FCYU-Feature Story

On the Run
Life got tough, I got going.

By Miguel Ayala

It all started when I moved into a group home with other teens battling mental health issues. At first it was quiet and I thought things would work out. Then I started hustling the other residents. I would offer them money for things they had, like a radio, and tell them I'd pay them later, but I would never manage to get the money in my pockets to pay. Sometimes they turned violent on me. That's when I started to AWOL.

Since I've been in foster care, I run away whenever I get scared. Living with my mother, I couldn't escape. My mother was abusive in every way possible, but I was too young to run away. I had my mind set that when I left my mother's home, no one would ever lay a hand on me again.

My First Night AWOL

But now that I'm in foster care, people do still lay their hands on me. Usually, though, the residents in my group home put fear in me by making fun of me and stealing from me. When they do that, I feel fed up, pissed and angry. I just want to run, and now that I'm older, often I do.

The first night I went to my sister-in-law's, house, and I asked her if I could stay a couple of nights. Tiffany asked her moms (she also lived there), who said I could if I paid five dollars each night.

I knew that being there was a bad decision. Tiffany's mom is a crack addict, and while I was there I heard and saw things a mother shouldn't say and do to a child. But I didn't know where else to go. So I stayed.

To support myself and my cigarette habit, I started selling all the possessions I had with me, like my CD player. I also sold my poetry in Times Square.

The first problem was my medication. In the group home, I took medication in the morning and night to control my anger and me.

No Meds With Me

Now I was AWOL and without medication. My depression was creeping up and I just couldn't deal with it. I felt intense sadness, loneliness and fear. I was crying a lot.

One day Tiffany, her friend and I were in the hallway. She lit a blunt. I said, "How does weed taste?"

She and her friend looked at each other and laughed. "Let me try," I said.

"Are you crazy?" she asked. She knew about my depression, and that under no circumstances should I be smoking weed.

"No," I said, and she handed me the blunt. I thought she was bluffing. I thought, "No way is she gonna let me smoke." But she wasn't bluffing.

So I said, "I'm just bluffing," and gave her back the blunt.

I Took the Blunt

Tiffany started to act weird. She was giggling, and saying stupid things. I was like, "What's up with you?" She said, "That's what weed do to a sister, makes her feel good!" I said, "Let a brother in!"

I took the blunt back. It tasted like sausages. I was soon dizzy and I wanted to throw up, but that went away. I felt light-headed, like I could fly! I said things like, "I'm a Puerto Rican pot-head!" I also yelled, "I smoke pot!" Then I started singing and Tiffany said, "Boy, you lost your damn mind!" We all busted out laughing. Once we started we couldn't stop.

Everything was good until I tried to go to sleep. Then I got visions that I was so addicted to marijuana I stole money from my best friend to support my habit. I imagined my family finding out I smoked weed and never speaking to me again. I became so sad that I got out of bed and started rocking back and forth to calm down.

The next day, I was feeling suicidal. I felt so guilty about smoking the night before, I thought about jumping in front of a train.

Instead, I got mad at Tiffany. I told her she was to blame for my depression. We exchanged words, and I left to Times Square to zone out, but I didn't feel much better.

Comfort From a Friend

Later that night, I returned to Tiffany's. I could tell that she wasn't mad at me anymore, and that made me happy. Tiffany said, "Let's go outside."

We went to a place called the Sugah Shack. It made me think of Toni Braxton's "Spanish Guitar." The opening line to the song is, "A smoky room, a small café/They come to hear you play."

Tiffany and I had a special drink (raspberry juice, ginger-ale and seltzer water all in one, yum-yum) while the band played. We stayed 'til closing, listening to live music and eating and drinking. I knew then that even though Tiffany and I fight, we still get along. I felt glad that I didn't feel the need to run from her.

One day Tiffany called her "man," someone she had been talking to on the phone but had never met in person. I went with Tiffany to meet him at the subway station. I said, "Russell, is that you?"

