That was the day he moved out of the apartment.
That was also one of the best days of my life.
After some time, I found a television in a dumpster. It was a small 19-inch television with a DVD player, so I’d check out a bunch of documentaries from the library and watch them at home. I was the person who knew too much about everything: baseball, tropical birds, and Area 51, all due to the documentaries. Yet, at the same time, I knew absolutely nothing.
Sometimes Ma watched them with me, but most of the time, it was a solo gig.
Ma loved me, but she didn’t like me much.
Well, that wasn’t true.
Sober Ma loved me as if I was her best friend.
Drugged Ma was a monster, and she was the only one who lived in our house lately.
I missed Sober Ma some days. Sometimes when I shut my eyes, I’d remember the sound of her laugh, and the curve of her lips when she was happy.
Stop, Logan.
I hated my mind, how it remembered. Memories were daggers to my soul, and I hardly had any positive ones to hold on to.
I didn’t care though, because I kept my mind high enough to almost forget about the crappy life I lived. If I stayed locked in my room, stocked up on documentaries, with some good shit to smoke, I could almost forget that my mom stood on a corner a few weeks ago, trying to sell her body for a few lines of blow.
That was a call I never wanted to get from my friend, Jacob.
“Dude. I just saw your mom on the corner of Jefferson and Wells Street. I think she’s um…” Jacob paused. “I think you should get down here.”
Tuesday morning, I sat in my bed, staring at my ceiling, while a documentary on Chinese artifacts played as my background music, when she shouted my name.
“Logan! Logan! Logan, get in here!”
I laid as still as I could, hoping she’d stop calling me, but she didn’t. Pushing myself up from my mattress, I headed out of my bedroom, to find Ma sitting at the dining room table. Our apartment was tiny, but we didn’t have much to put inside of it anyway. A broken down sofa, a dirty coffee table with stains, and a dining room table with three different chairs.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need you to clean the windows from the outside, Logan,” Ma said, pouring herself a bowl of milk and placing five Cheerios inside of the cracked bowl. She said she was on a new diet, and didn’t want to get fat. There was no way that she weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and being five foot and nine inches tall, I thought she was almost skeletal.
She looked exhausted. Did she even sleep last night?
Her hair was a mess that morning, but no more a mess than her entire existence. Ma always looked broken down, and I couldn’t think of a time when she didn’t. She always painted her fingernails on Sunday morning, and always chipped it off by Sunday night, leaving little spots of color remaining on her nails throughout the week until the next Sunday morning when she repeated the task. Her clothes were always dirty, but she would spray Febreze on them at four in the morning, before ironing them. She believed that Febreze was a decent replacement for washing our clothes at the local laundromat.
I disagreed with her technique, and snuck her clothes out whenever I could, to wash them. Most people probably walked past spare change on the ground, but for me, it could’ve meant clean pants that week.
“It’s supposed to rain all day. I’ll clean them tomorrow,” I replied. I wouldn’t though. She’d forget soon enough. Plus, cleaning our third floor apartment windows without a balcony seemed a bit ridiculous. Especially during a rainstorm.
I opened the fridge door to stare at the bare shelves. It had been empty for days now.
My fingers stayed wrapped around the handle of the refrigerator. I opened and closed it, almost as if food would magically appear to fill my noisy stomach. Right then, like the wizard he was, the front door opened and my brother Kellan came in behind me, holding grocery bags in his hand, and shaking the rainwater from his jacket.
“Hungry?” he asked, nudging me in the arm. Maybe Ma was only eating Cheerios because that’s all we had.
Kellan was the only person I’d ever trusted—other than Alyssa. We looked almost like twins, except he was stronger, more handsome, and more stable. He had a classic buzz cut, designer clothes, and no bags under his eyes. The only bruises that ever showed up on his skin were from a tackle during a college football game—which didn’t happen that often.
He lucked out with a better life, simply because he had a better dad. His father was a surgeon. My dad was more of a street pharmacist who dealt drugs to the neighborhood kids, and to my mother.
DNA: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
“Geez,” he said, looking into the refrigerator. “You’ll need more stuff than what I bought.”
“How did you even know we needed food?” I questioned, helping him unload the bags.
“I called him,” Ma said, eating one of her Cheerios, slurping on the milk. “It’s not like you were gonna feed us.”
My hands formed fists, and I pounded them against my side. My nostrils flared, but I tried to contain my anger from her comment. I hated that Kellan had to step in and save us so often from ourselves. He deserved to be far, far away from this lifestyle. “I’ll pick up some more things and drop them off after my night class.”
“You live an hour away. You don’t have to drive back out here.”
He ignored me. “Any requests?” he asked.
“Food would be good,” I grumbled, along with my stomach.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out two brown paper bags. “Food.”
“You cooked for us, too?”
“Well, kind of.” He took the bags and dumped them on the countertops. Random food items, uncooked. “I know when you came to stay with me for a bit we watched a lot of that cooking show where they just give you random supplies and you have to make a meal. Alyssa told me you thought about becoming a chef.”
“Alyssa talks too much.”
“She’s crazy about you.”
I didn’t argue that.
