Runaway

I ran away from home when I was three.  This was no "they won't let me watch seven hours of Sesame Street a day, will they?  I'll show them" attempt at acting out.  Rather, circumstances dangled an irresistible opportunity in front of me, and I grabbed it in both of my grubby little mitts.


I'd been left in the back yard of our house, which featured a high board fence with a single latched gate.  My sister, who was supposed to be watching me, had gone to the park to play softball with her friends.  She left me sitting on my blanket in the middle of the yard surrounded by toys, evidently secure in the knowledge that the fence would serve its purpose vis-a-vis my ability to escape, and, more importantly, she would return from the park before my parents got home.  However, she made two crucial mistakes.  She underestimated my ingenuity and powers of observation, and she disregarded the pull of the Smiley Garage.  There was a house in our neighborhood upon whose garage door the owners had painted a large smiling face.  This was no round, yellow, Wal-Mart greeter sticker, Have a Nice Day smiley face.  Rather, it resembled a slightly imbalanced clown wearing a bit too much lip and eye makeup.  This was at once terrifying and intensely interesting to my tiny little mind and I had to see it.  Right fucking now.

Within five minutes of my sister's departure, I had the gate open.  I'd often watched my dad open it as he was mowing or doing yard work, and I filed this information away, confident that it would one day serve me well.  Today was that day.  Upon emerging into the front yard, I immediately headed off down the street, moving with all the conviction my stubby legs could manage.  You will occasionally hear of a dog, given up for lost during the family vacation to Yellowstone, that will show up at their home in Hartford months later, emaciated and bearing new and exciting parasites, but largely none the worse for the wear.  This was as close to that experience as I've ever come.  I didn't know the exact route, but I knew how to get there.  The remainder of the trip was a blur.  I had traveled several blocks, and crossed at least three streets, but I recall none of that.  I was having an adventure, and I was going to see the goddamned Smiley Garage!  All by myself!  It was a moment of triumph that was as yet unrivaled in my short life.  I recall coming to the block where I knew the house to be; that's when the uneasiness set in.  I tramped up and down the block five or six times, and I couldn't find it.  There had obviously been a miscalculation.  I had been so fixated on my goal that I now had no idea where I was.  I didn't know anyone on that street, and my directional instincts, so finely honed only moments before, had given me a miss.  I was well and truly fucked.  I sat down on the curb in my red windbreaker and began to cry.

Apparently, my skills at creating pathos outstripped my navigational abilities, because a car pulled up a few moments later.  It was driven by a burly dark-haired man, and his daughter was sitting in the passenger seat.  He told me to get in and they'd take me home.  I jumped at the opportunity.  The back seat was covered with flats of empty glass Coke bottles, but I managed to squeeze in.  Five minutes later, I was home.  My parents, who had in the interim arrived home to discover my bewildered sister taking care of an empty back yard, were happy to see me.  My sister was not.  I believe she set some sort of record for length of time grounded.  It seems a friend of my oldest sister and her dad had driven by and seen me sobbing at the side of the road and brought me home.  Luckily, this sort of thing happened regularly back then.

There is a postscript to my adventure.  That evening, my dad decided to take us to Dutchland Dairy for dinner, no doubt to celebrate my safe return.  I asked if we could drive by the source of all the trouble, and he agreed.  As we drove, I tried to recollect the route I had taken; everything looked familiar, this must have been it.  We reached the block where the garage was located, and my dad swiftly pointed out to me the single flaw in  my otherwise infallible plan.

The fucking garage door was up.