| |
The Past
Sitting on the cement steps that lead to the porch of the three-story Victorian era home I sprinkle the last of the crumbs from my turkey sandwich onto the sidewalk. The black ants gladly accept my peace offering after I ruined their mound when I crashed my toy car through it. I watch them. Tiny yet they seem strong. Resilient. They disappear between the cracks of the red brick walkway. Sometimes I wish I could disappear too. No one would come looking for me. I doubt anyone would even notice if I left never to return.
I’ve thought about it more times than I can count. I’m chicken shit. Stuck. Afraid to move forward and unable to go back. I have nowhere to go back to and nowhere to run to.
I glance up at the sound of car doors shutting. Social worker. She squats and whispers to a little girl as she swipes her thumbs across her cheeks. I know the drill. Been through the process plenty of times already but the girl has nothing to worry about. Mrs. Winnie is strict and ugly but keeps a clean house and serves good food. Has cable and on Saturday mornings she lets me watch cartoons. Best house I’ve been placed at so far. Place is like a mansion or something. The newest foster is older than dirt and smells like it too. Plus, she’s alone. No family. No kids. I’m told I’m lucky she took me in, and that I’ve not been put into a group home.
That’s me the lucky one.
My clothes smell nice, and my belly keeps full. Not like the last home. I stare at the round scar on my left bicep and shake the memory off.
Yeah. Lucky.
The black wrought iron gate creaks as the woman swings it open while clasping the girl’s hand tightly in her own.
“Hey, Benicio. Remember me?” Her shadow falls over me.
I lift a shoulder. I remember her, but they’re all the same. They simply shuffle us through the system to be forgotten. None of them care about us. No one cares about us. Not our fosters. Not the families that left us behind. All we got is the promise of freedom if we live long enough to age out of the system. I got lucky, so they say, being born on the right side of the border, but my brother was sent back to Mexico to his father. My mother was in the states illegally. Working the streets while my brother was supposed to watch me. A two-year-old when he was only seven. One night she didn’t come back to the motel room we were living in. A maid who worked there found us a few days later dirty and hungry. At least that’s what they told me at the last home I was at.
I never stood a chance. Dirty. Broken. Forgotten. Unloved. Hollow. Unworthy. I’m reminded daily.
No one is coming to save me. To protect me.
One day I’ll be stronger. Tougher. But I’ll always be this. A damaged kid with brown skin. My own kind don’t want me, and the white kids taunt me.
“I’ve brought you a new friend to play with. Is Mrs. Winnie around?”
“Kitchen,” I mutter and glance at the girl wrapped around her leg, dragging a black trash bag with her.
She’s practically a baby. Probably wets the bed. Probably will cry all the time too. Her nose is crusted with dried snot. Her eyes ringed with red give away that she’s been crying. The only thing pretty about her is the mole above her lips.
“Why don’t you get acquainted while I get Mrs. Winnie. Go ahead and make your introductions.” The woman pries the girl from her leg and whirls past me. The sickening floral scent of her perfume washes over me and my stomach drops. The sickness that festers in me uncurls in my belly and claws up my throat. It reminds me of her. The liar. The user. The woman who made me do things I didn’t want to. Told me I’d like it. That the better I got at it the more girls will love me. And when I didn’t do what I was told they’d burn me with their cigarettes.
The girl stands unmoving. We enter a staring contest. I gaze into her caramel-colored eyes and the darkness that lives in me recoils. The monster inside me who tells me to do bad things goes back to sleep.
I blink first and she smiles. At her expression something inside me snaps into place. Something that says she’s mine to protect. That she’s like me. Not on the outside but in. She’s dirty and broken too. I see it in her eyes. That lost look. The hollow shell.
“You got a name?” I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask. Once she’s cleaned up, if there isn’t anything too wrong with her, someone will take her. Someone always wants a cute little girl to dress up. No one wants me, but her— this girl has a chance to make it out of the broken system.
She nods but doesn’t speak.
“I’m Benicio. I’ll call you...” I pause and look around right as a bee lands on the tip of her freckled nose. “Honey Bee,” I whisper.
I’m only a boy on the cusp of puberty but I know this.
She’s mine to protect.
I want her to love me.
To keep the devil within me at bay.
I don’t want to be bad.
I don’t want to be alone anymore.
**
“Who did it?” Mrs. Winnie stares between us. Her dark, beady eyes pinging back and forth like a pinball game. Her lips pucker in distaste, the wrinkles in her face deepen with the hardened expression she wears.
I look down at the tiny fingers trembling in my own. Her bottom lip wobbles. A sob hiccups from her throat. I can smell the urine on her, and I’m sure the hateful bitch does too.
A pointy fingernail presses under her chin. “Do you know what happens to little girls who wet themselves? Cockroaches will come. And they’ll crawl up your legs. Is that what you want?”
“No,” her voice is barely a whisper as her entire body vibrates in fear.
“I can’t hear you. Speak up, child.”
Steel coats my spine as I straighten. “It was me. I did it. I had a nightmare. It was an accident.”
“Come with me.” The old bat jerks me forward roughly by my shoulder.
I release her hand.
Its better this way. I can handle the punishment. She can’t.
I’m thrust down the basement stairs, tucking myself into a ball as my ribs bang into the worn wood. The scent of mildew pulls through my lungs, and I cough, landing in a pile of dust next to a stack of boxes that are coming apart at the seams.
Her heeled boots clack on the stairs as she descends on me like a wicked witch. “You’re a liar with a wicked tongue. I should cut it out.” Mrs. Winnie grimaces, towering over me. “What am I to do with you, boy?” She lets out a breath making a tsk sound.
