Oh, The Places You Have Went

A lengthy excerpt from my forthcoming book—I think it’s forthcoming—We Found the Vacuum Cleaner. Read this story first.

My First Wife Chancie really liked Adam Phillips. She secretly hoped that maybe Our Youngest Daughter and he would…well, you know women.

Adam was a good-looking boy, tall but a little overweight. His parents own Phillips Pharmacy and Hardware Store in Pancake Flats. Adam and Our Daughter were the only two students left in Pasture High School, about ten years ago, when the school was finally shut down. Then they rode a bus to Waddle, Kansas, sixteen miles up the road. I have a feeling that Adam liked riding to school with Our Daughter, although he never said so outright. He’s the respectful kind of boy who wouldn’t. He had his heart set on making the football team at K-State. The Phillips were a K-State family from the get-go.

But Our Daughter had many other plans. “Mom! Stop it. I just…ooh! I’m not interested in him!” Our Daughter wanted to go places, see things and meet people. And she did. And we’re proud of her. But still, Chancie had a soft spot in her heart for Adam. “You can’t go wrong picking what grows in your own garden,” she told Daughter.

“Muh-thur! If you say that to me again…”

On the last night in Pasture High School, there was an all-community farewell. Funny, Adam didn’t show up. Adam disappeared. He left a note in a mailbox, addressed to his parents. It took them two days of despair and agony to learn that he had run away on purpose.

The sheriff couldn’t find him. The Kansas State Troopers couldn’t find him. None of the authorities could find him.

“I told you he was weird, Mother,” Daughter said.

“There’s something terrible on his mind,” Chancie argued. "There's got to be."

“Does he use drugs?” I asked.

“No. He’s weird enough; he doesn’t need them. I don’t know, Daddy. Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

All of us tried our best to comfort the Phillips’. They were appreciative, but unless we could produce a phone call from Adam… Time led from one thing to another. Pretty soon, the memory of Adam and the night he left town became a quiet, distant memory. We hardly spoke of it. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were changed into burdened, heart-broken people. Our own daughter married a fine Texas young man. Adam Phillips was only a stamp-sized yearbook picture.

Sometimes when Chancie and I are out serving meals to homeless people, I get an image of Adam in my mind. I wonder if he was homeless like these folks. I wonder if he is healthy. I wonder if he is alive.

We were serving in a city park one cold October afternoon. I was standing outside the van cheerfully handing plates of warm food to the people…

I swear that skinny guy with the leather face looked like Adam would have looked. It was the eyes. They were behind heavy lids. “Adam?” I asked carefully. His red eyes flicked to me. “Adam!” I shouted.

“How’s it going,” he said.

“How are you?”

“I’m hungry, man. Just gimme my plate of food and then I got to go.”

“Chancie, look who’s here!” I yelled. Chancie screamed from inside the van. “Adam!” I yanked him to me to hug him. His plate of food fell to the street. Chancie came clambering out of the van, kicking food stuff every which way. “Adam!”

“Oh! My! Goodness!” She pushed me aside and hugged him and kissed him like he was her own son. We finally managed to knock him down. The street people stepped around us and asked the fellow in the van, “We gonna get a plate?”

I never figured that grown folks like me and My First Wife would be willing to fall onto the cold, wet grass and hug a man who was wearing the stinkiest clothes alive, but we were. Chancie and I were crying. Yes, me. Outright crying. Then Adam said, “I remember you.”

“Of course, you do!” Chancie said. “And you are so beautiful! Just look at you!”

We wanted to be alone with him, so we sent the van of food on to other sites. “Pick us up after while,” we said. We sat on a cold, concrete park bench, in a windy autumn mist and just let him eat his spaghetti. His wary eyes were way back in his head and only opened when all was calm—like a turtle from the shell. I never knew him to be much of a talker, but today he apparently decided to make up for lost time.

“I don’t know why I run off like that to begin with,” he told us. “I just wanted something besides wheat and milo. I hated the farm. I figured out that it ain’t so bad, now.

“Where have you been? Where did you go?” Chancie asked him. She held on to his hand.

“I’ve been all over. New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Houston and Dallas. Everywhere. California. Colorado. I even been here a few times.”

“Did you work? How did you eat?”

“I never could get work. I panhandled. Every time I got just a little bit of money somebody’d try to beat me up and take it. I been beat up pretty bad a couple of times. See.” He pulled a full upper plate of dentures from his mouth. Some county jail system paid for them. I noticed a rugged scar along his eyebrow. Chancie and I were getting used to the smell. It didn’t bother him to belch when he finished his meal. He farted once and didn't even realize it.

