The first time I used a phone booth I was running away.
It would have been August 1990. I was 14 years old. Our church, Faith Assembly (the Wikipedia link above includes old reporting about the faith healing cult in the cornfields of northern Indiana in the '70s, '80s, and '90s), held a one-day youth retreat at the church in Wilmot, literally on the edge of cornfield, about 18 miles from home in Millersburg.
I'm not sure what triggered my jail break that day. Youth group went well. We had the usual snacks and fellowship, games and skits, testimonies and worship. Maybe that was part of it: when I first was allowed to go to youth group at 13, all of that was new and exciting, but a year later it was the same old routine.
I remember having a sense of melancholy, even depression, a sense that something was wrong. And there was abuse happening beneath the surface of our perfect little family, but at the time those memories were repressed (and they remained so until I was 26): certainly there wasn't anything I was consciously trying to get away from. I just had a vague sense that I should go.
So I was bored and blue as the day drew to a close and we were singing the final worship songs to wrap it all up. I don't think I had any sort of plan when I ducked out of the row of folding metal chairs and left my friends singing. I think I probably only intended to go to the bathroom, but when I got to the back the sun was shining brilliantly through the door windows, and I had to get out into it.
Once I hit the gravel parking lot (and the weighted heat and humidity of Indiana August sun) I just started walking, and one thing led to another: my sense of exploration and adventure took over. First I walked along the curves on the country road that led to the church, curves that I knew intimately, like the back of my hand, from riding in the family car on the way to church since before I was old enough to look out the window. It was exciting to experience those curves at a slow walking pace, to feel the gravel on the berm and the blacktop under my soles.
When I reached the state highway, after about a mile, I was well into my adventure, and ready for something that was completely new. We only drove on that highway for about a half mile going to and from church; at our usual turnoff I went straight, just because I wanted to see what was down the road. Before long I came up on a green highway sign announcing the distance to the town of Larwill. (I had to get pretty close to the sign to read it; I'm nearsighted, and remember, this is a faith healing church we went to; we didn't believe in going to doctors for things like prescription glasses.)
Larwill is where my friend and crush Robin lived. Robin was one of the friends I left behind at the youth retreat, but still I thought it would be fun to drop in on her at home. By the time I walked there, they would be back from youth retreat.
First I had to get off the state highway though. I was worried that people coming to get their kids at church would see me, so I cut off onto some back country roads, the kind of roads I was familiar with, because that's the kind of road I lived on. What I didn't consider is that all those familiar farmhouses I was walking by had dogs. I only got chased once: a couple chows came tearing off a front porch, hair all bristled, and ran me down to the next farmhouse. I don't know how far they actually chased me; I was at a dead run until I leaped onto the next porch I found, hollering at the lady sitting there that I was getting chased. She gave me a patronizing smile and went in the house (I'm not sure what she was going to do), and when I looked around the dogs were nowhere to be seen, so I headed back to the road.
Was I serious about running away? Or was I just out having an adventure? I suspect getting run by those dogs tilted the scales toward just having an adventure, visiting Robin and then going back home.
In Etna, a tiny town that was mostly just a trailer park, I found a payphone next to a country store, or maybe it was the trailer park's office. It was on the edge of a gravel lot, with knee high weeds grown up around it. I called the operator to get Robin's number (I knew her dad's name from church), then dropped quarters to call her. When her mom answered, I had my first brush with notoriety: apparently everyone at church was out looking for me. She exclaimed, “You're Cliff Green?!” when I told her who was calling, and I could hear her hovering while Robin and I talked. Robin's parents agreed readily to let me come there.
I thumbed a couple rides on my journey. The first was with two guys in a pickup truck. They let me ride in the back for about a quarter mile around a jog in the road. Not much of a ride, I remember thinking, but they pointed me in the direction of Larwill, which was helpful. For the last leg of my journey, I got picked up by a photographer who was out photographing the countryside (a synchronicity in the sweep of my life, given that 36 years later I'm a photographer who rambles around photographing nature). The photographer took me all the way into Larwill, another tiny hamlet of a town, where we met Robin and her older sister walking up main street, expecting to meet me walking into town.
Surprised to see me climbing out of a stranger's vehicle, Robin told me that the photographer was my guardian angel looking out for me. These days I can just as easily believe he was a version of my future self, from a slightly different timeline, helping me reach my destination.
All in all I traveled about 10 miles that afternoon (it sure felt like longer!), 28 miles away from home. I would run away two more times in the next year and half or so, each one more seriously about running away than that first trip. Finally, I used my escapades as a bargaining chip to convince my parents to send me to public school when I was 16 (I was homeschooled between second and tenth grades), and I think having somewhere else to go five days a week relieved the pressure of the things going on beneath the surface at home.
I ended up living on the family farm, off and on, until I was 25!
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