JOSH

 

Having pulled Charlie’s balls out of his ass, I took the kid back to my place and kitted him out in a neat little Yves Saint Lauren suit, metallic grey with a white, cotton shirt buttoned up to the collar. I had a lady friend of mine come round and trim his hair, neatening it up, so that he didn’t resemble a scruffy pothead anymore. Then I covered him in the most expensive cologne, and soon Charlie Hodge was unrecognizable.

Having finished with him, I stood behind the kid while he looked into the mirror, my hands laid upon his shoulders, an eagle on a mouse. On his face, he wore a wide grin, admiring the way he looked in a manner that he never had before.

“Now you’re Charlie Hodge,” I said to him. “Now you’re a fucking man.”

“I like it,” he remarked, not taking his eyes off of his reflection, so suave did he look for once.

“You ready to fly, Mr. Hodge?” I asked him with a sly grin landing on my face.

“I think I am, Mr. Kelly.”

“Then it’s set,” I exclaimed, gently tapping my talon-hands down on his shoulders.

Two hours later, we were walking through the night’s streets on our way to the card game, having left Kane and Terry at a bar around the corner. As we walked through the thoroughfare of nightcrawlers I felt a million miles tall and held my arm around Charlie’s shoulder as though I expected him to bolt at any second. But I needn’t have worried. I’d done a real number on the kid and at that moment in time there wasn’t a thing in the world that would have dragged him away from my side.

The streets were alive that night with drunks, streetwalkers of both sexes, freaks of all colors and sizes, drug addicts, the homeless, every type of scum that oozed out of the cracks in the concrete.

However, it was among this detritus of life that I found her.

At the time, none of it appeared to mean anything and would have otherwise been absorbed into the collection of broken memories that the night would have become by the morning. But looking back at it, I realize now that it was one of the most significant moments of my life.

I remember it like this: me and Charlie were walking along when we came across a small group of people blocking the sidewalk. I could see that most of them were merely rubberneckers come to see what it was all about, and, being a rubbernecker myself, I couldn’t help but get involved. I pushed my way through the small crowd and in the midst of it I found two women leaning over another woman who was sitting on the ground with her back against the wall. The two standing women wore sashes over their bodies denoting that they were part of the “Christ’s Patrol Group.” As for the girl on the floor, she had the haggard look of a user—she could have been twenty, she could have been forty, it was impossible to tell. She was obviously selling her body to support her habit—piece by piece, probably—and was decked out in the classic costume of the whore: denim miniskirt, cheap high heels and little crop top, now covered in blood. At least an inch of brown root showed in the middle of her matted, dyed blonde hair, and a stream of blood poured down her face from a very nasty gash to the bridge of her nose. Gazing at it, I quickly perceived that someone had bitten her down to the bone.

“Who did this?” one of the patrol girls asked her.

“Silver,” the girl mumbled from the floor, her eyes staring blankly ahead, as though the crowd in front of her didn’t exist.

“Is he your boyfriend?” the Christian girl wanted to know next.

“No, he’s my pimp. He says I stole from him and he wants his shit back.”

“Don’t worry, an ambulance is on its way. Just wait here a while.”

This appeared to mean something to the junky and she darted her black, little eyes at the girl who said it.

“What the fuck you do that for?” she asked in an angry street cat tone.

“Because you need stitches.”

“No, I need junk. I don't need no fucking hospital with pigs and their damn questions. I just gotta rest here and then I’ll leave. Can’t a bitch rest?”

“Do you have anywhere to go?”

“Bitch! Do I look like I got anywhere to go?”

“Have you got any friends we could take you to?”

“Hell no! All my friends is what gave me this.” She pointed to her nose. “Ain’t no friends for a bitch like me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud along with many of the other bystanders. But I was the only one that the green-eyed Christian girl heard. She instantly shot up and faced me.

“Do you have any purpose here?” she snarled, barely able to contain her anger.

It took me a moment to answer as I was completely captivated by her beauty—eyes shimmering like lakes of emerald; pale, creamy skin; freckles covering the whole of her face, a large cluster below her right eye forming the shape of a tear, giving her a sad look. She was beautiful, but not in any seedy way, in a way much purer than that. It was as though her beauty transcended any mere animal magnetism. I’ve stood face to face with a lot of dames in my life, but I’ve never felt like I did looking into the eyes of Sarah Dillinger.

