioned, obviously thinking him crazy. “Besides, Family Services already knows he’s your brother.”
“Not if I change my name. They won’t know the difference.”
“You don’t want to do that, Thomas,” she warned. “Trust me; you don’t want to do that at all.”
Henry knocked on the door. It wasn’t Jonathon that opened it this time. The tall, spidery man looked Henry and Bobby over.
“Yes?” he said cautiously.
“I got kicked out. I need somewhere to stay—just tonight.”
The man stepped back to allow Henry in, his eyes still wary.
“Are you the kid who was here the other night?” he questioned.
Henry nodded.
“Yeah—I talked to Jonathan.”
The man seemed to relax a little at the mention of his colleague by name. He extended his hand.
“I’m Ron.”
“Henry.”
“You got kicked out?” Ron asked, leading him into the shelter.
“Yeah.”
“By your folks?”
“No, I was staying with a friend.”
“Where are your folks?”
Henry shrugged, and fussed with Bobby’s jacket and hat.
“Gone,” he said flatly.
“And this little guy is your brother?”
Henry was pretty sure he had referred to Bobby as “his” baby to Jonathan, as he usually did, and had never clarified that they were brothers.
“No, he’s my kid,” he said evenly. The intentional lie would get easier, but right now he was sweating, his mouth suddenly dry. Ron didn’t appear to detect the lie. When he turned his back for a moment, Henry wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“You’re pretty young to be a father,” Ron commented doubtfully.
If he was fourteen, then Bobby was conceived when he was twelve. Not impossible, but a little hard to believe. Henry had already thought about that. His new ID put him at sixteen, a father at fourteen or fifteen. He tried to put on a manly swagger for Ron.
“Yeah, a little,” he agreed boldly.
“Where’s the baby’s mom?”
“I don’t know where she is right now. I’ve had Bobby since he was tiny. Haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“Well, why don’t you get him settled in, and then we can discuss options.”
Henry nodded.
“Do you think you can help me figure something out?”
Ron smiled reassuringly.
“You bet. We’ll work something out.”
“What about foster care for a few years?” Ron suggested as they discussed options later. “The two of you together in a foster home, until you’re old enough to take care of yourselves on your own.”
“I’m not doin’ that. I want to work it so I can keep taking care of him now.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Ron warned.
“It’s never been easy.”
“Are you going to work or go to school?”
“I gotta finish school.”
“Good. You’ll need to apply for welfare and housing. Food stamps. Subsidized daycare. There are a lot of ways to get help.”
“Some of the schools have programs for teen parents,” Henry suggested.
“Well, moms. I never heard of a dad getting into the program.”
“But I’m the caregiver.”
“Yes, you are. I’ll look into it, but don’t get your hopes up. And you’re going to need to stay here for more than a day. Until you get housing of your own. It might be a while, and you don’t want to be bouncing back and forth between homes in that time. Children need consistency and order, it’s not good to be taking Bobby all kinds of places.”
“Okay,” Henry agreed.
“We’ll get started tomorrow. You get a good sleep tonight.”
Henry checked his camera over to make sure he was ready to go. He loved the art class in the single parents program. He got to choose what medium to use—pencils, paint, photography, clay, whatever. And he could use whatever style, method, or effects he wanted to use. The focus was on finding a way that you could enjoy and express yourself best. Henry felt immediately at home with the camera. He loved to develop his own film, and the teacher liked his work. They had done some still life, had gone to the zoo, had looked at old abandoned farm buildings, and even brought a couple of the babies into the class as models. Today they were going to have a woman come model for them, as they studied the human figure as a subject. Everyone was ready with their medium and eager to get going.
A woman came into the class in a robe, and looked around, smiling. Her eyes stopped on Henry, and she turned and spoke to the teacher. Henry couldn’t hear her, but knew what she was saying. Mrs. C
lark hadn’t told her there was a boy in the single parents program. They spoke in lowered voices for a few minutes.
“She won’t pose for you,” Sherri commented to Henry, a little bit accusing.
“It’s not my fault.”
“Tell Mrs. Clark you’ll sit this one out,” she suggested.
“No, I don’t want to miss it!” he protested.
“You’re going to make all of us miss it.”
Mrs. Clark motioned for Henry to come over, and he followed her and the model out into the hallway.
“Henry, Adrienne is nervous about posing with you there.”
Henry shrugged.
“Why? It’s for an art subject, I’m not going to whistle or catcall or something.”
“Would you like to show her some of the stuff in your portfolio? I’ve been trying to explain you’re not the average sixteen-year-old boy…”
“Sure,” Henry agreed. “Most of it’s in the dark room.”
He led the way, and pulled down a few of his recent pictures that had finished drying. He handed them to Adrienne.
