Ask Me Why I Hurt by M.D. Randy Christensen

lot.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t have anyplace to go. I keep getting beat up.”
    “How about your home? Your mom?”
    “My stepdad kicked me out. He was always beating on me anyhow. You can call him. I don’t care. He’s just going to tell you he doesn’t want me around.” He willingly gave me the number.
    “OK. We’re going to get you help. In the meantime I want you to sign a contract with me not to cut yourself. If you feel like cutting yourself, I want you to call us. I’m going to give you our phone numbers.”
    He wiped his eyes. “How about that nurse?”
    I smiled. “Jan would love to see you. Did you know she’s one of the top BMX racers in the country? You should ask her about that sometime. She’ll love it.”
    “Really?” He looked surprised. “I used to motocross … a long time ago.”
    “Ask her about it. She’s got medals and the whole nine yards.”
    Before he left, Jan had set him up with an appointment with an optometrist for new glasses and another appointment at a dental clinic for the homeless that primarily handled emergency cases. I had taken a full set of labs, testing for everything from HIV to hepatitis, and given him a ten-day supply of Keflex, the antibiotic. He had three new pairs of socks, new running shoes, and a pair of flip-flops to wear while the foot infection healed. He opened up his backpack to put in the extra shoes and medications. The backpack was almost empty. There was a crumpled shirt in the bottom.He carefully took out an old and creased photograph. “This was my dad.” I saw a bigger version of the boy, a ruddy-faced blond-haired man sitting on a couch. “He died when I was five. He got killed by a drunk driver.” He carefully slid the photograph into the now-bulging backpack. For a moment his face was transformed by anger. “Then my mom marries a drunk. Go figure.”
    “You’re not out of here yet,” I said. “I’m calling a shelter program I know about called HomeBase. They serve young adults and teenagers. It’s a great program.”
    “You mean I can go there today?”
    “Yes, I hope today.”
    I glanced at my watch. Almost two hours had passed since the boy had shown up. For once I felt I had done it almost right. The boy was relaxed, happy. I watched him joke with Jan up front as we finished. It was instructive for me to watch how she handled the teenagers. Instead of reacting negatively to her firm and take-charge tone they seemed to eat it up. I can learn something here, I thought, watching Jan. She was very authoritative, and the teenagers seemed to bend over backward to please her. The two of them went off, chatting like crazy about motocross racing. When he was gone, I called the number he had given me for his home. A gruff voice answered the phone: “Yeah?” I identified myself and told the man why I was calling. His stepson was a minor and had seen me for medical care. I wanted to know about the possibility of his returning home. “Oh, yeah?” the stepfather said. “Tell that little asshole not to bother coming back.”
    I recoiled. “Why?”
    “Little shit called the cops on me.”
    I listened to the man rage drunkenly for several minutes, threatening to do worse than he had done, he said. I was unable to get a word in edgewise. Finally I hung up. I decided to try again, later, to reach the boy’s mother. As much as I believed in keeping families together, I realized there were times when it wasn’t going to happen. Some of these kids were never going home. What future they had depended on what they discovered, or didn’t discover, on the streets.

    Jan and I were in our ramshackle office the next day, trying to stretch our budget to include more socks and shoes for the kids. The phone rang. It was Mary’s aunt. “She’s gone,” she said through tears.
    My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach. “Gone?” Mary had been with her aunt for only a little more than a month. It seemed as if just days had passed since she had