Category Archives: After Teddy.

Alley Kid Part Nine

by

8

 

Colin eats his breakfast as though he hasn’t eaten for a week. I wish Will was with me. I wish I could shower him this way, with food and the things he needs instead of starving, and the deprivation he receives being my son. I chase away the pangs of guilt. I tell myself I am doing my best, but I know I am not. I’m failing him. He just doesn’t know any better and doesn’t complain.

Joanne eats her food, too. I smile at her enthusiasm over the money and what we can do with it. She runs off all her excitements in such fast succession that I am not sure I can keep up. I know her though; these are nothing more than pipe dreams.  She, too, has thought about filling the cupboards but, of course, our first thoughts are going to Froggy and scoring for the weekend. What a great time we will have. I agree, I can hardly wait. Anything to take away the inner gloom that plagues me constantly.

The time ticks by and I wait for Phil to come back. I know he will come back. I trust him that much, but not much else. Even so, some part of me is relieved when I see his car approaching and then he pulls onto the forecourt to the café and comes in. the hammering in my chest threatens to break my ribs and I let out my relief.

Phil comes in and his grin is huge. He sits himself down and orders too, for him and Becci. I want to ask for my money. I can feel myself reaching out for it and being able to touch it, but he doesn’t say anything. I am waiting with baited breath for him to put it in my hands and relieve the anxiety I didn’t know existed.

I know he’s teasing me. He knows I want the cash and is waiting for me to ask on purpose. I’m thankful when it’s Joanne who asks him.

“What makes you think I have it?” He tells her, and Joanne doesn’t believe him. She holds her hand out waiting for it.

“You have the money?” I ask him myself, in the end, he keeps grinning as if he is debating on what to say and then he laughs.

“Look at the scared look on both your faces.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some cash. I take it from him before he has chance to take it back and tease me some more. I can hardly believe it’s there.

We finish our food off and then Phil says he’ll give us a lift back to our flat, but he can’t stay. He is on curfew and wants to be home. Poor Becci thinks he means home to his place, but he means his other girlfriend, Sarah, and I wonder how he keeps up with it. Sarah has a daughter and Becci is pregnant.

Sometimes, I have been with Phil and Sarah and if we go to see Becci, I slip up and Becci scowls at me. Part of me thinks she must know, maybe she just doesn’t want to see it.

We go back to my place and Joanne says she needs to go out and get some smokes. She’s going to get them cheap from her mate. “I’ll be a couple of hours,” she says, “Are you going to Maz’s?”

“Yes,” I say. “I promised her I would do.”

There’s a figure sat on the steps leading up to our door when we get there. Colin recognises him right away and  is over everyone and out of the car so fast  to go into his older brother’s arms.

“Do they know you are here?” I ask.

Mark smiles and shrugs. That means no, I guess. I don’t say anything, but I wish he would stop it. He’s going to get me caught and I have no desire to end up behind bars.

“I thought I’d take Colin out for something to eat,” he tells me.

“He’s just eaten.”

“No worries, we’ll find something to do.”

“Can I? Asks Colin and there isn’t a way I can say no, not that I think he would listen to me even if I did refuse and I would have no grounds to stop him. I nod my head and Colin forgets himself for a moment and hugs me too. I watch as they walk off down the alley way together.

Joanne leaves too and I tell Phil and Becci thanks and then go to see Froggy and Maz.

Maz is sat on the step in the hallway of the building her flat is in. She’s been crying. She is smoking a cigarette.

She starts rambling and I don’t really know what she is saying. Mikey and Froggy. How she hates the drugs but she took them anyway. She shows me her arm, swears at it, shouts and tells me how bad she is, and that she won’t ever get her son back. Soon, she’s going to lose this baby too. She points to her stomach. There isn’t anything I can say. I put my arms around her and we just stand there for as long as she needs while she cries.

“Promise me something,” she says.

I nod my head.

“Don’t ever let them get Will. Pick him first.”

That’s easy. “I won’t,” I tell her.

She pulls back a little to look up at me. I wipe her face dry and kiss her as she wraps her arms inside my shirt. In that moment I feel at peace.

The door opens and Froggy comes out.

“I thought I heard your voice,” he says to me and tells me to come in.

Maz doesn’t move, but I put my hand round hers and drag her behind me.

Froggy already has my phet ready and good to go. Seems he knows me too well. I take the bag and hand him over, one hundred pounds. Froggy gives me one of his needles and I use their bedroom to take it. Although, it’s only been hours, as the phet takes hold, it feels as though everything gets washed clean away and I can live.

Joanne pops in for a moment to tell me her and her mate are going back to our house. I figure I need to go too. Colin will be back soon and, no doubt, Mark would have to get back to the farms.

Maz comes with us. Joanne has two girls with her. Lauren doesn’t stay so long. Her boyfriend comes and picks her up, but the other girl, Angela, who doesn’t look more than fifteen, I have never met

“Angela needs some where to stay,” Joanne tells me when she takes me into another room.

“We already have Colin,” I say.

“Exactly, so we can have Angela too. She’s fourteen and she won’t be a problem.”

“How come?” I ask.

Joanne tells me Angela’s parents don’t want her. They live the other side of the country and have thrown Angela out. Angela, who has clearly been listening, knocks and comes into the room.

“You can call and ask if you want.”

I look at Joanne and she nods at me. It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice other than to take another in. I can’t exactly turn a young girl out onto the street now can I?

The rest of the night goes fast. Colin comes home and goes straight to bed. His brother stays only long enough to steal a cigarette while Joanne shares her phet with Angela and I sit and talk with Maz.

Daylight creeps in the next day and the phet is almost gone. “Can I get some more from Froggy?” I ask Maz. We haven’t seen him since the day before.

