Railroad Street

 “Tis strange----but true; for truth is always strange;  Stranger than fiction: if it could be told. How much would novels gain by the exchange!   
Lord Bryon, “Don Juan” XIV   
   Fourteen year old Walter Bulinski ran away from his home in New York and wound up living at my house on Pender Street in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I was twelve when it happened.  My home was located in the center of a tough neighborhood in the heart of the Railroad district of our mid-sized city. During the spring and summer of 1940 Walter, Bulinski shared a bedroom there with me and my fourteen-year-old brother.       
 Months earlier, Walter had been critically injured while hitchhiking near our hometown. For the weeks and months preceding his move to our house, all of Walter’s days and nights were spent in the Sanatorium Hospital in Rocky Mount. For a week or so after the accident, Walter’s plight made headlines throughout Eastern North Carolina. Daily bulletins were issued over the airwaves, and newspapers ask for anyone with information about the teen to come forward. Weeks passed with no results, and the boy’s story simply faded away.
 However, the results of his  24/7 confinement provided the hospital staff ample time to become emotionally attached to the lovable, penniless boy.  Walter was also homeless or a very convincing liar. In either case, when the money for his care ran out, Walter Bulinski, by default, became a ward of that institution. And, when the time finally came when Walter was well enough to be released, the hospital was faced with no choice but to turn him over to the legal system. It was at that critical moment that my fourteen-year- old brother Tom suddenly decided that he needed to have his appendix removed.  
 Tom’s emergency appendectomy precipitated Walter’s move to our house. A bargain was struck between the hospital and my family. The Davenport family sort of adopted Walter in lieu of paying the bill for my brother’s operation. Deals of this sort were fairly commonplace during those days. But, the deal between us Davenports and our neighbors on Pender Street that also factored into our semi-legal bargain with the hospital was even less formal. While no contract was actually signed, our neighbors convinced us that they had handled bigger problems before and were committing themselves to helping us deal with this one. From the very outset, Walter Bulinski was not merely the Davenport’s responsibility; Walter Bulinki became a ward of Railroad Street as well. I shutter to think how differently Walter’s story would have ended had the hospital turned him over to the “legal system.”
 Walter Bulinski, thanks to the help of our neighbors and others, finally managed to beat the overwhelming odds stacked against him. His journey is a true story of a lovable, talented fourteen-year-old boy who severed all ties with his former life and almost loses his own life in the bargain. The plot thickened when the secret of the boy’s desperate plight was finally discovered. The ensuing struggle to clear the way for Walter’s return to his rightful place among his loved ones contained all the excitement, suspense, danger, and mystery that a good novel demands. 
 Those who played major roles in solving Walter Bulinski’s dilemma are no longer around to explain their part in that amazing story. While many citizens of Railroad Street had leading roles in the drama, others also were involved. That list included the hospital staff, lawyers, pastors, journalists, and other caring people with influence far beyond the borders of Railroad Street. Therefore, a creditable non-fiction account of Walter’s story on Pender Street will never be written. I was there. But, for the reasons stated above, I am not qualified to write a non-fiction narrative of Walter Bulinki’s remarkable journey. I talked at length with my brother Tom before writing this novel. He shared his recollections of the ‘real’ Walter Bulinski story with me. His comments add color and realism to the fictional version of Walter’s story that follows. But Tom agrees with me that the detective work and legal maneuvering of discovering the secrets of Walter’s dilemma were done behind the scenes by people without regard for credit or recognition. More importantly, these same people stayed the course until Walter was free to be himself again.       
 Walter often told Tom and me that he was amazed and surprised by the love and generous acts of the Pender Street people and others. Having already lived on Pender Street for several months, Tom and I knew from our own experiences that Walter was speaking from his heart. I
can’t remember half of the wonderful things that Pender Street people did for me  and my family. It would be even more of a stretch for me to attempt to write a non-fiction account of the things that others did for Walter Bulinski.  Therefore, there is no way that I can justify the oft used expression: “This narrative is based on a true story!”  However, having lived in the Washington, DC, area for years, I have learned from the politicians that there are more ways than one way to spin a tale. I believe that I am at least “politically correct” when I describe “Railroad Street” as a fictional novel that captures the essence of the time, place, and characters that caused the real story of Walter Bulinski to happen.