ONE

COCHABAMBA, BOLIVIA

– MARCH 2010 –

“What do you mean, you don’t know how to steal?” I asked my two new besties who sat next to me on the hard plastic seat of the ancient, shock-less bus.

For me, thieving was a life skill, like lying my way out of a jam, or taking off at the first sign of trouble. Most nineteen-year-olds bum around Europe a month or two, then scoot back home to college like good boys and girls. Well, fuck that. I was a half-starved, high-strung wild child who lived out of a backpack, homeless since I was thirteen, obsessed with Spanish-speaking countries, animals, and the jungle. I was also a desperately lonely, cocky-yet-petrified infant. In the space of a minute I could drown in self-pity for what I thought I’d missed—a real family—then toss that aside to satisfy a rabid curiosity for the world and everything in it. That second part may have been what saved me in the end.

On my right, seventeen-year-old Britta from Austria gazed out the open window, taciturn, dreamy, dark hair blowing back from her pale face. “I stole something once,” she said. “Mints. From a restaurant.”

Molly, a tall, talky American from Seattle, grinned and leaned in to her with a bony shoulder. “News flash: those are free.” A ghost of a pedicure clung to her dusty feet in beat-up sandals, just flecks of red polish on every other toenail.

Britta shrugged. “I took more than one.”

Molly and I howled with laughter. “Mint stealer! They’re gonna lock you up, girl.”

Below us, the narrow one-way street buzzed with lawless vitality and frenetic energy. Small European cars blew past stop signs with only a warning honk, pausing barely long enough for a withered Bolivian woman to yank a stubborn llama across the cobblestones. Young men on motorcycles cut between cars, even zoomed across sidewalks. These weren’t the downtown Boston streets I knew that zipped up at night with crusty Brahmin efficiency; this was raw, stinky chaos, life out loud with all its mess, sprawl, and noise, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

We three groaned each time we slammed into a pothole, tailbones bruised and aching. Laughing with fear and exhilaration, we clung to the windowsills, the seats in front of us, or each other as the cigar-chomping driver took every turn too hard and too fast. Pop music blared from the bus’s tinny speakers. Diesel gassed us through the open windows. Chickens squawked and scattered across the road as we blasted by.

We bulleted around one last corner, the bus practically coasting on its left side wheels as we turned onto a flagstone courtyard. I relished the feel of my switchblade cool against my thigh, nestled in the long pockets of my baggy shorts, my beloved backpack clutched under one bony arm. With a last belch of black smoke, the bus ground to a stop near a small farmacia tucked between rows of vegetable stands.

“This is it,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go.”