“Sure,” she says. “If not, I’ll ask Woody,” she says before she leaves.

Woody lives next door to them; he deals too.

Joanne has just set Angela up on a spare mattress in Will’s room with Colin, when someone knocks on the door. I think its Maz again, but Joanne answers it and its the familiar sound of the police.

“We have a warrant to search the premises.” It reads.

One of the officers hands me a copy and I hardly have time to read it before they begin to look inside everywhere and turn everything upside down.

I don’t care about the warrant. My mind is at the bag of phet in the lounge and how I will get to it before they see it. Joanne has the same idea. She gets there and removes it before they see it.

The officer says they were told Mark had been here. I deny it of course, but I don’t need to ask who told them. I already know it was Phil. I’ve seen him play these tricks a dozen times, perhaps, this was karma for the times I have laughed when he has called the police out in jest on another friend.

Alley Kid Part 7

by

6

It’s just after dawn, Saturday has begun, and the world is getting busy again. I like this time of day. Just before everything starts, when it’s quiet and peaceful. The air is still fresh and clean and save for a few birds, there are almost no sounds at all. It’s like getting to the new day before everyone else.

Colin is sleeping. I checked on him before going outside to smoke. He gave up just after midnight, but he was determined to stay up as long as us. Of course his wasn’t drug induced wakefulness and although he fought, his eyes had given up on him and he had fallen asleep on the floor. He hadn’t even woken when I picked him up and put him in Will’s bed.

The night has gone fast, or at least it seems so. I still feel the sting a little of Maz’s harsh words. She wasn’t happy with my new high, but I had got Colin food and even some for Mikey. Their bellies were filled with pizza and coke. They had eaten until they couldn’t take another piece in and after, laid down together to play Nintendo, while enjoying the childish freedom and amusement of belching at each other. They were happy.

Colin hadn’t heard Maz’s dissatisfaction with me, just more evidence of my failure. Of course I had lied about how I got the pizza; even Froggy had given me a suspicious glance when I had said that I had bought it. I did in a way, maybe not with cash. Joanne had asked if my dad had given me some money and I gave a noncommittal nod of my head and then went to do something else to avoid the question of how much.

Maz knew something wasn’t right. She always knew, she had been mad at me, but I don’t think she really knew why. I had no doubt some of her shouting had been fuelled by the pain of taking Mikey back to his foster parents and knowing that at night, when he went to bed, when he got bathed and hugged and a bed time story, that another women would be in her place. Even giving him that night time kiss and watching as he went to sleep. I had let her shout at me. I let her say all the things she wanted to get out in her frustration and then I had put my arms around her and she had cried. I didn’t ask why and she didn’t say, but I knew.

My own pangs of guilt at my actions didn’t last long. They didn’t need to. Everything was good. Everything was great. Now. Now that I had had my fixed. Everything was perfect.

Joanne didn’t bother to ask how much. With the phet and the pizza, she no doubt came to an assumption in her head. She doesn’t really care about the girl that works in the take away. Karla she is called. She likes me, Joanne knows that much, but I don’t think she realises how much, not that it matters. Isn’t the saying, what they don’t know won’t hurt them? Even if Joanne does know, she doesn’t care anyway. She doesn’t seem to care so much, as long as she gets her fixes too and I ask no questions of her, all is good. She is no different to everyone else. She doesn’t care for me.

Maz is different. I’m not really sure where she places herself in my life. A motherly sister perhaps, but even that doesn’t fit right. I’ve slept with her once, nothing serious. Fun one night between Joanne, Maz, Froggy and I.

I guess that’s what I’m made for. It seems so at least. Everything always comes back to sex and what people will do if I give it to them. People see something that says it is okay and so they take it. It was there as a child and it’s here now. Maybe I will never figure out what it is and how to turn it off.  Maybe it’s all I have to offer.

Even the backwards events of my childhood seem to confirm it. I wasn’t able to tie my own shoe laces; I couldn’t reach things in the top cupboard. I had a bed time and I wasn’t allowed to cross the main roads by myself, yet I knew how to have sex. I knew how to give people what they wanted.

It’s my purpose.

I look at Colin sometimes. He’s seven, the same age I was my first time with a girl. I can’t imagine him reaching beyond his years into such adult activities.  He might not have much, but he has his innocence. I never did, maybe that’s what people see.

Karla, sex for food. It’s nothing to me. Karla is just another taker hidden behind a sweet smile. A smile that gets her exactly what she wants from whoever she wants it.  I wanted food.

I put my cigarette out and I try not sigh. I know that sigh, I’ll let it go and my next intake of breath will pull in the darkness of my day. I can feel the weight of everything beginning to build up again. Like the ruckus as the day begins, cars moving, more and more people outside. My mind feels as congested as the world. I want to sleep before it becomes more than I can bear.

I’m thankful for the light at least. The fears of my mind aren’t so bad in the day. The flashbacks of a monster long since gone in reality, but ever present in my mind are dulled by the daylight. His grinning face doesn’t plague me as much. His smile, his eyes, the intent in them. With daylight I can fight the bad man.

 

***

I don’t sleep so long. Less than four hours. Between Colin and his ever quiet elephant feet as he tries to walk quietly back and forth through the flat so not to wake me and Phil.

Phil calls to make sure that everything is still on for the day. I hear his voice on the phone and the anxiety spikes in my stomach at perhaps he is cancelling. As he asks me if I am still good for the job, I relax a little, but I still feel the echo of the apprehension inside. I mumble a half asleep yes as I get out of bed and Phil talks, but I’m not really listening as I venture to the bathroom and set the bath off running before I go to the kitchen to find my cigarettes. The content has depleted a little; my foolish over tired mind forgot and left them on the kitchen counter and Colin has been in them. I don’t like him smoking. I guess I see the child he still is and he sees the grown up he wants to be.

