Charlie and James, Chapter 16 - The Wasted Youth
#16 of Charlie and James
It's the night after Charlie and James have found Jake sleeping in the back room at Benny's restaurant. Jake wakes up from a horrible nightmare, and when Charlie tries to comfort him, he ends up telling the story of how he became an orphan. This chapter is narrated by Jake, and contains some scenes of violence, language, and mild drug use.
Charlie and James By Ken Anderson
Chapter 16 - The Wasted Youth
...Darkness...
The closet smells like freshly-washed clothes. The lack of air inside is almost suffocating. I'm sitting against the back wall of the dark, claustrophobic space, my body shaking uncontrollably as I try to steady myself. The bedroom outside is empty; my bed has been pushed against the door to keep them at bay. I've got my eyes squeezed shut, and my paws clamped firmly over both of my ears. But still, I can hear them. I can hear their shouting, their screaming. I can hear the noise as unseen ojects get thrown against the walls; the loud 'crash' as something shatters, and falls in pieces to the floor. With each new sound, my body flinches. I can hear their rage.
My mom is livid. My dad is drunk, and he sounds extremely pissed.
"You're nothing but a lazy fucking drunk! You can't even be bothered to get off your ass and find a fucking JOB!"
"WORK?! You're gonna talk to me about work after what you just did?!"
"You didn't give me any choice, you bastard! He's MY son!"
"He's MY son, and I'll do whatever the hell I want with him!"
"LIKE HELL, YOU WILL! I'LL KILL YOU BEFORE I LET YOU TOUCH HIM!"
"Hey, wha-- GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME, YOU CRAZY BITCH!"
...I hear an explosion. It reminds me of a firecracker that I once heard on the fourth of July...
It's the sound of a gun being fired... But I don't yet know this. All I know is that once I heard that sound, the entire house suddenly became eerily quiet. I can no longer hear my father's yelling. I can no longer hear my mother's screams. I uncover my ears, and all I can hear are the footsteps, slow and deliberate, making their way towards my room. Each step makes the floorboards creak, and I can trace his path from the closet as he walks, trancelike, down the dusty, dimly-lit hallway. He pounds his fists relentlessly against my bedroom door, screaming my name as he threatens to tear it from its hinges.
"JAKE!"
I clap a paw over my muzzle to muffle the whimper that forces its way up my throat. I'm trying my best to remain silent. After a moment of shouting, he gives up, and I hear him grunting with effort as he slams his body repeatedly against the wood. The door flies open with a resounding 'crash,' and I shrink even further into my dark corner as I hear my bed being shoved noisily against a wall. He calls my name again. I still refuse to answer. Instead, I lower my face to the ground, and peer through the crack beneath the door. I can see his feet shuffling along the carpeted floor as he searches for me, checking under my desk before heading to my window, which leads out to the fire escape. Thankfully, he never thinks to check out the closet...
Eventually, he abandons his search, and seats himself at the foot of my bed. I can hear him whispering softly as he begins to cry. He's begging for forgiveness from some unseen deity, offering apologies for what he's done. I can see his legs shaking violently as he says a soft prayer, before going silent.
I hear the sound of something metallic locking into place. My fur stands on end as I finally realize what it is. As the gun rattles in his grip, I can hear him whimpering; a quiet, pained sound that conveys his sadness and his shame. I continue to watch from inside my closet as he takes several deep breaths, and his shaking stops.
Another explosion rocks my eardrums.
Everything goes dark...
"NO!"
The scream forces its way out as my body jerks awake. My eyes are wide open and my heart is pounding loudly in my chest. I'm panting heavily, my body heaving with each labored breath as I struggle to fill my lungs with air. My ears are perked up in fright, and my fur tingles with the static electricity of fear as my head darts back and forth, my brain working overtime as it tries to process my unfamiliar surroundings.
Where am I?
My breathing slows as my eyes begin to adjust to the blackness. Soft moonlight streams into the dark room from an uncovered window which stands directly across from me, and I can see that I've been sleeping on some sort of couch. I find myself feeling anxious as I try to gain my bearings.
What is this place?
Somewhere in the darkness, I think I can hear footsteps. They move swiftly and silently, slithering quietly through the shadows as they make their way closer. My focus is interrupted by the familiar sound of a doorknob rattling. Peering through the darkness towards an unlit hallway across from my makeshift bed, I feel the slight rush of air as a door gets opened and a figure steps out. I can barely see the faint outline of an arm as it stretches towards the wall nearby, a shadowy hand groping blindly for something along its uneven surface. A soft 'click' breaks the silence, and I have to raise a paw to shield my eyes as the room is suddenly filled with blinding white light. The brightness is burning a path through my retinas as my eyes struggle to adjust. I squint through the haze as I try to identify the intruder.
It's Charlie.
My arm drops to my side, and a loud sigh escapes my muzzle as I sink back into the couch. I remember now... I'm at Charlie and James' apartment. Somehow, I vaguely recall taking them up on their offer of a place to stay. God, I'm so out of it right now... Oh, well. At the very least, I'm not sitting on a cot in the back of Benny's storage room, trying helplessly to fend off the stench of drying meat.
Looking up at him from my place on the sofa, I notice that one of Charlie's thick paws is wrapped firmly around the handle of a long wooden baseball bat. An expression of relief traces its way across his tired eyes when he sees that there is no sign of imminent danger. He lets out a wry laugh as he sees the look of nervousness on my face.
"Bad dreams?" he calls out.
My head bobs up and down in response.
"Yeah..." I mutter, my voice lowered to a hushed whisper. "Nightmares."
The look on his face seems to soften as I confirm his suspicions. A thin smile creeps across his muzzle as he leans over and sets the bat down on the floor, its handle resting snugly against the frame of the bedroom door. He starts to walk towards the couch, reaching a paw up to scratch the fur on the back of his neck as he approaches. I manage to pull myself up to a sitting position, giving him room to sit down as he steps in front of me. I watch as he lets out a loud yawn, and stretches his arms and legs before falling backwards onto the thick cushions. He turns his head to give me a smile.
"You had me scared for a minute, there," he says, motioning towards the baseball bat with a flick of his wrist. "I thought you were being attacked or something."
I shake my head, and use the fur on my arm to wick away the thin layer of sweat that has formed above my eyes. "I'm alright man, sorry about that... I guess I shoulda warned you guys earlier."
Charlie shakes his head, and waves off my apology with a shrug of dismissal. "No worries, kid," he tells me, "I have plenty of trouble sleeping, myself. Actually, I've been laying in bed awake for the past few hours. Pre-wedding nerves, I guess. I don't think your screaming woke up James, though. I suppose that's a good thing. He hasn't been getting much sleep either."
"Why not?" I ask, my curiosity piqued. "You been keepin' him up late?"
Charlie has to bite down on his paw to muffle his laughter. He giggles quietly and shakes his head as he tries to wrap his mind around my response.
"Dude, you must be twelve years old, at the most! What the hell would you know about that?"
I shrug my shoulders, and give him a look of indifference. "I'm almost thirteen, actually. We grow up fast these days, I guess."
From the look on his face, I can see that he wants to change the subject. The topic of sex seems to make him uncomfortable.
"What was the dream about?" he asks.
I lower my gaze to the floor, and say nothing. For once, I'm speechless. To tell the truth, I don't really know how to explain myself. No matter how hard I try to search my mind for the right words, I can't seem to find them. I keep drawing a blank. After what seems like an hour of silence, I decide to talk about something else. I've got a feeling that we'll come back to this, anyway...
"I can't believe it, man..." I groan, resting my elbows against my shaking knees and burying my face in my paws. "I've only been here for a few hours, and I'm already flippin' out. I feel like I've outstayed my welcome, you know? And you guys have been cool as hell, letting me stay here, and all..."
Charlie sees my look of despair, and pats me gently on the back. I look up from the floor to face him, and he gives me another warm smile.
"You've done nothing wrong, man," he assures me. "It was just a bad dream; it happens. There's nothing you could've done to avoid it. We've just gotta move on from here."