“So,” he smirked, tossing a potato my way, “I have a bit of time before I go to work. Make something happen, chef!”
I did too. He and I sat eating my fancy grilled cheese with ham, three kinds of cheeses, and a garlic aioli sauce. On the side, I made homemade hash browns with a spicy, bacon flavored ketchup.
“How is it?” I asked, my eyes glued to Kellan. “Do you like it?” Without thought, I placed half of my sandwich in front of Ma. She shook her head.
“Diet,” she murmured, eating her last Cheerio.
“Dang, Logan,” Kellan sighed, somehow tuning out Ma’s comment. I wished I could do that. “This is amazing.”
I smirked, a spark of pride. “Really?”
“I bit into the sandwich and literally almost died from how good it was. If I believed in Heaven, it would’ve been solely due to that sandwich.”
My smile widened. “Right?! I kind of outdid myself.”
“Fucking brilliant.”
I shrugged my shoulders with that smug look on my face. “I’m kind of amazing.” I couldn’t thank Kellan enough—that was the most fun I’d had in a long time. Maybe someday I could go to college… Maybe Alyssa was right.
“I gotta get going though. You sure you don’t want a ride anywhere?” Kellan asked.
I wanted out of the apartment, that was for sure. But I wasn’t certain if my dad would be stopping by, and I didn’t want him alone with Ma. Whenever he was alone with her, her skin was always more purple than when I left her.
It took a certain kind of demon to ever lay his hands on a woman.
“No. I’m good. I work at the gas station later today anyway.”
“Isn’t that like an hour walk away from here?”
“No. Forty-five minutes. It’s fine.”
“You want bus fare?”
“I can walk.”
He dug into his wallet
and put money on the table. “Listen,” he leaned in closer to me and whispered. “If you ever want to stay at my dad’s place, it’s closer to your job…”
“Your dad hates me,” I interrupted.
“He doesn’t.”
I gave him an are-you-fucking-kidding look.
“Okay. You might not be his favorite person, but to be fair, you did steal three hundred dollars from his wallet.”
“I had to make rent.”
“Yeah, but Logan, your first thought shouldn’t have been to steal it.”
“Then what should it have been?” I asked, growing upset, mostly because I knew he was right.
“I don’t know. Maybe asking for help?”
“I don’t need anyone’s help. Never have, never will.” That pride I had was always so harsh. I understood why some called it the deadliest sin.
Kellan frowned, knowing I was in need of an escape. Being in that apartment so long had a way of driving one crazy. “All right then.” He walked around to Ma and placed his lips against her forehead. “Love you, Ma.”
She kind of smiled. “Bye, Kellan.”
He moved behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders, and softly spoke. “She’s even thinner than the last time I saw her.”
“Yeah.”
“That scares me.”
“Yeah, me too.” I saw the worry weighing heavy on his mind. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll get her to eat something.”
His concern didn’t vanish. “You look kind of smaller, too.”
“That’s just because of my high metabolism,” I joked. He didn’t laugh. I patted him on the back. “Seriously, Kel. I’m okay. And I’ll try to get her to eat. I promise to try, okay?”
He released a weighted sigh. “Okay. I’ll see you later. If you’re not back from work when I stop by tonight, I’ll see you next week.” Kellan waved goodbye and before he stepped outside of the apartment, I called his name.
“Yeah?” he asked. I shrugged my left shoulder. He shrugged his right.
That was how we always said, “I love you” to one another. He meant so much to me. The person I someday dreamed of becoming. Yet still, we were men. And men didn’t say, “I love you.” Truth was, I didn’t say those words to anyone.
Clearing my throat, I nodded once. “Thanks again. For...” I shrugged my left shoulder. “Everything.”
He gave me a soft smile, and shrugged his right. “Always.” With that, he left.
My stare fell to Ma, who was talking to her bowl of milk. Figures.
“Kellan’s the perfect son,” she muttered to the milk, before tilting her head my way. “He’s so much better than you.”
Where’s Sober Ma?
“Yeah,” I said, standing up to take my food into my bedroom. “Okay, Ma.”
“It’s true. He’s handsome, and smart, and takes care of me. You don’t do shit.”
“You’re right. I don’t do shit for you,” I mumbled, walking away, not wanting to deal with her crazed mind that morning.
As I walked, I became startled when a flying bowl glanced off my left ear, and shattered against the wall in front of me. Milk and shattered glass splashed all over me. My head tilted back toward Ma, and she had a sly smile on her lips.
“I need those windows cleaned today, Logan. Right now. I have a date coming to pick me up tonight and this place is disgusting!” she shouted. “And clean up that mess.”
My blood began to boil, because she was such a mess. How’d someone get so far gone in life? Once they were so far gone, was there any chance of them ever coming back? I miss you so much, Ma… “I’m not cleaning that up.”
“Yes you are.”
“Who are you going out on a date with, Ma?”
She sat up straight, as if she was some kind of royalty. “None of your business.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure the last person you went out on a date with was some scumbag who picked you up on a corner. The time before that it was my deadbeat father, and you came back with two broken ribs.”
