Chapter 1
I check my phone again.
11:47
“Art, where are you?” I mutter to myself. A shiver runs down my spine. It’s the middle of November in Chicago and I’ve only got a light black jacket on, I’m cold. It doesn’t help that I’ve got almost no fat on my body.
I jump a little bit when my phone rings. The screen shines in the dark, Arthur Larsen glows softly at me and I tap the screen to answer.
“Dude, where are you? I’m freezing out here.” I say into the phone with mild irritation, looking around to see if I can see my friend coming.
Art’s voice crackles through the speaker, “I’m sorry man, my mom had me helping her around the house. I’m almost there I promise. Five minutes out, tops.”
“Just hurry.” I tap the screen to end the call. I stand up from the low wall that I was sitting on and start to pace up back and forth, trying to keep warm. I pick up rocks and throw them out across the frozen surface of the lake, watching to see how far they bounce. A pair of headlights appear down the block and I go back to where I had been sitting, scoop up my backpack, and sling it over my shoulders. I wait at the corner as the lights get closer.
The car stops next to me and I know the dents, the rust, and the chips in the paint all too well. I walks around to the passenger side and wait, my hand on the door handle that I know doesn’t work. The door pops open and I slide into the seat, closing the door behind me.
I pull out my phone and look at the guy in the driver’s seat. “Can you read this to me, Art?”
My best friend looks at the little screen. “You won’t believe me if I tell you I hit traffic, will you?” Art’s light blue eyes shine as he tries to hide a smile.
“Not at all. You’re lucky no one else likes me enough to hang out with me though.” A smile cracks across Alex’s face too. “Good to see you man.” I put up my fist and Art hits his own against it. “You ready for this?”
“I guess so man. You sure about this? It seems stupid. If you guys really need the help I can talk to my parents, I dont think they’d mind helping you out, at least for a month until you can actually work or if your dad finds a job.”
“Yeah dude I’m sure. I can’t take handouts from your family. Plus they don’t like my dad. Besides, I’ve done this more times than I can count.” I run a hand through my long, brown hair and sigh. “Look buddy, if you don’t want to be involved I wouldn’t blame you. You can drive away right now and I can run there and back home. Seriously, no big deal.”
“No I’m going through with it. If you’re confident then so am I.” Art flashes a quick smile and peels away from the curb.
He drives for about five minutes, hitting every green light and never having to stop. The only people they pass are homeless and asleep on benches or in doorways. No cars are out right now. Art turns off of a major road and into a neighborhood. Huge houses line either side of the road, half of them empty. He pulls to the curb between two houses that are completely dark and shuts off the lights, letting the engine idle.
“Okay so what am I doing exactly?” Art asks nervously, looking around.
“You just have to wait here for me to come back out and then we go to my house. No problem dude, it’s not a huge deal. In and out, that easy.” I say absently as I pull on my beaten leather gloves. They’re cracked and practically worn through, but I refuse to get new ones until I blow these out completely. I look at my friend. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Then we’re gone, okay? And twenty real minutes, not twenty Art-minutes.”
A smile breaks across my best friend’s face, any worry gone for a second. “Sounds good dude. Let’s get this done. Twenty minutes.”
I close the door and turn to face him through the window, giving him a thumbs up. Then I put my fist on the window. Art leans over and puts his in the same spot. I grin and turn, sling my backpack over my shoulders and start at a light jog for the fence that runs around the backyard.
I reach it and slap my hands on top, kicking my right leg up and over, swinging my body around to follow. I land lightly in the yard and head to the back door. I pull a knife out of my back pocket and slide it up the crack between the door and the frame until I hear a soft click to tell me that I’ve got the latch pushed back. The door swings open with a nudge and I step in.
I take stock of the house that I’m standing inside of and decide to go upstairs first. My feet fly as I take the stairs two at a time and I peek in the first door that I come to. Master bedroom, just what I was looking for.
My first stop is a dresser with a picture of a happy couple at their wedding on top. I pick it up and look at it, a brief flash of a memory of my parents at their wedding when I was three. I shake the memory away and flip the picture around to pop the back off. A wad of money falls out and I smile to myself. Rich people are so predicible I think.
I pick up the bills and dump them into my backpack. I pull open the top drawer and see jewelry. My fingers work along the edge of the draw and I take the whole tray to dump into my pack before I move down a drawer. Clothes. Every other drawer is just clothes.
I check the other dresser in the room and finds a couple of watches and a pair of cufflinks with sapphires set in them. I jog down the hall and can’t find anything good in the other bedrooms. There’s some fancy china in the dining room which I stuff the bag with the rest of the way. I zip the backpack and head to the kitchen.
There’s a loaf of bread sitting on the counter along with a bowl of fruit. I open the fridge and grab a grape soda for Art, his favorite. The block of cheese sitting in the bottom gets stuffed in a pocket and I stack the box of leftovers from some restaurant on the counter near the bread. I close the fridge and fill my pockets as best as I can with cans from the pantry. The bread, some apples and bananas, and the leftovers get stacked on top of each other and I walk out the front door.
