John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

Nathan found what he was looking for behind the third door. The interior was smaller than the first two, denoting the occupant’s rank within the family. Decorations on the wall included posters of Michael Jordan—back where he belonged, in a Bulls uniform; the Navy Blue Angels flying in tight formation and spewing red, white and blue smoke; and two versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: cartoon and real. Before he went to live with Uncle Mark, Nathan had had the cartoon poster on the wall of his own bedroom. Sad memories again tried to sneak into his mind as he stood there, but he shoved them out of the way. He laughed aloud at the stuffed Garfield that was hung by a perfectly tied noose from the cord to the venetian blinds.

Relieved that the regular occupant of the room was clearly a boy about his age, Nathan rummaged through the heavy pine dresser, selecting underwear, socks, a Chicago Bulls T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. Everything was two sizes too big, but they all fit better than the monkey suit from the JDC, and they would certainly cover what needed to be covered. The only real problem was the shorts, which were size Nathan-and-a-half. “This kid needs to go on a diet,” he mumbled.

“Let’s see if Tubbo owns a belt,” Nathan said. The first belt was still too loose, even on the tightest setting. Little Nathan No-bottom. My razor-butted son. Finally, in the very back of the top drawer, he found a green Boy Scout belt that was infinitely adjustable. By cinching the waistband tight, the pants felt like they almost fit, even though the material scalloped up in several places. Keep the shirttail out, and no one would notice.

For shoes, Nathan went to the closet, a huge walk-in with cubby holes built in all along one wall. They were stacked full of shirts, pants, sweaters, linens. And shoes; all manner and sizes of shoes. Bedroom slippers, soccer shoes, baseball shoes, dress shoes and tennis shoes. Nathan concentrated on the tennis shoe collection. Judging from the number and condition, this kid must have kept every pair he ever owned. The newer ones were clearly too big for Nathan.

Tubbo has fat feet, too.

Before long, Nathan had his hands on a pair of ancient Reeboks that were the right size, but looked like they had been hiked from coast to coast. The laces on one shoe had been broken and retied, the tread was almost gone, and the leather was severely scuffed. But by God, they looked comfortable, and that was his primary concern.

When he was completely dressed, Nathan returned to the master bedroom and ventured a look in the full-length bathroom mirror. A little scrawny and pale, maybe, but the boy he knew to be himself had returned. No blood this time. His hair was blond again, with a wispy, freshly shampooed look that needed some assistance from a comb. The bruise on his eye had gone down considerably, and was already beginning to turn shades of orange-yellow around the edges. All in all, he approved of what he saw.

Nathan could feel his confidence growing, born of a hope for himself and his future that he hadn’t felt in nearly a year; not since Uncle Mark had him thrown in jail.

There he went thinking about that stuff again! He had to stop doing that. Dark thoughts and painful memories only made him feel frightened and confused, neither of which could he afford.

There was a spring in his step as he reentered the master suite. It lasted just long enough for him to realize that the clock radio had cycled back on, blaring a new talk show. It took Nathan five seconds to realize that the people on the radio were talking about him, which was pretty cool at first. Then he heard what they were saying.

Denise Carpenter, single mother of twin girls, had been “The Bitch” on NewsTalk 990 for nearly five years, a transformation that was so accidental it somehow seemed ordained that the show would become a success.

In October, four and three-quarter years before, she had been a traffic reporter, granted thirty seconds of airtime every half hour. The regular late-morning talent, Bos’s Johnny, called in that morning from the D. C. jail, where he’d been offered a guest room in return for seven outstanding warrants for offenses ranging from failure to pay child support to assault with intent to murder, the latter being the result of too much Jack Daniel’s and too little temper. With only twenty minutes’ advance notice, Denise was told that she would get her big chance in major-market radio. The news should have thrilled her, but at the time she was not looking for work in front as a deejay. She was perfectly content to monitor the police scanners for accidents and devise alternative routes for frustrated commuters.

But she was smart enough to realize an opportunity when she saw it. At the time, her daughters, Laura and Erin, were only five, and between day care and rent, there was barely enough cash left in any given week for food. A social worker friend of hers had told her that she qualified for food stamps, but Denise refused. She wasn’t about to give Bernie the satisfaction of seeing her take charity. She had wanted the divorce, and she had wanted sole custody, and she had let him off the hook for even the tiniest amount of child support, against the vehement objections of the judge. The last thing “Bernie the Bastard” said to her as they left the courthouse was, “You’re gonna starve without me.” Over the ensuing six years, she’d come to think of those words as her good luck charm.

With no notice, and facing a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make an impression, Denise had walked into the booth briskly and confidently. Years later, her then-engineer and current producer Enrique Zamora confided in her that he’d lost twenty dollars that day by betting that Denise would leave in tears before the end of the first commercial.

Far from tearful, Denise came out of the theme song swinging.

“I’m not the voice you were expecting to hear this morning,” she’d said, her first words ever as a disc jockey. “That voice is learning to sing the song of the jailbird. It seems that Boss Johnny had more mouth than he had heart. Right now, he’s in jail downtown on a number of charges, one of which is failure to pay child support. If he’s innocent, I can’t wait to see his smiling face back in the booth. If he’s guilty, I hope he rots in a cell with Bubba the Love Muffin teaching him things he never knew about sex.”

For the next four hours, Denise railed on about what was wrong with the social fabric of America, not hesitating to traipse on territory normally considered forbidden. She established her position in favor of a woman’s right to choose abortion when the circumstances warranted it, but suggested that murder charges be brought against anyone and everyone who participated in an abortion—including fathers and doctors—when the procedure was used solely as a means of birth control. When she was asked how she could justify such a self-contradictory position, she answered, “I don’t have to justify anything to you. I’m just telling you how I feel. If it upsets you, find that little knob on the bottom of your radio and turn it till I go away.”

Through her entire first show, the telephone lines remained jammed with callers trying to assail her positions. Denise’s defining moment came when Barbara from Arlington, Virginia, called in to tell her, “No offense, Denise, but you’re really coming across as a bitch on the radio.”

Denise responded, “Why, thank you very much Barbara, because you’re right. But I’m not just a bitch; I’m the bitch of Washington, D. C.” In an industry where a marketable identity means everything, Denise had stumbled upon a winner.

By the time Boss Johnny was able to scrape together bail money, two days after his arrest, his job had been given away to an upstart bitch from the news staff.