by Leah Wilde
It wasn’t even a particularly good story. We were headed down the road; a drunk driver swerved across the partition doing ninety in his pickup truck. Boom, bang, life over. Happened every goddamn day. No dignity in that shit.
But if you didn’t remember something, how could you be sure it was real? I didn’t remember my parents one bit, and for all that I knew, the bastards at the holding facility for state wards, the place where I grew up, could have invented the whole damn story. I wouldn’t know the difference.
A head-on collision at ninety miles an hour seems like something worth remembering, but maybe the impact shook up my soft, underdeveloped baby brain and turned that particular memory into mush. I guessed it doesn’t matter much. I woke up in a hospital, and that was where it all really started for me. White all around, electric beeps, and not a single person in the world who gave a fuck whether I lived or died. Not much had changed since.
For as rough of a start as that was, it got worse. Most of the time, babies get adopted into foster families way quicker than anyone else. They’re cuter, I supposed, or else would-be parents just didn’t like the idea of picking up a child who’d already gotten someone else’s fingerprints all over it. Kinda gross, goes the thinking. Like using a fork that another poor sob just slobbered all over. Babies were preferable. That way, they were a clean slate. You got to fuck them up yourself.
But I didn’t get adopted at all. I lingered there. I liked to imagine that there was something to me that scared away the people every visiting day, a big shadow haunting those baby eyes of mine. I’d seen shit. One look at me and you knew it. Parents didn’t want that. They wanted innocence, purity, childlike wonder. I didn’t ever have any of that bullshit. I was then the same thing that I was now—a cold-blooded son of a bitch. I was an outcast from day one.
When you grew up in the shadows like I did, you learned a lot about people. Folks act differently when they think no one is looking. They get sloppy, show you who they really are. They steal and pick their nose and scratch wedgies out of their asses. But that’s just the little shit. Sometimes, you saw truly fucked-up things.
Like when I peeked my head around the doorway of the state facility late one night and saw the teacher, Ms. Parker, bent over a desk with her skirt hiked up high while the security guard plowed into her with his fat, greasy dick. I’d never seen someone moan like that before. Shit, I thought she was getting killed at first. Took me a minute to connect the shit I was seeing with the rumors the older kids were always going on about—sex. Fucking. You know, the good shit.
This prim little teacher getting rammed by an illiterate semi-retard making what, eight bucks an hour? How could she do shit like that and then pretend to get mad when I drifted off during her stupid ass lessons? Fucking hypocrite. Fucking liar. Most of all, fucking whore. I didn’t have the words back then to say all that out loud or even to think it, but I knew that I wanted out of that place. It wasn’t for me.
Which was how I came to be tying together bedsheets in the middle of the night. Eight years old and I was working like a goddamn slave, knotting those things together and pulling on them as hard as my scrawny arms would allow to test the strength and make sure I wasn’t gonna end up four stories below with a sudden and undesirable right turn in the bones of my neck.
“Psst!” hissed Charlie. He slept in the bunk above me. He’d been there just as long as I had. He wasn’t about to get adopted, either. A club foot was bad enough on its own, but when you have a lazy eye, too…well, I guessed some kids just had shitty luck. Charlie was one of them. He was gonna be a lifer in the group home. I almost felt bad for the guy. But I was even more determined to get the hell out.
“What do you want?” I whispered back.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I answered immediately, “Getting the fuck away from this place.” I’d never cursed out loud before. It felt good. A nice meaty, grating tone to the word. It came out of my mouth ugly and grim, just like I wanted. Fuck. I liked that one.
I heard the sound of sheets thrashing, then the clunk-slush of Charlie struggling his way down the ladder. He hobbled around the bed to stand in front of me. “You’re leaving?” he asked, bug-eyed in awe.
I nodded fiercely, not looking up from the long rope of sheets passing under my hands. I pulled hard on every knot, making sure it would be able to hold my weight.
“What are you gonna do? Where you gonna go?” he said.
I paused and fixed my gaze on him. I did everything I could to screw a serious expression to my face, clenching my jaw as I spit out, “Anywhere but here.”
I hated the white everywhere. Not everything was so light and happy all the time. The shit they tried to make us see and think was so fake. Bright primary colors and stories about kids with puppies who went home to their families? What a load of bullshit. Every time Ms. Parker tried to reprimand me to pay attention, all I could think about was her bent over that desk, legs spread wide as the man in the jumpsuit fucked her through a torn hole in her pantyhose.
“But how are you gonna, like, eat?” Charlie persisted. “And where will you stay? You can’t just leave!”
“Quiet,” I said, “you’re yelling.” He bit his lip and shushed. I took one end of the rope in my hand and squatted by the bedpost where it stood on the floor. “I can do whatever I want,” I told him as I carefully passed the coiled sheets around the post and fixed a knot to anchor it down. “Here, hold this.”
He took the fabric I offered him in his bunched hands. “Tighter,” I commanded. He leaned back, gritting hard and throwing his whole weight against the tension. I used his leverage to cinch the knot as tight as I could get it. Satisfied, I stood up and wiped the sweat from my hands.
