Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  After this, Rodriguez got Vincent a towel so he could take a shower. When Vincent was done, he put his borrowed clothes back on and walked to Rodriguez's room. The door was open, so he went in. Rodriguez was sitting on his bed, reading a college magazine. This seemed to depress Vincent further, but he hid this feeling when Rodriguez noticed him and put the magazine under his bed.

  You idiot. Vincent's mouth twitched as he watched this. That's where you're supposed to hide your freaking porn…not college crap.

  That cheered the boy up a bit and he got the wheeled chair and moved it to the desk when Rodriguez told him too. They sat and waited for their entertainment to be provided by the technology of the laptop. Neither of them knew what they wanted to do on the laptop, but once they were on the internet, Rodriguez decided to type in Youtube and search 'piano songs'. Vincent corrected him by reaching over and back spacing, typing in 'piano music', instead.

  William heard the pipes rush with water as the boys' occupied the showers. She was sealing the lid of the tubberware that contained the left-over pizza from dinner. When she moved to the refrigerator, she passed her mother as the woman rinsed off her dish in the sink. "How well do we know Vincent?"

  The fridge opened just as Richard opened the dishwasher. She closed it again and looked at her child. "He has stayed at our house before…and I know a bit of his background. He won't hurt Rodriguez, or you for that matter…or even me. How you saw him towards the end of dinner is how he acted, for the most part, the last time he stayed here." William was leaning on the door of the fridge as she listened to her mother, watching the light hit the white tiled floor. She looked at the woman as she continued to speak. "As for his anger…and the hissing sounds…" Richard shook her head and gave a worn sigh, allowing her eyes to keep the tiles company now that William had abandoned them. "…I guess he does that when he feels threatened…or in this case, Jake, who he believes is his friend. But the boy is not a threat to us, William."

  The girl waited a moment, and then changed the subject. "Vincent didn't introduce us to Jake…" This caught Richard's attention, and she stared at the girl who crossed her arms and tried not to fidget like her younger brother, but failed. "Alex and I met Vincent this afternoon and then Alex wanted to visit Vincent…at his apartment, I guess. But we couldn't find his room, or the number, so we asked around." The girl frowned suddenly, tightening her arms unconsciously around her chest. "And we met this really rude…little man who gave me some pretty lewd looks, and he called Vincent 'Street-Shit'…" William shook her head in disgust as Richard's eyes became slits for a moment, holding the same feeling. "And we met Jake on the stairs…well, he was on the stairs, we weren't… But, anyway, Vincent had nothing to do with it. He didn't even want us around there. He kept on telling Rodriguez to leave…and for me to leave too, but we wouldn't listen." She looked at her mother, able to conquer her timid nature. "I think he knows he lives around dangerous people…and I can't help but think…would he…" Her eyes dropped to the floor and she relaxed her posture, to create a pause. "…would he make those strange sounds…would he curse and get involved in street fights if he hadn't grown up in that kind of environment? Because…sometimes…I see him like he's two people." William was quiet after that, and the look in her mother's eyes told her that she wasn't alone in her opinion.

  Richard turned away after telling her daughter that she was a good girl, and wished her a good night. Yes. Vincentimir was like two people…as were most kids his age. One was the child he was when he was younger…and one was whoever he was becoming. But that doesn't only involve teenagers. You look at any individual and you will find that something of who they were as a kid, is still in them. You see it in a fifty-five year old business man who bends down to pet and throw a ball for a dog. A prisoner that adopts a hurt animal and makes it their best friend, buying it toys with the little money he or she can earn. So Richard couldn't help but see an abandoned child in Vincent, even when he snarled and bared his teeth like a dog. There was a look in his eye and a ring in his laugh that spoke of hollowness…that he needed people to care about him and see the child within him without taking it as a sign of weakness and pummeling him into the ground.

  The woman retired to her bedroom with these thoughts.

  Big blues eyes blinked from the doorway, observing the two teenage boys that were watching a computer screen. But…what were they doing? The girl asked when Vincent glanced back at her. "Are you guys listening to classical music?"

