Astray

by Carlos King

  Mr. Ellis turns off the intercom and sets his attention back on Alexis. “The way I figure, we should have a nice amount of time before she interrupts us. I hope you know what you’re doing down there.”

  Puzzled by what Mr. Ellis means, Alexis questions, “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Ms. Robinson. I’ve seen your type walking around this school for many years now. You’re the shy, nerdy kid that no one bothers talking to. Don’t get me wrong, you’d probably be a very cute girl if you took care of yourself a little better. Your mother’s boyfriend probably told you the same thing. That probably led to you flirting with him, which in turn led to the abuse. Now, I’m not saying he’s not wrong for having sexual intercourse with a child, but let’s face facts…Men will be men. Now, to keep me from sending your mom to prison for the next ten or so years, I want you to give me the same treatment you gave him.”

  Shocked, Alexis replies, “What?!”

  “I want you to come over here and give me what you’ve been giving your mother’s boyfriend for the last two days,” Mr. Ellis heartlessly detailed.

  “NO!” Alexis exclaimed, disgusted by the thought.

  “Okay then,” Mr. Ellis responded in a devious tone. “I can always call the police and have them put your mom away. Is that what you really want?”

  Alexis’ eyes begin to water. A steady flow of tears run down her saddened face as she silently sits in the chair right across from Mr. Ellis. Realizing that she’s in between a rock and a hard place, Alexis concedes to Mr. Ellis’ repulsive offer in order to spare her mother.

  Alexis gets up from her chair and walks over to Mr. Ellis. Mr. Ellis rolls his chair from underneath his desk and spins his lap toward Alexis. Alexis kneels down in front of Mr. Ellis and begins to unfasten his belt.

  “Now that’s a good girl,” Mr. Ellis said in a disturbingly-pleased voice, reclining as far back as his seat will allow. Mr. Ellis exhales from pleasure. “That’s a real good girl.”

  CHAPTER 5

  ENOUGH

  A full two months have gone by since Alexis’ failed attempt for help from the school counselor. Alexis has given up on resolving the issues surrounding her abuse and has begun trying to cope with them.

  Sitting in her cold, undersized bedroom, Alexis has found great solace in the pass time recommended to her by Mrs. Hobbs. Almost every night since the week of her meeting with her counselor, Alexis has been keeping a journal of her personal views and inner most feelings. At first her writings started off as a bunch of words that covered certain problems she’d been dealing with, but this later evolved into rhythmic patterns that phrased the emotional and mental distress issues she’s been going through for the past couple months. In short, she’s putting her heart’s feelings into powerful words and putting those dynamic words onto paper. It’s a talent that almost seems to come effortlessly to her.

  While sitting on her bed listening to her MP3 player and writing out her daily feelings, the all too familiar sound of someone turning her doorknob disrupts her train of thought. Alexis looks over at the clock. It’s 11:00. She automatically knows what this means. In the back of her mind she wished it was her mother, coming to tuck her in and kiss her on her forehead before wishing her a good night’s sleep. But due to the fact that Dre is hosting a Pay-Per-View fight party tonight, the chances of her mother coming into her room for these things are slim-to-none.

  Just as Alexis expected, it wasn’t her mother who was opening her door, it was Dre, who was accompanied by three of his other friends. Alexis wonders why the men are just standing in her doorway staring at her. Uneasy about the situation, Alexis discretely grabs her MP3 player and turns the volume down so she can hear what’re saying.

  “I’m telling you, man, she’s good as hell. I’m the only one she’s ever been with so believe me when I tell y’all, she’s still fresh,” said Dre.

  “Can she get knocked up?” one of his friends asked.

  “I’ve been on the pull out procedure so I wouldn’t know. Don’t trip, though. With the money y’all paying me, I’ll just take out enough to get her ass that day after pill.”

  “How much you charging again?” another man asked.

  “Come on, we’ll talk about it out here. I just wanted y’all to see what the merchandise looked like.”

