Chapter II, Meeting Dan

The rains pour hard. It’s been three days since I ran away from home. I can feel my stomach hurt so bad due to my hungriness. I should’ve brought something warm with me or maybe I could steal it the next morning. I glance over the digital clock inside the dark mini market. No wonder the cars are rarely to be seen. It's 4 o'clock in the morning. Every piece of cloth on my body is drenched.  I don’t have any place to go now. I closed my eyes and put my face in my arms. I stay in that position for God only knows for how long. All I could feel are hungriness and chills in every pore on my body.

“Son, you okay?”

I look up and I see an officer standing in front of me. I can't see his face clearly, it's really bright. I bet the mini-market owner called the cop on me.

“I’m sorry officer, I’ll leave. Please don’t arrest me.”

As I’m trying to stand up, my head is spinning and my body no longer works the way I want it to. I stumbled and he catches me.

“Have you eat, Son?”

I just shake my head. My throat is so parched. He then pulls me inside the mini-market to sit. I'm ashamed, to be honest. I must be smelly and messy and dirty and I could keep adding the list. He leaves me for a while to back with loaves of bread and mineral waters. I can't contain myself, I eat like a pig at that time. People on other tables keep glancing at me and some leave the place.

After 3 loaves of bread and 2 bottles of mineral water, I started the conversation.

“Thank you sir I don’t know how to repay you.”

He looks at me from head to toes.

“Where do you live?”

I just keep silent.

“Parents?”

My body is trembling. I close my mouth as my guts feel explode inside my stomach. I can see nothing but my tears.

“Sir, please help me, sir. My mom was murdered."

His facial expression changed, I can see his eyes wide open. I don't know what to do. Will he think I'm lying? Will he believe me? He then got up and calls his friends through his police radio and tells them that he will be out for a day.

“Now, tell me everything.”

He stares at me in the eye while using a pen to write some notes.

I tell him about how I found my mother that morning, the scattered bottles, her head, the blood, everything.

As usual, that morning I woke up to get to work. As a 15 years old young adult, I'm blessed with some jobs. I went to a local market to help carry things, then in the afternoon I went to a construction site, and at night I went to fight club. I don't do fight regularly, it's just when I need more money. Of course, I omit the last job from my story to this officer. I got home and it's dark. Well, I couldn't afford to pay the electrical bills. After a few minutes, my eyes become adapted to the darkness. I find my mom already asleep. She just there lay on the floor. Some bottles were around her. I stepped on some spilled beer.  I can't stand the smell of alcohol. I just take a pillow and then went to sleep.

The next morning, I kid you not, I felt like my soul just left my body for a couple of seconds. The sunlight that went into this half basement house just showed everything. I just realized that my mother, from last night, didn't sleep. I now can see the whole thing. My mother lay faced down and some of her hair turned brown due to the dry blood. That spilled beer from last night is actually a half-dry pool of blood that ended up makes my footprints everywhere. The smell of the alcohol last night covered the smell of blood but now I can smell it, the strong smell of iron. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I feel dizzy. I was so horrified I couldn't even cry nor scream, the only instinct that works on me is just to run. I run as far as I could. I ran from my mother, my house, myself, and even my reality.

I keep running until I got hungry. Bornt and living in poverty all of my life makes me stronger because I'm forced to do anything to survive. That is why I feel nothing when I reach for a dumpster near a fast-food restaurant. I didn't smell anything bad, all I could feel is the pain in my feet. I don't even know how long I have been running and wandering. I don't even recognize the place. It doesn't taking too long until I found some pieces of chicken. I still don't get why people throw away food like this. It seems like they just sniff it and takes a bite then threw it. I live like this for three days. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I don’t even have any money because I left it all in that place. God, I don’t wanna say that place is my house. I don't have any place to go to. I bet the police will also kick me out because I'm broke. The only bad thing about eating something out of the dumpster, I will always get sick. I thought I have a stomach of steel. I throw up a lot on the second day. I walk all night while sick under the pouring rain after some homeless people told me to fuck off.

He listens to me intently. He asks me to take us both to that place, the crime scene. I’m very hesitant when he opened the car door for me. I look at my reflection from the diner's window. I look disgusting and must be stink. My white clothes don't look white anymore and my shorts are just incredibly awful. I look down and backed down. I suddenly feel the warmth of a pair of hands on my back.

“It’s okay, come on.”

