“I figured it was going to do something like this,” Benny muttered under his breath as he huddled next to a brick wall, trying to get under the eaves of the building as much as possible.
The wettest, most miserable sleet was falling from the sky as the sun set and every bit of warmth it had provided during the day dissipated with the light. Not that there had been much warmth while the sun had been in the sky. It was November in Omaha, after all. Nobody could expect any better weather than this.
“Just my luck,” Benny muttered again.
The muttering wasn’t really helping, but he was too cold and angry to care about self-control or patience or anything like that. What good would it do him, anyway? He didn’t have anyone to impress.
So he continued to hug his arms around himself and shiver and mutter and glare at anyone who dared to look warmer than himself. Not that there were too many people about that evening or that any of them looked warm, but even a coat would make them warmer than Benny. Most of them hurried by with their heads down and their hands stuffed in their pockets. Benny was sure they saw him; they just didn’t care about one more ragged urchin in the streets. Probably the only thought they spared him was to hope that he didn’t ask them for a few pennies. But Benny wouldn’t do that. He had too much pride. He might steal a few pennies, but he would never beg for them.
The only person who took any notice of him at all was the lamplighter. He came ambling on down the street, lighting the lamps as he went, when he noticed Benny leaning against that wall. Benny shoved his hands even deeper in his pockets and put some heart in the glare he directed at the lamplighter, silently warning him to keep his distance. The man awkwardly looked away and lit the lamp nearest Benny. It was near enough that Benny was just outside the circle of light it cast, which he liked just fine. It made him that much harder to see.
The lamplighter glanced at him again. Then he shuffled a few steps down the street toward the next lamp. Benny watched him pause and come back. The boy barely remembered to harden his face into a scowl again in time, but he hoped the darkness hid it.
“Can I help you, kid?” The uncertainty was obvious in the lamplighter’s voice. Benny even thought he detected a hint of fear.
“Just leave me alone,” Benny grumbled. “I’m not a beggar.”
The man held his hands out in front of him in a placating manner. “Okay, okay. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“Then leave me alone. Gee whiz, can’t a guy stand somewhere without getting hassled?”
The lamplighter didn’t answer this. He didn’t care, of course. He’d done the minimum expected of him and could now go on with a clear conscience and forget all about the little street rat he’d seen. Benny stuck his tongue out at the man’s retreating back. He almost hated him more than all the others who hadn’t stopped at all. And yet he was surprised how intense the disappointment he felt was when the man walked away.
Somehow, it seemed colder and darker now, even though he was standing on the edge of a circle of light. If Benny had been the sort of boy who prayed, he would have prayed that someone more helpful than the lamplighter would come along. But Benny wasn’t the sort to pray. He’d never seen anything good come of it, and he had met plenty of people who prayed, and they were all just like that lamplighter. If that was the best God could do for a person, Benny didn’t want anything to do with the whole business.
So, he tried to take his mind off all that. He watched the flame in the street lamp as it flickered and danced. It was mesmerizing and for a moment, he could almost imagine he felt the warmth from it. It made him remember a story he’d heard before, about the Little Match Girl. She had been freezing one cold winter night and had kept herself warm for a little while with her matches while she saw visions of warmth and happiness. But she had frozen to death in the end, and Benny was starting to think that the same would happen to him if he didn’t get out of the cold soon.
His eyes wandered along the storefronts with their lighted windows. It was tempting to go into one of them, but Benny knew that he would just be chased out again. The kindly shopkeepers might even call the police to escort Benny away for his crime of being cold and hungry. He would be put in jail then, and Benny had spent a day or two in jail enough times to know that he would sooner die than go back.
He would sooner die…Well, perhaps this was the night that that would happen. Benny lowered himself so that he was crouching with his back against the wall. A tear burned his cheek in the bitter cold, but he brushed it aside. He was going to keep some dignity about him if he could.
With nothing ahead of him, Benny’s thoughts drifted toward the past. He recalled how his parents and his little sister had all gotten ill and then died and he had been left alone. They had been religious, too, and that hadn’t gotten them anywhere. Anywhere except the cemetery, that is.
