Page 109 of Wild Abandon

“What is going on in here?” she demanded to know as soon as she came up the stairs.

The sight of her son on the floor, clutching his cheek, was not a concern for her.

“The boy’s been stealing from us,” the douche said.

My mother’s face fell in a look of utter shock and disgust. She turned to me, seething. “How dare you!”

“That’s mine. I worked for it. That’s my money to get the hell out of here!”

“You want to get out of here so bad?” she asked, screaming, “Fine! Go.” She yanked my duffel bag out of the closet and started shoving clothes into it. “You want to leave so bad? Get the hell out!”

Jeans, T-shirts, boxers—it all went in the bag. When it was filled, only a quarter of my stuff was in the bag.

“You’re almost eighteen and no longer my problem. Get out, and never come back.”

I grabbed the bag from her, my anger too intense to be upset. I turned and started to walk out the door. I didn’t need her—scratch that. I’d always needed her, but she was never there for me. For the second time, she was turning another man in her life away. I was almost down the hall when I remembered my hat. I walked back to my room and looked at the dresser where I thought I’d left it last. It wasn’t there.

When I looked up, the douche had it in his hand, a lighter in the other. He’d already lit the hat on fire.

“Looking for this?”

“No!” I cried. I literally cried as I watched the hat burning before being thrown out the window.

Duffel bag in hand, I ran down the stairs and out to the front yard. The flame was still on the hat as it lay in the grass. I picked it up and start beating it against the ground, dousing the flame. When the hat was nothing but singed fabric and an awful smell of ash, I put the hat in my pocket, looked back at the house, and walked away for the last time.

I never made it to graduation. I was already on the East Coast by then. Nowhere to go, I started hitchhiking, which was much harder than they showed in the movies. I quickly found myself going in the opposite direction of where I wanted to, but I didn’t care. I just needed to be moving. If you were giving me a ride, I was willing to take it.

I was lucky. For the most part, I rode with truck drivers, making cross-country trips. They were nice and happy to have company. We’d listen to Howard Stern a lot. If I thought the guy was a little sketchy, I’d hop off the truck at the next stop and stay in the most well-lit areas possible until I could find someone who looked okay enough to travel with. One guy tried to get me into his truck at a rest stop, and it was not to go for a drive. He wanted a different kind of ride. I was eighteen and being on the road made me pretty strong. I was able to make sure he didn’t try to touch me again.

For two years, I traveled aimlessly. I’d sleep in homeless shelters sometimes or cheap motels when I could afford it. The key to getting a job was to always keep your clothes clean and your ears washed. If I had four quarters, I would be at a Laundromat. If there was a coffee shop, I would be cleaning myself up in the back restroom. I lived in a few cities, staying just long enough to make a few dollars so that I could get to the next city. Sometimes, I’d meet someone who was headed somewhere, and I’d pick my destination based on where they were going.

I saw the ocean for the first time when I got to Miami. Then, I went to a rodeo in Texas. I saw cotton fields in Virginia and the flat plains of the Midwest. I got a job at a bar just outside Boston when I almost lost all hope.

“What’s up with the chewed up hat?” the bar owner asked.

“It’s, uh…it was my dad’s.”

“He dead or something?”

“No.” I put the box I was carrying down and started unpacking the bottles into the cooler. “He lives in San Francisco. I’m saving up, so I can see him.”

“Why isn’t he sending you a plane ticket to go out there himself?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“You try looking for him on the Internet?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, let’s see what we can find.”

We found nothing. Just a couple of white pages listings for a Nathaniel Teller Sr. A few calls proved they were not my father. I couldn’t comprehend it. If he wasn’t in San Francisco, then where the hell was he?

“Sorry, kid. Looks like you’re sticking around for good.”

I was in Boston, the complete opposite end of the country from where I needed to be. I couldn’t stay. I’d spent twelve years planning the perfect escape, and I messed it up. I needed to get to San Francisco as fast as I could. Whether my dad was there or not, San Francisco was the dream.

When the bar owner walked out, I stole five hundred bucks from the register and ran out the door.