Early Morning Wake-Up Call

       The routine was fairly familiar to Josh by now. A light would flash from the woods, and it would stop, placed firmly on his belongings. A car door would open and then slam closed. Before long, an officer would be shining a flashlight in his face.

      Sometimes he'd go to the trouble of starting to dispose of his belongings by engaging a garbage truck to take them away, so Josh had to be quick about gathering everything.

      Then would begin the long walk with whatever he could carry in the dawn hours looking for somewhere he could place it all.

      But this cop was a little different. He told Josh to stop. He told Josh to give over his ID.

      "My ID?" he said. "I don't have one."
      "You don't have ID? Of any kind? Anything?"
      "Nope," Josh said.

      "Why don't you empty the contents of that bag you got."
      "Why? What for?"
      "So I can see if you're lying to me."
      And sure enough, Josh dumped the contents on the grass and out popped his expired Kansas state Driver's License.

      "This yours?"

      "It may be."

      "Wait here," he said and went back to his car.

      Josh thought about bailing, but he had a feeling that, dragging all of his stuff, there would not be much of a chance of escape.

      When the officer came back, he handed back the card.

      "There's a missing person report on you. Do you mind coming in to the station house and giving your statement?"
      "What do you mean? Am I under arrest."
      "No. But somebody looking for you. A family member, perhaps."
      "Somebody looking for me?"

      "Yeah. You want to come in out of the cold for a minute, have a chat?"
      "No."
      "Okay. Maybe there's a family member out there trying to say they're sorry, they want you to come back."
      "There's no one."
      "Why don't you find out?"
      "I just want to go, officer."
      "Go where? Where are you going to?"
      Josh shrugged.

      "Someone at home wants you back, it sounds like."

      "There's no one," Josh said in a low voice.

      The officer nodded, and walked away.

      But the truth was, when Josh thought about it, there was somebody. There was his whole family. They couldn't all still be mad at him, when he thought about it. Hell, maybe it was all in his head, after all. But he wasn't going to go into the belly of the beast, no. Too close to jail for his tastes. Best not to risk it by going into a police station at all.