I shout Colin’s name, he has my lighter. Everyone else is asleep, but I glance at the clock, it’s nearly 11am.  Phil tells me that he’ll be there in an hour, and then we’ll go and get the television.

“I’ll be ready,” I say to him and then I hang up without saying goodbye. Colin comes in and puts my lighter in my hand without me asking for it.

“Bath time,” I say to him.

“I had one,” he replies. I know he hasn’t. I curse his mother in my mind for making him my problem.

“Bath, now,” I say. “I don’t care if you had one, another won’t kill you. Go, and leave the water in for me.”

He goes to bathroom muttering to himself and I make coffee. Maz, Joanne and Froggy all wake and get up like a conveyer or people, by the time Colin is done and it’s my turn, the flat is filled with noise.

I take my mug and go to the bathroom myself. I only just get undressed and sit in the water, and Maz comes into the bathroom. She isn’t bothered. She does this often and we chat. She pulls out my envelope of needles and takes on for herself. I don’t stare as she pulls the toilet lid down and sits on it to make her hit up. I feel the jab of envy burn inside as she shoots up.

“Are you really going to do this with Phil?” She asks me.

“Yes.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t like him,” I say and Maz clears everything away and rinses her spoon under the tap. I watch as the last evidence of her drugs go with it, like watching food being washed away and starving enough to taste it.

Maz sits on the edge of the bath and takes the shampoo bottle from my hand. I don’t say anything as she washes my hair. In a way I like it. It feels calming as her nails scrape along my scalp. “There’s other ways of making money.”

“Not fast like this. I’ll have £500 in my pocket tonight. Where else can I make that?”

“Lorraine,” she says. “She just has two guys on her books, they make a fortune.”

Lorraine. Maz’s ‘friend’ as she calls her, a woman that runs an escort agency. Maz works for her, or she did until she got pregnant. Not much call for an overly pregnant woman to spend some quality paid for time with.

I tell her I’ll think about it then I finish off my bath and get out and dress ready for Phil.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell Maz as she stares at me. “It’s just some easy money.”

Alley Kid Six

by

10

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I can see Froggy in the distance, stood waiting for me where we agreed. He leans against the wall, cigarette in his mouth, as he watches the world like he has no cares. I wish I was like that. I wish I could just stand and watch and not feel anything.

The dull heaviness I feel inside is a constant battle. Life seems like one long sigh and getting to tomorrow feels impossible. I wish there was a way to induce the simplicity that some people seem to have. That zest for life, like they can’t wait for a new day, yet I wonder why they don’t see the truth like I do. Why are they happy? I don’t really understand it let alone know how to feel it.

Maybe they are fortunate enough to experience the highs without medicated help, or perhaps, they take the health service’s offer of wonderful happy pills. Perhaps that’s it; prescribed happiness.

I drop the piece of metal from my father’s garage over a wall, and into someone’s front garden. The evidence of my shame is discarded and hidden behind the picket fence of someone else’s happy life. I push everything aside the same way I pull the sleeve of my coat down over my physical self-inflicted wound. I pull the inside sleeve down as well and cover everything with a smile.

I hold up my twenty pound note and nod at Froggy to show him my victory. He smiles back as I pocket it again and offers me a cigarette.

We walk back to my place and Froggy tells me about the phet he just scored. It’s like music to my insides that I can’t quite hear, but the desperation of it has me straining my ears until, not only can I hear the words, but I can feel them, too.

“Do you want some?” He asks me.
Every part of me screams yes. Yes, I want some but, I can’t even bring myself to turn him down. I can’t make the words come out. I force my head to shake from side to side and that’s about all I can manage. Pathetic, but it’s one of the hardest things I ever had to communicate to anyone.

“I can’t afford it,” I say.

“You’ve got that twenty,” he says, and nods in the direction of my pocket.

I’m grasping for breath on the edge of what’s right and what I want to do. Colin isn’t my child. Why should I care? Why is it my problem to feed him? I want to reach into my own mind and break up the war that reigns within. I can’t make either side shut up. I want what Froggy offers. I want it so bad; perhaps even more than I want to be able to live in happiness. Its right here being offered right in front of me and all I have to do is say yes. Just three letters and its mine, but I can’t. I can’t do it. My guilt worms its way through me. Torturing me.

“What’ll I tell Joanne and Maz?” I ask him.

I’m not really asking, I’m just saying my thoughts out loud. I can see their faces. Maz’s in particular with the look of disappointment on her face when I tell her.

“F**k ‘em,” he says. “They don’t have to know. Tell you what. Split that twenty with me and I’ll sub you the phet. Some for Joanne too, then she won’t moan about it.”

It’s possible. My mind gets excited at the thought of it.

Yes, yes. I can. I tell Froggy okay. I’m getting the television tomorrow. Easy money. I can pay him back then.

I smoke a cigarette and drink a coffee while I wait for Froggy to cut the phet. He does it with heroin, not glucose, but I don’t care. He can cut it with mud and I’d still want it. My mind can’t say no now, not now that it has a way. That would be worse than anything.

It takes everything I have not to snap Froggy’s hand off as he offers me the wraps for Joanne and I. I give him the twenty to change.

“I’m just going over the road to buy cigs, you want some?”

I nod and he leaves.

I light another cigarette and grab the envelope of needles from my bathroom. I sit with my back against the door in my bedroom and roll my sleeve up. I stop and look at the wound on my arm. I guess it’s my own fault. Its scabbed over, but the blood that was there is dry and smeared along my arm. I look at it and remember the disgust at myself, hours before. I pick at it, reciting each word my father said, in my mind; one at a time, spitting them with my thoughts as I pick and make it bleed once again.
Failure. That’s what it amounts to. That’s what I am and always will be. I prove it each time.