“Well?” she asked in a fury, a dazzling fire shining at me from her eyes and her nose wrinkling up.

Bursting out of my daze, all I could answer was, “I just found it funny is all.”

This only poured gasoline onto the fire and she cried into my face, “What is funny about that poor woman down there? What could possibly be funny?”

“It’s ironic,” I commented.

“What’s ironic?”

“She don’t give two damns about herself, but here you are trying to help her. She probably did rob old Silver the pimp and got what she was always gonna get.”

This appeared to please the crowd and a giggle rippled around me, even reaching Charlie who stood at the edge watching with a sheepish grin.

“How can you laugh?” she exclaimed, turning on the crowd as if she were ten times the size she really was. “That poor woman down there deserves more.” Then her flashing eyes fixed once again on me and she added, “It’s because of people like you that she ‘don’t give two damns,’ as you put it. A world of contempt makes us contemptible. Her only real sin is to live in a world that doesn’t give two damns about her. If no one cares for us, shows us love, then what way are we to treat ourselves if not in the manner that we are treated?”

I couldn’t help it. The insolent manner in which she talked to me made me angry. I wasn’t used to girls talking to me this way. I was used to them falling at my feet! I couldn’t help but clap my hands in her face.

“A beautifully sentimental speech,” I cheered. “But you’re wrong.”

“Oh! And why?”

“Because the world is contemptible and it ain’t gonna change. That bitch down there needs to wake up and realize that she’s got two choices: one is a life of addiction and being every John’s plaything until she either ODs or is killed by some freak, the whole time her one valuable commodity—her pussy—slowly drying up. And the other option, which is far sweeter, but takes more guts than this bitch has got, is throwing herself in the river.”

“Huh!” Green Eyes screamed, and before she knew what she was doing, she leapt at me and swung not a slap but a punch, slamming me in the cheek. The knock sent me sprawling back and I almost lost my balance. Steadying myself, I shouted into her face, asking what the fuck she did that for. She was rigid and her face went red. But it wasn’t from rage; it was with embarrassment, her eyes glancing around at everyone as they chuckled moronically. The only ones not laughing were me, her and the other Christian. Even Charlie and the girl on the floor found it funny.

While I stood there gazing malevolently into her eyes, daring her to hit me again, her face softened and she muttered the words, “I’m so sorry.”

And do you know what? She meant it. I could see in her eyes and hear in her tone that she deeply regretted the blow. Not from vanity, having shown herself up in public, but from a sincere shame at having struck me. I mean, I’ve known a lot of liars in my time—my father being a prime example—but this girl was genuine in her apology. My anger wanted to stomp her into the ground, but the sorrowful look on her face slowly dissolved it and I merely stood there rubbing my cheek.

It was then, however, that something transpired on the ground between the beaten night worker and the other Christian girl, causing green eyes to turn back to them. Having felt the cloying strain of so much compassion and human kindness, the street girl must have gotten bored because she had spat a whole mouthful of bloody phlegm in the other girl’s face.

“AH!” the Christian cried out, standing up sharply.

Green Eyes turned to her friend, whose face was now dripping with the obnoxious fluid, the hooker having caught her right between the eyes. I looked down at the culprit and saw that she was laughing, as was the crowd. My anger completely abated then and I began to feel pity, not just for the Christian girls, but for the injured prostitute too. I gazed around at all those snickering faces and even though I was one of them only a moment ago, I felt somehow ashamed of myself and of them too. I glanced back at the girl on the floor and she was kicking out at the two Christians, trying to get them to leave her alone. They were the only two girls in the whole world that wanted to show her something other than scorn and she hated them for it.

“Come on, Josh,” Charlie said as he grabbed my arm. “Let’s go. The game begins in less than ten minutes.”

I glanced sideways at him and grinned. I couldn’t believe after everything that went on earlier today in his room, Charlie was actually trying to get me to the poker game.

“Yeah, fuck it!” I let out as we walked off, giving the scene one last look as we turned the corner at the end of the street. Something had shaken me up though. I felt like my mind was pulling apart and my earlier lust for the poker game, so close and so longed for, was dissipating in me. Was it the girl with the green eyes? Or the girl on the floor with the busted nose? Was it the crowd of apathetic strangers that found it funny to gawp at people more unfortunate than themselves? Or was it my own actions among those bastards?

Whatever it was, something had been planted in my soul at that moment.