He leans forward and stretches his arm across the small coffee table in front of the couch. I watch as his paw wraps around an overflowing ashtray and lifts it from its place on the well-polished wood. He pulls it towards his face, and starts to dig around through the small mountain of discarded cigarette butts. After a few seconds, his claws come up holding a decent-sized joint roach, which he immediately sticks between his lips. He sets the ashtray back on the table, and makes a grab for a plastic cigarette lighter, which sits next to a pack of smokes at the far end of the table. Gripping it snugly in his claws, he sparks the flame to life and applies it to the burnt end of the joint, taking a few deep tokes before pulling it from his mouth, and holding it out to me.
I'm a little puzzled about his gesture at first; I remember the look on James' face when he'd lit a cigarette for me at Benny's. I can't help but wonder, 'How can Charlie look so calm about this?' My paws begin to tremble as I try to decide whether to take the joint or refuse it.
"How long has it been since your last shot?" he asks, nodding towards my shaking arms. His question catches me off-guard.
"A couple days..."
He shakes his head and stretches the joint towards me again. "Go ahead, take it. It'll stop the shakes and help you get some sleep. And don't worry, I won't tell James if you don't want me to."
My mind is made up. I snatch the joint from his outstretched fingers, and waste no time in bringing it to my lips to inhale. "Thanks," I mumble, as I take several large tokes, sucking in so much air that my lungs feel as if they might burst from my chest. I breathe a loud sigh of relief, and sink back into the couch as I exhale the sweet, sticky smoke into the well-furnished room. Already, I can feel the familiar, sedating happiness starting to work its way through my body, relaxing every muscle along the way as it travels from my chest up to my brain. The feeling makes me smile.
I take another hit.
This is actually some pretty good stuff; not like the moldy, seed-filled crap that I usually get sold when I'm out on the streets. Everyone likes to take advantage of the down-and-out kids like me... Even the drug dealers. Talk about a double standard...
"So what's it like, being on your own?" Charlie asks. "Were you always a stray?"
I shake my head. "I had a family once, man... My own mom and dad, you know? Then a bunch of shit went down, and I ended up in the orphanage... I was only seven years old when it all happened; it wasn't too long ago..."
I allow myself one final hit before passing Charlie the nearly-finished joint. He nods his head slowly in thought as he kills the roach in one giant, lung-filling breath, before stubbing it out into the nearby ashtray.
"It must've been hard," he says, "Moving from place to place. All those different homes and people... It must've been sad. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through, kid, and to be honest, I don't think anybody should have to live that kind of life. How many families have you been with?"
"Seven."
The word comes out in a whisper. It hurts me to say it. I can feel a sharp stab of pain in my head as the memories come flooding back.
So many families... So many chances... All the damage I ended up causing; all the tears and all the pain... It really hurts...
"I've been through seven homes, if you count the four months I spent with the Fullers..."
"That's crazy..." Charlie sighs. "How'd it all start? Can you remember what happened to your folks?"
As the nightmare begins to play through my mind once again, I find myself unconsciously reaching out for the ashtray on the table. I need a cigarette. If I'm gonna have to go into detail about this stuff, I need a smoke to calm me down...
My eyes suddenly clamp shut and my muscles tense up as Charlie's paw shoots out and grabs my wrist in midair. My body begins to shake as the sinking feeling of panic threatens to overwhelm me. 'Now you've done it,' my mind screams, 'He's gonna hit you!'
But the blow never comes. Instead, I feel something tapping against the fur on my forearm as I start shaking even more. A frightened whine escapes my muzzle. My black eye throbs painfully as I slowly open them to investigate. I turn my head and see that Charlie is holding out the pack of cigarettes.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, Jake..." he whispers. He looks genuinely concerned about my reaction. "Go ahead. Just remember, I'm not gonna be doing this all the time. In fact, I shouldn't be doing it right now. You shouldn't be smoking, anyway. It's gonna kill you in the long run."
I nod my head in agreement, and my body slumps backwards onto the couch. I reach out to retrieve a fresh smoke from the pack. I couldn't tell you what drove me to react that way. I don't know what I was thinking. Charlie removes one of the cigarettes for himself, and sticks it between his teeth before tossing the pack onto the table. He scoops up the lighter in his palm, and sparks up his cigarette before holding the flame steady as I light my own. I breathe deeply after taking a pull on the paper-covered cancer stick. I savor the thick, heavy taste of the mentholated smoke as I exhale slowly through my nostrils. After a few more puffs, I sit quietly and listen to the soft crackling sound that the tobacco makes as it burns its way towards the filter.
"Thanks, man," I say, smiling as I continue to smoke.
Charlie scoffs, and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. You made the decision to start, so I'm not gonna judge you for it. That wouldn't help anyone."
He flashes a toothy grin, which makes me laugh. My tail starts to wag slightly behind me. From the back of my dirty jeans, it brushes quietly over the soft fabric of the couch. Charlie notices this and laughs. Being a fellow canine, he seems to sense my relief. Even though I haven't known him for very long, I've decided that he's actually a pretty decent guy. Like James, he knows how to make people feel comfortable. After a few moments, I've come to realize that if he really wants to hear my story, I shouldn't have any problems with sharing it. I just know that it's gonna bring up some bad memories.
It's not a fairy tale, and it doesn't have a happy ending, but it's my story, and it's all I've got... Besides, if it helps Charlie to get to know me better, and helps me to get to sleep at night, where's the harm? I guess I could give it a shot...
"Alright," I say. "I'll tell you all about it. I gotta warn ya, though, it's not gonna be easy to hear. Some of this stuff might stir you up."
Charlie nods his head solemnly as he takes a moment to consider this.
"And it's a long story, too, so we might be up for a while..."
Shrugging his shoulders, he rises from his position on the couch and makes his way over to the apartment's small kitchen. I watch as he pulls open a wooden cupboard above the sink, and removes what appears to be a clear glass coffepot from one of the shelves. He silently fills it up with tap water, which he pours into an empty coffee machine that rests at the edge of the tiled countertop.
"You drink coffee?" he calls over to me.
I give him a grateful nod in reply. "Yeah, that sounds great."
As he replaces the old filter, filling a new one with freshly-ground beans, he tells me that I can begin whenever I feel ready.
I give myself a moment of silence to finish my smouldering cigarette, and to think about what I'm gonna say. After a while, I shrug my shoulders, and stub out the finished butt in the overflowing ashtray. 'Screw it,' I tell myself, 'I'm gonna tell him everything.'
I decide to start as far back as I can remember; back when my life could still be considered relatively normal.
What a word, 'normal'...
What does it mean? Was I ever normal? I really don't know... I guess the closest my life has ever been to 'normal' would be the years before my eighth birthday... That's about the time when everything changed. But I'll get there... Yeah... He'll know all about it soon enough.
I'm gonna tell Charlie everything he wants to know, and when I'm done, both of us will probably regret it.
I wasn't always like this...
I wasn't always this messed up...
There was a time when I had a family... There was a time when I had a home.
There was a time when I had a mom and a dad who loved me, who supported me throughout my early years with as much care and kindness as any parents could. I had a home that I could call my own; it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and though it may not have been much, it was mine... I remember a time when I had hopes for the future, and dreams of fame and glory...
I wasn't always this shy; I wasn't always this withdrawn...
I remember a time when I was just like everyone else...
My dad was a purebred coyote named Mickey O'Neil. I remember his light brown fur and his thick Irish accent. An Irish immigrant with dreams of a better life, dad had been a part of the immigration craze of the early twenty-first century. Along with thousands of others, he'd fled the chaos and turmoil of the old country in search of new opportunities in the west. He was a hard worker who literally broke his back every day in order to feed and support his small family. He was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, he hardly drank at first, and I couldn't remember a time when I didn't see him smile...
We all lived on the third floor of a decaying tenement building, in the vast urban sprawl that was Harbor City's overpopulated West Side. I remember the rusted, winding staircases, the fading brick facade, and the peeling paint which seemed to fall away from every wall. The cheap paint was a deep shade of crimson, which was constantly chipping and falling onto the cracked cement of the hallways. It looked to me as if someone had tried to repaint the place to make it appear bright and sunny, but instead, had chosen a color that actually made it look dark and depressing. To my seven-year-old eyes, the color of the paint reminded me of dried blood. It always gave me the creeps.
