Chapter 6
LUCKY
My name was Lucas, but everyone called me Lucky.
Even if I was the unluckiest motherfucker I knew.
I jerked awake at the sound of a whiny screech. Blinking my eyes, a pair of dolphins came to focus on the TV. They were being trained by two women in neck-to-ankle skintight blue suits.
I glanced over at the window, noting the deep golden sunlight coming through. That glowing egg yolk poured over James like a blanket, who lay motionless as a big baby in that chair. A crushed-up pillow that had all the life squeezed out of it was on the floor next to the ottoman, which was slightly pushed away by his feet in his sleep, if I had to guess. He was sprawled out like he had been fighting an army of demons in his sleep.
Maybe he had. We all had our demons. What are his?
I still didn’t know what to make of James. He was handsome, but not conventionally. He had the kind of body that proved all his spare time wasn’t spent eating potato chips and Ho Hos in front of a TV. He was smart, too, but not in the way that intimidated or belittled me. He was also very observant; I could see it in his eyes when we played in the arcade for hours or when he listened to me as we talked over dinner and ice cream.
There was something about James that felt like … home. It was something that could convince me I knew him for years already.
Maybe that was what scared me.
I wiped a bit of drool from my mouth, grimaced, then slowly edged myself off the bed, pulling my hoodie with me that I’d taken off the night before. I tiptoed to the bathroom, slipped on the shirt he lent me (it fit a bit tightly at the shoulders), and traded his red shorts for my jeans. It felt like a commando sort of day. I stuffed my hoodie into my backpack followed by the shorts, which I had figured he’d meant for me to keep.
Then I stood at that fucking hotel room door with my slightly-heavier backpack over my shoulder for five long minutes. For five long, hard minutes, I stared at James sleeping in that big dumb chair, the man who fed me and gave me a room for the night and actually, in the end, didn’t expect anything in return.
For some reason, I couldn’t make my stubborn feet move.
Why the hell was I feeling so guilty? Sure, he was a nice guy. But like any other nice, well-meaning person, it was only a matter of time before he got bored, or had to return to his pressing, real life obligations, or maybe revealed that he was actually married with two sweet kids he was neglecting for the sake of having an escapist weekend away with yours truly.
The only person I was kidding was myself.
This wouldn’t work. This had an expiration date the moment I chose to follow him into that Italian restaurant.
“Thanks for the date,” I whispered, then rolled my eyes at my own dramatic sentimentality. Before another five long minutes dared to roll by, I quietly pulled open the door and let myself out.
It shut so quietly, it was like I was never there.
When I passed by the front desk, the cute young woman working there gave me a microscopic smile before turning away to answer the phone. I used that moment to swipe a handful of mints out of the dish that rested on the counter, then popped one in my mouth as I made my way to the street.
The mints were free. I knew that. I just couldn’t stand another moment of someone looking at me with that pinch of pity in their fat, doleful eyes.
I hated pity.
I hated it because my survival depended on others having it.
Which makes me hate it more.
The air on the street was thick and carried the salty scent of the beach blowing in, as it wasn’t too far of a walk from the hotels to the water. I strolled down the road to the end of the block, looked both ways before crossing, then headed away from the casinos. I didn’t check the time on my way out of the hotel, but I knew what ten in the morning looked like. I was so good at telling time just from the angle of shadows and height of the sun, I could even pinpoint half hours with surprising accuracy.
I occupied an empty bench at the park six blocks away from the casinos and watched the sky. Just down the curb from me was an old man named Old Man who never bothered me unless I had my cup set out too close to his. He sat on that curb with a sign that read: “BROKE DEAF WAR VET. GOD BLESS.” I knew the deafness was a lie, and so could likely believe he never fought in any war and was a veteran in nothing except perhaps guzzling wine and beer.
“God bless,” he moaned as a woman passed by and tossed a pinch of quarters into his cup.
I knew this park was safe during the day. At night, I really had to watch my back, since a certain band of territorial assholes liked to claim the park and all its benches. I was chased off once by two knife-wielding motherfuckers and learned my lesson. Not that I couldn’t have easily taken them on; if they didn’t have the knives, I would have broken both their jaws with a single swing.
Clink, clink, clink.
“God bless,” moaned Old Man.
I always found it funny, how after just one year living on the streets, I knew the lay of the land more intimately than I ever bothered to know my own neighborhood back in Northpoint. I could tell you every safe spot in this town and every dangerous one. I could tell you where to wait for free food, where to go to get out of the rain in a pinch, and which restaurants will give you shit just for standing outside their doors. I’m looking at you, Alberto’s, you bunch of jackholes.