  As the men exit the room, Alexis jumps out of bed and rushes over to the door, slowly cracking it open. Her goal is to overhear what’s being said about her and figure out why the men came into her room in the first place. Sticking her head out of the door just slightly, she’s able to hear the men talking.

  “It’s gone run about a 150 an hour.”

  “Damn, Dre, a hundred and fifty bucks an hour?”

  “Yeah, Dre, that’s a lot of doe for one hour, man,” said another one of the men.

  “Hey, for one hour you get to do whatever you want, however you want. The only thing y’all can’t do is hit the bitch. I don’t want none of her fucking teachers getting up in my business. Not to mention the fact that you can get it raw, too...Man, a buck fifty is fair as hell.”

  “What about her mama? She okay with this shit?”

  Dre callously responds, “That hoe ain’t got no choice. That bitch went through my shit when I was sleeping earlier and used half of it up. So to keep me from beating her ass, she told me to get what she owes me from Alexis.”

  “Let’s do it then. Who’s going first?” one of the men questioned.

  Before the men began placing their orders, Dre intervenes. “Y’all be cool for right now. We’ll figure all that shit out when the fight over.”

  Alexis is completely stunned by what she’s heard. She quietly closes the door and slowly crouches down in front of it. With her back pressed against the door and her arms tightly wrapped around her knees, Alexis starts to think about how Dre stated to his friends that her mother used her as a bargaining chip to settle her debt. Alexis is appalled at the very idea of a mother being able to do that to their own child.

  Fighting off her natural adolescent urges to cry, Alexis focuses all of her energy on trying to figure a way out of her current predicament. Suddenly, a flickering street light draws her attention towards her bedroom window. She gets up, walks across the room and approaches the mold-infested window. She wipes a section of the glass clean and fixes her eyes on the rusted fire escape, located right outside her window. She now knows what she has to do.

  Gathering up a few of her belongings and throwing as many of her clothes into a black garbage bag as she possibly can, it’s obvious that Alexis’s mindset is set on running away. Once she’s done packing up her things, she sets the black garbage bag and her backpack down on the floor right next to the window. She scurries over towards her bedroom closet and quickly puts on her rundown tennis shoes and her flimsy winter coat.

  All ready to go, Alexis unlatches the window and tries to lift it open. Unluckily for her, the wood surrounding the window has warped due to the moisture from the ice buildup, jamming the window in place. Realizing that time is of the essence, Alexis grabs a pillow off her bed and snatches a lamp from off her dresser. She takes both items over to the window. She presses the pillow against the window and proceeds to swing the lamp directly into it, shattering the glass. Although the pillow muffled the shattering glass, it didn’t silence it completely. The breaking glass turned out to be significantly louder than Alexis expected.

  Alexis tosses her first bag out the window and down to the pavement, three floors below. Alexis soon hears someone yelling from outside of her bedroom door. “What the hell was that?! What the fuck you doing in there?!” Dre hollered out.

  Ignoring Dre’s questions and focusing solely on her escape, she grabs her backpack, throws it over her shoulders and prepares to leave.

  Just as she nears the window, Dre bursts through her bedroom door and yells out, “Where the fuck you going?!”

  Noticing that Dre’s friends are still sitting in the living room watching, Alexis quickly goes on the attac
k.

  She picks up a coffee cup and tosses it at Dre’s head. The cup smashes into Dre’s nose, causing it to bleed instantaneously. Alexis promptly turns back towards the window and climbs through. She pays little mind to Dre’s cries of pain as she makes her way down the rusty fire escape and down to the snow covered sidewalks below. She picks up her garbage bag of clothes and takes off running into the cold, dark night.

  CHAPTER 6

  NOWHERE TO GO

  Alone and afraid, Alexis has taken refuge in a bus stop booth somewhere on the other side of town. In a neighborhood that is just as bad as the one she ran away from, she has no choice but to hold up here in order to get out of the freezing winds. Being her first time in such an environment at this time of night, Alexis is frightened to death about all the negative possibilities that could happen to a young girl in such a violent area.

