Never Be Alone

by Paige Dearth

Ragtop’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the frail child. The shocked look on the woman’s face somehow encouraged Joon, who continued with her story. “Anyway, Aron says I’m fat. She calls me thunder thighs, fatty, Joon the balloon. She told me I can’t eat too much or I’ll be uglier than I already am.” She lowered her head. “It’s okay. I can go for a lot of days without eating…I’ve been doing it since I moved in with Aron. She would only let me eat when she felt like it.”

  “Sweet Jesus. What has that woman done to you, child?”

  Joon shrugged her shoulders. “A lot of stuff. So that I’m raised right.”

  Ragtop sat on the ledge and pulled Joon down next to her. The woman opened the cooler and pulled out a few broken chocolate chip cookies. She pushed them toward the young girl. “Here ya go. Eat these. I got it from one of the trash cans in front of a fancy sandwich shop that gives out a cookie with every meal.”

  Joon wanted to rip the pieces of cookie from Ragtop’s hand, but was embarrassed and slightly nervous to take the offering. Slowly, she started to reach out but suddenly snapped her hand back.

  “What’s wrong? I said you can have it,” Ragtop said.

  “You’re not just teasing me?” Joon said, tears burning her eyes.

  “Why would I tease ’bout a damn cookie?”

  Joon’s eyes were focused on the cookie. “Aron used to hold out food for me, and then when I would reach for it, she would hit my knuckles with a belt or a metal spoon. Sometimes she would shove the food into her mouth and just laugh at me. She would do it when I was really hungry, when she knew I’d fall for it.”

  “Well, this ain’t no trick. I don’t do that kinda sick shit to kids or to anybody. Now go on and take the cookie.” Ragtop placed the cookie on Joon’s thigh and turned back to the cooler to get two stale crackers for herself.

  Joon’s small fingers wrapped around the sugary substance and pulled it back quickly, holding the cookie against her chest.

  Ragtop chuckled. “Ain’t nobody gonna steal it from you. Go on and eat it. You ain’t gotta worry about me. I ain’t gonna play no tricks on ya. I promise.”

  Joon shoved the cookie into her mouth. As she chewed, she closed her eyes and savored the sugar, butter, and chocolate that made her taste buds dance. After she swallowed, she opened her eyes to find Ragtop watching her.

  “Are you sure ya took those three bites of food at school today?” Ragtop said, half joking.

  “Yeah, I swear I did,” Joon said with fire in her tone. Her shoulders slumping, she let her hair hang in front of her face.

  The woman patted Joon’s leg. “Okay, I believe ya,” she said quietly.

  “You do?” Joon said, raising her head.

  “Course I do. Why wouldn’t I? Oh wait, let me guess—Aron never believes anything you tell her,” Ragtop said.

  “How do you know that? Do you know her?”

  Ragtop grinned. “No, sweetie, I don’t know that evil bitch. It was just a good guess. Why don’t you settle down on the ledge right here and get yourself some sleep?” She laid a blanket over the concrete and had Joon lay on top of it. Then she covered her with another blanket. “You sleep tight. Everything is gonna be just fine.”

  Joon pulled the scratchy, wool blanket up under her chin. She looked at Ragtop, who smiled down at her and started humming the Beatles song “Hey Jude.” Joon was lulled by the soft murmur. She wanted to listen to Ragtop hum—she could’ve listened to her forever—but within a few short minutes, she was sound asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, Joon woke with a start. She sat up quickly and looked around, forgetting where she was briefly. Ragtop was lying next to her, on her back, snoring softly. Joon lay back down and snuggled up closer to the woman, cold from the chilly morning air.

  Ragtop stirred and opened her eyes. “Good morning, Joon.”

  Joon smiled. “Good morning.”

  “How are you feeling today?” Ragtop asked, readjusting herself on the hard concrete and closing her eyes again.

  “Fine, I guess.” Joon was up on her elbow, looking into the woman’s face.

  After a few seconds passed, Ragtop opened her eyes. “What are you starin’ at, darlin’?”