I supposed a daily tug-of-war between life and death really motivated a person to keep their eyes open.
Especially when everyone else on the street wanted what you had. Even if it was just change tucked away in your shoe. Or a lost pair of stained, threadbare gloves you found on someone’s stoop. Or a rain-safe sleeping spot you discovered behind a dilapidated gazebo where all the cats went to take a shit.
What can I say? One cat’s kitty litter is another man’s five-star hotel.
Even a reeking dumpster full of yesterday’s discarded Mama Moon’s ciabatta bread was gold to a homeless kid just trying to get by another day.
I would know. Mama Moon had been very kind to me, and she didn’t even know I existed.
That was, if she even existed. For all I knew, the sweet-faced Mama was just another product of a bunch of old rich men in an office building cooking up money schemes and ad campaigns.
Clink. “God bless,” croaked Old Man.
Money was what made the world of humans move. Not love. Not innovation. Not even jelly-filled donuts. It was the manmade trap of currency to compensate work to compensate currency to compensate more work that kept all our eyes open, at least until the last shot of unpaid-intern-fetched espresso wore off.
Not that I knew much about that kind of life. That was more my father’s cloying cup of chai tea. Well, before he turned into a dickless dick, married the step-cunt, and threw me out. But that’s another story entirely—a story I was happy to not relive in my memories over and over.
You can say I never had a positive relationship with money.
Or fathers.
Or chai tea.
I bet my new friend James knew about the evils of money all too well, shoveling it around for a living as he did. I bet he was dreaming about it now, still sleeping in that hotel room up on the seventh floor of Hearts Tower.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have left him.
“God bless.”
I let out a sigh and pushed off the bench, tired of hearing Old Man’s blessings. I clutched my backpack and trudged down the street, thinking about James. His comfortable-as-fuck red shorts, which I could wear as underwear when the nights got longer and colder, were shoved in my backpack. The material of my shirt—the one he gave me with the big pair of dice on the front—was soft and tight, pulling on my shoulders and feeling a bit like a hug.
He was going to feel really shitty when he woke up.
What a fantastic way to repay him for his kindness.
Before I knew it, I was standing on the pier overlooking the water in all its vague brown murkiness. I was considering where I might hole up for the rest of the day. The casinos were out of the question—at least until late Sunday when I was certain James would be safely returned to his “too large” house and comfy seat at the bank. I could have risked a day at the mall, but seeing as it was a Saturday, the prepubescent thugs and ten-year-old gangster wannabes would be swarming it—and small and hilarious as they may seem from a distance, you don’t laugh when you’re cornered by eight of them armed with their older siblings’ brass knuckles behind the escalator to JC Penney.
Provided it didn’t get too cold and rainy, I could climb into one of the free cabanas on the beach. Don’t get the wrong idea; those rundown cabanas were the kind that you walked past with a shudder. But to a guy in my situation, they were a place to rest, they gave me partial cover from the sun, wind, and rain, and they were off the ground. Plus, listening to the waves all day was far preferable to car horns and rumbly engines.
“Enjoying the water?”
I turned. A teenage girl with a green-tipped blonde ponytail stood by the railing a few yards away. She wore cut-off shorts, a low-hanging off-the-shoulder white tee that revealed her lack of a bra underneath, and flip-flops.
And I knew her. “What do you want, Kelsey?”
“You weren’t at your usual spot last night.”
“I don’t have a usual spot.”
“I know all your usual spots. And yes, you do.”
I ignored her and faced the water. Last thing I needed was to go from the arms of a kind gay man to those of a horny underage teen on the run from her foster family. Once she grasped that yet again I wasn’t returning her advances, she would lose interest and move on. Always happened.
“I looked for you,” she went on. “For hours.”
“Had somewhere to be.”
She squinted at the side of my face, then spun around and propped her elbows on the railing, leaning back against it. “Did you catch yourself a date with somebody?”
I snorted. “Wouldn’t tell ya if I did.”
“So who was it?”
“Why do you keep running away from your foster families?” I shot back at her. “You aren’t homeless. You don’t have to be out here. You can have a roof over your head whenever you want it.”
“They don’t care.”
“Of course they do. They’re paid to.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “All those bitches care about is collecting a check. Like the last one. And the one before that.”
