The Journey Back Read Free Page A

got to the landfill, or the dump, or wherever it went, the back would open up and I could slip out and make a run for it. I’d hide out for a while, then try to find that highway that brung me out here and follow it back east. That was my plan anyway.
    Two minutes seemed like an eternity. I could hear—and feel—the vibrations of the truck rumbling down the steep gravel driveway.
    â€œCome on, come
on!
” I whispered urgently. “Let’s go!” I needed things to click along fast. Pretty soon, Mr. R. would be wondering why I wasn’t showing up for class. Couldn’t take that long to throw a bag of garbage into the Dumpster, he’d be thinking.
    Funny how I could picture so clearly everyone in the class where I should have been at that moment. A sea of blue sweatshirts and blue pants, our boring uniform. Half of them boys would be sprawled over their desks with their heads buried in their arms ’cause class hadn’t quite started and no one was wide awake. Me, I was always in a half-awake state on account of the fact that I never really slept, but I never put my head down like that. Someone could take advantage if you had your head down.
    So I’d be sitting there in class watching Dontaye doodle. Dontaye, who slept in the bed beside mine in the dorm, also sat beside me in most of my classes, and every day I’d watch him illustrate the sides of his paper. Always the same thing: pointed stars and weird letters that were code for his gang back in Baltimore. Seemed like most of those guys—black, white, Hispanic, all of them—had some kind of gang they were connected to back home. Dontaye talked to me about his gang a couple times, like maybe he even wanted me to join it. Wouldn’t that be something? If a white guy showed up with Dontaye? Heck, maybe they wouldn’t care. I have to say that deep down, parts of that gang stuff appealed to me. Like the reason Dontaye joined his gang is because he didn’t have any family taking care of him, which is kind of like me.
    Suddenly, the garbage truck was pulling up to the Dumpster, interrupting my thoughts. The metal arms, which screeched like a giant’s fingernail scraping down a big chalkboard, knocked and locked onto the Dumpster, like a monster hug. A jolt sent me forward, then back. Grabbing a bag of trash, I dug myself down deeper as the Dumpster got lifted. I tried to brace myself for what was next, but there was no way to prepare for it because all at once everything got flipped over. Bags of garbage, cardboard, pieces of wood, a broken milk crate—and me. I got knocked around pretty good in the process, lost track of the shovel, and landed facedown with my feet up, squeezed between a bunch of garbage bags like a piece of baloney in a stinking sandwich. And boy, did it stink. If I didn’t die from the compactor, I was thinking, I might die from the putrid smell.
    Plus it was dark in there. When the cover over the top of the truck slid shut with a bang, I couldn’t see a thing. Pitch black. But mostly, I couldn’t get over how bad it stunk. It made me want to gag. I struggled to right myself and blindly started rooting around for that shovel. I couldn’t find it right off, but what I did run into was a ripped-open bag of garbage, ’cause next thing I knew globs of something slimy and granular spilled out over my hands. I swore and cussed out loud. I knew those guys in the cab couldn’t hear over the truck noise, so I cussed even louder a second time.
    A different motor started whirring and an ear-piercing, scraping sound began. The compactor was moving! It was pushing all that garbage—and
me—
toward the back. I had to find the shovel fast or I was going to end up like a lousy pancake. Ignoring the crap on my hands, I groped around for the shovel but could not find it. And man, I needed it—
fast
.
    I felt the gears shift and grind as the truck made its way back out of