  Joon giggled. “I was just looking at you and wondering something.”

  Ragtop closed her eyes again. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “How old are you?”

  Joon was so serious Ragtop tried to conceal her smile. “How old do you think I am?”

  Joon shrugged. “I don’t know. Twenty?”

  Ragtop gave her a toothy smile. “I knew I liked ya, kid. Yeah, let’s just say you’re close enough.” She was twenty-five, but age had never meant much to her.

  “How long have you lived here?” Joon asked.

  “You mean right here or out on the streets?”

  Joon gave her a shy grin. “On the streets, I guess.”

  “Oh, I’ve been houseless since I was sixteen-years-old,” Ragtop said.

  “How come? Did you run away from home like I did?”

  As Ragtop sat up and hung her feet over the ledge, Joon moved in beside her and looked up at the woman. Ragtop looked over at Joon, whose lips were turned downward and whose eyes held a deep sadness. Ragtop understood Joon more than the child could know. She knew Joon couldn’t go back to her foster mother. She felt a bond with the girl she hadn’t felt with anyone in a long time. She took in a deep breath before answering. “Yeah, I ran away from home too.” Her shoulders slumped and she started rubbing the back of her own neck as she recalled the past.

  “Were your mom and dad mean to you?”

  “Yeah, kind of. When I was sixteen, I had a baby. A little boy. My mom and dad didn’t have no money, so when I got pregnant, they were really mad. They let me live with them until he was born. Then, they made me leave the house, called me all kinds of names, said that God couldn’t stand the sight of me and neither could they. I had broken the rules and had sex. Even though they let me live in the house until I had the baby, neither of them talked to me for the whole nine months. My brother and two sisters weren’t allowed to talk to me either. I didn’t get to leave the house from the time I found out I was pregnant until they took me to the hospital to have the baby. After the baby was born, a nurse brought a plastic bag into my room with some of my clothes and a letter. Want me to read it to you?”

  Joon nodded.

  Ragtop reached inside her bra and took out a piece of paper and unfolded it. Years of folding and unfolding the paper had made it wear thin along the creases, so she opened it gently, careful not to rip it, then cleared her throat.

  “‘Dear Brenda’—that’s my real name—‘you are no longer our daughter. You gave that up when you spread your legs like a piece of trash before you were married. You have been our greatest pain and biggest embarrassment to God and all others who know us. Your brother and sisters shouldn’t have to bear the burden of your sexual misconduct. Our family will be forever damaged by what you have done. We have prayed to God to help us understand why you were ever born, and he has answered our prayers by letting us know that you were a mistake. You should have never been born and we must shun you. We are certain that you will go on to ruin your life and the lives of others. God has granted us the freedom from watching you walk the earth and destroying everything in your path. You no longer have a family. You are no longer welcome in our home. Sincerely, Sherri and Pete.’”

  Joon had watched Ragtop intently as she read the letter. Tears had slipped from the woman’s eyes and down her cheeks as she recited the words she had read so many times. The child put her hand over Ragtop’s.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Ragtop looked at her through bloodshot eyes. “I ain’t never read that letter to nobody. You’re the only one.”

  Joon inched closer to the woman. “Can I ask you another question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where’s your baby?”

  Ragtop rubbed the back of her
neck and rocked back and forth. “He died not long after he was born.”

  Joon drew in a sharp breath and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “My baby boy—I named him Chase—he died a couple hours after he was born. His heart was on the outside of his chest. Grew that way for some reason. My mother, when she came to see me right after he died, told me that Chase was a child of Satan, not God, and that’s why he died. She said my baby didn’t have no heart, just like his mother. Then my mama turned and left me in the hospital room. Never saw her again after that. It’s been nine years now. ”

  “Who’s Satan?” Joon asked, wide-eyed.

