One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

  Maggie turned to Juju. “This is our new friend, Juju.”

  “I see her come to the house,” Seth said shyly, afraid she’d tell Thelma that he was bad because he talked to Maggie. “Is she gonna tell Thelma on me?” he asked in a whisper.

  “No, Seth. Juju is our friend. She helped me find you. Remember Cali and Max?” she asked.

  Seth nodded.

  “Well, Juju is like them. We can trust her. But listen, when you see Juju come to the house, you have to pretend like you don’t know her, OK? If not, then we’ll all get in big trouble.”

  “OK, but when am I coming to live with you?” he asked again, wanting desperately for Maggie to stay with him and take him far away from Thelma.

  “I’m working on it, Seth. You need to be patient. Do you know what that means?” Maggie asked, wanting to be certain he didn’t blow their cover.

  Seth shrugged.

  “It means that you’ll have to wait until we can get you out of there safely. If we make Thelma or Rock angry, they might hurt us. Do you understand?”

  “Like John William hurt Max?” Seth asked.

  “Yes, like that. Until then, I’m going to come here and meet you every day before school. I can walk you to school, and we can be together,” Maggie explained.

  Juju stepped forward and knelt to put herself at Seth’s eye level. “Hey, little man,” she said, “we’re gonna be good friends. We’re gonna be like the Three Musketeers, all for one and one for all.”

  Seth tilted his head. “Who are they?”

  “They were three friends that never left each other. They stayed together all the time. They watched over each other and did everything together,” Juju explained.

  Seth visibly relaxed and smiled at Juju. “OK, we can be the three musky tears,” he said with a smile.

  Maggie felt warmth rush to her heart at Juju’s words. She hugged Seth closer to her and as she held him, she mouthed, “Thank you” to Juju.

  Maggie and Seth talked the rest of the way to his school. He told her how Thelma treated him, and that he wasn’t able to talk to her unless she asked him questions. “Sometimes, she doesn’t let me eat dinner ’cause she says I need to get tough. She told me I can’t have everything I want, or I’ll be a spoiled brat,” he said solemnly. “But I’m real hungry when she does that and my tummy makes bubbly sounds when I try to go to sleep.”

  “Well, when we meet you in the mornings, I’ll bring you something to eat,” Maggie pledged.

  As Seth left the girls to head into the school, he kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure Maggie and Juju were still there. He wanted to run away with them and go to a place where people were nice. He hated school. All the kids were mean to him. However, he did have one teacher who was nice to him, even though the rest of his teachers looked at him like a worthless piece of white trash. But now that Maggie was back, he had a tiny sliver of hope that he would get to leave his school and, better yet, get to leave Thelma and all her nastiness.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  As the two girls walked back to the heart of Kensington, Maggie turned to Juju with a burning question. “Seth said Thelma has to take needles. Is she a drug addict?”

  “Yeah, the bitch is a major junky. She’ll shoot anything into her arms that she can melt down. I avoid her as much as possible when I’m in the house. She’s as crazy as they come,” Juju explained.

  “Oh God, Juju. How am I ever going to help Seth? I can’t even get myself out of my own mess,” she said, defeated.

  “Hey, what’s with all the self-pity? Pull yourself together, or you’ll never be able to help Seth. I don’t know what the answer is right now, but I’ll look out for him when I’m over Rock’s house, and we’ll see him every morning on his way to school. For now, that’s what you got. It’s better than what you had before, right?” Juju asked.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Maggie responded.

  “You guess? Well, you need to do better than that. This is something. It’s a start. We’ll figure it out together,” Juju said and put her arm over Maggie’s shoulder.

  Maggie was grateful that Juju had found her on that bitterly cold night. She didn’t feel alone any longer, and now, Juju was helping her with Seth. She clung to the words Juju had just spoken: We’ll figure it out together. Maggie realized that her friend was right…things were getting better.

  As the months passed and summer drew nearer, Maggie began to worry more about Seth. Once school let out, she wouldn’t have a way to see him. Thelma neglected and abused the poor little soul. He had told Maggie about all of the nights that he went to bed without dinner as he gobbled down jelly doughnuts like a savage on the mornings she met him. He also cried about the slaps and punches Thelma rained upon him when she couldn’t find “any of that white stuff for her needles.”

