The Boy in the Church Parking Lot

So that is what I told myself I was doing.

But I will tell you plainly what was underneath it, because I have had a long time to look. I was not worried about that boy. I was afraid of him. I looked at an old car and a young face and I decided what it meant. Drugs, I thought. Or casing the building. Or something worse that I did not have a name for. It never once crossed my mind to wonder if he was cold.

Wednesday morning the car was there, and I did not even take my coat off. I stood at the office window and dialed the sheriff’s office. Not 911. The regular number, off the card taped inside my desk drawer.

“There’s a vehicle that’s been parked on church property three mornings in a row,” I said. “There’s a young man sleeping in it. I’m here alone.”

I heard how that last part sounded. I said it anyway.

Twelve minutes later, Hank Moser knocked on the glass and called the boy by his name.

---

The driver’s window came down a few inches.

“You eat last night?” Hank said.

“Yes sir.” The voice was low and scratchy with sleep.

“What’d you eat?”

“Jeff sent out for burgers. For the whole crew.”

“What time did you get off?”

“Twelve thirty. We had milo trucks till midnight.”

“You got school clothes?”

“In the trunk.”

“All right,” Hank said. “Sit tight a minute. The lady in the office is the one who called, and I’m going to go talk to her.”

I stepped back from the window as if I had been caught at something. I suppose I had.

By the time I got the side door unlocked, he was on the step with his hat in his hand.

“Sandy.”

“Hank.” I could hear my voice doing something I did not like. “You know him?”

“I do. That’s Eli. He’s seventeen.” He looked back over his shoulder at the Buick. “I found him back here four nights ago, on patrol. Saturday, about one in the morning. I’ve been by every morning since.”

“How long has he been in our lot?”

“A couple of weeks, by his own telling. He’s gone before anybody pulls in. You’re early this week.”

Then I asked the question I think anybody would ask.

“Then why is a child still sleeping in a car, Hank? Why hasn’t somebody done something?”

He did not get short with me. I have thought about that since. He had every right to.

“I’ve done what I’ve found to do in four days,” he said. “His mother lives over toward Galva with a boyfriend. The boyfriend put Eli out in September. Set his things on the porch in two trash bags. I’ve been out there. She won’t cross the man, and Eli won’t go back while he’s in the house, and I can’t say I’d want him to.”

“Can’t you make her?”

“Not with him seventeen and her saying he’s free to come home any time. I made my report to the state Monday, same as I’m required to.” He turned his hat a quarter turn in his hands. “That first night I offered to drive him up to the shelter in Salina myself.”

“That’s thirty-five miles.”