I grind my teeth. My breathing is harsh as I look at the phet and my needles.
I am nothing. I know this. I am useless and worthless. I can’t even put a child’s needs before my own. No better than my own father, I am sure.

I get the cigarette from my mouth and the urge to run the hot end along my skin is almost too great. I could take the phet and do it wrong. If there’s air in a syringe, won’t it cause a heart attack? I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere. I wonder if it’s fast; If it hurts. Do I even deserve such merciless things as time and pain free?

I’d be gone in an hour. That’s it. Sixty minutes and it would all be over. No one would know.

But I can’t. I think about Will alone without me. What would he do? Would he end up like Colin? Or like me even. I can’t do anything. I can’t leave.

I cry at the unfairness of it. I want to hold it in but tears of frustration roll down my face and I clutch my head to try and make them go away.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to exist. I wish someone would just kill me and get it over with. I curl up in the corner. The pain in my head bangs with my heartbeat. I wish it would all just go away.

I close my eyes, pick up the needle, and plunge it into my arm. I don’t care. I don’t pull it out when the contents are gone. What’s the point? I open my eyes and stare at it. This is me. All I have to offer. Colin needs better than me. Will needs better. I spent their food money on my hit, again.

As each thought of pitiful self-hatred begins to fall away, the euphoric release of adrenaline rises up my spine and I can breathe again.

I stand. The person I was, moments before, is gone; nothing but a laughable memory as I clean everything away before leaving the house to acquire food for Colin.

Once again, I am happy.

Alley Kid Five

by

7

I walk away. I don’t have an argument. She’s right. There isn’t anything I can say. I’m a mess, they’re a mess. Everything is a mess and I’m sliding down a slope with no clue how to stop or how to get off before I crash at the bottom.

Joanne answers the door. It is Froggy and I’m relieved.

“What are you going to do?” Maz asks. “Colin needs feeding, if anything.”

I shrug. I don’t have any answers.

“It’s just until tomorrow night,” I say. When Phil and I get the television. I don’t tell Maz that part, but I can anticipate her reaction and lecture.

“You can’t all last until tomorrow with nothing to eat.”

“You can ask your dad,” Joanne says. “He’ll lend you twenty quid if you ask him.”

I know he will. If I ask, he’ll do it. It’s about the only thing he does do for me. Course, I’ll pay for it one way or another and not just in handing him the cash back over. I dread the thought of it. The look in his eyes as I confirm I am nothing, like he has told me all my life.

“He’ll probably say no,” I say in a vain hope that they will believe there isn’t a point.

“He won’t,” says Maz. “Tell him it’s for the electric or some crap like that.”

I have a million answers why I don’t want to ask. Each one of them formed over years, yet I know none of my friends will understand. Each ‘yes, but’ will be rebuked with one of their own. I keep my thoughts to myself as I nod and agree to ask him.

Maz takes Colin with her and Mikey, Joanne goes too. Froggy and I walk along the promenade and I don’t really think about going to my father as we talk about nothing and everything. Froggy wanders off in his own direction a few blocks before I reach my father’s work place. It doesn’t take long to get there, but I feel the heaviness inside as I get to the entrance of the alley way where he works.

I hear his music as I get to the door. I walk through the first small garage to the part my father works in. The scent car filler, like antiseptic hits my nose. My father is working. Blue and white sparks fly and crackle around him like electricity, as he welds.

I wait. I know better than to interrupt him or talk until he has finished and I have permission.

He turns and nods at me, but doesn’t say anything. My illogical fear begins to eat away inside as I stand there.

“How much?” He asks.

“How do you know I want to borrow money?”

“That’s all you ever want,” he says to me. “Same as when you were a child.”

“I never asked for money.”

“No, but you always wanted something.”

I sigh. “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him and turn to leave, but he tells me to stop. He reaches into the top pocket of his overalls and pulls out a wad of notes. “Twenty enough?”

I nod.

“I’ll add that to the bill.”

“Bill?”

“Raising a child doesn’t come cheap you know. Ten grand I shelled out to raise you. Someone’s got to pay me back. “

I don’t have words. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. He has never thought I was worth something in his life; just an object to use and throw away time and again. I wonder if he classed his abuse as a complimentary service.

I take the note from his hand and thank him.

“No one you could f**k to get this?” he asks. “Probably could have made more than twenty. Isn’t that how you always do everything? Course, when you were younger you were a nice little boy,” he says, and winks at me.

I feel my face flush with shame; it burns hot under my skin and through my cheeks. It clouds my vision to the point that the real world feels hazy. I don’t even know what to say. I want to hide. I want it to go away. I’m sorry for those things I did. I know they were my fault. I would take them back if I could.

I don’t say anything to my father. I just nod and leave. He doesn’t say anything to me either. On my way out, I grab a piece of discarded metal off his sheet cutter and take it with me. I don’t plan to do it. I can’t help it; what I feel inside has nowhere to go. No tears. No shouting. No target.

I put the metal against my skin. I stomp my feet hard on the pavement as I walk. Both forces equalling each other. I dig in with the jagged edge. Dig in deep and make it all go away with the welcome burn as my flesh splits open.

 

Alley Kid Part Four

by

10

The days crawl by; each breath I take feels laboured. Each minute is unbearable. The thought of another twenty four hours like this one, has me chomping at the bit in desperation to make it go faster. I’m not sure how I’m going to last. I take a breath and let it out slow; something to calm me, but it does little except to give me something to do for a couple of seconds.

There isn’t any food in the house.  My stomach growls. Even that cannot wait until the next day. But that’s just a false promise. Food will not be the first thing I reach for.

Cigarettes are about all I have and those are on a limited supply; each one like a check point for another hour passing, signalling that it’s time to smoke my next one.

