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In San Francisco a 15-year-old boy named John curls up under a big oak tree in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park whenever he has to cry. It is usually about once a month, late in the evening after too much cheap wine. He pulls his black leather jacket over his head and presses his knees against his chest, under cover because he cannot be seen crying in Golden Gate Park. There are too many other homeless people looking for any advantage.
"It's like you gotta be so strong all the time, and always watching out for everybody because everybody wants to hurt you somehow," he says, sitting on the grass in Buena Vista Park just off Haight Street. "So I got this secret place I go in the park when I'm really upset."
John ran away in May. "But I'm not really a runaway because nobody's looking for me," he says. "Before I left, we had this big fight, and the next day I came home from school and Mom had thrown out all of my stuff." He has been talking for two hours straight now, and his breathing is fast and shallow. "For certain, there are some things about home I miss a lot, like my room and my clothes and my sister."
His knuckles, marred with scabs, whiten as he squeezes a silver Zippo lighter, which looks large in his small and fragile hands. He snaps open the lighter with practiced precision, then lights a Marlboro and sucks it furiously. "My sister turned seven in April. Do you know what we did for her / birthday? Nothing! Mom was in Vegas. I coulda killed her."
John disappears into the woods briefly to retrieve a large bottle of King Cobra beer. He pitches it back, finishing it off with a trademark belch. He is now out of beer as well as cigarettes and money, and there is nothing to distract him but the cold sea breeze. He searches each pocket twice, the first time slowly and then frantically: only a pocket knife, his lighter and a hairbrush. Then he sits, arms wrapped around his knees, head turned away, his small frame shaking slightly. "This is bull ," he says in a whisper. He says it again, then again, each time softer until he is inaudible.
Slowly rising to his feet, he sways as he struggles with his jacket zipper. Then he shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets, wheels around and disappears into Golden Gate Park, heading for the place where he can curl up and cry.
In the weeks since this story was reported, Beavis moved to the Harbor View Center, a residential treatment facility in Long Beach, California, for emotionally disturbed adolescents. Green went home. Troll and Rainbow are still on the streets. Christine, Billy and John have not been seen.