The inside of our apartment had two bedrooms, one of which was mine. The place didn't have much furniture; just a couch, a table in the living room, and a couple of old TVs, but to me, it always seemed cozy. It always felt like home... MY home. Never mind the fact that the cheap carpet covering parts of the floor was stained beyond any recollection of its original state. Never mind the fact that the floorboards were so rotten that after one particularly rainy night, I hopped off my bed and my foot fell clear through to the ceiling below. None of this mattered to me at all, and nothing could take away the joy that I used to feel every morning when I woke up in this place.
You'll have to forgive me if you can't picture anything about what I've said that could possibly make me happy... Allow me to explain.
For the longest time, being at home with my family was the only thing that I ever had to look forward to.
When I was seven years old, I would wake up early each morning, before the sun rose, to shower, dress, and get ready for the mile-long walk to school. Every day, the routine was the same. I would pull my skinny body out of bed, grab my outfit for the day, and drag myself into the small bathroom at the end of the hall to shower and brush my teeth. Once I'd finished, and I'd begun to dry my thick fur with the clean towels which hung next to the shower curtain, I would get ready to inhale deeply as the smell of pan-fried bacon wafted under the door and floated slowly up to my nostrils. My ears would perk up, my tail would wag with excitement, and I would smile.
Dad was awake.
Each morning, as my mom slept in until the early afternoon, my dad would get up to cook breakfast. Even though he didn't have to be at work until after I'd left for school, he would never miss the chance to help me greet each day. After showering, once I'd caught a whiff of the food, I'd throw on my clothes, turn out the lights, and take off at a run towards the smell. I couldn't wait to spend time with my dad; I idolized him. By the time I'd reached the living room, panting loudly and out of breath, the food would usually be finished. My father would be waiting for me on the couch, with a small plate of scrambled eggs and bacon sitting on the table next to his own.
I would always greet him with a hug. I would say 'Good morning, dad' before running off to scour the kitchen for a fork, and hurrying back to take my place next to him before the food got cold. No matter how long it would take me to get ready, he'd always stop eating just long enough to let me catch up.
He never talked much while we ate; in fact, if anything, he was too quiet. He'd just sit there and smile, watching me devour my food with relish, until I'd cleaned the plate. When he did speak, it was normally after I'd prompted him with a question. Once we'd both finished our food, I'd usually ask him about work, and we'd spend the next hour or so engaged in winding conversations which always seemed to drift back and forth between his nights at work, and my days at school.
Dad worked as the final product inspector on the assembly line at one of Harbor City's many fish-canning factories. Sometimes, he would tell me stories about his days at work; about the people he worked with, and about the canning process. In return, I would tell him about the the projects that my teachers would assign to the class, and the kinds of trouble that the other kids at my school liked to get into. To my mind at that age, it was a pleasant exchange of completely useless information. But that doesn't keep me from remembering it, or thinking about it today. Though I now realize that this may not have been the best way to spend time with my father, I enjoyed it all the same. I wouldn't trade those mornings for anything in the world...
Harbor City is, and always has been, for the most part, a fishing hub. Each morning, as the sun rose over the horizon, the ships would come in from the bay, their cargo holds stuffed to the brim with the squirming, smelly creatures which filled the bellies of the city's hungry residents, and filled the pockets of the fishermen with cold, hard cash. After a long night of work, the ships would form an orderly line at the Harbor City docks, where crews of able-bodied workers waited to unload the fish and truck them off to the many canneries that once filled the now-empty warehouse buildings which were strung along the teardrop-shaped harbor like so many ugly mansions. Upon reaching their destination, the fish would be dumped onto a conveyor belt, which would slowly pull them into the factories to be cleaned, scaled, boned, cut, and finally, canned.
The fish would make their way into the main factory from the trucks, where they would be sprayed clean with jet-streams of fresh water. After cleaning, they would move along to a team of workers armed with knives and sharp claws, who would strip them of their scales, cut away their heads and fins, and prepare them to have their bones removed. As they continued along the line, the fish would be sliced into smaller and smaller portions, each stop along the journey taking away some unwanted part, until finally, they reached the cannery. This was where my father worked.
Each afternoon, once he'd arrived at work, my dad would clock in at the main entrance. After greeting his supervisor on the factory floor, he would take his place at the very end of the assembly line, where he would stand, statue-like, for many hours as he earned his lowly wage. His station was the final stop on the line before the finished products were sent off to be packed in boxes and shipped. As the endless parade of tin cans marched past him on the conveyor, my father, with his patience and his close attention to detail, would be on the lookout for any defects with the cans, checking for mismatched labels, cracked seals, and dents, which would render the finished product unfit for shipping. Every now and again, he'd lift a defective can from the belt, giving it the once-over before tossing it into a large wooden crate which served as an industrial-sized garbage bin.
These crates were supposed to be emptied at certain points during each shift. Every few hours, the cans would be carted behind the factory to a metal dumpster, which would then be secured with a padlock to discourage Harbor City's homeless population from taking advantage of the constantly growing stockpile of free food. That didn't stop my dad, however. On days when we were low on food, he'd casually reach into the crate, removing several mislabelled cans to bring home for dinner that night. No matter what he had to do to keep us fed, he would never let his wife and son go hungry. Not when he had such easy access to free food.
We ate fish for dinner so often that after a while, the smell began to turn my stomach. But I quickly got used to it. To me, the smell of fish came to mean one of two things: Either Mom was cooking dinner, or Dad had come home from work.
I could smell the stink of fresh fish radiating from his fur from the moment my father set foot through the front door of our apartment. While he worked in the cannery, the odor would seep into his pores and stick to his fur, following him wherever he went until he washed it away each night. It became a part of my routine, that smell. Sometimes, I would be sitting at my small desk, finishing up my daily homework assignments, when all of a sudden, the smell of fish would waft in through my bedroom window, making my nose wrinkle. I would put on my brightest smile, close whatever textbook I'd been studying, and rush out to the living room as fast as my feet could carry me.
Dad was home.
As for my mom, she had a story that was all her own. My parents couldn't have been more different from one another. I guess that saying about opposites is true...
My mother was a beautiful wolf with snow-white fur and sky-blue eyes. She'd met my dad not too long after his arrival in Harbor City, when he'd approached her at a small diner in the Heights, where she worked as a waitress. According to her, she'd taken to him immediately, and the two had fallen madly in love with each other. From the very beginning, her parents had sternly disapproved of their daughter's choice of a mate, but like any strong-minded female, she'd ignored them, choosing instead, to leave their home to pursue her love in private. Her parents had been radical activists during the turbulent sixties; 'hippies,' as she called them. She used to say that the only good thing her parents had ever done for her was to give her a name; they'd given my mother a title which matched perfectly with her stunning natural beauty.
They'd named their daughter Luna.
My dad always used to say that he never deserved his wife. According to him, she was far too beautiful and far too kind to be involved with someone of his stature; an immigrant who'd arrived on the shores of Harbor City penniless and begging for work.
"Her coat shines like the full moon on a starless night, " He once told me, "That perfect brightness; that purest glow. And I know, when I see myself, that she deserves so much more than I can ever give her. I'll never know what she sees in me..."
He always thought he was below her in terms of status. In his mind, he could never become anything more than a working-class peasant. Still, he adored his wife, and she remained fiercely loyal to him, never once mentioning class differences or the lack of money. They had each other, and that was all they cared about... For a while.
Even after I was born, my mother had held onto her job at the same diner where she'd first met her mate. She spent her days waiting tables for minimum wage, and on good days she'd be lucky enough to make ends meet with the tips left by her customers. She never brought home as much money as my dad, but he never complained about it. Together, they always made sure that we had food to eat, that the rent and the bills were paid on time, and that our small family had everything it needed to survive each passing month.
We were a happy, tightly-knit, low-income family. We were poor, but we were stable.
At the age of seven, I really didn't have much to complain about. My days were perfectly structured and planned out for me in advance. I would have breakfast with dad, walk to school, and come home in time to find mom cooking dinner. Looking back on it all, school seemed to be the only thing in my life that brought me constant worry and disappointment. In fact, sometimes I tell myself that all of this wouldn't have happened if only I'd been a better student. If only I'd been a better kid, happier, smarter, and more obedient, maybe none of this would've happened to me...
Yeah... Five years of therapy and counseling on the state's dime, and I still find the time to blame myself...
Even now, there are days when I still manage to convince myself that somehow, it was all my fault...