  “The devil. I ain’t never believed her though. My boy was an angel. He was gonna be adopted by a real nice couple. They were really sad that he died.” Ragtop paused to reflect, then shook her head slowly. “The couple told me my mother tried to convince them it was my fault, that I had brought death to my baby because I was such a horrible person. They thought my mother was a crazy fool. I was broken up about Chase dying and losing my family. It was a really bad time for me. That couple was right—they said my whole damn family was nuts. Took me a while after I left the hospital to get my shit together. I got hooked on heavy drugs. It almost killed me. Thatch, the guy in the alley last night, is the one who helped me stop getting high. I haven’t done nothin’ for three years now.”

  Hearing the sadness in Ragtop’s voice as she told her story, Joon clutched her stomach. She wished there were something she could do to make the woman feel better. “I’m sorry, Ragtop. I think you’re a really nice person. I’m real sad that your baby died.” The girl paused for a long moment. “Your mom and dad don’t know you at all. I think you’re great. I wouldn’t have known where to go yesterday if you didn’t invite me here.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows and gazed at Joon. “Thanks, kid. Enough of this sad shit. How about we go find some breakfast? That sound good?”

  Joon pushed herself to her feet. She was unsure what would happen after they found breakfast or where she would go when she had to leave Ragtop’s home under the bridge, but she was happy she had met Ragtop, so she didn’t have to be alone on the streets—it scared her to think about being on her own.

  Chapter Ten

  As Joon and Ragtop walked back down the alley, they saw Thatch sitting up against the wall, nibbling on a piece of bread.

  “Hi, Thatch. I want you to meet Joon,” Ragtop said.

  Thatch looked the child up and down, saying nothing. He turned his attention back to Ragtop. “Where’d ya find her? You better be careful. We don’t need no cops comin’ and givin’ us any trouble ’cause they’re looking for this kid.”

  Ragtop put her hands on her hips and her eyes bulged. “You know, Thatch, this little girl needs some help. I told her that you watch out for us and now you’re making me look like a liar. I don’t know if anybody will be lookin’ for her, but I can tell ya, from what she told me, we’d be real assholes to let anybody take her back to where she came from.”

  Thatch flushed with embarrassment. Ragtop had a way of making him feel like he was a protector of the streets, and he strived to live up to her vision of him. He leaned forward and extended his hand to Joon. The child put her hand in his. “Nice to meet ya, Joon. I like your name.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Thatch. Just so you know, Aron doesn’t ever come into the city. Well, only to fill out paperwork so she can get money for keeping me. But even when she has to do that, she complains about it for a long time before she comes here. She says Center City is for rich people who think they’re better than everyone else. She likes to stay home, where she’s the boss.”

  “I don’t know who Aron is, but it sounds like she’s got her head up her ass,” Thatch remarked. Then a huge grin spread across his face, revealing his missing front teeth.

  Joon’s eyes got big as she stared at the space where his teeth belonged.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I’m missing a couple of teeth, but I don’t need them ’cause I got swag,” he said, rocking his shoulders back and forth.

  Ragtop laughed and reached for Joon’s hand. “Come on, little girl. Let’s get moving before this fool starts telling more jokes. Besides, we gotta get some breakfast before there ain’t none to be found.”

  As the two walked down the alley, Thatch yelled, “If ya find anything good, bring some back for me.”

  When Ragtop and Joon stepped onto the sidewalk, the sun hit them with a burst of warmth.

  “What happened to Thatch’s teeth?” Joon asked as they walked.

  “Sometimes it ain’t easy to take care of yourself when ya ain’t got the right stuff to do it with. You just learned your first lesson in street living: always take care of your teeth. That means whatever little bit of money you got, make sure ya have toothpaste and a toothbrush and use ’em every day. Thatch, well, he likes his booze, so he prefers to drink liquor over having all his teeth.”

  “Do you drink liquor?” Joon asked.

  Ragtop pursed her lips and looked up into the blue sky, relishing the heat from the sun on her face. “Sometimes I like to indulge. What do you know about liquor anyway?”