I’m thankful I don’t have Will. A slight lie to his mother and grandmother that he wanted to stay over and well, we just didn’t have time to make any breakfast, he wanted to get there so fast. At least he can have food and more warmth than I can offer him here; my failings, once more, as his father.  Course, he’s so easy to agree to those things. I know how his little mind works. It’s simple and limited. Special, I tell him.  Some days, I hate that he has special needs. I curse myself for my part in the fact that he isn’t like other children his age. Other times, his mind is so unique, I love him just the way he is.

I wonder what that says about me as a person. Wishing that my son was normal. Shouldn’t I be happy that he’s alive and that I have him? I wonder if all parents of children with special needs think this way. Maybe it’s one of those things that are unsaid.

Colin, on the other hand, doesn’t have a choice. There isn’t anyone I can fob him off to and get his belly filled. He hasn’t complained yet, but it doesn’t stop me feeling bad about it.

I have no money to turn on the gas meter, nothing to fill the fridge. My last meal was a bowl of frozen peas that I couldn’t afford to cook on the stove. I used boiled water from the kettle. All I had was pepper to flavour them. The boys had eaten of course. Some fish fingers and oven chips I had used up on them with the last of the bread we had. At least they had gone to bed with somewhat full stomach.

It feels like a never ending cycle.

I envy people who can feed their kids and take them out and give them treats. They have no idea how lucky they are.

Neither Colin nor I have eaten since last night. My stomach growls its aggravation at the situation. Colin is sat on the chair watching cartoons. I try not to feel guilty. I tell myself he isn’t my responsibility, but I can’t help it.

Joanne comes home. I’m not sure where she has been and I don’t ask. I don’t care so much. A friend of mine is with her. Maz and her son Mikey. More like a sister than a friend; Maria is her real name, but a long affair with Temazepam earned her the nickname.

She sits next to me and puts her arm around me. Joanne never bothers when we do this. I often wonder if she cares as little as I do. Sometimes it feels like Maz is the only one who understands. She doesn’t have to say a thing. It’s unspoken in a way. I lie here and feel calm.

I playfully poke her rounded belly and tell the baby to move up because it’s in the way and I need to lie down. Maz laughs and jabs me in the arm.

She knows I’m kidding.

Mikey sits with Colin and they get out my old games console. Mikey isn’t much older than Colin, perhaps just a few months. They sit and chat like they have known each other forever and Colin resembles the child he’s supposed to be. Mikey turns and smiles up at me.

“We’re going to the cinema later,” he tells me, and I can hear the unasked question in his voice.

Its Maz’s day to visit with Mikey. Four days a month she gets him. He’s in the system. His foster parents are great and she has that to be thankful for. They seem to care about Mikey and his mother reuniting eventually. Of course, she has to give up the heroin for that to happen. She’s trying, but it’s a cycle that’s hard to break. Tomorrow will be the usual. The sorrow in her eyes as she leaves him  with a family that’s better for him. People that can offer more than she ever can. Just as I know with Will, she knows with Mikey There are people far better equipped to take care of our children than us.

Maybe I’m selfish that I don’t let him go but, his mother can’t take him fulltime. She can’t cope with how he is. She wants him to be normal as much as I do, but for her, a cheap bottle of cider seems easier to deal with than a son with Aspergers.

Maz has already decided that she’s going to have the baby at home. As soon as it comes into the world the authorities will have it, then what does she have to live for?

“Do you want to come with us?” Maz asks me and Colin’s eyes light up for a fraction of a second with hope until reality sets in.

I don’t have to say anything. He gives a sigh and, like me, knows that we can’t.

I shake my head at Max. “I don’t have the money.”

“You’ve necked it all?” She asks me.

“I haven’t had any phet for days.”

. She sits up and forces me to sit up myself. She’s mad at me. I can feel her mood change like the snapping of a band.

“Have you eaten today?”

I don’t answer her and Joanne doesn’t say anything.

“God  damnit James,” she says and gets off the sofa. “You’ve got no food, no money. What about Will and Colin?”

“Will is at his mothers,” I tell her, but I can hear how pathetic I sound.

Someone bangs on the front door and I jump at it. So many visitors and each one  makes me anxious.

“It’ll be Froggy,” Maz says.

Her boyfriend. His real name’s Pete. Tall and lanky with long black hair. I’m not sure why we call him Froggy, but we do.

“It might be the police,” I say. “They’ve been here three times this week looking for Mark.”

“What are you doing James? You’re going to wind up losing these boys.”

 

Back Alley Kid Three

by

5

The two policemen search my flat, room by room. Not really looking, but more of an ‘I can’t be bothered’ glance into each.  Sometimes, it helps to be classed as some kind of scum to them; they don’t really care about anything as long as it doesn’t cause them too much trouble. I wonder if I come under that label too.

I feel my chest tighten as they reach my lounge and then my bedroom. The stairs are next, shielded at the moment by a door  a door that   feels like it is waving  and flagging  them down to say,  look in here.

I hold Colin’s hand, not for his comfort, but for mine; something to do with my hands and a reason not to pull my own hair out with despair as I watch. It’s like slow motion. I hold my breath on instinct, waiting for the bang in the situation; the sound of my life exploding.

My front door opens again and I turn to see from my position in the hallway. My anxiety spikes with the chaotic invasion of so many people all at once. My head feels like it wants to implode; the fragments of my skull crushing my brain and making my thoughts swim.

I fight the urge to follow the police. The nervousness inside threatens to make me shake on the outside, too.  I am stuck between wanting to get the police out and wanting to go to Joanne, my girlfriend, as she enters the flat.

“What’s going on?” she asks and I tell her they are looking for Mark.

“Have you seen him?” I shake my head.

