Toxic

by A. C. Bextor

  Her brows lower and come together. “What’s the matter, Neil? Honey, are you hurt?”

  I don’t answer her because I’m afraid to speak. I just nod and wave my hands away from my body to signal that I’m alright.

  She caresses my cheek and holds it for a second. “Talk to me.” Softly she moves the hair from my eyes, begging me in silence to tell her what’s happened.

  “We’re moving, Mrs. Cash. We’re leaving today. My dad said it’s time we go.”

  She moves me into a close-fitting hold and I hear a small sudden and suffered sob come from her. “Stay here for me, baby, okay? Patrick’s in his room, we had an incident so he’s not very happy right now.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She turns away from me and heads to the door at the same time Patrick comes darting out from his room. I don’t want to tell him I’m leaving. Within the last year or so he and I have gotten close. He’s become like a brother to me. He doesn’t judge or make fun of my life and I’ve never had a friend that I love as much as him. I’ve never had a friend, at all.

  After I break the news to him, he stands there motionlessly. His face is blank, but I can see his tears forming at the rims of his eyes. He’s as upset about this as I am and he gets to stay with Lynda.

  I want his life.

  He pats my shoulder as he passes me on the way to the front door. “Let’s go see what my mom’s doing, maybe she’s finding a way to keep you.”

  His words give me false hope. My dad would never leave his meal ticket behind. No way. I don’t verbalize my doubt as I follow him out of the kitchen and into the living room, nearing the open front door. Patrick’s face is set in anger as we hear the raised voices coming from outside.

  “No, Lynda. Fuck, we’re expecting a child in a few weeks and you want to take in some latch key kid that we don’t even know. He could be diseased. It’s one thing to have him to dinner, but to live here? Are you losing your mind? Pregnancy hormones must be ravaging you because you clearly aren’t thinking like a protective mother right now.”

  “Don’t talk of him like that. He’s a good boy and you know it. You said yourself he’s a lost child with a run of bad luck.”

  Lynda is asking that I stay, that’s enough to fill my heart with hope of a living a free life one day. She believes in me; no one believes in me.

  “Damn it, the answer is no. This is not a negotiation!”

  He throws the shovel he was using on the flower bed and passes her as he heads into the garage without looking back.

  She whispers to herself so softly Patrick and I almost don’t catch it through the open screen door. “You’re an asshole, Warren. Life will catch up to you and you’ll regret all your selfish decisions.”

  She comes back in with a fake smile plastered her face. “Neil, we’re going to miss you. I have something for you. Wait here. Hem go to your room and give Neil that coat Uncle Doc gave you for Christmas.”

  They both leave me alone, standing by the front door, reeling in thought. Patrick knows Doc? Lynda knows Doc? I remember him; I still admire and appreciate what he did for me a few years ago.

  Lynda comes back with an envelope. After handing it to me, she wipes her tears as they start to fall from her eyes. Her voice is raspy and she looks defeated. “Open it now for me, okay? I want to explain what’s in there and what I want you to do with it.”

  Accepting it from her shaky hands, I can see it has my name scrawled across it in angelic handwriting. It’s only when I open it do I see the importance of what she’s trying to give me.

  The first thing that catches my eye is the picture of all of us together at Hem’s birthday party last year. I had been upset that day because I couldn’t afford anything to give him and she had told me that morning that friendship is a gift that costs much more than any present I could ever buy for Patrick. While he was unwrapping dozens of presents, I remember thinking about that and how unlucky he was that everyone brought him presents, not friendship, in offer for his birthday.

  After I’ve studied the picture with a heavy heart, she explains the rest of the envelope's content. “The money, it’s for you. When you need it, I want you to promise me you’ll use it.”

  That was the first time she ever let on that she had any acknowledgement in knowing my parents were terrible people. Maybe she didn’t know about the physical abuse and I’m thankful for that. This beautiful woman doesn’t deserve to feel the heavy burden of weight it would give her to know I come from shit and live only to survive.

  I don’t say anything. There has to be over a thousand dollars here. If my dad were to find this, he would think I stole from him and God himself only knows what consequence I would suffer at his hands for that offense. I know exactly what I’m going to do with the money, but she doesn’t need that information.

  I need to get back before my dad is irate and the road to our new hell is made to be worse than what it’s already going to be. “Thank you.”

  I hold the picture in my fingers, bringing it closer to my face to avoid her stare. We were all happy that day.

  She grabs me, jerking me from my memory, and holds me close to her, so tight I can’t breathe, but it’s worth the fight to regain my breath. “You’re loved. Don’t you ever forget that, okay? I’m going to see you again. When you come back to visit, you are welcome to stay here.”

  She doesn’t know I heard her plea to Warren about keeping me, so I play this off as a simple ‘goodbye for now.’

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cash.”

  Patrick trots back into the living room with the coat that, apparently, our mutual acquaintance gave him. “Here.” He won’t look at me and he has no words of goodbye to offer.

  I don’t want to talk it out. I can only grab him in a man hug, even though we are far from being men. When my arms lock around him, he lets out a heavy sigh, so I know he’s not unaffected. I pat his back for the last time and I let the tears fall. My best friend in the world doesn’t want to let me go either. Although I’m terribly sad about leaving, knowing he feels the loss as I do brings me peace, making me feel less unaided in this desolation.

