This is the eleventh part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, and Part X before continuing.
It’s hard to keep track of time when you don’t have a clock, but I would guess Michael had been going on about human digestion for about an hour when the cop car pulled in front of us.
I took a deep breath and tried not to panic. Panicking would only make things worse, and I didn’t want to scare Michael.
So, when the cop got out of his car, I nodded to him and said, “Afternoon, Officer.”
“Hi, Officer,” Michael waved at the cop, who nodded without smiling.
“What’s going on here?”
I was about to say “Nothing,” when Michael piped up and said, “Did you know that, when you eat something, it takes 24 hours for it to come out the other end?”
The cop didn’t answer. He just looked at Michael askance.
Michael looked back at him in that eerie, unblinking way of his.
“What’s your name, young man?”
“Michael West. I live at 124 Euclid Avenue, Unit 2B, Riverview, Illinois, United States of America.”
The cop nodded, unimpressed, although Michael seemed very proud of his ability to recite all the information he must have been coached to give a police officer if he ever got lost.
The cop turned to me. “And you are?”
“Charles Turner, sir.”
“No relation to this young man here?”
I suppressed a laugh, since it was obvious we weren’t related. No doubt, that was why the officer had stopped in the first place. “No, sir. We’re just friends.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Friends?”
The moment he said it I wished I could take the word back. While the word was innocent enough in most contexts, there were certain men who would take young boys as “friends,” and we all knew what that meant.
The cop turned back to Michael. “Where are your parents?”
“At work.”
“Do they know you’re here?”
“How could they know I’m here if they’re at work?”
“You don’t have a phone?”
Michael shook his head. “I’m not allowed to have a phone.”
“Who’s supposed to be watching you right now?”
“I’m supposed to walk home from school and do my homework until my mom gets home.”
“Then why aren’t you at home now?”
Michael shrugged, then gestured to me as he said, “It was his first day at school. I wanted to ask him how it went.”
The cop raised his brows again as he looked at me. “You’re in school?”
“I work at the high school.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“Ms. West can.”
The cop took out his phone. “And what is Ms. West’s phone number?”
I didn’t know. Since I didn’t have a phone, it had never occurred to me to ask. Fortunately, Michael saved me again by rattling off a series of numbers I assume belonged to his mom.
The cop tapped on the screen of his phone and brought it to his ear. We listened as he asked for Ms. West, then asked about her son and if she knew he was sitting under a bridge with a Black man. He didn’t even ask her about my employment status.
Whatever she said must have satisfied him because when he hung up, he looked at Michael and said, “Your mom knows you’re here and that you’re with Mr. Turner.” He shot me a warning look as he said my name. “She said it’s OK for you to stay with him, but that if you leave before your dad gets here, you’re to go straight home, understand?”
Michael nodded seriously. Then he said, “But how will my dad know to come here instead of going home?”
“She’s calling him now to let him know.”
“OK,” Michael said with a nod.
Then I nodded.
Then the cop nodded, still looking at me warily. We might have spent the rest of the day nodding to each other if Michael hadn’t turned to the cop and said, “Did you know that humans can go up to a week without food but only three days without water?”
To be continued…