Phil comes in behind Joanne. I don’t notice him at first; not really a friend, but an enemy I keep close and one  that I let use me on occasion when  I can  benefit . A strange friendship with a mutual lack of trust. He isn’t so bad, but I know that if the need came up, he’d bail on his friends and save himself. His girlfriend, Becci, is with him. I nod hello to them and turn myself back to the police, remembering my anxiety.

“What’s up here?” One of them asks as he opens the door to the attic stairs.

“Just junk,” I say with a shrug.

He flicks the light switch; the bulb hums, blinks twice, and comes on.

Colin moves forward as the officer climbs the stairs. He doesn’t go all the way up but just enough to see into the attic.

I let my breath out as the officer comes back down and turns the light off, but my anxious mind wonders why Mark wasn’t seen. In my head, I see the layout of the room; the piles of boxes still unpacked and dumped in complete disarray where they were out of sight.

The police are leaving but before they make their descent of the steps that lead into the alley way, one turns.

He asks me to contact them if I see Mark. I nod my head, take their card and give my fake promise.

Back inside, I lock the door.

It’s a moment before anyone moves. Even the police take what feels like hours to start their engine and drive away, but they take my apprehension with them and I go to the attic myself and make my way up the stairs.

Colin comes with me and we stand side by side scanning the room. I can’t see Mark, either.

A panel in the wall moves and Mark crawls out and dusts himself off. It is like something out of an old English horror film and all that’s missing are the books and candlelight.

“How did you find that?” I ask.

“I pushed it and it moved,” he said, as if it was enough explanation.

“You’ve got to go back to the farm,” I tell him. “I can’t risk you being here.”

I am only a tick away from going down myself, as I walk the tightrope of the law, and.. I don’t want to tip it and fall off. I think about Will, my son. I know the limits I can push.

“I’ll take him,” says Phil, nodding toward Mark.

“I’ve got a job for you,” he tells me, and my mind clicks to wondering why he is offering a good deed. Never would he do something through kindness.

“Sure,” I say.

Mark says goodbye and I feel Colin’s despair; deeper each time Mark leaves.  So young to be left in the world by himself and in those moments, I wish I could make it better for him. I know what it’s like to be alone at his age. He is a child lost in an adult world, too small to matter, too quiet to be heard, and too young for anyone to care.

Will comes home not long after and I tell him and Colin that its bath and bed time. Colin protests, of course. Sometimes, he forgets his age, but he’s in bed and asleep before Phil gets back.

My head is getting tired. I can feel it is too heavy and I really just can’t be bothered. Some days, I wish it was possible for me to close my eyes and not open them again. There isn’t much joy in my world other than my son, and more often than not, I am sure that he would be better without me in his life. Only fear that my father would get his hands on Will, keeps me alive.

My body wants to rest. The artificial energy is going fast, and I just want a few more hours of that feeling. The high is where my life feels good. Just a little while longer. It isn’t much to ask. I can sleep tomorrow when the sun comes up, and face my demons in the light.

Phil has come back, but I need to clear my mind. The sadness is building in my chest like an unwelcome visitor; so thick, I can reach inside and touch it.

I tell Joanne, Phil, and Becci that I’m going to get a shower. I won’t be long, I don’t feel good. It isn’t a lie, but I don’t tell them what’s in my pocket.

My envelope of clean needles is stuffed behind the water tank. I light a cigarette and pull them out. Joanne knows they are there but I don’t want Will or Colin getting hold of them.

Mixing my phet is easy enough. I could probably do it with my eyes closed. I finish making my hit and smoking my cigarette at the same time.

The raised bump in the crook of my arm calls out like a hungry bird. I’ve used it so many times that I don’t have to force the vein into place.

The others are chatting away in the lounge. I don’t fit in with them. Their words annoy me. I developed a clever act over time to pretend to be like a normal person, but sometimes, I wonder why I try at all.

I let out a tired sigh as I push the needle in my arm and inject the solution. I close my eyes for a few seconds and when I open them again, I someone else. A whole new person with life inside. A resurrection of who I was meant to be.

I get into the shower and stand, letting the water beat down on my back. The adrenaline from my hit runs up my spine like bubbles with spider legs that carry everything I need to feel great. I breathe fast with it, letting it ride over me and inside as it clears away all the darkness. My mind awakens and every part of my body becomes alive, again.

I wash, dress, clear away my things, and light another cigarette. I am a new person. I scoff at who I was just moments before. Pathetic and broken. A loser.

“Better?” Joanne asks when I enter the lounge.

She’s sat on the floor, with Phil on the sofa and Becci on the floor between his legs. I tell her yes and throw her the foil with what’s left of my phet.

“Excellent,” she grins, and unwraps the foil. She doesn’t take it the same as me. Instead, she wraps it in a cigarette paper and swallows it like a pill.

“That’s the last of it,” I tell her.

“Maybe not,” says Phil. “I’ve got something I need you to do. A thousand pounds,” he says. “We can split it fifty-fifty.”

A thousand pounds. My mind clicks. It’s a huge amount. I have never had that much before. I weigh up how much phet I can buy verses the food I could put in the cupboard. I could feed the boys.

“What do I have to do?” I ask.

“There is a new television,” Phil explains to me. “Two grand, it’s worth.”

My heart sinks at his words.

“I can’t break in somewhere. I can’t risk getting caught.”

“You don’t have to; they’ll give it to you.”

I frown.

“You said no more,” says Becci to Phil, and before she has a chance to say anything else, Phil kicks his foot out and catches her jaw.

“Not here,” he tells her, like a disobedient child.

She doesn’t hide her tears as she clutches her mouth, but neither Joanne nor myself do anything about it. I feel a pang of guilt at the edge of my mind as I do nothing.

“Broke her jaw the last time I did that,” Phil laughs. “Didn’t I love?”

Becci nods but doesn’t say anything. She’s fine and we carry on.

