The Street Rat 106

“Eddie!”

Eddie blinked open his eyes as Maria shook him. “Eddie, wake up!”

“It’s too early for this,” Eddie groaned, rubbing his eyes as sirens blared in the distance, welcoming him back to consciousness. “What’s this all about?”

“They’re doing a sweep.”

Eddie’s heart dropped as he bolted up.

“But that’s the third one this month! Why would they possibly need to do another sweep?”

“What difference does that make to us? We need to get out of here.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Are the boys ready?”

“Yes, they’re up. We let you rest as long as we could. Now, come on.”

Eddie sat up and got ready to leave. They took out the four bags, two backpacks and two duffels, then filled them with as much as they could. One duffel held the folded tarp and their four main blankets, while the others would go behind the dumpster and would hopefully still be there when they got back.

The other duffel had all of their extra clothes in it—an extra pair of either shorts or pants, a T-shirt, a jacket, and three pairs of underwear and socks each. One backpack held all their food and the first aid kit, while the other held their money and the library books Maria had checked out to keep the boys from falling behind in their studies.

Once they bundled everything up, they took off, leaving their shelter, knowing it likely wouldn’t be there when they returned. Sanders PD had cracked down hard on people without homes like Eddie and the Delgados ever since the new mayor had been elected.

Because the system wasn’t hard enough for people in our position, Eddie thought to himself with a shake of his head, scooping Alex onto his shoulders to make better time.

The sweeps were a new city policy to police homelessness. The department would send out officers to walk down each street in a given area to find people living on the streets and arrest them. Usually, not too gently.

They slowed to a stop as they approached the corner of the block. Eddie rested a hand on Tomas’s shoulder as Maria walked to the edge to peer up the street.

Her head snapped back from around the corner of the store. “They’re coming this way, too,” she blurted, her eyes bulging as she ran back to where they were. “What do we do?”

Eddie paused and looked around. They couldn’t go into any store. Store owners faced increasing pressure and the promise of repercussions if they harbored anyone during the sweeps. A few places had already been hit hard. Some were even forced to shut down as the mayor sent a statement.

Eddie looked back up the street, knowing it would only be a matter of time before the cops turned the corner.

Then it hit him.

“The roofs!” he muttered, a smile slowly breaking across his face as he turned to Maria.

“No way. There has to be another way.”

“I don’t see one, and we don’t have much time to think of a new plan. The roof is the perfect place to go anyway. We have access, there’s room for us to wait it out up there, and there’s no chance they check it. We don’t even have to go anywhere. We can just come down once the sweep is finished.”

Maria bit her lip as she looked up and down the road, weighing her options. “But the boys? Who knows how long we’ll have to stay up there?”

“Maria,” Eddie murmured, putting his hand on her shoulder, “it’s the only choice we have.”

Maria clenched her jaw but nodded. She turned and jogged to the nearest alleyway, then pulled the fire escape down as the boys followed.

Maria worked her way up the ladder first. About halfway, she reached back down as Eddie lifted Alex up to her. She got him up on the ledge without too much trouble. Tomas followed next, making it up on his own after Eddie helped him reach it.

“Keep climbing,” Eddie whispered from the ground. He tossed the duffel he was carrying with blankets and tarps up to the first landing. “I’m going to check the streets real quick to make sure you have time to make it up. If there’s anyone out there, I’ll lead them on a chase and meet you back up there.”

“Be safe.”

“I’ll try my best,” he answered with a smirk and took off as Maria helped Alex up to the next landing.

Eddie crept up to the street and peeked his head out of the alley. Three officers were approaching from the right, three more from the left. Eddie yanked his head back, but not in time, as an officer shouted “Hey!” from the right.

He looked back at Maria and the boys and saw they were only halfway up the escape. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Taking one last look at his family on the escape, he sprinted across the street to the other alleyway.

“There he is!” one of the officers yelled as he darted into the opposite backstreet, identical to the one he had just left except for the graffiti on the walls.

The stomp of a dozen boots followed. His pulse quickened, and sweat dripped from his forehead, but a smile crept across his face as he looked back at the group of officers chasing him through the alley.

Let’s see what they’ve got. I’ve always wanted to be in a chase scene. All that’s missing is a good chase song.

Eddie exited into the next street and planted his right foot. Three more officers approached and spotted him, too. He pushed off his plant foot and sprinted up the road as the first group of officers joined the new three in pursuit.

Duh-duh-duhduhduh-duh-duh-duh. Eddie started moving his head as “Walkie Talkie Man” began to play in his head as he sprinted up the otherwise empty street.

A cop car pulled into view two blocks up the street as Eddie stumbled to a stop. Sirens blared from the car as Eddie pushed off the ground to run through the alley to his left. A fire escape sat halfway down the alley on the other side of a dumpster, and a dead-end wall stood at the end of the alley.

Up the fire escape, it is. I don’t remember any other words from the song, but this guitar is perfect for a chase.

Eddie leapt on top of the closed dumpster and lunged for the fire escape ladder as a rubber bullet whizzed behind him. Taking a deep breath, Eddie vaulted from the outside of the first landing to grab onto the next. He had gone down plenty of escapes like this, but never up.

Guess there’s a first time for everything.

Two more bullets narrowly missed as he zipped up two more platforms.

Three more to go.

Creaking metal alerted him that officers were working their way up, too. One more bullet bounced off the building wall as he pulled himself onto the roof. The first officers weren’t yet to the third landing, and he was even more in his element now.

“I knew you guys weren’t able to keep up with me in stopping crime around here, and now it looks like you can’t keep up with me in a foot chase either,” Eddie yelled over the edge of the roof. “Next time you hear about a crime you couldn’t stop, but the Street Rat could, at least now you’ll know who bested you.”

Eddie sprinted across the roof and catapulted to the next and then onto another one story shorter. Rolling behind a stairwell door, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath. The officers would just now be making it to the first roof and would have certainly lost his trail.

Eddie took a scenic route along the rooftops back to Maria and the boys to make sure he wasn’t tailed and to see parts of the city he didn’t see as often since he had run so far to escape the officers. Before making his last building jump, he could see the setup they had made while he was gone. Using the blankets, they had made a tent to shield them from the sun, which was high in the sky at this point after Eddie’s long absence.

Eddie leapt to their rooftop as quietly as he could and crept up to the tent. Inching forward, he was almost to the edge as he stopped to prepare to pounce.

“Gotcha!” Eddie jumped and spun as he was grabbed from behind.

Maria and Alex’s laughter poured out of the tent as they crawled out. Tomas’s grin stretched from ear to ear after sneaking back around to scare Eddie before he could scare them.

Eddie clasped his chest over his heart and closed his eyes, falling to the ground.

“I see the student has become the master.” Eddie opened one eye halfway. “Is this how you treat your elders?”

“Not this speech again,” Maria groaned as Alex kept laughing.

“Come on back in. It’s time for Eddie’s Adventures Story Time.” Eddie motioned them back to the tent. “You all need this information for when my biographer is researching.”

All four piled into their makeshift tent to wait out the sweep and tell stories. Eddie ruffled Tomas’s hair as he crawled in after his brother. Tomas didn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

The Street Rat continues with The Street Rat 107.

The White Knight is now available for purchase! Subscribe below to be the first to know when new stories are released!