  Juju was Maggie’s eyes inside Rock and Thelma’s house. Maggie had come to learn that Seth was never allowed to go outside to play, so he had no friends. His easiest times were when Thelma was so high that she forgot he existed. On those nights, he could sneak into the kitchen after Rock left and make himself a mustard sandwich or fill a napkin with dry cereal. His worst times were when Thelma was waiting for more dope to be delivered. On those days, she would scream at him as soon as he got home from school. Seth’s silence during her tirades infuriated her more, but when he found his voice to answer her irrational questions, he’d be batted around and told he was disrespectful. Over time, he’d learned that neither silence nor speaking saved him from her cruelty.

  As the warmer weather approached and the days got longer, more undesirable people filled the streets of Kensington. This meant that Juju went to Rock’s house more often to pick up drugs. One warm day in mid-June, two days after school let out, Juju was at Rock’s house. As she moved through the house, she noticed that Seth wasn’t anywhere in sight. She wondered if he was upstairs in one of the bedrooms and tried to find a reason to go up, but she didn’t want to make Rock suspicious.

  Juju’s anxiety grew as the time drew closer for her to leave the house; she lingered, waiting for Seth to show up. As she walked down the front steps, she heard a commotion coming from the back of the house. Kids were screaming and laughing, but their laughter made the little hairs on her arms stand up. She slowly made her way to the back of the house like a ninja. Then she saw that five rowdy children had gathered. They were teasing and taunting someone, and as Juju turned the corner, there was Seth with a chain fastened around his ankle, just like a family pet.

  Juju turned to the pack of kids, her teeth exposed like a rabid dog’s. She seethed with anger. “If I ever catch you little motherfuckers teasing him again, I will rip your hearts out with my bare hands. Now, get the fuck outta here before I kill all of you!”

  Juju got on her hands and knees and crawled over to Seth. “What happened?”

  “Thelma said she wanted me to be outside since the weather is warm. But then when I got out here, she put this on my ankle. All the kids were watching, and then they started to laugh. Thelma told them they could look at me, but they can’t play with me ’cause I’m an animal that doesn’t have no manners,” he said, sobbing.

  “Well, Thelma’s a no-good motherfucker who deserves—” Juju stopped herself in midsentence, remembering that she was talking to a very damaged seven-year-old boy. “Thelma is wrong, and she doesn’t know anything about you. You are a sweet person, and she’s just stupid. Nothing she says matters. You have to remember that. Maggie and me, we need you to be strong. Remember, all for one and one for all, buddy,” she said, trying to give him hope.

  Seth sat on the grass, his shoulders slouched, and his arms folded over his chest. He nodded without any enthusiasm. Juju looked into his lifeless eyes, and then she took in the dirty face and the hair so long and greasy that the kids said he looked like a girl. His clothes were a size too small, and his fingernails had dirt packed under them. He was a pathetic sight. Seth’s tears ran through the grime on his face, leaving streaks of pink s
kin. Juju reached out and gave him a tight squeeze. “I have to run. Hang in there,” she told him.

  As Juju walked back to town, she was blazing with anger and fought the instinct to go into a violent rage on whomever she laid eyes. She wondered what it would take for Rock to give the boy up. She’d known Rock for a long time, and he wasn’t one to do anything that would upset his beloved, belligerent, obnoxious beast of a wife, Thelma.

  Seth’s dull, flat, blue eyes were stuck in her mind, and the rumble of his belly rang in her ears. She walked faster as her desire to help him overpowered any discipline she had acquired over her anger. There has to be a way to help him, she thought.

  A few blocks later, Juju saw Maggie leaning into a man’s car. She waited on the sidewalk until Maggie approached. “I just saw Seth,” she said, her eyes narrowing and her hands balled into tight fists.

  Maggie’s lungs froze in mid-breath, terror mounting about what Juju was going to tell her. “What’s happened? Is he OK?”

  “He is for now, but he ain’t gonna be forever. We need to think of something soon. That crazy-ass, drug-sucking dunce, Thelma, is gonna fuck him up for the rest of his life,” Juju said, her anger finally boiling over. She picked up an empty beer bottle and threw it against a building. The bottle shattered into a million pieces, making a loud noise that drew the attention of everyone within hearing distance.

  “Bitch!” Armando screamed, pointing at Maggie. “Get your ass back to work!”

  The two girls looked in his direction. “I gotta go,” Maggie said. “I won’t be any good to Seth if I get on Armando’s bad side. I’ll swing by your apartment in the morning.”

  “Yeah, in the morning,” Juju mumbled, as she walked away.

  Maggie turned back to Armando. “Sorry,” she yelled and strutted toward a gray-haired man who was eyeing her with lust.

  “Hey, baby,” Maggie purred, “you need a date?”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The next day, Rock pulled Juju into his living room. “Look, I know you’ve been hangin’ out with Maggie. I ain’t got no problem wit’ that as long as the bitch continues to earn her quota. I want you to mind your business, though. Otherwise, ya ain’t gonna be too happy,” he said calmly.

  “Yeah, Maggie’s cool, Rock. We hang out, but she still sees to her work just like me. We ain’t done anything to make you worry, and we ain’t plannin’ on doing nothin’,” Juju answered coolly.

  Juju saw movement in the hall and looked over to see Seth walking with Thelma into the kitchen. For a few seconds, she fought her instincts to run after them. Rock noticed the change in her.

  “Why are you staring at them? They ain’t none of your business. Like I said a minute ago, don’t even think about causing any trouble,” he stated and waited for a reply.

  “Fuck, Rock. I said I wouldn’t. Can we get my dope? I’m losing customers standing here talking to you about this shit,” she said, acting frustrated.

  Rock and Juju walked into the kitchen to get the heroin. He kept it in the freezer during the summer to keep it from melting. Juju stood beside him, watching him intently, knowing if he saw her look at Seth, who was sitting at the table, he’d be onto her. She followed Rock over to the kitchen table and sat across from Seth while he counted out bags. The boy looked at her, and she only dared to make eye contact once when Thelma pushed him off his chair and onto the floor because she heard his stomach growling.

  Rock looked over at Thelma. “Come on, baby, why don’t cha give the boy somethin’ to eat?”

  “When the boy can act like a human fucking being, that’s when I’ll let him eat,” she yelled back.

  Then Thelma stood, hurried Seth outside, and chained him to the railing of the back steps. Rock watched, and for a brief moment, Juju thought she saw empathy in his eyes. Then he went back to counting out bags. When he was finished, Juju scooped the small dime bags into her backpack and headed toward the front door. “The streets are packed. I’m probably gonna blow through these bags fast, so I’ll be back later tonight or tomorrow,” she said.

  Once outside, Juju sneaked around to the back of the house. She crouched low and kept her body against the building so Thelma couldn’t see her from the back window as she made her way over to Seth. “Here,” she said, putting two cheese crackers in his palm. She pulled a bottle of water from her backpack. “Cup your hand,” she whispered.

  When Seth did this, she poured water into his hand slowly. He slurped it down as quickly as she was pouring it. “Eat the crackers and make sure to wipe your hands on the grass here,” she said, pointing next to him. “You don’t want bitch face to see that your hands are orange,” she cautioned.

  “Where’s Aggie? Can you tell her to come and see me?” he asked in a frail voice.

  “I’ll tell her I saw you, but she won’t be able to come here. Rock can’t find out I talked to you. Remember that!” she told him.

  “OK, but will you tell Aggie that I miss her?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell her, buddy. Just hang on, OK? We’re trying to figure something out. We’re making a plan to get you away from here,” she said, wanting to leave him with hope.

  Seth watched Juju until she disappeared around the side of the house. Then he shoved a whole cracker in his mouth and gobbled it so quickly that he practically swallowed it whole. He sat chained to the railing and thought about going to live with Maggie. It was the only peace of mind he knew.

  As the weeks passed, Juju went to Rock’s every day. At the end of July, after a second trip to Rock’s house in the same day to pick up dope, she began to panic. It had been five days since she’d last seen Seth, and she was worried that Thelma had killed him. She didn’t tell Maggie because she knew it would only make her crazy. Finally, Juju asked Rock, “So where’s the kid? He ain’t been around.”

  “What the fuck do you care?” Rock stated, confrontationally.

  “I don’t. I was just making conversation. He’s usually around, or I see Thelma put him out back. I was curious, is all. Just forget it,” Juju said, trying to seem disinterested.

  “He’s in the basement. His stupid white ass got sunburned out in the backyard. He looked like a tomato,” he snickered. “Damn skin was peeling, and he kept crying. I gave him some lotion and put him down in the basement ’cause I figured Thelma would beat the shit out of him if he kept up that cryin’ like a girl.”

  “Well, is he OK?” Juju asked nonchalantly, her heart bouncing against her ribs so hard she was sure Rock would see it beating through her T-shirt.

  “How the hell do I know? I put him down there a couple of days ago. I left him with water and a bag of pretzels. Haven’t seen him since,” Rock said, as he casually went back to placing small amounts of heroin into tiny bags.

  Juju hesitated, and after several minutes, built up enough nerve to ask her next question. “Can I go down and see the kid? I have an idea.”

  “Nah, you ain’t seeing him. But tell me about that idea of yours,” Rock said, annoyed.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  On Juju’s way back to the apartment, after leaving Rock’s house, she ran into Maggie.

  “Hey, baby, you want a date?” Maggie asked a middle-aged, overweight slob.

  “Nope, I got my own bitch at home. I don’t need to catch none of your diseases,” the man growled.

  Juju heard what the man said to Maggie as she approached them. “Yeah, your bitch must be a real fuckin’ saint to put up with you. You’re a disgusting pig,” Juju thrust back at him.

  Maggie started to laugh. “One day, you’re gonna get your ass beat, Juju. I’ve learned to ignore people like him. What’s going on? Did you see Seth today?”

  Juju shook her head. “Haven’t seen him in five days. Thelma’s high most of the time. Seems like all the time now. They’ve been keeping him down in the basement.”

  Maggie visibly cringed.

  “Anyway, I had an idea and told Rock about it tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes,” Juju explained,
smiling like a Cheshire cat.

  “Are you going to tell me?” Maggie nudged her.

  “Nope. Don’t want to get your hopes up. I ain’t got time to deal with your crybaby ass,” she teased.

  “My crybaby ass, huh? Come on, tell.”

  “Nah. If it works, you’ll know soon enough,” Juju said.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  In the clammy, dark basement at Rock’s house, Seth was lying on the cement floor. His sunburn had faded since he’d been locked down there, but the blisters had popped, and his legs and arms were peppered with open wounds. Seth finished the food Rock had given him on the second day, and he was so hungry that his stomach was twisted in knots. He rubbed his belly and kept licking his fingers and dipping them into the empty pretzel bag, hoping to find a crumb. He was about to fall asleep again when the basement door was flung open, and the light from the upper floor blinded him. Seth looked up at Rock’s large silhouette in the doorway at the top of the stairs. He was scared of Rock—even more scared than he was of John William.

  “Get your ass up here, boy!” Rock commanded.

  Seth began to climb the steps. “What did I do?” he asked tearfully.

  “You didn’t do nothin’. It’s what you’re gonna do,” Rock stated with certainty.

  Seth followed Rock into the living room. He had gone to the bathroom in his clothes while he was stuck in the basement, and the smell offended Rock. “You smell like shit, boy!”

  Seth shrank away, afraid that Rock would hit him. “Come closer. I ain’t gonna hurt you,” Rock assured.

  Seth stepped toward the sofa and spotted a discarded can of Coke on the floor. He eyed it with desire, thinking about the sugary liquid sliding down his dry throat. Rock followed his gaze.

  “Go ahead. You can have it,” he told Seth.

  Seth moved toward the sofa. He wanted to run, but he was just too weak. He lifted the can and guzzled the warm, flat contents. After he drank every drop, he looked back at Rock.