No matter how many people try to convince me otherwise, I'll always say that the last school day of my second-grade year was the beginning of the end... It was the day everything started to go wrong...
"SAY IT AGAIN! I DARE YA!"
I had him on the floor, bleeding from his lip, his shirt collar gripped tightly in my left paw as my fist hovered inches from his muzzle.
"SAY IT AGAIN!"
He only whimpered as I threatened him, growling as loud as I could to make myself sound tougher than I really was. To tell the truth, I was close to crying. I always hated being the kid that everyone else liked to pick on.
"JAKE! GET OFF! LET GO OF HIM RIGHT NOW!"
I was close to driving my fist into his face again for good measure, when I felt the pair of sturdy arms wrap around my chest. They lifted me off of my intended victim, and shoved me forcefully against the plastered wall. Mr. Burton, my gym teacher, gave me a scowl as he rushed to help the other boy to his feet. I took a moment to brush away the dirt which now coated my white cotton gym shirt before leaning against the wall, my arms crossed over my chest as my eyes remained fixed on the waxed floorboards beneath my feet. He'd done it again...
The boy's name was Jimmy. If there's anything I remember about my days at grade school, it was him. Jimmy was a short, stocky bulldog who, for some reason, always made it a point to single me out as a prime target for his endless torrents of verbal and physical abuse. And he had plenty of others to back him up.
From the second I stepped through the solid-steel doors of Westside Elementary, to the moment the dismissal bell rang, Jimmy was all I could think about. What was he going to do today? Would he try to pick another fight with me? Would he steal some other kid's backpack and make me shoulder the blame? I could never predict how each day would turn out. Only one thing was for sure; as soon as I'd taken my seat in homeroom, he would catch my gaze from across the classroom, and flash his teeth in his version of a torturer's smile. The battle was on.
I was never the most popular kid in school, and it always showed. My secondhand clothing, torn backpack, and withdrawn attitude only seemed to make it even more obvious. None of the other kids, especially not Jimmy and his small group of loyal followers, had anything nice to say about me. Even the teachers, who were supposed to give me guidance and watch over me, considered me to be a lost cause.
Each day, when I walked into the dimly-lit, unswept hallways of the main school building, I felt as if I had entered an asylum. As soon as I entered those doors, I'd lost my identity. I was no longer 'Jake.' I was 'the poor kid,' I was 'a disgrace,' I 'walked with an aura of malice and violence', and I was 'utterly hopeless, with no chance of being saved.' These were the terms that people would always use to describe me.
I was the kid who had no friends; whom nobody would risk being seen with. When I dared to stand up to the bullying, a fight was inevitable. When I sat down to eat lunch in the school cafeteria, the table would instantly be vacated. Nobody wanted to be near me, sit next to me, or listen to a word that I had to say. I was completely rejected; cut off from any form of social contact by the kids who were smarter, had more money, and whose parents could actually afford cable television. It's pretty safe to say that I was an outcast from day one.
Every day, I would try my best to bury it all inside; to close it off and seal it shut like a pressure cooker slowly boiling over with piping-hot rage, until the anger and sadness had become nothing more than a sharp, stabbing pain of mental agony; a constant psychic throbbing in the back of my mind, waiting patiently to explode.
I tried to lock it all up and move on... I really tried... Not that it helped...
"He started it!"
As Mr. Burton helped Jimmy to his feet, the bulldog's stubby claw jabbed out towards me in accusation. My jaw dropped, and I could feel my paws balling themselves tightly into fists. He ALWAYS did this!
"No way!" I screamed back. "You threw the first punch, you liar! You called me a piece of Irish trash!"
My pleas fell on deaf ears. I watched as Mr. Burton ignored me tocheck on Jimmy's busted lip, offering him soothing words of comfort before sending him back to join the other students, who'd stopped playing dodgeball to watch the two of us fight. The teacher turned back to face me, his scowl returning. I saw a smirk of satisfaction cross Jimmy's muzzle as he made his way to the other end of the gym. He'd done it again. Even on the last day of school, when the only object that everyone paid attention to was the clock that hung on the wall of our classroom, he'd managed to get me in trouble.
I let out a yelp of pain as Mr. Burton snatched me from the wall by the scruff of my neck and began to drag me out of the gym. He pulled me into the school's main hallway, and shoved me in front of him as he guided me towards the vice-principal's office. Every time I tried to slow down, I'd be rewarded with a swift push from behind. As we made our way closer to our destination, I continued to complain; loudly crying out my side of the story as he escorted me to the small room near the building's main entrance. Once again, he ignored me. They all ignored me. After a while, it almost seemed like they actually enjoyed it...
When we arrived at the office, Mr. Burton held open the door with one arm, motioning with the other for me to step inside.
"Ms. Chan!" he called out, "O'Neil's been going at it again!"
With that, he ordered me to take a seat on one of the small plastic chairs, nodding towards the desk in front of me as he turned to leave. "Don't go anywhere," he growled. "You know the drill."
I let out a sigh of exasperation as I heard the door shut behind him. My eyes swept the floor and my paws fumbled in my lap as I did everything I could to keep from staring at the large, menacing figure that was sitting behind the polished mahogany desk. I'd been in this office countless times before, and it never got any less frightening.
The vice-principal of a school that was notorious for churning out some of Harbor City's most violent juvenile delinquents, Ms. Chan was every bit as terrifying as the students that she'd been tasked with watching over. A well-built lioness with a zero-tolerance policy towards all acts of misconduct, she had a voice that changed constantly depending on her mood at any given point. When she was having a good day, her voice was soft and reassuring. Make the mistake of talking back or arguing with her, however, and you would be treated to a deep, primal roar that screamed out each word as she spoke. I once heard a kid in class jokingly remark that her angry voice was Ms. Chan's 'mating call.' He got suspended for a little over a week.
She was as cruel and unforgiving as anyone could possibly be, and she had a reputation for scaring the living daylights out of any kid who had the misfortune of being brought to her office. Case in point, ME.
"Well, well, Jake. Been starting fights in class again?" she asked. Her tone was honey-sweet, but I'd been here often enough to know that such kindness would never last.
"No, Ms. Chan," I whimpered. "Jimmy was calling me names again, and when I tried to stop him, he hit me! I only hit him back, I swear!"
I could hear the growl building up in her throat as I tried to explain myself. My tail quickly curled up between my legs as I shrunk back into the chair. I knew what was gonna happen next.
"Oh, REALLY?!" She snapped back, "Well, then I guess I should be talking to Jimmy right now, shouldn't I?!"
I shivered with fright as I watched her feline eyes narrow into tiny slits.
"It's the last day of the school year! You couldn't go one day without starting a fight?! And all I ever hear from you is 'Jimmy did this,' and 'Jimmy did that!' When are you going to start taking responsibility for your own actions?!"
I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised a paw to silence me.
"I have heard more than enough of your lies, Mr. O'Neil! I've spoken to the other students in your class several times, and they all tell me that you're the one who's been picking fights with everyone else! I've had parents calling me, day and night, to tell me how fed up they are with your bullying! And you still want to blame Jimmy?! Tell me, Jake, when is it going to end?! When are you going to step up and admit that you've been disruptive?!"
I couldn't take much more of this. It was the same story every time. No matter who started the fights, who stole from the other kids, or who egged the principal's car on April Fool's Day, I was always the one who had to take the blame. I was the scapegoat; the fall guy. I was the poor kid that nobody cared about, so what did it matter if everyone else made my life a living hell? It was better than taking the punishment themselves, wasn't it? Every day of school was like a giant conspiracy, where everyone was intent on making me look bad. And I was the only one who wasn't in on it.
"But Ms. Chan!" I protested, " They ALWAYS say it's my fault! When are you gonna believe me?! I didn't do nothing wrong!"
"ENOUGH!"
She slammed her fists down on the desk and rose from her seat as she snarled at me. I was shaking uncoontrollably, tears already beginning to well up in my eyes as I curled myself up against the chair. She shook her head in disgust, and turned her attention towards the computer monitor on her desk as I began to cry. It was all so hopeless...
"Have you ever heard the story of the little boy who cried 'wolf'?" She asked, as she snatched up a few sheets of paper from the large printer underneath her desk. Slamming the documents down on the table, she took a pen from one of the drawers and began to hastily scribble some information onto the neatly-printed black lines.