“A television,” he continues. “I’ll give you the paperwork and all you have to do is pretend to be someone else, and play the part. Take it out on credit.”

“That’s it?”

Phil nods.

”Simple, right? They don’t even check this shit. Just go in and ask for a television, and they help you out to the car with it. Easy. My uncle wants it; he’s giving me the paperwork. He’ll give us a grand for it.”

“When?”

“Sunday.”

Five days. Five days with no phet and no food. A lifetime away, but what else do I have?

I tell Phil, yes.

 

 

 

 

Back Alley Kid Two

by

10

Two weeks he’s been with me and I wonder if his mother even cares. She knows where he is, I’ve seen her once before today. I can’t say it was the most pleasant of experiences; the dank alcohol smelling house with her rotting in the stench of her own urine and sweat.

Colin and I brave her house one more time. He needs clothes and I am not financially equipped to provide them for him. She’s laid on the sofa smoking a badly rolled cigarette and cursing each time as it goes out when she tries to take a drag from it. I hand her one of mine, not out of kindness, but out of the sheer need for her to stop talking with her voice grating against my nerves until she reaches the last one.

“What are you doing here?” She asks.

“Getting Colin some clothes,” I tell her.

She starts swearing some more; the obligatory list of insults for her son that are so reminiscent of the ones my own mother used for me. I shut off. The peeling green wallpaper in the corner holds my interest better than anything she has to say. Her cruel words mean nothing to me and I don’t wish to listen to them. I wonder if she and my mother were to have met, what a great conversation they would have had. Of course they can’t, my mother is dead. Colin is not that lucky.

I cast my thoughts away from both of them, not wishing to pull down the high I feel riding my spine from the amphetamines I took just a couple of hours before. Neither she nor the memory of my mother will bring me down.

Her slurred words are almost incomprehensible aside from the odd vicious word in her ever so polite way to tell Colin and I to get out of her f*****g house and not come back.

I don’t waste any time when I hear Colin bounding down the stairs with some clothes thrown in bags in a haphazard way. I take them from him and tell him we should go. He glances at his mother and I at him. It’s somewhat similar to watching history before my eyes. I feel the tug in my chest as I see him trying not to show me the tears in his eyes. I see the familiar sadness on his face and I know there is nothing I can do to fix it for him.

We walk down the road. “Want to get some food and play pinball?” I ask him.

He grins and nods his head before running off towards one of the local small stores. Of course, I have no money; the last of it is in my pocket wrapped up in tin foil disguised as my next hit.

Colin knows where we shop in this manner. We don’t use the same store all the time. We wouldn’t want to arouse suspicions. We work them all in turn.

Some part of me wants to feel bad for what I am doing, but my drug induced brain congratulates me for my accomplishments. No one can catch me. I can feel that inside. I can do anything.

I’m only feeding Colin, so we don’t need much. I haven’t eaten in two days, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll eat tomorrow when the drugs wear off and my body realises it’s been running awake with no fuel for three days.

We don’t take anything that can really be described as food. I shove a bottle of cola in my jacket and Colin lifts a selection of crisps and sweets before we make our exit and run. We run so fast towards my flat that I feel like I could run forever. If I was by myself, perhaps I would. To where, I have no idea. Anywhere. Away from life itself, if it was possible.

My whole body feels great and warm inside. There is nothing I can’t do. Nothing hurts and my normal bogged down mind feels weightless and free from the usual chaos. I feel like I could fly. It’s almost euphoric.

We get home and Colin plants himself on the lounge floor with his acquired picnic and I hand him the bottle of cola from inside my jacket. He sets up the Nintendo and someone knocks on the door.

I assume it’s either Joanne, my girlfriend, having forgotten her keys again, or my son being dropped off back home. He’s been with his mother for the weekend. His arrival signals the end to my recreational activities.

It isn’t my son though; it’s Mark, Colin’s older brother. He looks over his shoulder and walks into my flat without waiting for an invite.

“You did it again?” I ask him and he nods.

I wonder what the point is in the open detention centre for minors. The Farms, as it’s known, with open doors and no gates. Only the kid’s moral responsibility to their sentence is supposed to be enough to make them stay and come back. What farce of an agency thought that one up?

Colin hears Mark from the lounge and bounds along my hall to the kitchen. He launches himself at his brother and in a moment, looks childlike. The veneer of an adult has slipped from his face as he grins with a flash of his seven year-old smile, complete with missing teeth. Mark lifts his brother up in such an effortless manner. I look away and try not to intrude on their moment.

Another loud rap at the door startles the three of us and I look at Mark. Our words are unspoken as he sees my displeasure at the police at my door.

“The busies,” Mark whispers and I nod.

Mark puts Colin down runs through my house; I hear the door that leads to the attic open. He’s hidden himself before I even have chance to work out in my mind what I’m going to do. They knock on the door again.

I open it and two policemen stand there.

“We’re looking for Mark Richardson,” one says. “Have you seen him?”

I shake my head. “No, I haven’t,” I lie.

“Do you mind if we come in and take a look?”

My head screams no at me. The thought of Mark hiding upstairs feels like a beacon that will call them and then I’ve had it. Another mark against my name and surely this time would see me inside a cell somewhere myself.

My logical mind argues with me. If I don’t let them in, they will know he is here, and they’ll either watch the flat or get a warrant. Either way, I’m trapped.

I step back and let them in. Colin stares at me. I know what he thinks. I’m giving his brother up.

I have no other choice but to let them in and hope they are blind.

To be continued…..

Back Alley Kid

by

19

So many friends and I am alone. 

Cast in the shadows of one hundred people. Unseen. Unneeded. I sit. The sound of silence weaves an empty hole in my ever-pretending soul.

One day to be me. One moment.