“These are Bobby, my baby,” he said, and rifled through his photo box. “And some of the animals and still life’s we’ve done.”
“These are very good,” Adrienne admitted. She looked over some of the other pictures of Bobby that were hung up. “Bobby is very cute.”
“He’s pretty photogenic,” Henry agreed.
“Do you have any of his mom?” she suggested.
“No. She’s not in the picture.”
“Henry is raising Bobby alone,” Mrs. Clark said.
“Oh, of course.”
“I made a mistake,” Henry admitted, “but I take responsibility and I’m working hard to make sure that it doesn’t ruin the rest of my life—or Bobby’s.”
She studied him frankly.
“You are very mature for sixteen,” she said.
She didn’t know half of it. Henry just shrugged modestly.
“I’ll do it,” Adrienne agreed. “I’ll model for you. You are an artist.”
They went back to the classroom. Without another word, Adrienne went to the center of the room and shed her robe. Henry picked up his camera and started snapping pictures.
Bobby was asleep, and Henry got out his pictures to look at. The pictures of Adrienne had turned out really well. Her smooth, flawless skin and dark features provided good contrast. He loved her figure, so much fuller and more mature than the girls Henry’s age.
He wanted to see her again, to take more pictures. He had asked Mrs. Clark for Adrienne’s full name so that he could label the photos correctly, and she had given it to him. He looked in the phone book, and there were several addresses to check out. He would start with the closest one. Henry put his camera with a telephoto lens in his bag, and went out.
He had to wait a while. No one was home. But Henry waited and watched the windows, and eventually she got home. He got a couple shots of her closing the drapes, and that was all. But he went home satisfied. Knowing where she lived, he could follow her and build a collection of candid shots.
Henry was surprised how much food the stamps got him. He was used to trying to feed a family on whatever disability money his mom didn’t spend first, and some weeks that meant just Kraft dinner and Kool-Aid. With the stamps, he had plenty for balanced meals for himself and Bobby. Welfare even gave him money to spend on other things after the rent was paid. Mostly, he bought photography equipment to set up a darkroom of his own, so he didn’t have to develop all of his pictures at the school where others might see them. Other more expensive materials, he borrowed from the school darkroom.
Along with the candid shots of Adrienne, he had some of her neighbors, when he could see them through their windows and she was not visible. He was trying to increase his interests and subjects, though he found himself increasingly preoccupied with getting more pictures of Adrienne. She had some quality that no one else he snapped even approached.
“So what else are you up to lately?” Marty questioned lazily. Henry was eager to get off the phone, but Marty wasn’t letting him go. Henry didn’t like to be mixed up with Marty, but was afraid that if he broke off communications, Marty would implicate him.
“Nothing,” Henry said. “Just school.”
“What’re you doing at school?” Marty pressed.
“I dunno. Just stuff. Photography.”
“For real? You’re taking pictures for school?” Marty questioned, sounding interested.
“Yeah.” Henry wasn’t sure why he sounded so excited about it.
“Develop your own film?”
“Sure.”
“I can hook you up with some other guys into that,” Marty suggested.
Henry hesitated.
“Really?”
“Sure. I know a couple guys really into pictures. I’ll put them in touch with you.”
“Okay,” Henry agreed, nodding even though Marty couldn’t see him.
Henry thought it might be interesting to get together with a couple of hobbyists who had a bit more experience than him. He was learning a lot at school, but you could learn so much more from others who were out there in the field, and had been spending years developing their skills.
The apartment that welfare had put Henry in was just a couple of blocks away from Sandy’s pad, and he occasionally ran into her at the grocery store or other places in the neighborhood. He never mentioned to Marty that he was still in contact with her.
Bobby was climbing around at the park, on the small slide, while Henry kept an eye on him. He saw Sandy across the park, closing some sort of deal with an unsavory looking character. She glanced around quickly, and he saw her stop, looking in his direction. After she and the gentleman separated, she walked over to where Henry was standing.
“I don’t like people stickin’ their noses in my business,” she said.
“I’m just watching Bobby. I noticed you were there. I wasn’t snooping.”
“How come I see you everywhere I go?” she accused.
Henry shrugged.
“I just see you around the neighborhood. I’m not following you or something.”
“First I hear you’re into taking pictures, and then I see you hanging around all the time.”
“You heard about me taking pictures?” Henry repeated uncertainly.
“Yeah, some of John’s boys wanted to know how to contact you. People around here don’t like cameras, Thomas, you better watch your step,” she warned.
“Thomson,” Henry corrected. “I’m not hurting anyone taking pictures.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t even have a camera with me right now. What are you so worried about?”
“I don’t know; you could have a spy camera, one of those little things. I don’t like people taking pictures of me,” she insisted.
Henry wouldn’t have pegged her as the type to be camera shy. He shrugged and watched Bobby play.