  Vincent sat, swiveling back and forth in his chair as Rodriguez answered, moving to show the girl the computer screen. "Pianists. We're looking up pianists or just piano music on Youtube."

  William frowned, baffled by the response. "Why?"

  "Because Vincent likes the piano."

  Red went to the blonde boy and then his sister, interested in how she would react while he didn't appreciate the fact that Rodriguez hadn't asked him first if he could tell the girl this information. William' face showed even more confusion as she focused on Vincent. "Do you play the piano?"

  Pale lips parted to answer, but Rodriguez cut them off by readily responding with a hint of antagonism in his tone. "He's awesome, amazing, a hundred-million times better than you, William." The boy grinned as his sister's features darkened. Rivalry sparked from the girl, but Vincent would have none of it as he shook his head and jabbed Rodriguez in the shoulder.

  "Stupid fat ass doesn't know what he's talking about." He hissed and bit down on the inside of his cheek when William ignored this.

  "Andy-Alex…bring your friend downstairs. I want to show him how to really play the piano." She marched off while Vincent stared at her and Rodriguez chuckled, rubbing his shoulder. He pulled the reluctant Vincent from his swivel-rolly chair…dragging the chair halfway across the room before it snagged, sinking into the lush carpet, and toppled over. Muttering heinous curses at the jock, Vincent took his time making his way down the stairs, burying his hands into the oversized jean's pockets. Once they made it to the white chairs and sat down to listen to William who was waiting smugly on the white bench, Vincent's cheek felt like he had bitten right through it. He stopped biting his cheek as some interest passed through him, and he left the chair to stand behind William to watch as her fingers poised for the first note.

  She was good…all of her notes were exactly as the music sheets instructed…but it didn't have enough emotion. It was…a little flat in Vincent's opinion, but he didn't care. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen a live 'performance' like this, so when the girl was done he was smiling, surprising William when she turned to smirk at him. She looked questioningly at the expression until Rodriguez's loud voice made her brow furrow and her eyes glare at Vincent and the blonde boy.

  "Vincent would beat you easily. You'll see…hey Vincent, play a song. Or, play the song you wrote." Came the haughty voice. Vincent glowered at the teen in the chair while William pouted.

  "So you compose?" She patted the bench and got up, crossing her arms. "So play…make my little baby brother happy, Vincent."

  Vincent stood like a fixed statue, narrow eyes hidden by his hair. The siblings waited patiently, but to their amazement, Vincent left them. When Rodriguez went after him, asking why he wouldn't play, the boy locked himself in the spare bedroom and refused to answer no matter how many times Rodriguez knocked or rattled the door. Rodriguez kept his hand on the doorknob as his sister watched him awkwardly, back by the stairs.

  "Alex…" Rodriguez didn't look away from the door as William chewed on her lip and gazed at her baby blue socks. "Don't make him play if he doesn't want to."

  "But he's good at it!" Rodriguez spun around, his mouth heavy with confusion and frustration. He gave up and marched to his room and shut the door. Why did Vincent have to do this? Now he felt so guilty…when he hadn't done anything wrong!

  William went to her own room and closed the door behind her, going to her alarm clock-radio and switching it on. She knew that the wall separating the guest ro
om from her room wasn't good for blocking out sound, so she turned up the volume and switched it to her favorite channel. Alex wouldn't be able to hear the music because the bathroom spaced the two siblings' rooms too far apart.

  The girl knew that it would be better to let the boy chose to play on his own…and that her indirect persuasion was more effective than banging on the door. To her disappointment, she wasn't able to hear Vincent play the piano that night.

  Rodriguez was reading his magazine, glaring at the words as he had to reread a sentence multiple times to make sure he was listening to his own thoughts and could remember what it had said. He remained on the same page for five straight minutes, and never managed to get any further. Vincent opened his door. The green eyes turned their glare to him and Rodriguez dropped his magazine on his bed. "What was that all about? Why wouldn't you play? Why did you lock yourself in…"

  "I told you, Rodriguez. I don't play for just anyone at any time."