"Yes," I whined, as I continued to weep. "But it ends with him telling the truth!"
She ignored my response as she slid the papers across the desk, towards me. I cautiously leaned forward from my seat, my paws shaking as I picked them up, and wiped away my tears as I struggled to read. They weren't suspension forms. They weren't detention notices. No; for kids like me, they were your worst nightmare. The papers that I held in my paws were the bane of every student's existence; the one punishment that they would give anything to avoid.
I was going to summer school.
"Summer school?!" I cried out. "But my grades are fine!"
"Well, I can't suspend you on the last day of school, can I?" Ms. Chan retorted. "So there! You'll have a month to make up for all the trouble you've caused in the past year! Now, get out of my office!"
"B-b-but I--"
"GO HOME, JAKE!"
I was crestfallen. I was done. I ran out of the office, tears still streaming down my face as I jogged back to the gym to retrieve my backpack and my clothes. Why? Why wouldn't anyone believe me? It was all I could think about as I collected my belongings, and got to work stuffing my shirt and jeans into the backpack.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jimmy. There he was, sitting on the bleachers with his friends, laughing at some piece of conversation that I couldn't hear. I glared at him from across the room, imagining my fist driving his muzzle into the hard plastic seats. I wanted him to feel the way I felt at that very moment. I wanted revenge.
He must have sensed my anger somehow, because right at that moment his eyes found my own, and that familiar smirk began to form across his muzzle. I watched him tap one of his friends on the shoulder, before nodding towards me. The entire group burst out in laughter. God, how I hated them...
As I walked through the halls, battered and bruised, I tried to think of a way to tell my parents what had happened. They rarely got angry with me, and if they did, it was never physical. I'd never once been struck, by either my mother or father, in rage or as punishment for something I'd done. Still, that didn't make explaining my situation any less difficult. I would have to find some way to tell them the truth.
I stopped as I reached the steel doors at the front of the school, staring up at them as if they opened on the path to my own private prison. What was I going to do?
I took a deep breath to calm myself down, before pressing my paws onto the large metal bar. The door swung open, and I grit my teeth as a burst of Harbor City's sweltering summer heat smacked against my face. Like nature's own version of a nuclear blast, it nearly knocked me off my feet. Gathering what courage I had left, I stepped out into the world. I made my way off-campus, and began to walk down the empty streets with my paws thrust into the pockets of my loose gym shorts. I couldn't stop thinking about Jimmy. What was his problem?! Why did he have to do this?! If anybody deserved to get punished for this, it was him! My mind was reeling with thoughts of violence and vengeance, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to block them out. He needed to be taught a lesson. He needed to suffer. But how? What could I do to hurt him? He has friends! His parents are rich! He--
I froze in my tracks, and my thoughts came to an abrupt end as an idea began to form in my mind. I wasn't the only kid who had to walk home from school. Jimmy's house was a few blocks away, and I'd remembered watching him through the window of the classroom several times as I'd stayed behind for detention. He'd always walk home alone. After class was dismissed, he would split up from his friends, and start making his way towards his father's two-story house, which was located not even five blocks from the tenement where my family lived. In fact, I was currently walking on the same street that he had to take, in order to get to his house each day...
It had to happen here... It had to happen now.
I dropped my backpack on the sidewalk, and began to scan the area for something that I could use. I only had a few minutes until the bell rang! I found a nice-sized stick, but upon closer inspection, I realized that the wood was rotten. That wasn't gonna hurt him. I grumbled under my breath as I tossed it away and kept searching. Purely by chance, I noticed that one of the older houses on the street was being renovated. There was a pile of dark red bricks standing on the front lawn, left over from when the workers had used them to build a walkway leading from the street to the front door. When my eyes came to rest on the bricks, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot.
Feeling the adrenaline beginning to course through my veins, I rushed over to the pile and hefted one of the heavy objects in my paw. This would do nicely. Jogging back to my belongings, I grasped the straps of the backpack in my free paw, and found a hiding spot behind a tarp-covered stack of insulating foam nearby. Now, all I had to do was wait.
Ten minutes later, it was all over...
As Jimmy lay crumpled in a heap on the sidewalk, with his left eye swollen shut and bleeding from his muzzle, along with a deep gash on his forehead, I remember standing over him screaming as many random obscenities as my seven-year-old mind could muster, which actually didn't amount to much. Although I can't recall the act of beating him to the ground, or the sound that the brick made after I hurled it into his face, as I think back on it today, I remember feeling strangely satisfied. It felt as if a weight had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders; as if justice had been served, and everything would be aces from here on out.
If only that were true...
By the time I got home, I was almost jumping for joy. I'd finally done it! Jimmy would never mess with me again! I'd completely forgotten about the fact that I'd be going to school for another month, and if someone had reminded me, I probably wouldn't have cared. The papers I'd received from Ms. Chan were nothing but a crumpled heap at the bottom of my backpack. I was on top of the world.
As I bounded up the rusted metal staircase which led to the upper levels of the tenement building, all I could think about was how great it felt to finally give that little prick a serious taste of his own medicine. Nothing could stop me now; I was invincible!
It wasn't until I'd actually reached the third floor that I felt the now-familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me that something was horribly wrong...
I could hear the shouting, even before I reached the front door. At first, I refused to believe that it was coming from my family's apartment. That couldn't possibly be right. They never argued like this! They never even raised their voices at each other! I quickly slowed my pace to a crawl as I continued to walk through the blood-red hallway, towards the closed door of apartment number 331. The yelling became louder. The voices became clear. I could easily make out my dad's throaty, Irish drawl, being constantly interrupted by my mom's high-pitched hysteria. Something wasn't right...
I remember digging out my house key from one of the many compartments on my old backpack, my paw shaking nervously as I tried to fit it into the lock. When I'd finally managed to get the door open, I found myself silently praying that this was all some sort of sick joke. I was actually praying... and I'd never gone to church. I tried to make as little noise as possible as I pushed open the door; I wanted to see for myself what was going on.
If you'd asked me about it now, I would tell you that nothing could've prepared me for what I saw that day. If you'd asked me about it a few months after it happened, I would tell you that it only got worse as time went by.
It was as if my family life had done a complete flip.
My dad, who rarely spoke, and could always find some reason to smile, was standing by the kitchen counter with the phone cradled against his shoulder. In one of his paws, I could see a bottle of whiskey, half-empty, dangling from between his claws as he continued to scream at whoever was on the other end of the line. My mother, always so sweet and kind-hearted, was pacing back and forth on the living room floor, growling softly and shaking her head every few seconds as she continued to voice her anger.
"Mom? Dad?" I called out softly, "What's going on?"
All of a sudden, everything stopped. My dad, seeing me standing in the door frame, quickly tried to hide the bottle of whiskey in one of the cabinets. My mom froze in place, unsure how to react. After what seemed like an eternity, she walked briskly over to me, and attempted to change the mood by asking me about the last day of school.
"Hey, Jake! How was your day, baby?"
I shrugged my shoulders, and allowed my backpack to slump to the floor. "It was all right, I guess," I lied. "I'm gonna have to go to summer school..."
The news didn't seem to faze her at all.
"Well, that's fine," she told me. "It's just for a little while; there's no big deal. Why don't you head to your room for a bit? I'll make some dinner."
I hesitated for a moment before obeying. After closing the front door, I scooped up my backpack with one hand, and made my way over to my bedroom. As soon as I closed the door, the arguing started up again. They'd lowered their voices to keep me from eavesdropping, but I was able to pick up on the more important parts of their conversation.
My dad had lost his job at the cannery, and he wasn't alone. Along with all the other employees on the assembly line, he'd received no warning about the upcoming layoffs. He'd simply shown up for work that morning expecting a day like any other, only to be told that his employment contract had been terminated. He'd been at home all day, taking calls from his union representatives and coworkers as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do now that he had no way of supporting his family. My mom was angry at the fact that he'd gotten drunk instead of going out to look for work immediately. She was constantly telling him to 'just hang up, and get out there!' He kept shouting at her to calm down so that he could take his calls. They argument went back and forth for hours.
As for me, I didn't know how to handle it. I'd never seen my parents act this way before. I ended up shutting myself off in my bedroom, sitting on the floor with my back to the wall as I tried to drown out the noise by cupping both paws over my ears. I'd heard more than my fair share of yelling that day. Even though this outburst wasn't directed towards me, I couldn't bear to hear such hatred coming from my own parents.
