Free Verse Read Free Page B

doesn’t know that when I finally do leave Caboose, I don’t even manage to wear shoes.
    I can’t stay in the house with Phyllis. She’s sitting in a chair, not moving. Her hands are empty. Her hands are empty and it’s my fault. She’s not going to want me. I don’t even know her, and I’ve gone and wrecked her life. I’m all the way down past Town Center before I realize I’m still in my socks. I’ve wrecked those, too. I’m good at wrecking things.
    Route 10 is the main road through town and the only one with a yellow line. Once I cross the Gillums Bridge, Ifeel more at home. There isn’t enough of Caboose to have very many parts of town, but there is, at least, a poor side and a rich side. Phyllis lives on the rich side, where the houses are set down single-lane paved streets. The grass is cut even in summer, and it more or less survives the winter. In spring, people will plant flowers in the boxes and pots that now stand empty by the walk. Even on the rich side, folks are mostly poor. They’ve just had a splash or two of better luck.
    On my side of town, houses cluster along the highway or curl through the floodplain on dirt roads over and again washed out. Weed-strangled vacant lots lurk in between mushed-down brown yards, which, come summer, will still be more dirt than grass. Instead of flower boxes, yards here are dotted with bikes and rusting lawn mowers, dogs chained to plastic igloo-shaped shelters, and sets of tires marked with FOR SALE signs. It’s February, and the weeds gripping the vacant houses have been beaten down by rain and a couple of good snows. The sagging houses lean low against their neighbors, an occasional filthy patch of ice refusing to melt in the shadow. Here and there, a pretty house pops up—trim repainted, fence in good repair—and dogs patrol those houses with a suspicious eye toward a lone girl walking.
    Dust collects on the insides of windows in what used to be my family’s favorite breakfast spot. I can still make out the
w
and
y
of
Railway
and the
Din
of
Diner
, but it’sbeen years since the low-slung building’s smelled like eggs and bacon, or anything besides high water. Caboose hasn’t had a bad flood in years, but with the creek lapping at our yards every time it rains, everything on this side of town smells like mold and mud.
    I walk past three empty buildings and a Goodwill. Two more empties and a home décor shop called Dolly’s Primitives, which I predict will last all of two months. Sometimes people open businesses and try to make the downtown thrive, but nothing ever stays long. At the end of the block, I walk past the narrow building that used to be Get Reel Video Rental, before it was Sugar Shaker Nightclub, before it was Honey Ham Cafe. Now it’s Cupcake Emporium, only it isn’t Cupcake Emporium anymore, because the windows that used to say so are busted out. I see glass twinkling on the sidewalk. I see yellow fire tape. I see signs that say DANGER . I look away.
    On the other side of the street, birds are sorting through an overgrown lot for seed. A boy, maybe seven, throws a rock. They all fly, the birds and the boy, back to where they came from.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    A human being in good shape, on good roads, can walk about twenty miles in a day. I looked it up online once, back when me and Michael used to stay up late talking about all the ways we could leave. He told me that wascrazy—we weren’t going to walk out. We were going to plan and study and take our time and get me a scholarship to some awesome college somewhere. But all his talk about getting trapped made my clothes feel too tight and my breath come short. I needed to know there was a quick way out, should I ever notice that I was getting comfortable with the idea of staying here forever. Michael made it sound like I might someday wake up and realize I was forty and that I’d