  It was quiet as the teens eyed one another. Rodriguez couldn't recall having been told this before. "What are you talking about?"

  Vincent frowned at him and then lost the expression as he realized his mistake. "I told the Chief that…not you." Oh…. You retard. He crossed his arms to take back some of his dignity. "Sorry. But…now I've told you. I don't play just because someone asks me too. I play for someone, or I just play in general, because I want to."

  Rodriguez sighed and then furrowed his brow. "What's the big deal? It's just William. You don't hate her, do you?"

  "No, it's not that Rodriguez." Red was wandering about the floor, finding the upturned wheely chair and a left shoe poking out from under the bed. "I don't know her very well, and I didn't want to play just to compete with her or show off. I'm not into that kind of stuff, Rodriguez."

  This time the boy understood and he lowered his gaze to the floor as well, exhaling an 'oh'. Opps. The one being stupid here…was him. "Sorry…didn't mean to pressure you or anything like that. I thought you wouldn't mind…that you'd enjoy it…for some reason."

  They didn't say anything for a while. Then Vincent told Rodriguez to stop hiding his college magazines with his porn, and left the room to go to bed.

  The hallway beyond the partially opened door was dimly lit by the soft lightened darkness of an approaching dawn. It was the pale sort of light that casts all that it falls upon under a colored shade much like its own. Since this light was a mixture of grey and blue, the white paint on the walls and the threads of the carpet were bluish and grey. The quiet that is only possible within a closed room, empty and ghost-like in the early morning hours, threw its own shadows to mingle with the dawn's light. Vincent observed the effects of these unsubstantial and generally unacknowledged powers of the inanimate, before dispelling their influence for an abrupt moment by widening his door and leaving the room, his bare feet brushing the carpet as he walked down the hall to reach the white railed stairs. He descended them slowly, allowing his hand to run over the cool surface of the rail while his ears listened to the unique quiet. Somehow he could feel that it was not undisturbed. Following this sense, his feet met the much colder touch of the tiles at the bottom of the stairs and he wandered through the house. His presence fitted the early morning time, so it kept him quiet, allowing him to move through it without displacing any of the shadows, the dim light, or the silence.

  Vincent entered a part of the house he had never visited before, coming across a room that was not walled off from the rest of the house, yet was distinctly separate from it. Three tiled steps lowered the boy onto the carpet and he stopped there, examining the room. It was an office, homey though, with a couch a few paces from the three stairs. Beyond the couch were two windowed doors that revealed a patio Vincent had never known had existed. In front of the doors was a stationary bicycle, sitting beside the couch, watching the blank television screen that was mounted on the wall over an unused fireplace, surrounded by framed photographs of the Rodriguez siblings. A few protruding shelves were weighted by various sports trophies and ribbons, some certificates were framed on the wall along with the photographs, praising more of the younger Rodriguezs' accomplishments. Across the room, towards the corner by the two windowed doors, an 'L' shaped desk snuggly fit the shape of the two adjoining walls, creating an isolated space for the woman who had her back to the rest of the office, the light of a computer monitor visible around the outline of her head. Neat stacks of papers and files, along with a plastic storage cabinet, occupied most of the longest stretch of wood that constructed the shape of the 'L' desk, but they were being ignored at the moment as the woman read something on her computer screen. The clicking of the computer mouse disturbed the morning quiet, forcing it to recede, following the dawn's light which had fled when Richard had turned on the lights in her home office.

  Vincent took his gaze from the blonde hair, finding the sliding glass door, covered by a black screen, behind her chair. He stared through the glass for a while, hit with disbelief.

  The teen would have preferred to tell the woman 'Good morning', or at least 'Hi' to reveal his presence, but the Rodriguezs' back yard, if it was really their backyard, Vincent couldn't tell where he was in the house, distracted him and absorbed all of his attention. So Richard jumped in her seat when Vincent cursed to himself, glaring at her sliding glass door.