  The thought of looking up Mrs. Hobbs had crossed her mind, but the idea of her favorite teacher learning about all of her shameful endeavors would embarrass her to the fullest extent. So instead, Alexis decides to turn her back on everything in her past and look forward to what’s left of her tainted future.

  After a number of cold hours, the sun begins to rise and a certain level of calmness finally falls over her. Having made it through the freezing night unharmed, she realizes she may not make it through another night like that again.

  After contemplating her next move, Alexis decides to throw in the towel and return home. She marches her way back across town and back towards her old neighborhood. With her book bag on her back and the garbage bag in her hand, the fatigue she’s experiencing from a sleepless night is weighing heavily on her.

  Rounding the corner to her street, her apartment building is now in view. She pauses as soon as her eyes lock in on her building. For a quick second she begins to think twice about her decision to return. Alexis also happens to notice that Dre’s car, as-well-as his friends’ cars, are still parked out in front. It suddenly dawns on Alexis that a life of being fearful in the streets is a lot better than being fearful in her own bed. Alexis makes a conclusive decision that it’s time for her to try and make it on her own. Exhausted, she grabs hold her bag, turns around and walks in the opposite direction of her home.

  The frigid hours of the day, in addition to sleep deprivation, are taking a serious toll on Alexis’ physical and mental wellbeing. Weary and drained, she’s made her way back to the bus stop booth from the prior night. In her mind, she hopes that she’ll have the same luck she had from the previous night and get through the dark hours unharmed. Being out in the harsh winter elements for this extended period of time has left Alexis famished, tired and shimmering from the exposure.

  Silently sitting in the frosty, lonely booth, Alexis closely observes the changes of the day. Before she knows it, the nighttime hours have taken over, bringing the freezing winds with it. She looks at her watch and is discouraged to see that was barely seven o’clock. She’s beginning to question if her choice to make it on her own was the wisest thing to do during the heart of winter.

  Moments after checking her watch, the sounds of numerous voices reach her ears. The voices are getting closer, causing Alexis’ anxiety to rise. It isn’t long before she can finally see the individual shapes of a small group of people heading her way. Normally, Alexis would do the most logical thing and just leave the booth until the individuals pass by, but since her body temperature is probably reaching its lowest point yet, she chooses the warmth of the booth and hopes that the group will pass her by without incident.

  As the group gets closer, Alexis can now distinguish that it consists of four women. The women are barely dressed, wearing exotic clothing and high-heel boots. The group is now close enough to the booth for Alexis to hear their crude conversation.

  “I told that nigga that if he didn’t hurry up and nut, his ass was just gone be shit out of luck.”

  Another woman responds, “Shit if that was me, I would’ve just left that nigga with his dick hanging. I don’t have time to be wasting on these mothafuckas.”

  “I started to do that, but he’s one of those types that don’t wanna pay until he bust,” the first woman replied.

  The oldest of the group spots Alexis and brings it to her friends’ attention. “Hey, look at that little girl in the booth.”

  “Yeah, what about her?” one of the women countered.

  “I wonder what’s she’s doing out here this late,” the older woman asked.

  “Who cares? That’s that bitch’s problem”

  “I know that’s right,” one of the other hookers agreed.

  The older woman refuses to let the situation rest and decides to put an end to her curiosity by confronting the young girl. “Y’all go ahead without me. I’m gonna see why this child is out here by herself.”

  “And that’s why we call you “Mama of the hoes”. You always trying to investigate shit that don’t seem right with every bitch you come across,” said one of the other women. “We’ll see you on the block, Mama,” the woman added.

  “Okay, baby.”

  Almost incoherent, Alexis hardly notices the older woman standing right in front of her. Believing that the woman may have asked her a question, Alexis can only think to say is “Huh?”