He said, "Michael, oh, snap it's you! Wassup!"

We were high-fiving and talking about our last Thanksgiving dinner together. It turned out that Russell, Tiffany's mystery man, is my older step brother!

The three of us went to a park to talk and it was beautiful. We sat on a bench and the night had a gentle breeze. I asked Russell a lot of questions about his father (my stepfather). He said, "Don't you want to know about your father?"

I said, "Fine, sure, how did he die?" I really wanted to know.

Russell said, "Whoa, slow your horses. I thought you wanted something more simple."

"Fine," I said. "Was he a drug addict?"

Money Got Tight

Russell said, "You're hopeless." Then he totally blew me off. Instead, he paid attention to Tiffany, his date. So I still have lots of questions about my father.

Money got tight, and I was getting tired of where I was living. It was stressful to be in a hot apartment without air conditioning and with a baby crying all the time. And there was this indescribable, horrible smell there that made me sick. But I had no plans to make amends with my group home, so I had to keep coming up with schemes to make money. Every now and then I thought about selling my body. When I felt that desperate, I felt like a bum, a useless piece of garbage that no one wanted to be near.

One day Tiffany and her uncle and I were playing Pity-Pat, a card game. Tiffany said that if I won all of her uncle's money I could keep her CD player. I agreed. But when I won all of his money, Tiffany said, "I change my mind!" I was like, "Hell no! I won fair and square! That discman is mine."

I felt pissed. I felt like she was trying to play me. So that day I went to Times Square and sold her CD player. When I came back, Tiffany flipped out on me. "I let you in my house! I feed you! I give you stogies (cigarettes)! And you steal from me?!"

"C'mon dogs, I thought we were tight," I said, wishing I hadn't sold the CD player.

"Get out," Tiffany said. "Get out of my house! Now!"

So I left. I felt terrible. I went to Times Square and tried not to think about where I would stay that night. No one bought any of my material. I missed Tiffany. I felt so low.

People Thought I Was Nuts

Imagine if all you had was gone, and I mean everything-your home, your pride, your happiness, your friends. Imagine how it feels to just want to die because you feel like you have nothing. That day, I was in that place. I thought, "If there is a God who can hear my cry, then take me! Just make me vanish or let me die!"

I started sobbing in Times Square. People were looking at me like I was nuts. I felt like there was no place for me in the world-not at my mother's house, not at my group home, not at Tiffany's. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I went to a psychiatric ward of a hospital to get help.

I Went to the Psych Ward

In the psych ward, people were yelling and talking to the walls. I didn't mind. For the first three days I was there, I didn't shower, I didn't eat. I just slept.

My third day the doctors convinced me to take my medications and to go back to my group home. They said the same things I always hear, like, "Running from your problems only makes them worse…Your problems will follow you wherever you are…If you're depressed reach for help in your group home…You can't stay out all night like this."

I went to my group home that day. I promised I would try to do better, that I would try not to run. But I was also very mad to be back. After all the freedom I'd had, it felt like lock down. I wanted to get in a major argument so I would have an excuse to run, but I also tried to control myself.

On the Run Again

Eventually I did get into a heated argument. I AWOLed again, but this time since I couldn't go to Tiffany's, I stayed at Covenant House, a shelter for homeless teens.
Things were worse there than at my group home. The other teens stole and fought and smoked weed and drank all day long. And I know the doctors are right about how problems follow you-at least until you solve them-because my first night there someone started teasing me, and I began yelling, screaming and shouting. I almost wanted to go back to my group home, but I thought I'd look stupid if I did.

My first shower at Covenant House was in the worst smelling shower stall I'd ever been in. I felt dirtier after I showered than before. Then I went to forty-deuce to chill. I ran into two friends of mine who also sell things in Times Square-Mikey and Casper. We had breakfast together, while talking and jiving and just having a good time. We had egg and cheese sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese and large iced coffees. (Spiffy!) And we made plans to meet up later to chill on the deuce, but we never did.