Adam’s once smooth boyish face was now dirty and pock-marked, scarred and hard. He had a short, unbalanced beard. His shy smile was lost long ago. One hand, with home-made tattoos, he tucked into his torn Army fatigue jacket. The other hand My First Wife was stroking.

Tales from jail. Stories of hitchhiking. Women with no names. Fights. “I only took drugs at first. Not very long. There wasn’t nothing to it for me, so I never got interested.”

Hot summers in the south and cold winters in the north. Walking. Walking. Always walking. Drunkenness. “There’s one curb…” he thought hard. “…I think it’s somewhere in Ohio. It’s nice there in the summer. Real nice. That curb is just the right height for a pillow. I didn’t mind sleeping in that street.

“But ten years of all that and this is all I got to show for it.” He spread his arms. “I been thinking about going home to take a bath.”

It took him an hour to say that, but when he did, Chancie said, “We’ll take you home, Honey! We’ll take you home right now!”

“I can’t,” he said.

“What?”

“Pop’ll kill me.”

“I don’t think so!” Chancie yelled. “What makes you say that?”

“I stole a lot of money from his store when I left.”

There was a moment of quiet. “I know your pop,” I said. “He’d give you double that much if you go home—or just let him know you’re okay.”

“How’s Pop doing? My mom?”

“They’re sad and whipped. What do you think, Adam?”

“Do they still have that store? The lumber yard?”

“Oh, yeah. Got two or three high school kids working for them, too. Old George is still running the lumber yard for him.”

Again, there was silence. Longer this time. Chancie kept petting one hand. Suddenly his eyes came out from deep within. “You mean some kids is making money from Pa? Like working? Like they have a job?”

“Well, yes.”

“You think he would give me a job? Maybe we can work something out. I ain’t forgot how to work. Maybe if I promise to pay it back…”

Chancie whispered, “Go home, Adam. Go home.”

After a long pause, he whispered, “Could you give me a lift? I'll pay you back.”

Chancie broke into soft tears, “Oh yes, honey. Oh yes!”

He whispered again. “I hope they’ll have me. Do you think…?

In time we made it back to our pickup truck. I found a phone booth and called Gib, our neighbor in Pancake Flats and a Kansas State Trooper. I explained the news and told him to tell the Phillips. Gib gave me some instructions, too. We headed out of The Big City back to Pancake Flats. You’ve never smelled anything so awful as a wet, stinky, homeless boy inside the cab of a musty pickup. It was the greatest ride I ever had.

My First Wife held him tightly. “We're so happy to see you. You’re momma and daddy’s going to be so happy.”

A Kansas State Trooper pulled behind us and blue-lighted us to a stop. According to my friend Gib, I was to expect him. “Sir,” he said, “I’m to escort you back to Pancake Flats. We’re going to travel exactly seventy-five miles an hour with lights. Please stay close behind me until we reach our destination!”

Off we went toward Pancake Flats. Soon we saw flashing lights coming toward us. Our escort stopped on the side of the road, us behind him. Gib met us in his state car. The Phillips were his passengers. They bolted out of the back seat to get to their long-lost son.

Mrs. Phillips hugged him and hugged him. She kissed him. Mr. Phillips fell to his knees but still held on to his son. “My son…my son. Oh, my son.” Everyone was crying. Them, us, the troopers.

“Pop, I stole a bunch of money when I left. I’m sor…”

“Son, you look cold. Here. Take my coat. Put it on.” Mr. Phillips gave him a beautiful purple and silver K-State athletic jacket. “Put this on, son.”

The Army jacket fell to the ground. “I’m sorry, Pop. I’m sorry, Ma…”

“We’ll get you a nice hot shower. We have clean clothes that will fit you. I’ll fix you some dinner. Would you like some ice cream? K-State won this afternoon…oh, honey.”

Mr. Phillips turned to our trooper escort and said, “Thank you very much, sir. This is our son! Tomorrow we’re going to celebrate!”

My First Wife and I headed for Bertie’s Pie and Coffee Shoppe for our evening meal.

“Have you heard?” She asked when we sat down.

“Heard what?”

“Some state troopers found Adam Phillips and they're bringing him home,” she said while she poured our coffee. Then she backed off. “Whew-ee! Where you two been? You don’t smell all that pretty.”

“We’ve been to heaven this afternoon,” Chancie chuckled. “This is what heaven smells like.”

Yeah, right.