Oscar’s dad, Don, called every number in his cell phone, trying to find out what happened to his kid, starting at about 2am. Eventually raininglight7 calls me since Don’s called him a dozen times, and after changing his voicemail message to something cryptic, gets a voicemail sounding really freaked out. We together call him an tell him where his kid is. The only way to describe his reaction is Not Pleased. I’ve never had a less useful conversation with someone.
We pick Oscar up at the bus station about 3:30. He’s dead tired already from not sleeping the night before he left, and not sleeping much on the bus. We talk, we hug, and try to be gentle. We pick up some groceries and a couple items we needed, got lunch at Pancheros (A little fast-food mexicanish place in Montrose, that other than the sterile atmosphere, is awesome.) Oscar is an amazing person. Charles Beckner, the less helpful of our two police officers shows up at our house about 8pm, and in no uncertain terms tels Oscar to go home. It’s so very obvious that Charles doesn’t want to deal with things more than he wants to help. He calls Oscar’s father, tells him he’s at the house with his daughter[sic] I can hear Don yelling through the phone at Oscar the moment Charles calls him and hands the phone to Oscar. It’s an unpleasant and frustrating thing to watch, having him try to reply calmly as he can to things, and getting yelled at more and more.
Oscar calls the National Runaway Hotline. They’re a pretty nice organization, and they have a few useful things to say. It’s a long conversation, though, and there’s nothing really conclusive. We’re freaking out a little, not knowing how things are going to play out. We’ve got the sense from Charles that as long as there’s no runaway report issued, nothing’s going to happen with the police, but at this point, we don’t know if Don is going to press that big red button, or Jennifer, Oscar’s mom (who we hear has talked to Don — something new for her in recent history), or what.
We talk. We try to chill out. We try to sleep. Some parts work better than others.