Runaways

"Runaways" is a short story first published in The Saturday Evening Post on April 15, 1961 and reprinted in the collections Bagombo Stuff Box in 1999 and Complete Stories in 2017.

Plot Summary

Annie Southard, daughter of Indiana governor Jesse K. Southard, ran off with her boyfriend, sixteen year old Rice Brentner, in his old blue Ford filled with comic books and baby shoes dangling from the rear view mirror. Released from a reform school three years earlier for car theft, Rice met her at her father's country club where he mowed the lawns. They eluded the law for a day before they were caught by a patrolman in Chicago, buying nothing but junk food and cosmetics. While in front of reporters before being brought home, the two spoke about "love, hypocrisy, persecution of teenagers, the insensitivity of parents, and even rockets, Russia, and the hydrogen bomb". Once at home, however, Annie reads from a typed statement that she never loved Rice, loves her parents, and was going to concentrate on school from now on. Once the reporters leave, Annie expresses her bitterness that her father and governor has forced her to publicly lie. Her mother Mary tells her that they are not against love or people without money, but her father interjects that Annie and Rice have nothing in common and if they were to marry, they would ultimately make each other unhappy. Annie says she and Rice were made for each other and storms up to her room to listen to a current pop song about young love.

Eight miles from the Governor's Mansion, the reporters converge on the cheap, decades old bungalow where Rice and his parents live. His father, a supply clerk for the public school system, is resentful of the attention brought on the family, especially for exposing his low pay. His parents tell him that as punishment Rice has to sell his car, which he bought with his own money. Instead Rice leaves the house and drives away, listening to another recent pop song on the car radio. From a payphone he calls Annie, pretending to be Bob Counsel, son of a well-to-do member of the country club, in order to get past her mother. The two arrange to meet at a nearby gas station and drive off again, exhilarated. Driving through Ohio, listening to news coverage about themselves between other news of riots, plane crashes, and deaths, the two have a conversation, but talk completely past each other, neither really listening.

Indiana Governor's Residence, 1945-1973

Meanwhile, the parents of both meet at the Governor's Mansion, where the governor harangues the Brentners until Rice's mother, enraged her son being blamed for everything, replies that they should have raised their child as well as the Southards raised theirs. Humbled, the Southards begin to work with the Brentners, trying to find a solution. Having been caught again, Annie and Rice address the reporters about how their relationship isn't about money, which only makes people unhappy, but love. A state trooper brings in a message from the governor, saying the couple should come home whenever they feel like it, and when they do, their parents look forward to their marriage and future happiness. Blankly, the two return home, saying nothing and getting stuck in a traffic jam outside Indianapolis, stuck next to a car with a screaming baby while the parents argue. Rice turns on the radio, only to find nothing but pop songs of teenage love. Arriving at the Governor's Mansion, the two of them agree they're not ready for marriage, and that while they may not be too young to be in love, they are "too young for about everything else that goes with love."

Adaptation

The story was adapted as the thirteenth episode of the hour long ABC drama Bus Stop which aired on December 24, 1961. In addition to series regulars Marilyn Maxwell, Richard Anderson, Rhodes Reason, and Joan Freeman, the episode starred Lynn Loring as Anabel Jenkins, Fred Clack and Joan Tompkins as her parents, and David Winters as her boyfriend, beatnik Omar Kelsey. The teleplay was written by Sally Benson and it was directed by Arthur Hiller, rather than the series' usual director, Robert Altman.