“Those ‘bitches’ are letting you into their home.”
“They wouldn’t even let me have my own phone.” She huffed and crossed her arms. “Don’t get me started on how their real kids look at me. They got a talking-to before I arrived, guaranteed.”
I sighed and braced myself. That was not the first time I had gotten the lecture.
“Their kids fear me,” she went on. “As if I’m nothing but a … nasty, damaged whore who’s going to show their daughter how to deepthroat a zucchini.”
“Jesus, Kelsey,” I groaned, wrinkling up my face.
“They took out my lip ring.” She pointed at her lip angrily. “I have been degraded. My lip ring, for fuck’s sake. What am I without my lip ring??”
“A foulmouthed runaway teenager in need of a bar of soap in her damned mouth.”
She glowered at me. “And what are you? My dad?” I shook my head and looked away. “Hmm. Maybe in another life, you could totally have been my older brother. I mean, we have so much in common, you and I.”
“We have nothing in common.”
“And you really look out for me, don’t you? Even if you can’t stand me.” She picked at her nails and looked up at the sun.
I watched the waves rush in and pull away, the eternal flirt-game between water and sand. Kelsey had been tumbling like a big rock through the rotating monster of the foster care system for years. I knew she had good families take her in, even if it was temporary. All her angst was misplaced. She just didn’t know what to blame any more than I did for my situation. Was it my fault? Was it my dad’s? Was it the Fates’ for cutting a certain someone’s thread too soon?
Or measuring that thread too short?
Fuck, I miss my mom.
But no matter what I’d been through, a part of me felt like my pain didn’t even come close to the pain of a teenager like her who had been on the run since the day she was born. Or the drunken fools I’d gotten to know who stalked around at night like zombies, clinging to their bottles like they clung to their memories of whatever family they built, loved, and then let down long ago. Or the elderly who hadn’t had a place to call their own in decades. It was a miracle they were still alive; most didn’t last that long.
And then there was me, afloat in this sea of wise people and fools wandering around the city waiting to make a score, waiting for an opportunity, waiting to get lucky.
“Did you have to suck his dick?”
Her words jerked me out of my mind so suddenly, I reacted like she’d just slapped the back of my head. “The fuck?”
“Was he loaded? Your date?” She slid closer to me. “Did you have to do gay stuff to get invited up to his room?” When I eyed her hard, she gave me a slow nod. “Yeah. That’s right. I saw you.”
“You didn’t see shit,” I spat back.
“Look, I don’t care if you’re a homo. I like them. Shit, I’d be the luckiest girl alive if I got two dads wanting to adopt me. I’d get to be queen of the house. You ever been queen of a house?” She smacked her lips loudly as if tasting her imaginary gay dads’ homemade vanilla soufflé already. “Getting adopted by homos is a fucking dream. Shit, it was all anyone at Caring Candle ever talked about. If you’re adopted by homos, you have it made.”
Caring Candle was the name of the orphanage she spent the better half of her childhood living in. “Well, good luck to you,” I said, then pushed away from the railing. “See ya.”
“Oh, you’re leaving now? Just like that?” She watched me go for a bit, then hurried to my side, accompanying me. “Just tell me a bit about him. What did he make you do?”
“He didn’t make me do anything.”
“Did you stick it in him? Or were you the one getting stuck?”
“I said he didn’t make me do anything.”
She hugged herself as we walked. “He wasn’t bad looking. He was actually kind of cute. Like …” She shrugged. “Dad-bod cute. How old was he?”
“No idea.”
“Forty, maybe?”
“Nah, not forty. He was younger than that.”
“Was?” She chuckled. “You move on fast. Already past tense.”
I stopped and faced her. “Go … home. You have a roof. You have access to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m not gonna babysit your ass today.”
“But it’s more fun with you.”
“It’s dangerous. There are men out here who aren’t like me, Kelsey. They will get one look at you, not care about your age, and have their way with you in an alley.”
“I’ll just use Betsy on them.” She tapped her back pocket. “I’m always ready to cut a bitch.”
Betsy was what she called a pink switchblade she found in the parking lot of a boarded up department store. “Cockiness can kill on the streets,” I warned her.
“I’ll cut his dick off. I dare someone to try messing with me.”
“Go home. Be grateful you have one, even if it’s temporary.”
“Oh, really?” She tilted her head and squinted inquisitively at me. “Are you saying if you were me and actually had a choice,” she asked, “then instead of staying here on the filthy-ass street, you’d choose to go home?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you still in that hotel room with that not-ugly man who totally didn’t make you do stuff?”