I look back and see him standing behind me. I don't even know since when he stands on my back. He guides me to his patrol car and he drives it. This is the very first time I ever stepped into a car, a real car. I could hear the radio keep reporting things, mostly it’s about speeding. I keep pointing to places I recognize along the way. I don’t really remember much. I have been so focused on watching the street until he suddenly talks.

“What is your name, son?”

I was startled by that question. I feel so cautious. Maybe because I've been in some fight club, is my name on some kind of wanted list?

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to but to be honest I will find out about your name later.”

His laugh is really loud and hearty. If I have a father, I bet he would laugh like that too. Sadly, I never even know who my father is or how he looked. My mother will extremely angry and beat me up whenever I asked her about my father. After a few times, I gave up asking her about it. I just assume he's dead. I glance at this officer one more time. After all the things he did, I think letting him know about my name is the least thing I could do.

“It’s Argo…. Sir.

“Argo what?”

“Just… Argo.”

He stayed silent for a while.

“Argo, it’s a very nice name. I hope you could travel to a lot of places later in life. Nice to meet you, Argo, I’m Dan.”

His hand keeps on the steering wheel and his eyes focus on the road. I admire his professionalism. This is the first time I have ever seen someone this cool.

After a long way until 6 pm, he decided to end the search for today. He then drives to the nearest motel. I could feel my heart jumped. I should’ve known it would come to this. I’ve been in this kind of situation so many times. I just won’t explain it in this chapter.

After we rent a room, he told me to take a bath. He lends me some of the clothes that he takes from the suitcase inside the car. I'm in a willing state now. I mean he gives me food and a place to stay the least I can do as gratitude is offering what he wants. I take a long time in the shower. I have never felt this type of warmth when bathing. God, I don't even know this kind of water exists. I thought running warm and clean water is just a myth. The water keep prickling in my whole body, I could feel the water running. I wish this water could wash away everything, the dirt, me. I can't even tell the difference between my tears and the water from the shower. I look at the mirror. I could see the reflection of a sad-looking boy. I keep mutter, I can do this. Fuck this, I then suck it up and man up. I walk out of the bathroom with only a towel.

“Sir, I’m ready.”

I close my eyes and dropped the towel. After a while I didn’t hear any sound, I slowly opened my eyes to found him standing dumbfounded with a piece of bread in his hand.

“I… I think you got the wrong idea.”

I run straight to the bathroom. I have never felt this embarrassed in my whole life.  While I'm still ashamed of my 'let's be a man and face it' pep-talk to the mirror, he softly knocks on the door.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you in the past. I know you have your own reason. I will sleep in my car. I've left some food on the table. Eat up."

Blam. I then hear the door closed. I rushed wearing the clothes he lends me and peek out of the bathroom. I didn’t see his presence. The smells of soup linger in the empty room. I walk to the table in front of the window. I could see the food clearly now. There is this soup with sliced mushroom, a loaf of bread and butter, a bowl of rice and glistering roasted chicken on a plate, a glass of milk, and a jug of water. My grumbling stomach couldn't contain my hungriness anymore. I start to dig in for two minutes until I realized maybe Dan also haven't eat yet because of the… let's called it a tragedy.

I went outside and find him asleep inside his patrol car with a magazine covering his face and a crossed hand in his chest. I knock it softly. Once, twice and then he reacting to it.

“How’s the food?”

“Eh, it’s good but I think it’s kind of a lot so I thought u would want some.”

He left his usual hearty laugh.

“Nah just eat it. I’m oka..”

Before he finished his sentence I could hear his stomach growling. We both laugh and then go inside. We talked a lot. When he wanna demonstrate to me a money magic trick, a photo fell out. A picture of beautiful a woman hugging a little boy and Dan on their side. The boy is not older than four years old.

“Is your family okay by don’t come home like this?"

I reached the photo and give it to him. He takes the picture and looking at it for a while. I could see he smiles differently, neither happy nor sad kind of smile.

“They are always with me.”

He seems like he already made peace with his past. I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to make him sad. So I don’t ask any further questions about it. We both later sleep. He takes the couch while I take the bed.

In the morning we drive to my house. I finally recognize the road after hours of driving. I stand in front of my door. I smell it, something rotten. God, what kind of son I am leaving my mother in that state. I break down into tears. I cannot even open the door. Dan told me to move and stay behind him I lost consciousness the second he opens that door and all I know later yellow police line is everywhere.