The Kid

(on ways your heart might break)

The kid works in my restaurant. Sometimes he washes dishes, sometimes he chops wood. He is tall and blonde, with eyes a glacial blue. When he walks, he’s dancing, fluid, his hands thrumming the air. He’s seventeen years old. He exists in the body of a man, but he is still a child. On certain days, he is quiet, curled into that body like a scared and trapped animal. On others, he unfurls himself and you are gifted with his excited, chaotic mess. He doesn’t know how big his life will be quite yet. He doesn’t need to.

When he hurts himself one day, I am standing next to him. He pulls his hand quickly to his chest, his expression changing from surprise to shock to pain. His knuckle erupts into a crimson bloom. I see the tears well in his eyes, but I know he is too proud to let them fall. An act of self-preservation. I understand it well.

“Kid,” I say, “are you alright?” He looks at me, the animal in him shrinking against the wall like I might hurt him, too. He nods his head yes. I say, gently, “it doesn’t look great, can I help get you cleaned up and get you a Band-Aid?” He stares at me wordlessly for a while, before tipping his chin in affirmation. Without speaking, I turn the corner and gather what is necessary to bring to him. Because he is seventeen, he wants to take care of it himself. I stand back and make sure that he is well equipped to patch himself back together, and the night keeps moving. Later, I check in with him, asking how he is feeling. I tell him I hope he knows he can always ask for help. He looks at me, searchingly, like he is trying to figure out if it’s possible I might want something from him. He says, “you know, I’m not used to people caring about me.”

Months later, he dances into the restaurant after its closed to find refuge from the cold on a rainy October evening. He’s not wearing a coat. He sits next to us at the bar and drinks a soda and politely asks if he can eat a piece of the leftover pizza we are all devouring in the afterglow of service. We look at each other – someone says, “kid, you can always eat here no matter what.” He happily loads up a plate. He wants to talk music. He wants to talk books. He hungers for everything. We talk about the loss of language and why phones are ruining it all.  He has a heart for this world. Softer than he knows. Stronger than we know.

In my car, driving home, I see him walking in the dark, braced against the rain in a white hoodie, head turned toward the ground, so the fat drops don’t assault his vision. I roll my window down. “Hey, come on, let me drive you. You shouldn’t be out walking in this.” We drive the mile to his friend’s house, where he’ll spend the night. When he gets out, I say, “you know you can always ask for a ride, right? You don’t have to walk at night.” He looks at me and then looks at the house. Turning back to me, he whispers, “Ok. Then will you please take me all the way home?”

On the drive we talk about what he wants to do when he leaves here.  He wants to see the desert. And the California coast. He wants to see the sky in Montana at night. Wants to drive around the country. He thinks it might be expensive paying for hotels. I offer that he could do that more frugally by buying a car he can sleep in along the way. He says, “yeah, but I want to bring my girlfriend. And no way can I have her sleeping in a car on the side of the road.”

When we get to his house, I tell him I’m going to wait to make sure he gets in alright. He looks at me like I’m being ridiculous. I say, “look, kid, the last time someone dropped you off you later told them you knocked and knocked on the door and no one let you in, and that eventually you had to break in. Just let me wait here to be sure.” He says, “well, if I’m locked out, I’m going to put my foot onto that vent, hoist myself onto the deck, and then go through that sliding glass door. That door is never locked.” He gestures toward a vent that offers no purchase and a second story deck. I say, “I’m going to wait here all the same. You’re going to have to give me the thumbs up and all. You know, mom life.” He nods ok and then pauses before he softly shuts the door. “That’s not the kind of mom life I’m used to.”

In a minute, he comes round the backside of the house, and with the light from his phone, illuminates one thumb up. I laugh and wave, driving slowly away, down the rural dirt road, while the wind whips up the pines around me. I know he wouldn’t have told me this, but he was planning on walking all six of those miles home.

The truth is; every year there is a kid. Every year. I think of all the ways I was cared for early in my restaurant career and this is my imperative, to return the favor. When we enter the unspoken contract of knowing each other, we say, bless me with your frantic energy, move me with your unknowable light. We give unto ourselves and of each other in a way that is unspeakable and succinct. We walk beside each other in this specific way, bearing witness to the beauty and the pain that make a life. We practice care, first, because we are taught it, and next, because we have learned it. We reach for each other.

The next time I see the kid, he is walking along the main road in our small town, backpack slung haphazardly over his broad shoulders, little shimmy- shake apparent on the hips with those omnipresent earbuds in – he almost misses me as I drive by. When he lifts his head just slightly, he clocks my car and in a split second lifts his chin in a familiar salute. Fingers do a little rake in recognition; gaze returns to the ground. I hope that someday, when he is staring at the sky, all-encompassing and endlessly vast in whatever small desert town he finds himself in, darling girlfriend on his arm – I hope he stops to breathe it in and knows that he always deserved to be cared for. I hope that care finds him no matter where he wanders.