I later learned that my father's situation was far from unique. Until that year, nearly all of the canneries at the Harbor City docks had continued to use actual, physical labor in their factories, if only to help support the local community by providing jobs. But as of that fateful day, this was no longer the case. The factory owners, becoming more and more concerned about their own financial welfare in the face of the looming economic crisis, had mutually agreed to completely automate the canning process in each of their respective buildings. There would no longer be an assembly line of workers, cutting, scaling, boning, and canning the fish. Where they once stood on the factory floor, there would now be machines.
According to my dad, the labor unions fought endlessly against this development, but eventually, even they realized that it was a lost cause. In the end, my dad began to apply for unemployment benefits from the state, along with welfare checks and food stamps...
It took an entire summer of living day-by-day on my mother's tips and her small paychecks, until we eventually got the help that we wanted...
Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of help that we really needed...
My dad never did find another job... For many months, I would leave my bedroom to find him passed out on the couch with an empty bottle of whiskey sitting in front of him on the coffee table. He nearly stopped talking altogether. For many months, I watched him waste away, speaking only in mumbles and low growls. The only clear phrase I would hear him say would be 'Jake! Get me another drink!'
For many months, I would come home after school, pick up the bottles from the living room table, and toss them into the trash can before heading into my room to start on my homework. I watched us all begin to slowly drift apart. My mom eventually refused to pay for his liquor. My dad started leaving the apartment and staying out late into the night. Some nights, he wouldn't come home at all.
For many months, I remained the only constant in all of this; a lone spectator watching quietly from the sidelines and saying nothing as I tried my best to get through each day as quickly and with as little pain as possible. For many months, I watched them both suffer openly, as I suffered in silence.
And for the longest time, I did nothing...
As my third-grade year came to pass, I fell into a new routine, one far removed from those fleeting moments of joy that I had once experienced. My parents had changed, my life had changed, and as a result, I had changed as well. I guess it was something I should've expected...
My dad would no longer get up early to cook us breakfast. I'd wake up each morning to shower, and instead of inhaling the enticing aroma of bacon wafting in from under the bathroom door, I'd get hit with the gut-churning stench of whiskey and depression. When I came home from school each day, instead of finding my mother smiling as she cooked dinner for the family, I'd find them arguing, bickering back and forth as if they were on opposing sides of an imaginary battle line. I'd step in through the front door, drop my backpack next to the door frame, and immediately run to my room, where I'd cower in a corner with my eyes squeezed tightly shut and my paws clamped firmly over both of my ears. I'd stay there for as long as it took, and sometimes it took hours, until the screaming had finally stopped. Only then would I venture out into the living room, and ask what was for dinner that night.
At school, things didn't go much better. Everyone in my class had heard about what I'd done to Jimmy on the last day of school, and predictably enough, they were all terrified. I was no longer 'the scapegoat.' I was now 'the monster.'
I was still cut off from all social contact by the kids in my class; only now, it wasn't because I was different from the rest of them. Now, it was fear. Nearly everybody in the class had, at some point or another, used me as a way of escaping punishment for their own acts of wrongdoing. To put it mildly, they were all scared shitless. When we played contact sports like football during P.E., they were cautious enough to give me a wide berth whenever I had the ball. When I ate lunch at the cafeteria, my table was no longer deserted, but the other kids remained eerily silent as they sat calmly and ate their food. Nobody wanted to say or do the wrong thing, for fear of ending up beaten to a bloody pulp.
As for Jimmy, the bulldog with the murderous grin and the loud mouth, he couldn't get within ten feet of me before his fur started to stand on end and his body began to shake. He'd suffered a broken jaw and a mild concussion as a result of my beating, and was always reminded of my attack with every bite of food he would take. When we weren't in school, he would cross the street if he saw me walking, and quickly exit any store, restroom, or public place if I happened to step through the door. I remember one time, when he left a local arcade after feeding nearly five bucks in quarters into one of the more popular video games. I'd walked right up to the machine and started playing from where he'd left off. It was a welcome distraction, which managed to take my mind off of the chaos that I knew was waiting for me whenever I decided to go home.
It worked for about an hour.
Things kept going like this for quite a while. At the time, I really didn't think it could get any worse. Even though I didn't yet know what the phrase meant, I believed that I'd reached the point of no return; that I'd finally experienced what many alcoholics and drug addicts would later tell me is called 'hitting bottom.' And I hadn't even started getting high...
Today, I mentally slap myself for not realizing that the worse was yet to come...
It happened halfway through my third-grade year, on the day before my eighth birthday...
It was the day that changed my life forever. It was the climax of the unspoken, mutual hatred that my parents had been harboring for one another over the past several months. It will become the nightmare that I'll be forced to relive every night, when I close my eyes and try to get a good night's sleep. It was the day that I would give anything to have erased from my memory, and removed from my past.
... And for many years after it was over, Whenever somebody asks me about it, I'll always refer to it as the day that Jake O'Neil died...
It all happened on a sunny, cloudless day. The last chill of the winter had passed, and the warmth of spring was just beginning to fill the air... March 5th... I remember the date. I remember the date because I was getting ready to celebrate. My birthday was only twenty-four hours away, and I was hoping that my parents could put aside their anger, if only as a gift to me on that one special day... I remember the date because, for the next few years, I'll have to bring it up countless times, in front of countless different therapists, psychiatrists, social workers and counselors as they each tried their best to help me mend my fragile state of mind... and they'll always fail.
I'll remember the date because I have to remember; because some part of me, somewhere in my mind, won't allow me to forget.
It started off as a normal day. I'd gotten up early as usual, went about my normal routine of showering and brushing my teeth, and had actually made myself a bowl of cereal, which I'd eaten in silence before starting my long walk to school. When I finally got to class, I'd missed the tardy bell by two minutes, earning myself yet another stay in detention at the end of the day. I used to hate detention. It used to feel like pure hell and misery, sitting alone in that classroom while all the other kids got picked up by their parents, hopped on the bus, or walked home. Now, my attitude couldn't have been more different. I'd grown to love detention; to hope for it.
Every day, I would purposely take a short detour along my route to school, stopping in front of a covenience store to kick the vending machines for free soda, or taking a walk around the school before actually going inside. I would intentionally arrive late to class each day, hoping that my new teacher, who'd known very little about my actions during the previous year, would reach for one of those small pink index cards which contained the roll for detention at the end of the day. Sometimes, my plan worked. Sometimes, it didn't. Either way, I came to view detention as an escape, in the same way that I would come to view my use of drugs, a few years later. It was something that I could use to take my mind off of everything that was bothering me. It was a way for me to retain my sanity.
It was a way for me to just not care.
That day, it was business as usual. I listened intently as the teacher explained the day's lessons: spelling and math. I raised my hand to answer easy problems, and responded politely when called on to give my solutions. From my desk at the head of the class, I made threatening faces at Jimmy, who seemed to shrink further and further into his seat with each glance, an action which served to put a nice smile on my face. During lunch, I sat at my usual table, and I actually attempted to start a conversation with one of the kids who sat next to me in class. He looked scared out of his mind, and didn't say much, but I felt like I had made a good start.
After the bell rang, I waited for the other kids to clear out of the classroom, before putting my feet up on my desk and leaning back in my chair. This drew some scoffs from the few kids who'd also been unlucky enough to get sent to detention, along with more than a few dirty looks from the teacher, but I didn't really care. I got comfortable in my seat, locked my paws behind my head, and closed my eyes. The way I saw it, I had a good two hours of peace to get some rest before I had to go home and face my parents. I fell asleep almost immediately. I must've sat there for many minutes, or even hours, but I couldn't tell.
The next thing I knew, I was being stirred awake by the feeling of some sharp, pointy object being jabbed repeatedly into my forearm. With a low growl of groggy annoyance, I opened my eyes and turned my head to find out what it was. Through the fog of my hazy, blurred vision, I saw that it was a pencil. One of the other students, a panther who'd been tardy that morning as well, was busy trying to get my attention.
"What do you want?" I asked him. "I'm trying to sleep..."
