Mile Marks

“There it is!” Alex was jumping up and down in the seat next to me, pointing at the tent city.

“Calm down,” I instructed.

We parked at the edge of the community that had been built over the years of people who had nowhere else to belong. It almost felt like a big concert, everyone communing in one place all for the same reason.

Alex and I got out of the car and started walking around.

“Hey, I suppose you two are new here,” a guy’s voice came from behind where we were. I stopped to turn around. He couldn’t have been much older than Alex or I, and he was tall. “I haven’t seen you guys before.”

“Yeah, well, we’re just staying here tonight, before we leave for Chicago.”

His green eyes were moving back and forth between the both of us. I felt like he was judging me, for just staying the night, like I was better than him for having a place to go. “For the night, eh? Well, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to make a few friends while you’re here. Salutations, I’m Will Jackson, and I help out here sometimes, bringing everyone food and such.”

Alex stuck his hand out for Will to shake, saying, “I’m Alex Gaskarth, and this is—“

“Roman James,” I said, shaking his hand after he shook Alex’s.

“Nice to meet you both.” He was leading us down a row of tents, almost like a street. We stopped at a big, blue tent, and he knocked as well as you could knock on a tent. “Pete! You in there?” A kid stepped out of the tent. He looked about my age, or possibly younger.

“Yeah, what’s up, Will?” He stood, facing us, doing the same thing Will had done a few minutes before. “Who are these guys? I don’t recognize them.”

Will pointed to me and Alex, “She’s Roman and he’s Alex. They’re staying for the night.”

“Why are you guys staying here and not at a motel or something?”

Alex spoke up, “Turns out we were too young to stay in a motel. Apparently, you have to be at least eighteen to get a room.”

We spent the rest of the night talking to Will and Pete. Later some of their friends joined us, some guys named Sam, Ryan, and Justin. We talked about everything under the sun before I started to yawn.

“You tired?” Ryan was sitting next to me, and he would notice whenever I started to close my eyes, sigh, or yawn.

“Maybe a little,” I replied, trying to adjust myself to a comfortable position on the hard ground. We were sitting in front of a big fire pit. There were still some parts of the fire burning, but most of it was put out almost an hour previous.

“You should probably go to sleep if you are. It’s,” he looked at his watch, “two in the morning.”

Had the time really gone by that fast? “Are you serious?” He nodded. “I probably should go back to the car and get some rest. Hey, guys?” They all turned their attention towards me, and I continued, “I’m going back to the car. Good night.”

They all got out some sort of way to say good night, and I got up to go back to the car. It was dark, so I had to pull my phone out and repeatedly press buttons to keep the light going. Throughout the many hours that we’d been there, we found out a lot about the group of guys we hung out with.

Ryan and Justin were brothers who were adopted, but they hated their adoptive families so much that they ran away about two weeks ago. Nobody had bothered to report them missing, so they could do as they pleased, wherever they wanted to go.

Sam had been in the tent city for almost three months. His mom had died, and his dad was almost always drunk, so he decided to ditch their house and live on his own. He was still going to school to get a diploma so he could work somewhere and make some money, but for the time being, he had to stay in the tent because he still had a lot of time left in high school.

From what I gathered, Pete had a really good family, they cared for him and all, but he ran away regularly, just because he needed to get away from everyone. His sister was always with her boyfriend, and he really hated the guy. The boyfriend, I think his name was John, was always at his house, so he wanted to spend as much time away as possible. His parents were okay with it because they wanted what was best for him.

They told us that almost all of the kids there had some sort of family issue, some with abusive families, and some who couldn’t stand theirs. Then, there were the adults that had lost their homes and their jobs from the economy going rotten.

I was almost to the car when I heard the pounding of footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Alex running clumsily toward me. “Lex, what are you doing?”

“Get in the car; let’s just get out of here.” I stood there, looking at his change in attitude, from being the crazy, happy Alex to the weird, distant guy. “Roman! Get in the fucking car.” He rarely called me by my real name, rather than the nickname that he’d given me. I got in the car, stunned that he was acting so different.

“What’s going on, Lex?”

He was backing out of the lot, “Nothing, don’t worry about it. We just have to go.”