  I turn from him and walk directly to the door, stopping to look outside to ensure I don’t have to face Warren again, in all my embarrassment. He’s gone, thank God.

  Without ever looking back to my family, I open the door and walk out - all while willing my tears not to fall.

  The envelope she gave me is in my back pocket. I’m keeping the picture. It’s all I have to remember the faces that I love so much.

  Looking at the sun, I can tell my time is nearly up. I would suspect I have only about forty minutes left before I leave the only peace I’ve ever known, with the only people that have ever given a shit about me.

  When I pull up to Peril I feel anxious, but I’m not as frightened as I was that first time. Knocking on the door I take a quick look around to see if anyone is coming at me from behind. These clubhouses are eerily fearsome, even in broad daylight on a Thursday afternoon.

  The door opens and sure as fuck, it’s a repeat of three years ago. Hercules stands above me, towering over in a look of anger, waiting for me to speak.

  “Hi. Umm, is umm, Doc around?” I don’t need to piss my pants again, but if he makes one move towards me I’ll have no other choice. He’s that unapproachable.

  “Get in here, son.” I hear the voice behind Hercules talking to me as he just saw me yesterday.

  I walk in around Herc and his towering inferno, to a figure before me, pulling the envelope from my back pocket. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I wanted to come by and give you something. My dad is making us move, so I want to give you this real quick. I have to go and get back.”

  I hand him the envelope, minus the picture that I still have tucked away. I want to pay him back as much as I can for the time he saved my ass by buying all the product I had on me that day.

  He stares at me with indifference for a moment then whispers only to himself, so I can hardly h
ear, after he reviews its contents. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch, she’s right, good fuckin’ kid.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but his eyes soften and his face is overcome with love as he stares at the handwriting that addresses the envelope.

  I’m nervous to interrupt his thought, but Hercules doesn’t hesitate. Fucker could see he was having a moment and still chimed right in to ruin it. Damn.

  “What the fuck is that, boss?” His voice is angry, as if I’ve just given Doc a laced envelope with a dose of acid. If I were older Herc and I wouldn’t be friends.

  Doc stands from his red recliner and comes to me wearing a look of admiration. I still have no idea what’s going through his head.

  “This,” he lifts the envelope to Herc’s face and waves it around with purpose, “is honor and loyalty and it's fuckin’ priceless.” Herc looks at me, and judging by the look on his face, one that matches mine, we are equally confused.

  Doc embraces me with his hand by the back of my neck and as his scary stance relaxes as pulls me close to him. “Son, don’t sell out. You hear me? Don’t you ever feel that you are what they are. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You’re better than that, this right here tells me you are.”

  “Okay.” I have no other response to his words. Inside, though, I’m feeling a renewed sense of self. I am better than what they are making me to be. I’ve doubted this before, but hearing it from Doc brings that glimmer of hope to the surface again.

  “No, kid, not good enough. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that you know you’re better than this and you won’t waste your life a moment longer than what’s needed to find your own way.”

  My voice is shaking as I look from Doc to Herc, and I see that even in Herc’s eyes, the sadness on my behalf dwells. Doc is searching my face for confirmation that I get this last lesson he’s trying gingerly to teach me.

  “Alright. I understand.”

  “Take care now. Come back and visit anytime. There’ll always be a place for you here, so when you find yourself in a pinch, you let me know.” He looks to Tank to deliver a request on my behalf. “Tank, give him the number; my personal number.”

  After a gentle squeeze, he lets go of the back of the neck and takes me into his side by my shoulders. When he lets go, I feel the loss of his safety immediately.

  He walks me to the door and stands above me like a proud father might. Winking at me, he turns to Herc and informs him he’s going to give me and my bike a ride home in the ‘cage’.

  What the fuck is a cage?

  Curtly, Herc nods, already understanding the meaning of this request.

  ~~~~~

  It wouldn’t be until years later that I would realize what Doc was doing for me that day. Hercules was headed to have a small chat with my father. After I got home and went inside to gather my box, as it still sat on the kitchen table, Herc delivered a message my father would never forget.

  Nothing specifically changed in my life after that day. Another town just held other opportunities to be used by my father and his business. Somehow knowing I was loved by Doc, Lynda, and Hem helped push me through the next few years of sadness, anger, and contempt. I was determined to escape the clutches of that madman.

  Making my way to my cage, which later I had learned was slang for a biker's four-wheeled ride, I stop and look around at the falling leaves off the trees in the neighborhood. There’s a slight chill in the air, but my body is too tense from living through memories of my lost childhood to notice for long.

  Chapter Six

  “You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.”

  -Albert Camus

  Pulling out onto the highway, I can see the water tower from here. I wince at the thought of what I had done there and with who. I was only seventeen and had left my parents back in Tallahassee to suffer with each other. Knowing I didn’t have any way to keep me afloat in way of money, I accepted an offer from a woman I had just met.

  Had I gone straight to Hem and Lynda this distasteful memory could’ve all been avoided. I was ashamed of the past I was running from and the memories I was leaving behind. My parents weren’t even aware I had escaped, and that’s exactly what it was; I was technically a runaway. One day after school I just got on my bike and kept going past my driveway when I saw a gang member choking and beating my dad in our front yard in broad daylight.

  Doc and Peril was what I was running towards. Doc was here in town, and I knew that worst case scenario I would have him to call on for help if I found myself in trouble. Although I hardly knew him, I had thought about the way he looked at that envelope I had handed him all those years before. He knew Lynda, hell if his eyes held truth, he cared immensely for her. Still not knowing in what regard he knew her, I trusted him to help me if needed.