He nodded towards the large, round clock at the front of the classroom, which hung silently on the wall above the ink-stained whiteboard. Shifting my gaze towards it, I could see that almost three hours had passed.
"It's time to go," the panther said.
I rubbed my eyes to clear my vision, and turned my head to survey the classroom. The other students were long gone, and so was the teacher. The classroom door had been locked, but left wide open, so as to allow us to leave whenever we chose. Something told me that this kid had stayed behind intentionally; if only to make sure that I woke up before the school was locked down for the night. It was an action that wasn't lost on me. I remember letting out a loud yawn, and giving him a single nod as I stretched out my arms and legs.
"Thanks."
He gave me a thin smile, and shook his head as he began to collect his homework from the desk in front of him. "Don't mention it."
I suddenly realized that I'd never noticed this kid before. Judging by the way he was acting around me, I could clearly see that he didn't know who I was, or why everyone else seemed to avoid me. I grabbed my backpack off the floor, and stood up to leave. He was already halfway to the door when I called out to him.
"What's your name?"
He froze in place, standing still for a few seconds before turning around to face me. "Robert. But everybody calls me Bobby..."
I approached him cautiously, and extended my paw so that he could shake it. "Nice to meet ya. I'm Jake."
He shook my paw once, before motioning towards the door. We left the classroom together and stayed silent as we walked down the long, empty hallway which led to the school's main entrance. As we walked, I noticed that Bobby was turning his head back and forth, taking in every detail of the building as we continued along. It finally hit me when we reached the doors. I knew why I hadn't noticed him before.
"Are you new here?" I asked.
Bobby slumped his shoulders, and heaved a sigh. I suddeny felt apologetic.
"I've been here a week," he tells me, "But nobody wants to talk to me. I've been sitting in the back of the class by myself. I've seen the way people look at you. Somebody said you beat up another kid with a brick?"
I couldn't help chuckling. So he had heard about me. Now that I knew, I found myself wondering why, out of all the people he could've found to socialize with, he'd stayed behind after detention to talk to me. I was never really one for making guesses... So I just came right out and asked him.
"Well... I know what it's like to not have friends," he said, as he pushed open the steel door and led us both outside. "I've been by myself a lot. It's never any fun. When people told me not to go near you, I thought I could take a chance. So I stayed behind..."
As we walked down the street, the lamps beginning to flicker to life as the sun settled on the horizon, my ears perked up, and a smile began to form across my face. Someone actually wanted to talk to me. Somebody actually cared. My tail wagged excitedly behind me as we made our way down the empty stretch of road. I wanted to learn more about this kid. We talked for a while about the other schools he'd attended, and the kind of things that he could expect from West Side Elementary. I was delighted to finally have someone that I could share a conversation with. As we continued to chatter noisily and stroll aimlessly down the winding sidwalks, I actually felt like I may have finally made a friend.
When we finally reached my neighborhood, Bobby came to a stop a few blocks away from my home. "Well, I'm this way," he said, jerking his thumb back in the opposite direction.
"Really?!" I exclaimed. "Where do you live? Maybe you could come over or something?"
He shook his head sadly, and I could see the ethusiasm literally drain away from his face. "Sorry... I can't be out after sunset. The people I live with... Well, they have these rules..."
I quickly waved off his apology, and shrugged my shoulders in reply. "It's OK. Maybe I'll see you in class?"
This promise brought back his smile, and he gave me a quick nod before saying goodbye. I watched him turn the corner down one of the side streets, and felt elated as I began to jog back towards my family's apartment. Their yelling didn't bother me aymore. Dad's drinking didn't matter. I'd made a friend; someone I felt like I could trust and talk to. Someone who actually wanted to listen.
Whe I reached the tenement building, I took the steps two at a time. I was jumping for joy all the way until I reached the front door.
Something was wrong. My parents were going at it again, but unlike their usual fighting, this time the yelling sounded louder than ever. Reaching into my pocket to retrieve my house key, I suddenly flinched when I heard the sound of something crashing against one of the walls inside. What were they doing? I fumbled with the key as I hurried to turn the lock and open the door.
What's going on?
After turning the lock, I pulled out the key and gave the old, rusty doorknob a good twist. Taking a deep breath to stop the shaking in my paws, I pushed open the door and stepped forward into the chaos.
"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!" I heard my mother scream. "AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?!"
"IT'S GONE!" My dad shouted back. "NOW STOP ASKIN'!"
I watched as he snatched up a bottle from the living room table, and sucked down a healthy portion of its contents. I'd never seen either of them this angry. As I stood in the doorframe, my backpack dangling loosely from my shoulder, I was paralyzed.
I wanted to run; to go to my room and hide. I wanted to shut my eyes and block out the noise, as I'd done so many times before. But somehow, this time, I couldn't. Something in their voices kept me from moving. Something about this fight had turned my legs to stone.
"HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR FOOD?! THAT MONEY WAS TO FEED THE KID, YOU LAZY BASTARD!"
From where I was standing, I could sense that something bad was about to happen. The fur on my father's neck had begun to stand on end, and I could hear the low rumble steadily building up in his chest as his hackles raised. Before I could comprehend what was happening, one of his paws had begun to shake. Feeling thoroughly terrified, I could only stand and watch as he raised his arm and slapped my mother across her face.
The force of the blow sent her tumbling to the floor. The sound that my father's open hand made as it connected with my mother's cheek echoed loudly throughout the tiny apartment, and when it reached my ears, it carried with it a feeling of overwhelming pain and sadness. My legs, which had been shaking nonstop throughout the entire ordeal, finally gave out. I fell to the ground, and I could feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes before I could begin to form a thought. Up until this point, my dad had never hit his wife. Up until this point, I'd never thought that such a thing was possible.
As I sat on the dirty floor, I watched my mother begin to cry. My father stood over her, panting heavily as his body trembled with the pent-up anger that begged to be released. Seeing my mother, my beautiful mother, lying so defenseless on the ground, a switch in my head flipped, and I began to shake as I started to break down as well. I pulled my legs to my chest and buried my head in my hands as I started to whine, quietly at first. Neither of them seemed to notice that I was there.
My cries quickly escalated into loud wails of agonizing pain, a sound which easily drowned out my mother's own weeping and my father's snarls. I watched her tear-filled blue eyes turn to face me, and felt her pain and shame as she quickly lowered her gaze down to the floor. I wasn't supposed to see this, and she knew it. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.
Upon hearing my loud sobbing, my father whirled around to investigate. The stench of whiskey seemed to pour from his body as he stomped across the room towards me, reaching up to slam the front door behind my back before lowering his face to mine.
"What's wrong with ya, kid?!" he exclaimed. "What're you cryin' about?! You cryin' because of that?!" He thrust a claw towards my mother, who was still on the floor.
"That's nothin'!" he yelled, "That's life! Now quit yer whinin' and get outta here!"
But I couldn't stop. My entire body shook with fear as I gripped my legs even more tightly, in the vain hope that they would somehow shield me from my father's drunken rage.
"DIDN'T YA HEAR ME?!" he screamed once more. A yelp of fright escaped my muzzle as he grabbed me by the shoulders, and gave me a few hard shakes. "STOP CRYIN'!"
Still, my body refused to obey. I could feel that deadly rumble beginning to work its way up through his chest once more. In an flash, he brought his paw across my muzzle with a resounding 'smack!'
My head spun and stars danced before my eyes as my small body crumpled in a heap on the floor. Through the haze, I could hear my mother screaming as she watched me fall. A second later I heard the sound of something breaking, followed by a howl of pain as my father dropped to the ground. Blinking away the confusion, I saw my mother standing above him, the neck of a broken whiskey bottle clenched firmly between both of her paws.
"JAKE!" she screamed. "Are you alright?!" The bottle fell to the floor, the glass shattering into innumerable shards as she quickly moved to help me.
"Oh, my god, baby..." She moaned, as she ran her soft paw across the stinging pink lump on my left cheek. "Oh, god..."
A low groan came from behind her as my father began to stir. She quickly looked away, before turning her head back to me.
"I need you to go to your room, OK?" She pleaded. "Go to your room, and shut the door! Do you think you can do that?"
I could barely manage a nod as she pulled me from the floor, and lowered her muzzle to kiss me on the forehead. "I'm so sorry, baby, I didn't mean for any of this. Now go to your room. I'll let you know when it's safe to come out, OK?"