In fact, I never even saw Mikey again. Like a lot of people I met while I was AWOL, he just kind of appeared in my life and then disappeared. And later that day, Casper got arrested and went to jail.

So that night I was alone in Times Square. I didn't want to go back to Covenant House or my group home, so I thought, "Let's see what would happen if I stayed out all night and just made money selling my poems."

The Magic of Times Square At Midnight

So I did. And it was so cool. I mean, all the lights in Times Square and all the people running by and the stores open and just the fact that anything could happen-like I could meet a celebrity or see a film being shot-got me off. Even after midnight Times Square was packed with tourists, New Yorkers and weirdos. It was great to stay out all night and feel the summer wind hitting my skin.

I made new friends-a guy doing photography (he was in his 50's or 60's, but he was cool) and Mario, a man who sold flowers to couples.

We all just clicked. We chipped in for cigs and helped each other get customers. It felt good. It made me feel likable, and like I could make something out of nothing.

No Place for Me

But there was one thing that bothered me. Both Mario and the photographer went home in the end and I did not. I had nowhere to go. I thought about a kid I once met named Persise. He had mad talent. You could say "spit" (drop a rhyme) and BAM! There he'd go, no pen or paper, no prep, just spitting, and that amazed me.

But he still felt bad. He was homeless and all the talent in the world wasn't helping to change that. I had felt bad for Persise at the time. Now I was in his same situation.

Eventually I tried my luck at another homeless shelter for teens. I bought a bus ticket to Newark, New Jersey. (I didn't have enough for a ticket to Atlantic City, where I really wanted to go.)

The Garden State

The Covenant House in New Jersey was clean compared to the one in New York. It also wasn't as hot, and the staff there seemed nice. They gave me good clothing so I could go on a job interview. I liked the idea of working. I hoped I had found a place I might be able to stay a while.

But it wasn't long before the director said she would have to send me back to my group home. I was sad. I had been hoping I would go on a job trip and get a job.

But I was also getting fed up with running. I wanted to learn how to work through problems instead of running. I wanted to stay in one place.

Back to the Group Home Zoo

Still, it wasn't easy to go back to my group home. "The f-ggot's back. Watch your butt holes," said the first resident who saw me. That made me want to smack the fire out of him or leave again.

Instead I walked around slamming stuff down, slamming my bags, slamming the cabinets in the kitchen, slamming whatever was in sight. I felt boxed up, like a small animal surrounded by wolves.

Then my staff forced me to pay back everyone who I owed money to, plus interest. I was also put on dead house (no TV or phone or going outside). The good thing was that I
didn't have to work for food. I got fed every day. I also got two hot showers each day and decent sleep, and after being on the run for more than two months, I appreciated that. It was also nice to be able to pull out a pack of cigarettes and not have everyone around me ask for one.

Trying to Maintain

Even so, I still find it hard to stay. Sometimes seeing residents in my group home yell at each other or hit each other makes me feel short of breath, nervous, or just plain pissed. It's hardest for me to keep my cool when I come home after a hard day and someone who is not supposed to be in my room is there. Or, just as common, when something I value gets stolen or the residents give me a hard time.

Those things can make me lose my temper. Once I kicked a hole in my door, the next door, and my closet door. I have also AWOLed three times since last summer, but I came back to my group home on my own accord.

While I still like getting out on my own every now and then, I know now that I never want to be stuck on the streets without a backup plan, and that makes me worry about what will happen when I age out of foster care, in a year. I don't want to live the way I did last summer when I was AWOL.

I Want to Stop Running

When you're on the run, sometimes you think you have it sweet, that life is great, but all it takes is one good rain to remember you have nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go. You think, "How will I get by? Should I rob? Steal?" I don't want to live like that.

I know I need to make some sort of peace with my past so I don't feel such a strong need to run whenever a problem comes up. I hope that one day I get to a place where I don't need to keep running.