  The older woman repeats her question. “I said, what are you doing out here? Buses stopped running through this neighborhood years ago.”

  Extremely weak, Alexis speaks in a barely audible voice. “I’m not waiting for the bus. I ran away.”

  The older woman sits next to Alexis. “Look, I know I don’t know you and I know you don’t know me, but I’m gone tell you straight off…I’m nosey as hell. So saying something like that I have to ask, what made you runaway? I mean it has to be something bad because if it wasn’t you would’ve waited until spring came around to pull this shit.”

  “My Mama’s boyfriend was raping me. She used up all of his stash and told him to take what she owes him from me. He was gone sell me out to his friends.”

  “I see. Well, how come you out here in the cold? How come you didn’t find somewhere else to go?”

  “I don’t have any other place.”

  The woman stands up, reaches in her purse and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. When her cigarette is lit, she takes a deep breath and turns back toward Alexis. “That’s a real sad story, baby. Too bad it’s a story that I’ve heard from just about every female I know. Don’t let it get you down too much. It’s not your fault your mom’s a junkie and her boyfriend’s a sick fuck.” Alexis says nothing and continues to inadvertently shake from the chills. Observing this, the older woman then asks, “How long you been out here, girl?”

  Barely able to respond, Alexis forces the words the out. “Since last night.”

  “Last night?!” the woman repeated in shock. “You’ve been out here since last night?” The woman takes one more puff of her cigarette before tossing it to the ground.

  “Shit. Come on, girl. Let’s get you out of this cold ass weather.”

  Surprised that someone who she doesn’t even know is offering to help her out, Alexis grabs her bags and slowly gets up from the bench.

  “You can stay with me for a little while…At least until we figure out what we’re gonna do with you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Alexis gratefully stated.

  “Don’t be calling me ma’am. I ain’t that damn old. My name is Trina. Let me help you with that bag.” Trina takes hold of the black garbage bag and the two begin to walk up the street. “We better keep you talking to make sure you don’t blackout on me. So what’s your name, girl?”

  “Alexis.”

  “Alexis. I always liked that name. That’s what I was gone name my own baby, but she died during birth.”

  “How old would she have been?” asked Alexis.

  “She’d be six.”

  As the two continue up the street, a man pulls up alongside them and honks his horn twice. Another male who’s sitting in the front passenger
seat rolls down his window and shouts out, “What’s up, Big Mama?! You working tonight?!”

  “Not tonight, baby. I’m on babysitting duty. Candy and them are working, though.”

  “Alright then, I’ll just catch up to you later on,” said the man. The man rolls up his window and the car drives off.

  “So you’re a prostitute, huh?” Alexis asked bluntly.

  Trina smiles, “That’s one name for it. I personally prefer the term, ‘Lady of the night’.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Honey, please. I’ve been doing this for years. I make my own money, I got my own place, and I do it all without the assistance of any of these broke ass, so-called pimps. So believe me, I have nothing to be offended about.”

  It is at this particular moment that Alexis begins to admire Trina more than she’s ever admired any other woman she’s ever known. Due to her exhaustion she really doesn’t have the energy or focus to know what it is that makes her admire this woman so much, but she does. Maybe it’s because of her carefree spirit or maybe it’s because she blazes her own way and doesn’t rely on anyone or anything. Whatever it is that fuels her admiration, it’s definitely tweaked her interest as-well-as her curiosity towards Trina.

  CHAPTER 7

  WELCOME TO THE FAST LIFE

  A few weeks have passed since a compassionate prostitute took Alexis off the streets, offering her a place to stay. During the course of these three weeks the two have really gotten to know each other a lot better. With their relationship evolving at a geometric rate, the two have gone from being total strangers to almost having the mother-daughter relationship that Alexis could only dream of having with her own mom. But like in the relationship she had with her real mother, this one also comes with a price. It isn’t anything nearly as bad as what she endured while staying with her own mom…well, at least not up front anyway.