  ~~~~~

  “You come here often?” Her voice is sinful and seductive.

  “What?” Mine is most definitely not. I take a quick look around to see who the hell she’s talking to like that. It sure as fuck can’t be me.

  “I said, do you come here often?” She signals her hands about the gas station and smiles. I get it now, she thinks she’s being fuckin’ funny.

  The woman is good looking. She’s fit, clean, and propels sexual heat from every pore of her tight body. She’s dressed in a short, black, tight pencil skirt with a white dress shirt that buttons up in the front. Her high heeled black boots ride up the length to her knees. Her hair is pitch black and her skin is pale. Her scent is a mix of alcohol and cigarette smoke with a small blend of perfume that’s barely evident. This combination to a hormonal seventeen year old is a cocktail full of promise and intrigue.

  She looks older, and by older I mean maybe thirty to thirty five. Definitely old enough to know better than to make a move on an underage kid in a public place.

  “No. I just got into town.” I eye her up and down suspiciously. “Who are you?”

  By the time I got off the bus, which was the only way I could afford to get back to Ohio, I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night and I still wasn’t sure calling Lynda or Doc was a great idea. In essence, I know I’m stalling to avoid explaining to them what I had left behind, and further explaining that unfortunately since I left the way I did, I was considered a minor on the run.

  She reaches out and touches my hair that hasn’t been washed in days. The texture of it doesn’t disturb her at all, and she makes her way down my neck, to my chest using the palm of her hand to push into my flesh. It’s about that time I catch her wedding ring. It’s huge, giving away the fact that this bitch has money.

  Because I had originally planned to leave my parents’ prison shortly after I got my license at sixteen, I had been working out. I was large for my age, already standing six foot. Knowing my dad would have tried like hell to stop me from leaving, my only defense was to toughen up to get out. That, I did.

  She draws closer to my face and I can smell the tequila on her breath, which is surprising since it’s only one o’clock in the afternoon on a fuckin’ Wednesday. I stereotype her right away. She’s a bored housewife looking for trouble and she’s found it - with me.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.” I look that old, but I’m most definitely not.

  “You feel like playin’? I don’t have to be home for another couple of hours.”

  This surprises me. Even as I stereotyped her, I would have never had guessed to be propositioned in that manner by someone that looks like her.

  “Play? As in…” I need to be certain I understand her intent or if she’s just crazy.

  While keeping it connected to my body, she moves her hand down past my chest. She presses her fingers onto my already semi stiff cock through my dirty jeans.

  “Play. I want to play… with this.” She squeezes me and I suddenly try to think of rainbows and unicorns before I end up losing my virgin control here in a gas station. Until she starte
d to put her hands on me, I didn’t realize I was already this hard.

  Fuck, there are really women around here who act like this?

  About this time I’m giving thought that this could be a way for me to escape, get lost in something that I’ve never done before. Back in Florida I withdrew from even speaking to people at school or in the neighborhood with the life I led; it wasn’t worth it.

  Leaving Patrick nearly broke me, and since I knew in my gut that I had no intentions of sticking around a day more than needed, I retreated into myself; the only person I could trust.

  “Alright, but it’ll cost you.”

  Of all the things I’ve seen and have had to make my way through, I know I’ve developed some serious negotiating skills and I’m fuckin’ hungry, so money is what I’m after. Well, money and sex, but if the two can coincide then I’ve caught a lucky break.

  “You’re awful sure of yourself, cowboy.”

  “I’m not a fuckin’ cowboy. What I am is bored, and you’re the cause. If you’re not fuckin’ around with this, then let’s go. Three hundred. That’s firm.”

  No fuckin’ idea where that figure came from, but I’m new at this … obviously.

  She drops the items she had intended to purchase in the basket beside her, looks me up and down hungrily, and tells me to follow her to her car. As we make it to her ride, I’m instantly pissed off at myself. She drives a fuckin’ Mercedes God damn SUV. I should’ve demanded a fuck of a lot more money.

  She hands me the keys and asks me. “Wanna drive?”

  Fuck yeah I do. I’ve driven my dad many times when he’s been too intoxicated to handle himself. He had a beat up ratty ass truck, so fuck yeah, I’m all about taking her ride for a spin.

  While driving, she reaches for me almost immediately; I recoil at her touch. She’s practically sitting on the middle console and her hands are fuckin’ everywhere as they explore my body. She’s already unbuttoned my pants and has her fingers wrapped around my cock, stroking it just as I do when the mood strikes me. Only her touch is soft, delicate, and feels like silk.