  "You have your own pool too?"

  Eyes on the pale teen, solidifying the fact that he was actually standing there, Richard did not respond to the question that was more of a statement of the obvious. She could only see the edge of the pool when she turned her chair. It was a familiar and uninteresting sight, while Vincent was not, so she looked at him instead, beginning to frown. But there was not enough motivation for the expression, and it fell away as her mouth moved to speak. "You're up early, Vincentimir." The boy's attention shifted to her now and she could visibly see his awkwardness, being in such an alien setting. It was as if either he or the office were unable to accept one another. He stood out, unable to blend and become another occupant in the room. He was outside its touch. Seeing this, the woman blinked and tried to rub the vision from her eyes. Then she glanced at the time on her computer and her mouth twitched, caught between amusement, curiosity, and disapproval. "Do you even know what time it is?" She asked the boy whose eyes wandered about aimlessly before he could shake his head. A sigh floated up to a high window and a hand pulled on the knobbed string to lift the blinds. "It's still five." And the sky is still a bluish black…

  When the boy didn't show any surprise, Richard watched him, at this distance, able to take in his full form while only meaning to look at his face. Rodriguez's clothes were baggy on the teen, right on down to the three inches of length that made the legs on the pants too long. They spilled onto the floor, hiding most of the pale feet. Vincent wasn't saying anything, and he didn't seem like he was going to say anything either, but the boy did not show any intention of leaving the office to return to the unlit house. He wasn't looking at her. He was more comfortable looking at her furniture or the trophies on the shelves. Vincent left the three steps that had brought him into the office and moved closer to the awards, to stand in front of them.

  His face was blank, both aware and unaware of the woman behind him, sitting in her desk chair. Baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, and swimming; red scrutinized them all. Cold, without jealousy, Vincent was affected by awe and the cooler feeling of his own empty 'shelf'. His life felt wasted, all the time he had spent on Earth had amounted to nothing. He could play the piano, but he had not accomplished anything through that single, developed skill. Science fair, middle school and high school accomplishments…Rodriguez was well-rounded, while Vincent was just plain flat. He moved to William' shelves and read through her smaller collection of trophies. Water polo, gymnastics, cheer, and volleyball, then there were certificates, plaques, and ribbons for swimming, essay contests, and overall academic recognition, along with her high school diploma and her acceptance letter into college, framed b
eside the manila envelope it had come in. Vincent's eyes stayed with the letter, taking note of the font and its layout. He did not read it. He did not feel inclined to, though he analyzed the letter. This would be the only acceptance letter he would ever see, this was the closest he would ever be to actually touching one, he thought in his mind, so he made sure to copy its form so he would not forget what one of these looked like, what an accomplished, well-rounded life looked like…what a good life was. That was it, the feeling of the office with its television and furniture and other things…it was nice, warm, and pleasant.

  "Do you always wake up this early?"

  Thus reminded of the woman's presence, Vincent nodded to her over his shoulder and returned his gaze to the letter and the trophies. "Yeah."

  "Why?" William usually sleeps until six thirty or seven and Rodriguez can sleep until nine (at night) if no one remembers to wake him up, so Vincent's apparent attentiveness during this early hour was strange to the woman.

  Vincent took his time responding, going over the different pictures on the wall. "I get bored. Sleeping's boring…you do nothing but lay there. If I'm not tired, I don't like forcing myself to lay there and do nothing."

  Boring? Amused, Richard smiled, sliding her hand over to her abandoned computer mouse and clicking it as she swiveled in her chair to see the screen. She let the boy do as he wished in the room, be that staring at the shelves and pictures, sitting on the couch and watching the blank television, or sitting and experimenting with the stationary bike, the little noises all of this activity produced did not bother her as she worked. Without warning, the pale teenager appeared, leaning over the side of her desk to look at the screen as well. She stiffened, considered what she was working on, and then focused on Vincent again.

  "What are you doing?" Red was highlighted by the light from the monitor as Vincent continued to strain his neck to get a clear view.