I stroll up to the car and open the back door. “See dude? No problem at all.” I say to Art as I start loading the food and my backpack into the back seat.
“Yeah, yeah can we get going? I trust you but I’m still nervous.” Art says with a glance around. He pops the front foor open and I climb in. Art pulls out into the street and turns back toward the sketchier part of town, toward my house.
We ride along in silence for a couple of blocks. “Oh, that’s right.” I say, making Art jump. “I got you something in there.” I reach back and pull the soda out of my backpack. “Happy Savior’s Day buddy.”
Art looks down at it and can’t help but smile. “You’re an idiot sometimes, you know that?” He cracks the can open and takes a big swig. “Happy Savior’s Day.”
We look at each other and burst out laughing, any nervousness gone completely.
-----
Art slows to a stop in front of my house. “Want help carrying your new stuff in?” He asks.
I looks at my friend. I know that this neighborhood makes Art uncomfortable because he’s better off than the people here, and really I don’t blame him. No matter how hard I’ve tried I can’t get the people around here to take Art in. “Nah buddy don’t worry about it. I don’t want to wake Lucy up and if Kip is here then he’s not going to be quiet with someone other than me.”
“If you say so man. Don’t wait so long before you hit me up again okay? Maybe we can do something a little less illegal next time.” He says with a wink.
“In the most loving way possible, screw you.” I respond with a laugh. I get out and collect my stuff from the back seat. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“You got it.” Another fist bump and Art heads home.
I walk to his front door and crack it open. I don’t hear anyone moving so I push it the rest of the way open. Right when I set foot inside I hears a click click click coming from the kitchen. A furry head appears around the corner and it tilts, looking at me questioningly.
“Hey there Kip.” I say and squat to pet him as the dog comes over to him, tail working in overdrive. I scratch him between the ears and take the stack of food to the kitchen.
I empty my pockets into the pantry, put the cheese into the fridge and set the fruit and bread on the counter. The leftovers get left out as I grab a fork and pop the top open. Some kind of italian pasta is inside and I devour half of it. It’s as close to getting real food as my family gets. I put the rest in the fridge for my dad and sister.
Light snoring floats down the stairs and I know that my dad is home then. I make my way, as quietly as I can, up the creaky stairs, each groaning when I put weight on it, and slowly open the door to my sister’s room.
Lucy fell asleep on her floor, a book open in front of her. I can’t help but smile to myself, she’s always been a big reader, this happens all the time. I had assumed that she’d start reading in her bed so if she fell asleep it wasn’t a big deal.
I go over to her and pick her up as gently as possible. She moves a little bit in her sleep and mutters something I can’t understand. I lay her in her bed and pull the blanket up over her shoulders. She pulls it and nestles in more, getting comfortable. I lean down and kiss the side of her head.
“Night, Luce.” I whisper and walk out, closing the door as quietly as I can. Light filters out from under the door across the hall.
I walk up to it, give it a light push, and it swings open. The overhead light is on and my dad is passed out across the foot of the bed. I sigh when I see the bottle of amber liquid in his hand. “Glad you took good care of Lucy tonight, dad.” I mutter.
I walk over and cover my dad with the blanket from the head of the bed and take the bottle from his loose grip.
On my way out I flip the light off and hear my dad grumble something. I go downstairs and put the bottle in the top cabinet, away from my sister’s reach. She’s not stupid but she’s curious. I head into the living room and flop down on the couch, my bed. I gave up having a room so Lucy could have her own space when we moved here six years ago. I stare at the ceiling running through how we got here in my head for the umpteenth time.
We had to move after my dad’s savings ran out. He got laid off two years before that happened and with that stacked on top of my mom taking off, he ended up in bars most nights of the week. He literally drank through our money before anyone knew what was happening. After that he took money from the wrong people and we had all barely gotten out without anyone being seriously hurt.
My hand absently traces the scar that runs across my collarbone, a reminder that there were people out there that didn’t have a problem cutting up a ten year old kid.
My dad struggled to make ends meet, between two kids and booze he had to choose where his priorities were. He had chosen Alex and Lucy, which I had so much respect for. After a rough few years in this crappy house I started running stuff for the more questionable people in the neighborhood to get a little extra cash flow going for us. No one suspected a thirteen year old kid that seemed pretty normal to be hauling money, drugs, or valuables around, so it was perfect.
I twist the ring that I got as payment for my first job ever around on my left middle finger. Nothing fancy, just a dull grey carbon fiber band that would get maybe fifty bucks on the street.
After about a year my dad fell back off of the wagon when the factory he worked at closed. Two years later, when I was sixteen, I dropped out of school and started looting houses to try to make up for the lost income. Now, almost two years later I’m making bigger and bigger scores with every house I hit.
Once I turn eighteen though, I’m done. I’m finally legally able to get a job and start making real money the right way. One month away.
I close my eyes and drift off to sleep with an image of myself on the straight and narrow in my mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment