The Fire Between High & Lo

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  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 that 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.

  It wasn’t a cigarette at all. I should’ve known by the smell. “No.”

  His brows furrowed. “You said Julie Silverstone, right?” I nodded for the third time. He placed the joint in my hands. “Then you smoke pot. It will keep you warm. I’ll be back with your bitch of a mother.”

  “She’s not a,”—the door slammed b
efore he could hear me complete my sentence—“bitch.”

  I held the joint between my fingers and shivered in the cold.

  It will keep you warm.

  I was freezing.

  So I took a puff, and choked on my own coughing.

  I coughed hard for a long time, stomping out the joint into the ground. I didn’t understand why anyone would do that—why anyone would ever smoke. That was the moment I vowed to never smoke again.

  When the man came out, he was dragging Ma along with him. She was hardly awake, and sweaty.

  “Stop yanking me, Ricky!” she yelled at the man.

  “Shut the hell up, Julie. You left your damn kid out here all night, you fucking crackhead.”

  My fists formed and I puffed out my chest. How dare he talk to Ma like that! He didn’t know her. She was my best friend, other than my brother Kellan. And that guy had no right to talk to Ma like that. Kellan would’ve been so mad if he heard that guy. Good thing he wasn’t here and was with his father on some kind of ice fishing trip.

  I didn’t know people could fish when there was ice out, but Kellan told me all about it last week. Ma said ice fishing was for weirdos and losers.

  “I told you, Ricky! I ain’t using any more. I—I promise,” she stuttered. “I just stopped here to see Becky.”

  “Bullshit,” he replied, pulling her down the steps. “Come on, kid.”

  “Where are we going, Ma?” I asked, following behind my mom, wondering what was going to happen next.

  “I’m driving you two home,” the man replied. He put Ma in his passenger seat, where she closed her eyes and slumped over. Then he opened the back door for me, slamming it shut after I climbed inside. “Where do you stay?” he asked, climbing into the driver’s seat and driving off, away from the curb.

  His car was shiny and nice, nicer than any car I’d ever seen. Ma and I took the bus everywhere, so being in his car kind of made me feel like royalty.

  Ma started hacking and coughing, and tried her best to clear her throat. “See, that’s why I had to see Becky. My landlord is being a dick and told me that I didn’t pay the last two months! But I did, Ricky! I paid that asshole, and he’s acting like I didn’t. So I came to see Becky to get some money.”

  “Since when does Becky ever have money?” he asked.

  “She didn’t. She didn’t have money, I guess. But I had to see. Because the landlord said I can’t come back if I didn’t have the money. So I’m not sure where we should go. You should let me go check with Becky really quick,” she muttered, opening her passenger door as the car drove.

  “Ma!”

  “Julie!”

  Ricky and I shouted at the same time. I reached for her shirt from the backseat, and he pulled her shirt sleeve, jerking her in his direction, shutting the door with her.

  “Are you crazy?!” he hollered, his nostrils flaring. “Dammit. I’ll pay your bill tomorrow, but tonight you’ll stay at my place.”

  “You’ll do that, Ricky? God, we’d appreciate that a lot. Wouldn’t we, Lo? I’ll pay you back, I’ll pay you back every cent of it.”

  I nodded, feeling the heat finally kick in from the car.

  Warmth.

  “I’ll grab the kid some food, too. I doubt you fed him.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter shaped like a hula dancer. As he flicked the lighter on, the hula dancer moved side to side. I became hypnotized with the movement, unable to take my eyes off of it. Even when he finished lighting the cigarette, he flicked it on and off nonstop.

  When we arrived to Ricky’s apartment, I was blown away by how much stuff he had. Two sofas and a huge arm chair, paintings, a huge television with cable, and a refrigerator filled with enough food to feed the world. After eating, he set me up on one of the sofas, and I began to drift to sleep, listening to Ma and him whisper in the hallway nearby.

  “He has your eyes,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, I know.” His voice was filled with spite, but I wasn’t sure why. I listened to his footsteps grow closer to me, and opened my eyes to see him bending down next to me. His hands clasped together and he narrowed his eyes. “You’re my kid, huh?”

  I didn’t reply.

  Because what was I supposed to say?

  A sly smirk fell from the side of his mouth, and he lit a cigarette, blowing smoke into my face. “Don’t worry, Logan. I’ll take care of you and your mom. Promise.”

  ***

  At four in the morning when I finally came down from my high, I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Me: Are you up?

  I stared at my phone, waiting for the ellipses to appear, but they didn’t. When my phone rang, I took a breath.

  “I woke you up,” I whispered into the receiver.

  “Only a little,” Alyssa replied. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I’m fine.”

  You’ll be dead by twenty-five.

  “Was it your mom or your dad?”

  She always knew. “Mom.”

  “Was she high or sober?”

  “High.”

  “Did you believe whatever she said or not?” I hesitated, and started flicking my lighter on and off. “Oh, Lo.”

  “Sorry for waking you. I can hang up. Go back to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired,” she yawned. “Stay on the phone with me until you’re able to fall asleep, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “You’re okay, Logan Francis Silverstone.”

  “I’m okay, Alyssa Marie Walters.”

  Even though it felt like a lie, it was one that her voice almost always made me believe.

  Chapter Four

  Logan

  I never truly celebrated my birthday before two years ago when I met Alyssa. Kellan always took me out to dinner, and I loved that. He was pretty great at reminding me that I wasn’t alone in the world, but Alyssa went bigger than ever each year for my birthday. Two years ago, we went to Chicago to watch a documentary special on Charlie Chaplin at an old theatre, then she took me out to a fancy restaurant that I was way too underdressed for. She came from a lifestyle where fancy dinners were normal, I came from a world where dinner wasn’t always available. When she noticed my discomfort, we ended up walking down the streets of Chicago, eating hot dogs and standing under the giant bean.

  That was the first best day of my life.

  One year ago, there was a film festival going on in upper Wisconsin, and she rented out a cabin for us to stay in. We watched each and every film together for the whole weekend. We stayed up late discussing which movies inspired us, and which were made by people who probably dropped a lot of acid.

  That was the second best day of my life.

  But today was different. Today was my eighteenth birthday, it was past eleven at night, and Alyssa hadn’t called me once.

  I sat in my bedroom watching the DVD on Jackie Robinson while I listened to Ma stumble around the apartment. A pile of bills sat beside my bed, and I felt a tight knot in my stomach from fear of not making rent. If we weren’t able to make rent, Dad would never let us live it down. And if I asked him for help, I was certain Ma would pay the price.

  I reached under my bed and pulled out an envelope, checking the money I had saved up on my own. The words on the envelope made me sick.

  College funds.

  What a joke.

  I counted the money. Five hundred and fifty-two dollars. I’d been saving for two years now, ever since Alyssa made it seem like a thing I could do someday. I spent a lot of time thinking that one day I’d save enough to go to school, get a solid career, and buy a house for Ma and me to live in.

  We’d never have to rely on Dad for anything—the home would be ours, and only ours. We’d get clean, too. No more drugs, only happiness. Ma would cry because she was happy, not because he beat her.

  Sober Ma would come back, the one who used to tuck me in when I was young. The one who used to sing and dance. The one who used to sm
ile.

  It’d been such a long time since I’d seen that version of her, but a part of me held onto the hope that one day she’d come back. She has to come back to me.

  I sighed, taking out some cash from my college funds to pay the electric bill.

  Three hundred and twenty-three dollars left.

  And just like that, the dream seemed a bit further away.

  Taking out a pencil, I began to doodle on the electric bill. Drawing and zoning out on documentaries were my main way to escape reality. Plus, a weird, curly-head girl who smiled and talked too much had been appearing in my mind. Alyssa took up a lot more of my thoughts than she should have. Which was weird, because I didn’t really give a shit about people or what they thought of me.

  Caring about people made it too easy for them to mess with my mind, and my mind was already pretty much destroyed due to my love for my twisted mother.

  “No!” I heard shouting from the living room. “No, Ricky I didn’t mean to,” she cried.

  My stomach knotted.

  Dad was here.

  I pushed myself up from my mattress and hurried into the space. Dad was buff, and had more gray hair than black, more frowns than smiles, and more hate than love. He always dressed in suits, too. Really expensive looking suits, with ties and alligator shoes. Everyone in the neighborhood knew to keep their heads down when walking past him, because even looking him in the eye could’ve been dangerous. He was the biggest bully to walk the streets, and I hated him to my core. Everything about him disgusted me, but what I hated most was that I had his eyes.

  Whenever I looked at him, I always saw a piece of myself.

  Ma shivered in a corner, holding her cheek, which had his handprint against it. I watched as he went to smack her again, and I stepped in his way, taking the hit to my face. “Let her be,” I said, trying to act like his slap didn’t burn.

  “This ain’t got nothing to do with you, Logan,” he said. “Get out of the way. Your mother owes me money.”

  “I—I’ll have it, I swear. I just need time. I got an interview at a grocery store down the street this week,” she lied. Ma hadn’t applied for a job in years, yet somehow she always had these mysterious interviews that never turned into anything.