  “I know that Aron liked to drink it when she had a date over to the house. I got to take a bath and sleep up in the bedroom when she had a man friend over. She mixed her liquor with soda. When she drank enough of it, she would be kinda nice and really goofy. She would say stupid stuff to her man friend’s like: ‘If you wanna see skin, then pour me more gin.’ When she told her man friends that, they would rush to get her more to drink. Sometimes, she wouldn’t be able to walk, and the guy would carry her to the bedroom and they didn’t come out until the morning. The day after she had liquor, she was the meanest. One time, after one of her man friends left after sleeping at the house for two nights, she was really bad.”

  Joon’s voice trailed off, and Ragtop stopped walking and knelt on the sidewalk in front of the child. “What did she do that was so bad?”

  Joon turned her head, attempting to avoid the woman’s gaze. She took several seconds to find the courage to speak, wringing her hands together and squeezing her eyes shut tightly as images of the past ran like a movie in her head.

  Ragtop gently pulled Joon into her arms. “I think it might make you feel better if you told someone. Do ya think that’s true?”

  Joon nodded slightly as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Tell me what she did when her man friend left after two days. It’s okay. You can trust me.”

  Joon wiped her nose on her arm. “She dragged me into the bathroom by my hair. Then she filled the bathtub with really hot water, and while it was filling, she tied my hands behind my back and tied my ankles together.” She gazed at the sidewalk and took in a long breath as she recalled the memory.

  “After the tub was full, she threw me into the hot water. It burned so bad, and I was underwater, so I couldn’t breathe. She’d pull me up, so I could catch my breath, then shove me back under again. She did it a bunch of times, until I couldn’t breathe anymore and I thought I was gonna die. Then all of a sudden, she pulled me out of the tub and I landed on the floor. My body was burned from the hot water. I had blisters all over the place, even my face.” Joon paused and touched her cheeks where the blisters had been. Then she shook her head, as if she could knock loose the pictures in her mind.

  “It took a while for them to all go away. Aron gave me some medicine to put on them, but it was awful. The only good thing was she didn’t hit me until all the blisters were gone ’cause she said she didn’t want to get any of my ‘gooey cooties’ on her hands.”

  Ragtop shuddered, despite her will not to react. She had seen and heard a lot of stories over the years, but Joon’s stories were by far some of the worst. The older woman pulled Joon into her and softly rubbed her back. “Why would she do that to you?” Ragtop asked mindlessly.

  Joon shrugged. “When she was filling the tub, she kept screaming that she saw me looking at her man friend like I wa
nted him, and it took away from the attention he was supposed to give to her. She wanted to kill me that day.”

  “How old were ya?”

  Joon thought for a moment. “I was nine. I really hated living with Aron. I felt sick all the time there. You know, not sick like I have a cold, but sick in my head. I never know when I’m gonna get in trouble and I’m afraid all the time that Aron is gonna do something really bad to me.”

  “Nasty bitch!” Ragtop said, devastated that an innocent child could be treated so horribly. “All right, enough about that woman. Let’s go find us some food.”

  Joon was sniffling and wiping at her nose. She looked up at her new friend with a forced smile.

  Ragtop ran her hand down her dreadlocks and gave Joon a heartfelt smile. “Look, Joon, I want ya to know you can talk to me anytime you want to. Maybe talkin’ about this stuff will help ya feel better. Ya know? I mean, the things that woman did to you, it just ain’t right.”

  Joon nodded half-heartedly. There were so many stories about the things that Aron had done to her over the years. She was worried that Ragtop would be scared off if she shared too much. Aron had drilled into Joon’s head that no one wanted to hear her whiny, little stories about how bad things were and if she ever told anyone, Aron would kill her. “What goes on in my house is my business. I’ll kill your fat ass if you ever tell people things about me,” she’d say while pinching the back of Joon’s arm.

  “Hey. Joon. Let’s get moving,” Ragtop said, interrupting the child’s gruesome memories.

  Joon smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for being nice to me. Other than my teachers at school once in a while, nobody’s been nice to me since my mom and dad died.”

  Ragtop knew what it was like to be unwanted, unloved, and left on her own. “Well, Joon, you ain’t never gotta thank people for loving ya. In this life, there are all kinds of people, and you’ll learn that the ones worth keeping around don’t ever need nothin’ from ya but being nice in return.”