I slide back on my elbows and wince. My side aches from my tumble down the stairs. I’ve probably cracked a rib or two. It wouldn’t be the first time.
She paces around me in a circle. The skirt of her dress swooshes around me stirring up dust motes. “His mouth is full of lies and wickedness. Trouble and evil are under his tongue,” she spits the words at me like venom. Her poison seeps into my bones. “More trouble than you’re worth. Your kind is always up to no good. Filthy little creature. This can’t stand.” She shakes her head and pulls a Bible from the pocket of her apron. “Psalm 101:7 says, no one who practices deceit will dwell in my house. No one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.” She licks her boney finger and flips through the pages, pacing around me as she preaches the gospel from what she calls the good book. “Psalm 120:2. Save me, Lord. From lying lips and from deceitful tongues.”
**
I fall to my knees as another strike of the whip cracks across the welted flesh of my back.
“Proverbs 3:7-8. Let me hear it,” the vile bitch crows as she whips me harder.
“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones,” I shout.
My skin breaks open, but I don’t dare give her the satisfaction of hearing me weep. Blood trickles out as my skin peels away like the layers of an onion being stripped away one sliver at a time.
I nearly bite through my own tongue as the pain stings through every nerve in my body. My breath catches in my throat and tears burn in the backs of my eyelids. I don’t know how much more my body can withstand.
Today she’s mad because Hazel fed a stray cat a slice of cheese and lied about it. I told her I ate it, but she didn’t buy it.
“Psalm 119:133,” she demands.
“Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me,” I cry out.
Sweat beads down my back seeping into my wounds. Bile bubbles in the pit of my stomach and unable to fight against the act I retch on the floor of the basement. The acidic fluid scorches my nostrils I vomit so violently.
“Oh, Lord, hear my prayers. Help me bleed this evil from my home. Cut off the serpent’s tongue. Expel the demons.”
The hot sting of the whip burns into my open flesh. Over and over again. Black dots float in front of my eyes.
“No more,” I whisper, dropping to my hands in my own puke.
**
“Wake up, Benicio.” A cold washcloth presses to my cheek. “Please, don’t leave me.” Slender fingers press against my skin gently.
“Hmm,” I mumble into the pillow that’s thinner than the case that covers it. White hot searing pain slices through me, and the sickness returns. I barely get my head over the edge of the worn mattress in time.
“Beni,” she says, wiping my damp hair from my eyes. “You have a fever.”
“Let me die in peace,” I mutter. That’s all I want right now is to be left alone. To fall into a deep sleep. Sweat clings to my clammy skin.
“Never say that again.” Her arms wrap around my neck as my stomach heaves. “I’m so sorry, Beni. It’s my fault.”
“It’s her. She’s evil, and I’m going to kill her.”
“Then they’ll take you away. You promised we’ll never be apart.”
“I’ll find you, soon as I can.” My teeth chatter as my body fights the fever.
“I’m scared.”
“Nothing to fear but fear itself. That’s how it works.”
“I know,” she whispers hoarsely, fighting her tears.
“Don’t cry, Honey Bee.”
“I’m not,” she lies as she presses her face into my neck. The warmth of her tears trickles down my neck mingling with my sweat.
“You’re a terrible liar.” I kiss her forehead and battle the urge to throw up as the pain radiates through my bones from the beating I took in her place. It’s nothing new. I’ve been doing it for years. Each one worse than the last but I’m older and stronger now. We’ve lived in hell for five years now. We’re the forgotten.
Left to rot in this Hell.
But I’m going to save us.
No one else will.
**
The wind howls and the shutters beat against the house as the rain pelts my bedroom window. Balls of hail strike the roof as lightning cracks across the sky vibrantly. My bedroom door slowly creaks open. Hazel tip toes across the room dodging the worn floorboards that groan when stepped on. Mrs. Winnie might be old, but she has the ears of a damn rabbit.
We can never be too careful. If she knew Hazel sneaks into my bed often, she’d skin us both alive. I shift to my side, peeling the cover back as she climbs over me. Her cold feet press into my legs for warmth.
“The power got knocked out.”
She hates the dark.
She throws a leg over my hip, snuggling into my side, burying her head in the crook of my neck. I put my palm to her heart, focusing on the rhythm as it beats rapidly in her chest.
Thump. Thump, thump. Thump. Thump, thump.
Her lips press against my skin, and she wiggles against me.
“Where will we go first?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere as long as you’re with me.”
“We’ll always be together,” I promise, hoping my words are true.
**
The blaze of the fire dances in our eyes. Sirens howl in the distance. To keep one promise, I have to break another. We only have minutes before they arrive and take me away. “I gotta go away now.” I tuck a finger under her chin knowing I shouldn’t but unable to deny myself of this one guilty pleasure. My greatest sin. I press my lips to hers. Soft and sweet meets my rough and dirty.
The hot wet of her tears stains my lips, etching their shape into my skin, and burning their saltiness into my memory, where the ghost of her will live forever. Until the day I’m dead and maybe even beyond that. Her tongue slides against mine one last time.
“Come back for me, Beni.”
“Soon as I can,” I tell her though we both know it’s a lie. I won’t be back any time soon. She’ll forget all about me and live a beautiful life. The one she deserves. The one I wish I could give her. But it’ll never be me.
The devil lives within me, and without her he’ll win every time.
I close my eyes and welcome the darkness.
My oldest friend.