I parted my lips to speak, then found myself caught. For five long, awkward seconds, I was stuck staring at her and unable to reply. I had no answer to her annoyingly intuitive question.
Why wasn’t I still in that room?
Finally, I blew her off, turning away. “It isn’t that simple.”
“Pussy.”
I stopped. “The hell you just call me?”
“You’re a pussy. And a hypocrite.”
Kelsey always let out the first thing on her mind. Like a bomb, she went off when she sensed the faintest spark.
“You’re a hypocrite,” she repeated, “because you have a guy who’ll put a roof over your head, feed you, take care of you … hell, I bet he’d even bathe you if you asked him all sweetly.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“See? You know it’s true. That’s why you’re getting all pissy with me.” Kelsey was right up in my face. I didn’t step down. “So maybe I should be the one yelling at you to go home.”
“I wouldn’t call some hotel room a home. Like I said, you don’t understand.”
After burning a hole through my face, she finally took a step back and shrugged. “Sure. Okay. Whatever. I’m just a dumb girl who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” She spun around and started walking away, kicking at the pavement as she went.
I glared after her. “Where are you going?”
“Home. Or the park. Or … the casino.” She hopped on the curb, balancing upon it, then glanced over her shoulder at me. “Maybe your gay new friend wants to adopt a super cool daughter.”
“Kelsey …” I warned her.
She smirked. “Kidding. Mostly.” Then, walking the curb like a balance beam, Kelsey took off. I watched her until she toppled off the curb near the crosswalk, corrected herself, then disappeared across the street and around the corner.
I scowled, shoved my hands in my pockets, then trudged my way to the beach. Nothing was going to get in the way of me and a long afternoon hiding in a cabana, even if most of them smelled like stale beer and vomit. I didn’t want to run into any more of the fools I’d come to know over the years who also survived these streets. I didn’t want any more sagely advice from a stupid knife-wielding girl who didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t want to think about James or the kindness he showed me.
The cabana I found had a can of Pringles resting on the chair. I threw my backpack down, took a seat, and popped open the can. At the bottom of its empty, chipless depths, there rested a used condom. I scoffed and pitched the can away from me, annoyed, then kicked back in the chair and stared up at the sky.
I could still taste that egg sandwich I ate last night.
I closed my eyes, tasting it.
And the ice cream.
Stop dreaming, Luke. Move on. Let it go.
The thing was, it had been a very, very long time since anyone treated me the way James did. Several times, I literally forgot who I was. I felt normal. I felt respectable. I might as well have been back at home, hanging out at an arcade with a couple of my buddies from school.
And it was even more than just that. I actually liked James.
I didn’t fucking like anyone. People annoyed the shit out of me. It was next to impossible not to resent every single person who walked past me on the street, resenting them for their money or their privilege or their daily comforts they took for granted.
I wasn’t old enough to be this bitter. This was more than just teenage angst. And I was unfortunately smart enough to know it.
This wasn’t a hand someone my age was normally dealt. The worst of my problems should’ve been not being able to beat a boss on a video game. Or feeling indecisive about what music to blast while taking a shower. Or griping about having to change the cat’s litter. Y’know, if I had a cat in this hypothetical other-life of mine.
Instead, I was worrying whether I’d have to endure another day before I ate a decent meal, or if I should use the five dollars in my pocket to splurge. I was contemplating whether or not to risk going to the park, or if on one of those nights, someone would bring a gun to the knife fight.
I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my sketchpad and a blue-colored pencil. I had six colors, but that day felt like a blue one. I flipped to a new page and began to draw with no plan in mind. That was always the best way to do it.
“Fuck you,” I mumbled as I sketched. I wasn’t sure whether I was saying it to the picture materializing in front of me, or to James for being so nice, or to the territorial shitheads at the park.
Or to my dad.
Or to the step-cunt.
Or to myself.
The good things—whether they were an evening at the casino with James, or a good spot in the park, or a wallet full of money I’d found on the curb outside a restaurant—never lasted. I was so sick of holding out hope. I was so sick of disappointment. The only way to not feel any hope or disappointment was to keep my head low and survive long enough to see another sweet sunrise on the far side of another long and lonely night.
The tip of my blue pencil snapped.
I shut my eyes.
And yet still, the only question on my mind was: Is James still up in that hotel room?
And: By the time I go back there, will he be gone?