“Time to go,” I whispered. Charlie’s eyes were still riveted on me. I turned and scooped from under the bed the small bag I’d filled. It only had a sandwich and the few clothes I owned. The night yawning through the window was black as hell, but I wasn’t scared. I wanted out and away. Nothing else mattered.
I picked up the rest of the sheets and tossed them out the window. They unwound and clunked against the side of the building softly. Peeking out, I saw them reach almost all the way to the ground. Perfect.
I looked at Charlie one last time. Even then, I knew that there was something different about me. I wasn’t the same kind of kid as him. It wasn’t just that I’d seen shit. My parents were dead, yeah, but then again, so were his. I wasn’t getting adopted, but he wasn’t, either. The thing was, that shit didn’t matter. Plenty of brats in here had the same kind of miserable, tear-soaked life. We were all pathetic in the eyes of the world, whimpering little runts, so desperate to be saved or loved or whatever.
But I wasn’t desperate. I didn’t need any of that. I wasn’t yet sure what I needed, but I knew I had to go find it for myself. So when I climbed out the window, I wasn’t sad or frightened.
I was ready.
Or at least, I thought I was ready. When I heard the ripping sound, halfway down the four-story descent, my heart froze. I looked up just in time to see the last few frays of the sheets pop off one by one. The sharp, rusty edge of the windowsill had sliced right through them like a knife. Cheap fabric like this was no match for it. Every tiny jolt of my body ripped another strand. The ground was still a good twenty-foot drop below me. I stayed as still as I could, not sure whether to go up or down.
A few seconds later, the choice was taken out of my hands. A tiny breeze pushed me, swaying like a pendulum, and the increased pressure against the windowsill was all it took to finish parting the fabric. I fell silently through the night. The bushes below didn’t break my fall. All they did was add some bloody scratches to go with the snapping of my ankle.
I laid under the shrubs, groaning softly. Tears were threatening to well up in my eyes. I forced them back, but I couldn’t believe I’d fucked up so fast. Barely a minute out of the door and I’d already gotten hurt.
I looked down at my foot. It was t
wisted at a strange angle, pointing farther inside than I’d ever thought possible. Pain radiated up it like sunbeams. I was in agony. “Fuck,” I said. That was the only word that even got close to expressing how badly it hurt. “Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.”
The arc of a flashlight piercing the distance caught my attention. It was headed this way. If I got caught here, I was dead meat. I’d never see sunlight again. The facility didn’t have time to deal with runaway risks. The only place equipped to deal with that was juvie, and I sure as hell didn’t want to end up there. I had to keep going forward with the original plan.
Struggling to my feet, I waited until the flashlight swung for a beat to the opposite side of the field. Then I limped out into the darkness as fast as I could, pain erupting in my leg with every step. But I didn’t stop.
Pain couldn’t make me stay here.
# # #
If I thought that I’d made a mistake when I first left the orphanage, then I learned what that word truly meant two weeks later. A sandwich could only last so long, and the clothes I’d brought with me weren’t all that warm. An early-onset winter meant I was spending my nights shivering on abandoned stoops and the grimy underside of concrete overpasses. Chicago sure wasn’t friendly to the homeless.
Hunger was a real bitch. It took me over from the inside, making my teeth ache and my skin shiver. I couldn’t think straight, could barely see or stand up. I’d managed to steal a few candy bars from the local bodega on the corner, but after the man behind the counter had caught me in the act last time around, I didn’t dare go back. I’d barely managed to run out in time to avoid getting snatched up and beaten.
I thought about all the meals I was missing back at the group home. The food tasted awful, but at least it was three meals a day, enough to keep my belly from caving in the way it had started to do.
Yet as hungry as I was, there was no going back. I’d made a choice, and I didn’t renege on my choices. I was going to make it out here come hell or high water. I’d find a place to live and food to eat and I’d be my own man.
But first, I needed some money.
It was easy to spot the men who had cash to spare. They stood on the corner in big, fur-lined parkas, laughing loudly and rolling dice on the sidewalk while they threw around crisp twenties as wagers on the games they played.
The rich men sold drugs. Filthy, deranged men and women would stagger up to them, begging for product, and forking over crumbled bills in exchange for a tiny plastic baggie of something brown and moist. I’d never tried it, but the junkies acted like the brown stuff was a miracle from God. Their faces would light up, they’d spread their lips to reveal dirty, gap-toothed smiles, and they’d skip away with joy in their step. Then they’d be back two days later, looking worse than ever, begging for more.
I didn’t care about the crackheads. They were only a means to an end. What I wanted was the money. That was the ticket to getting everything going the way it was supposed to go.
I needed to learn more. One day, I stood across the street from one of the drug dealers. I ignored the roaring in my stomach. The dealer was a big, burly white guy. He wore the hood of his jacket pulled up. His eyes squinting out from beneath the lip of the parka were black and beady. He scanned the streets, back and forth, always on the lookout for cops or enemy dealers infringing on his territory.