“Don’t you dare talk about him like that. He’s good to us. Who do you think pays most of our rent? Because it definitely isn’t you.”
A just-graduated-high-school, almost eighteen-year-old who couldn’t make rent—I was such a loser.
“I pay half, which is more than you can say, and he’s nothing but a piece of shit.”
She slammed her hands on the table, irritated by my words. Her body had a slight tremble to it, and she was becoming more fidgety. “He’s more of a man than you could ever be!”
“Oh?” I asked, charging toward her, starting to search her pockets, knowing exactly what I would find. “He’s more a man? And why is that?” I questioned, finding the small baggie of cocaine in her back pocket. I dangled it in her face, and watched the panic spill over her face.
“Stop it!” she shouted, trying to grab it from me.
“No, I get it. He gives you this and that makes him a better man than I could ever be. He beats you, because he’s a better man. He spits in your face, and calls you shit, because he’s a better man than me. Right?”
She started tearing up, not at my words, because I was certain she rarely ever heard me, but she teared up from fear that her white, powdered friend was in danger. “Just give it to me, Lo! Stop!”
Her eyes were hollow, and it was almost as if I was fighting with a ghost. With a heavy sigh, I tossed the baggie on the table, and watched her wipe at her nose, before opening it up, finding her razorblade, and setting up two lines of coke on the dining room table.
“You’re a mess. You’re a goddamn mess, and you’re never going to get better,” I said as she sniffed up the powder.
“Says the boy who’s probably going to walk into his bedroom, shut the door, and snort up your own treat that your daddy gave you. He’s the big bad wolf, but little red riding hoodie boy keeps calling him back to get his fix. You think you’re any better than me or him?”
“I am,” I said. I used, but not too much. I had control. I wasn’t wild.
I was better than my parents.
I had to be.
“You’re not. You have the worst of both of us in your soul. Kellan is good, he’ll be okay forever. But you?”—she set up two more lines of coke—“I’ll be surprised if you ain’t dead by twenty-five.”
My heart.
It stopped beating.
Shock rocketed through me as the words fell from her lips. She didn’t even flinch when she said them, and I felt a part of me die. I wanted to do the complete opposite of what she thought I’d do. I wanted to be strong, be stable, be worthy of existence.
But, still, I was that hamster on the wheel.
Going round and round, and getting absolutely nowhere.
I walked into my bedroom, slammed my door, and lost myself in the world of my own demons. I wondered what would’ve happened if I never said hello to my father all those years ago. I wondered what would’ve happened if we never crossed paths.
Logan, seven-years-old
I met my father on a stranger’s front porch. Ma took me to some house that night and told me to wait outside. She said she’d run in fast, and then we would go home, but I guessed she and her friends were having a lot more fun than they thought they would.
The porch was trashed, and my red hoodie wasn’t the best for the winter cold, but I didn’t complain. Ma always hated when I complained; she said it made me look weak.
There was a broken-down metal bench on the porch that I sat against, my legs bent into my chest as time passed by. The railing of the porch had peeling gray paint and cracked wooden slats, along with frozen snow that was never shoveled away.
Come on, Ma.
It was so cold that night. I could see my breath, so to entertain myself, I kept blowing hot air out of my mouth.
People went in and out of the house throughout the night, and hardly even noticed me sitting on the bench. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a small pad of paper and the pen t
hat I always had with me, and started to doodle. Whenever Ma wasn’t around, I kept myself busy by drawing.
I drew a lot that night, until I started to yawn. Eventually I fell asleep, tucking my legs inside of my red hoodie and lying down against the bench. When I was sleeping, I didn’t feel as cold, which was kind of nice.
“Hey!” A harsh voice said, waking me from my sleep. The moment my eyes slightly opened, I was reminded of the coldness. My body began to shiver, but I didn’t sit up. “Hey, kid! What the fuck are you doing here?” the voice questioned. “Get up.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, yawning. “My ma is inside. I’m just waiting.” My eyes focused in on the guy speaking my way, and my eyes widened with nerves. He looked mean, and had a big scar running down the left side of his face. His hair was wild, peppered with black and white, and his eyes kind of looked like mine. Brown and boring.
“Yeah? How long have you been waiting?” he hissed, with some kind of cigarette hanging between his lips.
My eyes moved up to the darkened sky. It was light when Ma and I arrived. I didn’t answer the man. He groaned and sat down next to me. I scooted closer to the edge of the bench, as far away from him as I could get.
“Chill the fuck out, kid. Ain’t no one gonna hurt you. Your mom’s a junkie?” he asked. I didn’t know what that meant, so I shrugged. He snickered. “If she’s in that house, she’s a junkie. What’s her name?”
“Julie,” I whispered.
“Julie what?”
“Julie Silverstone.”
His lips slightly parted and he tilted his head, looking my way. “Your mom’s Julie Silverstone?”
I nodded.
“And she left you out here?”
I nodded again.
“That bitch,” he muttered standing up from the bench with his hands in fists. He started for the front door and as he opened the screen door, he paused. He took the cigarette from between his lips and held it out to me. “You smoke pot?” he questioned.
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