The Call

Ring, ring, ring. The old black rotary phone in my living room must have sounded four times before I reached it. I lifted  the receiver, still a bit out of breath. A woman’s voice — steady, official — came on the line.

“Sir…. do you have a young man named Ken — ” the last name blurred — “at your house?”

“No, ma’am. No one by that name lives here.”

She didn’t pause. “Sir, this is the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. We’ve received a request from the Texas Highway Patrol. A young man by that name has left his home. His family believes he may be trying to reach you.”

Shock rolled through me. Why would a runaway be heading to my house? Why involve two states? As she continued, the memory surfaced — bright as the afternoon when I first saw him.

The Hitchhiker

I had been driving from Wichita toward Des Moines when I saw him: a teenage boy on the shoulder of the highway, thumb out, sneakers dusty from long miles.

I pulled over. He told me his name was Ken. He said he was headed to Des Moines. That happened to be my destination too. He was polite, soft-spoken — the tentative confidence of a teenager trying to stand taller than his years. He said he lived with his grandparents in Texas and was traveling north to see his parents. I found myself liking him.

When we reached my cousin’s home, I told Ken to wait on the porch while I went inside to call his parents for their address. My cousin’s wife was at the stove, her expression tight. She didn’t have to say how she felt about the hitchhiker on her porch.

I dialed the number Ken gave me. Invalid. My cousin suggested adding a prefix. I tried again. A woman answered. “Ma’am, I have your son Ken with me,” I said. “I picked him up hitchhiking and__

“He is not my son,” she snapped, and hung up.

I stared at the receiver.

Outside, Ken insisted I had dialed correctly. So, I tried again. This time the woman’s anger was unmistakable.

My cousin and uncle joined me on the porch. After hearing the story, they exchanged a quiet, knowing look.

“Most likely he’s a runaway,” my uncle said gently. I walked back outside and told Ken. His shoulders fell. He lowered his eyes. Then the truth came out. Yes, he was a runaway. Yes, the number was false. No, his parents were not in Des Moines. He had left his grandparents’ home in Texas. His voice trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of a lie he could no longer carry.

Shelter

He needed safety, rest, and someone who didn’t see him as trouble. My cousin’s wife — still wary, but compassionate — mentioned a youth shelter. I called; they said to bring him to the shelter.

On the drive over, he grew quiet. The evening light gentled everything — the sky, the fields, even his worry. I bought him a hamburger and a drink. When we arrived, the staff greeted him with unexpected warmth. The shelter sat in part of a manufacturing building, transformed by a local businessman into a haven for runaways.

I gave Ken my name and Wichita number. “Call if you ever need me,” I said. Two days later, I learned he’d been returned safely to his grandparents. Later, I visited the businessman who had founded the shelter. I told him briefly how I had brought them a runaway and how grateful I was for what he’d created. He listened quietly, hands folded, eyes soft. Then he said, with a gentleness that went straight through me: “Isn’t that what we’re all called to do?”

Emotion rose in my throat. His eyes glistened too. We shook hands for a long moment — two strangers sharing a quiet truth. When I left his office, tears finally broke free. I whispered to myself, “I hope someday I will be like him.”

The Call Back

And now — more than a year later — the Highway Patrol was calling my house about the same boy. I asked them to call me when they found the boy. Within the hour they called back to tell me they had found Ken within fifty miles outside Wichita. I thanked them and asked if the boy’s family would call me.

When the phone rang it was the grandmother. Her voice was warm, weathered, thick with a Texas drawl. She thanked me again and again. Then she said, “We are grandparents, and we are old. We don’t always understand the needs of a teenager.” Her voice broke. She told me that whenever Ken became upset or troubled, he would say, “The only one who understands me is Balbir, so I’m going to go live with him.” Then she began to cry. “God bless you,” she said. “God bless you.”

I felt the ache of her gratitude, and the distance between our two lives closed for a moment. I told her the same words that had once been spoken to me, by a man who built a shelter just because it needed to exist: “Isn’t that what we’re all called to do?”