It shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise to me when my parents asked me to leave. I should have predicted something; I should have known by the quiet unmoving stares across the room the night before, broken only by the sound of the baby coughing in the next room, that something wasn’t quite right. I went to bed that night not knowing that when I woke up, I would lose everything I had ever known.
When I walked down the stairs to the kitchen the next morning, my parents had been up waiting for me. My mother looked like she had been awake for days on end, and my father could barely meet my eyes with his weary gaze. The baby, ceasing coughing for what seemed like the first time in weeks, was nestled softly in my mother’s arms.
“Brendan,” my father said, and came over to where I stood, placing his hands firmly on each of my shoulders as if to balance himself for the words that were about to come. My stomach began to sink with dread.
“You have to leave, Brendan.” My father’s voice cracked, and then steadied itself. “It’s the only way we’ll be able to survive without starving. We’ll always love you. But you’re a grown man now, you’re seventeen years old.” His voice seemed to grow more confident as he continued to speak, like the way he presented the words to me would make any difference in the meaning that lay under them. “It’s the only way that we can keep living--”
“And the baby,” my mother cried out, holding back tears. “He’s so sick he won’t last a day without this medicine. It’s taking everything we have to pay for it. We...we just don’t have enough anymore, Brendan.”
I looked straight at my mother, standing next to the table where we had sat and ate meals together for the last seventeen years of my life. Her eyes were tired and sad, yet unwavering. My father’s were confused, unsure, but set at least in the determination that the act of having me leave the house was the best thing for the family and for the life of my younger brother.
“It’s settled, then,” I said, without emotion. “I’ll be gone by midday.”
***
As the September Pennsylvania sun burned in its midday glory, I packed all of the clothes I had left (three pairs of pants, two shirts, two pairs of socks, and a pair of underwear) and a baseball (a childhood keepsake), along with a loaf of bread and apples from the backyard into a worn-out rucksack made from my torn bedsheets. The black and white photograph of my family, unframed, remained on my bureau. I left the only home I had ever known with a quarter, two dimes, three nickels, and four pennies. “It’s more than your father wanted me to give you,” sobbed my mother earlier that day as her emotions finally got the best of her. “Take it before he sees. It’s all we have.”
I started down our dirt driveway not fully comprehending that this would be the last time I ever saw my family again. My plan was to head south, where at least the climate would be more hospitable than chilly Northern Pennsylvania as the months grew colder into winter. How would I get there? The rails were my best bet. I had lost some of my closest friends to the same fate as my own, and before they left the town forever sometimes they would stop and say their farewells, telling me in great detail their grand plans of becoming wealthy entrepreneurs after riding the rails to the South. Of course, I had no notion of whether they were successful or not, or ever would be. I didn’t know if there was more work in the South, or if it was simply another empty promise for my life that would never be fulfilled. But at seventeen years old and with no home to go to, I didn’t have much else of a choice.
I kept walking on the dirt roads of my hometown until my house faded completely from view, and with it, my composure. When I reached the railroad tracks, I sat down and began weeping. The tears fell over my sore outstretched legs and tired feet until, after what seemed to be hours, there were no more tears in my raw eyes to fall. After an eternity of sitting, thinking, and wondering why, I picked up my bag, straightened my hat, wiped my tear-streaked face with my dirty hand, and began to walk along the railroad tracks.
THE DAY I LEFT HOME (CALLI)
It shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise to me when my parents asked me to leave. I should have predicted something; I should have known by the quiet unmoving stares across the room the night before, broken only by the sound of the baby coughing in the next room, that something wasn’t quite right. I went to bed that night not knowing that when I woke up, I would lose everything I had ever known.
When I walked down the stairs to the kitchen the next morning, my parents had been up waiting for me. My mother looked like she had been awake for days on end, and my father could barely meet my eyes with his weary gaze. The baby, ceasing coughing for what seemed like the first time in weeks, was nestled softly in my mother’s arms.
“Brendan,” my father said, and came over to where I stood, placing his hands firmly on each of my shoulders as if to balance himself for the words that were about to come. My stomach began to sink with dread.
“You have to leave, Brendan.” My father’s voice cracked, and then steadied itself. “It’s the only way we’ll be able to survive without starving. We’ll always love you. But you’re a grown man now, you’re seventeen years old.” His voice seemed to grow more confident as he continued to speak, like the way he presented the words to me would make any difference in the meaning that lay under them. “It’s the only way that we can keep living--”
“And the baby,” my mother cried out, holding back tears. “He’s so sick he won’t last a day without this medicine. It’s taking everything we have to pay for it. We...we just don’t have enough anymore, Brendan.”
I looked straight at my mother, standing next to the table where we had sat and ate meals together for the last seventeen years of my life. Her eyes were tired and sad, yet unwavering. My father’s were confused, unsure, but set at least in the determination that the act of having me leave the house was the best thing for the family and for the life of my younger brother.
“It’s settled, then,” I said, without emotion. “I’ll be gone by midday.”
***
As the September Pennsylvania sun burned in its midday glory, I packed all of the clothes I had left (three pairs of pants, two shirts, two pairs of socks, and a pair of underwear) and a baseball (a childhood keepsake), along with a loaf of bread and apples from the backyard into a worn-out rucksack made from my torn bedsheets. The black and white photograph of my family, unframed, remained on my bureau. I left the only home I had ever known with a quarter, two dimes, three nickels, and four pennies. “It’s more than your father wanted me to give you,” sobbed my mother earlier that day as her emotions finally got the best of her. “Take it before he sees. It’s all we have.”
I started down our dirt driveway not fully comprehending that this would be the last time I ever saw my family again. My plan was to head south, where at least the climate would be more hospitable than chilly Northern Pennsylvania as the months grew colder into winter. How would I get there? The rails were my best bet. I had lost some of my closest friends to the same fate as my own, and before they left the town forever sometimes they would stop and say their farewells, telling me in great detail their grand plans of becoming wealthy entrepreneurs after riding the rails to the South. Of course, I had no notion of whether they were successful or not, or ever would be. I didn’t know if there was more work in the South, or if it was simply another empty promise for my life that would never be fulfilled. But at seventeen years old and with no home to go to, I didn’t have much else of a choice.
I kept walking on the dirt roads of my hometown until my house faded completely from view, and with it, my composure. When I reached the railroad tracks, I sat down and began weeping. The tears fell over my sore outstretched legs and tired feet until, after what seemed to be hours, there were no more tears in my raw eyes to fall. After an eternity of sitting, thinking, and wondering why, I picked up my bag, straightened my hat, wiped my tear-streaked face with my dirty hand, and began to walk along the railroad tracks.