Benny let his head rest against the bricks. His mouth hung open a bit, but he didn’t care. He was getting sleepy. He shifted his position so that now he was sitting on the ground.
“So tired,” he muttered.
His eyelids closed on their own, but he forced them open again. Somewhere in his memory was a warning against falling asleep when a fellow was so cold. It was dangerous, but at the same time, he felt he simply had to get some rest. He let his eyes close and sleep darkened the edges of his consciousness.
It seemed like a long time later—but Benny could never really be sure—when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He blinked and saw a face looking down at him. For an instant, he fancied that it was his father who was gently shaking him awake. Then his eyes closed again and he didn’t seem to be able to force them open again.
“Are you alright? Wake up.” Even the voice sounded a bit like Benny’s father for a moment. Then he realized it wasn’t. He tried to open his eyes again and this time he succeeded.
“Who…” Benny tried to ask. He shook his head and tried again. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Father Flanagan.”
He helped Benny to his feet and led him into the light from the street lamp. He draped a coat around Benny’s shoulders, which the boy gratefully pulled in closer around him as he shivered to try to get warm. Then he looked up at the man who had helped him. Now that he was in the light, he could see the clerical collar and the cassock. He pulled away a couple of steps.
“You’re that priest from Boys Town,” Benny said, recalling that he’d heard that name before.
“That’s right,” Father Flanagan replied. “The lamplighter thought that you might be one of my boys, so he called me. You can come back to Boys Town if you’d like.”
Benny shook his head, but he held the coat tighter around him. “Will you make me stay there?”
“Only if you want to.” Father Flanagan pointed toward a car that had been parked under the streetlamp. “We can get out of the rain at least. If you come back to Boys Town, you can have a hot meal and stay the night, and you can decide in the morning if you’d like to stay longer.”
“Well…All right.” The sound of a hot meal and a warm bed were far too inviting for Benny to turn down.
He climbed into the back seat of the car while Father Flanagan got into the driver’s seat. Then Benny leaned forward with his forearms resting on the back of the front seat.
“I don’t usually take charity, you understand, Father Flanagan,” he explained. “If I had any other choice I wouldn’t do this. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get on my feet again.”
“Certainly.” Father Flanagan nodded so that Benny almost believed he was taking him seriously. “It’s an admirable thing to want to pay your debts. What’s your name?”
“Benny.”
“Do you have a last name?”
Benny paused. He sat back down in the seat. “Whittaker.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Dead.”
“I’m very sorry. How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
Benny felt colder again, the warmth he had felt at the thought of food and a bed fading as he remembered his problems. He pulled the coat closer around him once more and looked out the window at the lighted windows passing by.
Father Flanagan took his eyes off the road just long enough to glance back at Benny. “You’ve heard of Boys Town. Why didn’t you come there when you first came into town? You would have been welcome.”
Benny shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t take charity when I can help it. Besides, I’m not religious. I didn’t want to go to any place where they’re going to cram all that stuff down my throat.”
“Boys of every religion are welcome at Boys Town,” Father Flanagan told him. “No one is forced to practice any particular religion.”
Benny scoffed. “I never heard of a priest who didn’t want everybody to be Catholic before.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t like to see everyone Catholic. All I said is that no one is forced to be. After all, you can’t force someone to believe in something.” Father Flanagan stopped talking as he steered the car around a corner. “Why aren’t you religious, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, well, I’ve met a lot of people like that…” Benny stopped himself abruptly. “Wait. You said the lamplighter called you?”
“Yes. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want to leave you there, but he didn’t think he could convince you to come with him.”
“Well, if he was really Christian, he would have tried harder to help me,” Benny insisted. “He would have…” He paused, trying to think what the man ought to have done. “He would have given…” No, Benny thought, how could he give food if he didn’t have any with him? And he probably didn’t carry food as he made his rounds. “Well, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m not religious because if God really cared about me, He wouldn’t send me so much bad luck. He sent someone who would actually help…” Benny broke the sentence off and turned from staring out the window to look at Father Flanagan. The priest was looking at the road ahead, and Benny could still make out the mild, kindly face complete with glasses as they passed beneath another street lamp. Benny let the coat slip from his hand, forgetting the cold a moment as he muttered, “Gee whiz.”