I waited until there was a break in traffic before limping over. My ankle still hurt like a bitch, but I did my best to hide it. Coming to a stop in front of the man, I crossed my arms and drew myself up tall.
I cut straight to the chase. “How do I get some money?” I asked him.
He barely looked down. “Get the fuck outta here, li’l kid,” he said.
But I wasn’t going anywhere. “I want money,” I said firmly, careful to pitch my voice a few octaves lower so I wouldn’t give away my age.
“I said scram.”
I dug my heels in, stared up at him with the meanest face I could muster, and repeated myself. “I want money.”
The man sighed, exasperated. “Look, kid, I’m not gonna tell you again. This ain’t no place for a scrawny little bitch like you. Come back when you’re older.” He pushed me and I stumbled backwards, then he went back to eyeing the passerby.
Even at that age I didn’t like being talked down to. Didn’t this man know who I was? I had run away from a state facility. I was a man of the streets now. I wasn’t going to tolerate his disrespect.
I reached out and gave him a two-handed shove. I pushed hard, but my hands only sunk deeper into his protruding gut.
“What the…” he said, then he sighed again, withdrew a hand from his pocket, and swatted me across the face. I crumbled immediately under his blow, slamming into the pavement a yard away, my head cracking hard on the ground. Dizziness surged through my vision, blurring the lines of everything around me.
The dealer didn’t look back at me. As I lay on the ground, blinking through the dull pain, an emaciated old lady staggered up to him, moaning something through her toothless gums. They began to argue back and forth, though I could hardly make out their words through the deafening tone ringing through my ears. Eventually, they settled on something. Drugs and money exchanged hands.
I pushed myself to a seat, still reeling from the smack of my head on concrete. I watched while the dealer counted out the bills he’d received carefully, then pulled out a huge wad of cash from his back pocket and added the new ones to the roll. When he was done, he tucked it back in.
I could see the thick stack of green peeking over the edge of his denim. A scowl set in over me. Who did this bastard think he was, knocking me around like that? I was going to show him. That money was going to be mine.
The swirling giddiness had started to settle down and the world regained its order. I clambered up slowly, ignoring the pain lancing through my head and ankle. I was a man of the streets. I took what I wanted. No one was going to stop me, least of all this dumb, pig-eyed son of a bitch.
When another customer came tottering up to him, I took my chance. Springing forward, I snatched the roll of cash from his back pocket, tucked it under my arm, and booked it around the corner.
Every step was agony, but I couldn’t afford to stop. I heard pounding footsteps and raised voices coming from behind me. “Get the fuck back here, you little cunt!” the dealer roared. Other people joined him in chasing after me.
The cold air was like daggers on the inside of my lungs and throat. I wove between pedestrians, desperate to find a spot to hide. If they caught me, they’d kill me, simple as that.
The weight of the money was intoxicating. I’d never held so much cash at one time before. It was heavy, palpable. I couldn’t wait to pour over it and let its power wash over me. This was the shit. I was headed for the top. No one could stop me.
Then I whipped around a corner and collided face-first with the knee of a tall businessman in a suit. All my momentum stopped at once. He looked down, startled to see a dazed little kid had run into him. But he didn’t stop. He stepped over me and kept on barking orders into his cell phone as he retreated into the distance.
“Wait,” I gasped, stumbling on wavering legs. The breath had been knocked out of my lungs. I couldn’t manage to suck in more air. “Fuck…” I sputtered. This time, the word wasn’t satisfying. It was just ugly.
I couldn’t do anything to resist as rough hands picked me up and carried me into a nearby back alley. “You fucking little shit,” snarled the man. He reared back and buried a fist in my stomach. I felt a rib give way under his knuckles.
“You think you can fucking steal from me? Fuck you. Nobody steals from me.” He hurled me against the brick wall. I slammed into it, then slid down to the wet, dirty concrete. My eyes fluttered open just in time to see a tan boot wind up and then swing into my jaw.
The world erupted in fireworks. More blows followed, battering my legs, my head, my torso. Bone crunched and blood dripped while the man beat the ever-living shit out of me.
When he’d finished venting his anger on my helpless body, he plucked the cash from my limp grasp and walked away. I could only see his boots as he disappeared around the corner.
The electricity in my brain was dim and sputtering. I could only focus on one thought, one word: fuck.
Chapter 2
Isabel
“Isabel, what the hell do you think you are doing?”
My father’s voice was as angry as always. It ripped through the heat of the kitchen and pierced my ears with its shrill fury. He soon followed, bundling around the corner, his cheeks purpled with rage. The tendons of his neck stood out stark against his flesh.
I froze in place. The dolls on the tiled floor in front of me were worn and filthy. Their hair was a matted mess, limbs were missing, and every article of clothing was as threadbare and tattered as the ones I wore myself. It made sense—after all, they’d been fished out of the garbage—but it didn’t matter to me. I loved them anyway, even Angelica, the one without a right eyeball. She had a sweet smile painted on.