I sniffled loudly, and gave her another nod as I wiped away my tears. Ignoring my backpack, I took off at a run for my bedroom. When I got inside, I closed the door. My heart was pounding in my throat as I tried to find something, anything, to keep it shut. The desk was too heavy. My TV was too small. My eyes finally came to rest on the bed, and it took every last ounce of strength that I had to push it up against the door.
Once I'd sealed myself in the room, I began looking for somewhere to hide. Part of me wanted to crawl out the window and run down the fire escape. But what if something happened? What if I fell? What if something happened to my parents? I couldn't do it...
In the end, I settled on my small, cramped closet. In a panic, I threw open the door and shut myself inside.
I crawled under the clothes, which hung on a rod above my head, and shrank back into a dark corner of the tiny, closed-in space...
"Wow..."
Charlie shakes his head as he drinks down his fifth cup of coffee. I'm currently on my third, and already, I'm starting to feel the jitters from the large amount of caffeine pulsing through my bloodstream.
"Yeah..." I mutter, sipping from my own cup as I gently massage my black eye with a paw. "It's crazy, right?"
"It's unbelievable," Charlie tells me, snatching up the pack of cigarettes from the table. He sticks one between his teeth, and offers one to me, which I decline.
"So your dad..."
I nod my head, and take another drink from my cup.
"That's just wild... So what happened after that?"
"I ended up falling asleep in the closet," I explain. "The next morning, I got woken up by some cops who were busy taking pictures of the bodies... They heard me crying, and one of em', a sergeant, i think, opened the door to find me sitting there... I spent a week at a psych hospital, getting poked and prodded, having my brain picked. When they found out that my grandparents were dead, they sent me to this place called Ms. Austin's home for Boys. It was an orphanage on the West Side. It turns out that my friend Bobby was staying there, too..."
I hear a soft chuckle as Charlie nods his head, and rolls the cigarette from one corner of his mouth, to the other. "Dark cloud, meet silver lining, right?" he asks me. I nod my head in reply. "What happened with the foster families?"
"The first few didn't really know what to do with me... For a year or so, I was so broken up that I could barely talk to anyone. I was in and out of counselling, going to see different shrinks... Eventually, they would usually just give up and send me back to the orphanage. Nobody wanted to raise a kid who was that messed up..."
Charlie goes silent for a a few minutes as he mulls this over. After a while, he sparks up his cigarette, and nods towards my shaking wrists.
"So how'd you end up spun out on crystal?"
A loud sigh pushes its way past my lips as I gaze down at the numerous track marks which line the skin under my fur. "One of my foster dads was a trucker. He actually turned me on to drugs in general. He used to shoot up a gram or so each day, just to keep working late into the night, you know? He'd introduced me to pot on my tenth birthday, and I kinda became curious from there. I would watch him do it every day, and eventually I just said 'fuck it', and stole a bag for myself."
"Shit... How'd that turn out?"
"Freaky." I continue. "The first time I tried it, I really didn't know anything about dosing. I ended up shooting a truckload of speed, and staying awake for almost a week. When he found out, man, was he pissed! He started hiding the stuff after that, but it didn't really take me long to find it. I ended up raiding his stash whenever he'd leave the house to go to work."
Charlie bursts out in soft giggling. He shakes his head, and taps his cigarette in the ashtray before speaking.
"That must've been crazy. How long did you live with the guy?"
"Not long. I'd only been there for about two months, when a social worker came by to see how I was doing. I mean, I'd been in and out of a few other homes by that time, so I knew that I should expect a visit from her every month or so. I just really wish I'd known about it in advance..."
"What happened? Did she find out that your foster dad was an addict?"
I shake my head, and feel a smile coming on as I reach the sad punchline of my sorry story. "He was out on the driveway, fixing his truck. I thought I'd have plenty of time to get off, so I dug out some of his crystal and stole one of his clean spikes. I was actually sitting at the kitchen table mixing up the shot with some bottled water when the front door opened. I didn't even hear it; I was so caught up in the moment, you know? Long story short, she found me in the kitchen digging around for a vein. My foster dad was right behind her, carrying his toolbox. The look on their faces, man... I'll admit, it was kind of sad, but at the same time, it was fuckin' priceless."
Charlie's giggling becomes a howl of bellowing laughter. "Jesus Christ, kid! That's insane!" he says. "Did they send you to rehab or some shit?"
I give a short chuckle and slug down the dregs of my coffee, smiling widely as I shake my head.
"Not even. I had to go to NA for a while, but that was it. Not that it helped any; I was brought back by three more families over the next couple years because they caught me getting high. About four months ago, I ended up with the Fullers, and well... You know how that turned out."
Charlie stops laughing, and his smile vanishes as his gaze locks onto my black eye. "Yeah... We're gonna have to do something about that..."
"Damn right, we do."
The new voice causes Charlie's ears to perk up, and a thin smile draws across his muzzle as he turns to face the bedroom. My eyes follow his, and come to rest on the slender figure of James, leaning against the door frame wearing a pair of faded jeans.
"How long have you been standing there?" I ask him. He laughs, and gives me a comforting smile.
"Long enough, Jake... You guys DO know that it's eight A.M., right? I've got a couple of clients coming by soon."
He points towards the window, and I turn my head to see that the sun is shining in through the glass. I wonder how long Charlie and I have been talking...
"Charlie, where's the cell?" he continues.
Charlie points towards an electrical outlet on the other side of the living room, directly underneath the large TV. James marches right over to the charger, and unplugs one of the two phones.
"Who are you calling?" Charlie asks.
"I'll tell you later," James replies, before heading into the bedroom and closing the door behind him.
Charlie and I are alone once again. After watching his mate disappear into their room, he shrugs his shoulders and turns back to me. "Wanna see something badass?" he asks.
I nod my head. "Sure."
He gets up from the couch, and makes his way over to a shelf that's been piled high with DVDs. I watch in silence as he pulls out a handful of cases, and digs around behind them. After replacing the movies, he comes back clutching a small, black object in his paws. "Check it out..."
In his paw is a small, square box, covered in black velvet. Gripping the two halves of it in his claws, he pulls it open. My breath catches in my throat as I see the two wedding bands. Both of them are made of bright platinum, with four black diamonds spaced evenly apart between the braids of what appears to be a celtic knot.
"That's awesome..." I breathe out. Charlie nods his head feverishly. "Ain't it, though? I picked em' out yesterday before I showed up at Benny's. Four diamonds for the four years that we've been together. James hasn't seen them yet, and I'm hoping to surprise him on the day of the wedding."
"When is the wedding, anyway?" I ask, "Do you guys think I could come? I've never been to one before..."
Charlie looks away for a moment, to think. As we sit in silence, I watch as the corners of his muzzle slowly begin to turn up in an ear-to-ear grin that makes me uncomfortable. His tail starts to wag as he whirls around to face me.
"It's in a couple weeks... Say, kid, how'd you like to take part?" he asks.
"What do you mean?"
"Wanna be our ring bearer? You may be a little old for the job, but I think it'd be cool."
My fur starts to tingle with anticipation as his question floats through my mind. Before I know it, I'm nodding my head furiously and telling him that I'd love to take the job.
I've got something to look forward to now. No matter what happens after this; if I get sent back to the orphanage, or end up in juvie hall, I've got something to hold onto. The thought almost makes me squeal with delight. Charlie lets out a yelp of surprise as I throw my arms around his waist to give him a hug. After a few seconds, he calms down and lets out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head with a smile as he reaches down to scratch the fur on the back of my neck.
"I guess we're gonna have to get you a suit, kid..."
This has to be the absolute LONGEST time it's ever taken me to write a chapter. My hard drive crashed on my desktop, so I had to actually rewrite more than half of this chapter completely from memory. It was a real pain in the ass, but I think it turned out pretty well... Anyway, this is the background on Jake, and I hope you all enjoyed this little detour from the main story. Don't worry, it'll all work out in the end. I've got plans for these characters, as you'll all see. As always, I look forward to reading any comments or reviews! I only write beause you guys keep me going!
--Ken
Edit: Fixed a bunch of spelling errors. My old laptop has sticky keys from my alcoholic days. I think I got most of em', but if anybody happens to see any that I may have missed, shoot me a PM!