I draw deeply on the cigarette; pulling the wondrous poisons inside so I might feel something. I don’t care what it is, it’s better than what I have.

The ache of nothing.

The sun beats down on my back. But I do not relish in it. Its prickly heat disturbs my solitary silence, annoying me. Forcing me back inside the darkness of my residence.

I sit alone on the steps. No view but the urine scented, trash-filled alleyway within the dregs of our society.

Another hit is all I wish for, but not today. It’s just a fantasy of my drug deprived mind as it hungers for change. Twenty four hours feels like a lifetime as I try and fight off the natural tiredness left over. Even the raised hole in the crook of my arm laughs at me in cruel delight. Each throb is a reminder and not a penny in my pocket that I can call mine.

The bare scratching of food in my home are all but gone, save for a stale loaf and a can of peas. Nothing to sate the hunger inside.

“Excuse me,” says a voice from the direction of the alleyway and I give an almost silent groan, resisting the urge to tell the owner of the voice to get lost.

“Can I buy a cigarette off you?” He asks and steps into my yard without invitation.

I glance up and for a moment wonder if I really did sleep off the hit from the night before.

“What are you? Like five?” I ask him.

I see he isn’t much bigger than my own son who is four. He mutters some words that I can’t quite grasp save for the odd one that is beyond his years. His clothes are dirty. His hair is a mess and he has enough bad language to fit right in at a working men’s club.

“I’m seven,” he tells me like it’s supposed to make some difference to me. “Can I buy a cigarette?”

“No,” I say.

“I’ve got money.”

He opens his hand and shows me his ten pennies.

“And who did you get that off?”

He’s getting as annoyed with me as I am with him.

“Can I buy a cigarette off you?” He asks me one more time, ignoring my negative answer before.

“No you can’t.”

He mutters a derogatory name under his breath and walks away. I draw one last time on my own cigarette and stub it out on the ground, crushing it under my boot.

I can hear the kid’s voice not so far away. A torrent of words not fit for a mouth so young. His words aren’t directed at me, of course, but his child-like volume carries over. I sigh, get up, and walk into the alleyway.

Two older boys are there. Around my own age. At a guess; eighteen or nineteen. I shake my head knowing that the kids asked the wrong people. They’ve taken his money, but not delivered the goods. Of course, the kid doesn’t have the sense to just leave it. A lesson learned perhaps.

“What’s up mate?” I ask with a nod of my head, as I walk over to the three of them. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says to me.

His small pride is still intact as he stomps off penniless, leaving me between him and them. He invites himself once more into my yard.

The two lads leave, but not before yelling their obscenities in the direction of my unknown new friend. They utter a few to me too. Lucky for them my poor mind is too busy thrashing in the throes of withdrawal to care.

“They stole my money,” the kid says before I even have chance to get into my yard and sit back down. “It’s your fault.”

“Oh, of course it is,” I say. “And you didn’t go begging for a smoke and hand some strangers your money when you should be at home or in school or something.”

I don’t really want to argue. The pain in the side of my head jabs at me as I think about raising my voice to tell the kid of my annoyance. I pull my packet from my back pocket and toss him a cigarette. He isn’t my kid, why should I care if he smokes?

“Got a light?”

“Want me to smoke it for you too?” I ask, as I light my own cigarette and then swap mine for his.

He takes it and draws on it like the small version of a man that’s seen too much and not like a boy of seven who should be home relying on his mother.

“Do you live here? Do you know Mark and Woody? Do you have anything to eat?”

He rapid fires his questions not giving me time to answer them and my tired brain doesn’t get a chance to think about what he asked me first.

“No I don’t have anything to eat.”

It’s not even a lie. I don’t. I don’t have the money. Not until the morning at least when my benefit cheque comes through and half of that is owed out already.

“Can’t you eat at home?”

He shakes his head and smokes his cigarette.

“My mum’s sleeping.”

“Wake her up.”

“She’s drunk,” he tells me.

“Your dad?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “My brother makes my food, but he’s not here.”

I curse under my breath, not that he seems to notice. Every part of me wants to send him on his way, but something inside niggles. I see him; a small child no food and it reminds me of things so long ago. Sending him away wouldn’t be an option, he would perhaps make it to the next block before my conscience kicked in and had me dragging him back. But I have no food to offer him. I don’t have anything other than cigarettes to feed an addiction he shouldn’t even have.

“You any good at keeping an eye out?” I ask him. “In the shop over there?” I point at the local store that’s just a small building with faulty cameras. Handy when in dire need of something I can’t afford.

“I do it for my brother all the time,” he says.

“Where is your brother?”

“Inside.”

I don’t ask why he’s inside.

The store isn’t that hard to steal from. The cashier I think wouldn’t even notice if I walked out with a full pack of beer. I don’t of course. Im not so much into stealing for needless gain, just what I need at the time.

“Don’t touch anything,” I tell the kid before we go in. “Just stand close to the sweets. He’ll watch you and leave before I do.”

He nods. My inside wars with itself at making such a small child help me. But the growl in my own stomach and the look of hunger on his face as we walk passed the takeaway urges me on.

He does as he is told too. He goes in first and stands where I said and then I follow, but I head towards the back. It’s not so hard to shove a small pack of bread rolls inside my coat and a tin of beans in my jacket pocket. I’ve done it so often there isn’t even the fear from it. What’s the worst they can do? Make me leave the store?

The kid walks out and so do I. I don’t address him as I walk down the street back towards the alleyway to my home. Not that I’m ignoring him, but I know better than to set off someone’s overzealous actions. Just in case.

The meal isn’t grand. Toasted rolls and baked beans with the butter I found in my fridge, but the kid eats it like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. I stare at him wondering what I am supposed to do with this stray creature that landed on my doorstep.

(To be continued)