Scraps
by
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The three looked at one another, then at the little boy sitting in front of them.
A storm had swept in earlier that afternoon. It had brought with it a warm breeze and a tepid rain, offering them little relief from the hot summer days they had been enduring for the past month.
Tucking a strand of long, dark hair behind her ear, Kelly finally broke the silence, “Where did you find him, Nikki?”
“On the side of the road, toward the middle of the bridge,” Nikki replied, not taking her eyes off the brown-haired, blue-eyed child in front of her. “He was just sitting there.”
Dominick sighed and looked at the river several yards beyond the little boy.
The bridge Nikki was referring to was the same one they were currently standing below. It was the same bridge they had slept under last night and the same bridge that they would sleep under again tonight. In its day, it had been an impressive and imposing structure, but now it was like everything else that surrounded their area by the river: old and worn down, telling a story nobody wanted to hear. Having been replaced by newer bridges downstream, it waited, unattended to by the department of transportation, only for the inevitable day when it would finally collapse and be washed away by the very river it had stood against for so long.
“How did he get there?” Dominick asked, letting his gaze remain fixed on the turbulent water.
“I don’t know,” Nikki shrugged. “He hasn’t said anything since I found him.”
“Nothing?” Dominick raised his eyebrows, looking back at the tall, redhead who had been staying with them for the past five or six months.
It was hard to know exactly how long any of them had been living out here. The days and the nights all started to blend together after awhile.
Nikki shook her head, confirming, “Nothing.”
“How did you get him to come back with you?” Kelly wondered.
“He just came,” Nikki answered, shrugging again, helplessly this time. “I got the impression he was waiting for someone, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t just leave him there though. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t say anything so I just held out my hand. He started crying harder,” she added guiltily, “but he took it and let me lead him back here. I didn’t know what else to do,” she repeated.
“Maybe he can’t hear us,” Kelly suggested, eyeing the little boy.
“What, like he’s deaf or something?” Dominick asked.
Kelly nodded.
Nikki shook her head, “I don’t think so. I mean, he turned around when I walked up behind him earlier. I’m sure he heard me approaching.” She paused for a moment, then speculated, “Maybe he just can’t talk yet.”
“No,” Dominick disagreed, looking from the water to the boy sitting in front of it. “I thought of that too, but I think he’s got to be at least five-years-old. He should know how to talk by now.”
“He’s so small though,” Nikki protested, glancing at Dominick.
“Small as in thin, yeah,” Kelly remarked. “It definitely looks like he’s missed a meal or two, but he’s pretty tall to only be a toddler.”
“If he can talk, then why won’t he say anything?” Nikki persisted.
Dominick shrugged, “Maybe he just doesn’t want to.”
“Maybe he’s retarded,” Kelly contemplated. “Maybe someone dumped him because they didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s it either.” Dominick shook his head, “I mean, he seems to have pretty good control over himself. He isn’t drooling or wetting his pants or anything, and he’s being quiet, even though he must be confused.”
“Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “Plus he’s watching us like he understands what we’re saying.”
“It does seem as though he’s waiting for something,” Dominick mused.
“Or someone,” Kelly commented.
They looked at the little boy thoughtfully.
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Book Details
About the Book
Imagine walking through a crowded airport and running head-on into your past. It’s been so long since the last time you saw it, that at first you don’t even recognize it. Imagine sitting down with your past and buying it a drink. You study it across the table, attempting to re-familiarize yourself with its appearance and its sounds, with the very idea of its existence. Imagine sitting there while your past asks you questions about events and feelings you haven’t permitted yourself to consider in years. It reminds you of those moments that destroyed you and of those moments that made you, showing you that the two are the same.
That’s where Nikki finds herself after running into Jonathan, a man she once lived on the streets with when they were both children. He asks her to recount for him a hot summer, twenty-two years earlier, when they lived under a bridge with five other people. Grudgingly, after years of pretending that it never happened, Nikki finds herself telling Jonathan about their time together. As she talks, she brings to life the people they knew, the experiences they had and what it was that finally drove them away.
About the Author
The author was born, and has lived most of her life, in Kansas City, MO. She is a computer programmer by day and a writer by night.
Juli wrote her first book while attending kindergarten in Belton, MO. It was a make believe story about a playground, cleverly entitled The Playground. It never achieved publication. However, nineteen years later, Scraps, a fictional tale about homeless kids and teenagers, proudly becomes the author’s first published work. It lacks the crayon illustrations that the first book touted, but the author is hopeful that the considerably improved writing style will make up for this noticeable lack of imagery.
Juli enjoys being outdoors, traveling, having new experiences and, on most days, people.