A Forgotten Tomorrow (2 page)

It almost makes me sick as Jonah looks at me with such a compassionate gaze upon his face. Is he serious, or is he just forcing his emotions for appeal? Either way, I wish he’d say something. If he doesn’t, I will walk out of here and never look back.

There is silence for probably only a minute, but it feels like forever. Jonah looks down at his paper, writes something down and then again looks up at me with the same compassionate gaze. It’s starting to annoy me.

“Sounds like your life started off pretty rough, Savannah,” he says to me.

He obviously wants some kind of answer from me, but what kind of dumb remark is that? After what I just told him, of course it was a little rough. Is he an idiot?

He shifts in his chair and places his hands on top of his desk, leaning in closer to me.

“I really believe I can help you, if you will let me. We have many programs here depending on individual needs, but I have to get something back from you. You have to want this. You have to trust that I want the best outcome for you.”

I stare at him for a minute before responding. I feel fidgety and anxious, and can’t calm myself. This particular feeling hits me once in a while, where I want to crawl out of my skin. It’s uncomfortable, but normally the anxiety subsides after a few moments if I concentrate hard enough.

“What are you gonna do for me?” I ask, with a tone that I’m sure he has heard before. I can’t help but feel irritated. But I can’t seem to make myself leave yet, either.

“Well,” he says, “We really need to meet up again at least once or twice in my office before I can do anything.”

He flips through a few papers on his desk. “My week is pretty open right now, so what do you say about maybe tomorrow, and the day following?”

“I don’t understand why I have to come in here again. I told you what you wanted to know.”

“I would like to know a little more about you, is all,” he says with a smile. “I will talk to my partner in the meantime to see what we can do, okay? How do you feel about that? There are a lot of options and we can explore those, but sometimes just getting your thoughts out is helpful too.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s your choice to come back here, by no means are you obligated to. You have to be the one who wants some help, I can’t make you – do you understand what I mean?”

I nod my head, then immediately get out of my chair. He has been wasting my time, this guy. He is still sitting there looking at me, waiting for me to say I’m coming back. I need to leave right now, and I really need a cigarette.

“So maybe I will see you,” he says to me as I walk out of the door. I keep walking, giving him no response. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I left Jonah’s way too late. It’s getting close to 7pm, and it’s already dark. I really shouldn’t have gone, because now I don’t have much time to do what I need to do before shuffling off to work. Yes, work. It still is – even though it may not appeal to the general public – work.

I’ve come to love it here – lying underneath the run-down bridge across from Flannigan’s Pub. Late at night there is an eerie silence away from centre city, the only noise being the horns blowing from the departing container ships on their journey into the dark, endless ocean. Occasionally, sirens blare quickly as they pass the deserted, forgotten area of the city. But this area is never chaotic.

Often enough it seems as if I am the only person who hangs out around this section of town, my only companions being the few stray dogs that come and feed off of Flannigan’s newly discarded garbage. Once in a while a drunk from the pub wanders around aimlessly, but even that is a rarity. I like it that way though, underneath the bridge, covered by my worn and tattered blanket, looking up at the moonlit sky – alone.

I guess it gives me a lot of time to think. Sometimes thinking can be a good thing, but often enough it’s not. I try to rest a little here, to ease my mind. Once I take in my
happy drug of choice, I tend only to have good thoughts, and that is all I need right now.

Lately I have been a little depressed, though – without Elijah. He was my best friend, the only one I could count on out here. The only one I could count on
ever
, for that matter. It has only been two weeks since he was killed, but it feels like an eternity.

He was a boy who thought he was a man, and he had a dream. Elijah may have lived at home with his daddy, but for whatever reason he wanted to be out here on the streets. I could never understand why he wanted to leave the comfort of a warm bed, or the chance to be an educated guy behind. He just didn’t care about that. He craved the buzz of life on the edge – the dealing, the power, the thrill of a city’s dark secrets. All he talked about was working alongside Big Jon and his gang, supplying the city with a choice of narcotics. His drive to do this was obviously money – and lots of it. He probably watched Friday or other gang-related movies way too much. Truth
is, the movies don’t give the streets any justice. There is no glamour and people die way before their time. Why? Well, probably because they want to live that dream, with lots of money and fast cars. Sure, maybe they get those luxuries after a short period of time, but they might check out just as soon as they get them. I think Elijah thought it was easy – just like in the movies. How mistaken he was.

And what a mistake to think doing deals for Big Jon was the way to go. Big Jon is a well-known drug dealer and gunrunner in the city. He makes his mission look easy and justifiable, as he drives around in his loaded Escalade with one hundred dollar bills practically pouring out of his pocket. He is a big guy, probably weighing about two hundred pounds – but he always looks smart. He is never seen wearing anything other than designer clothing and expensive diamond jewellery. Many kids in this area that know of Jon idolise him for that reason alone. I would say that he probably has five or six people working for him, selling meth and cocaine to whoever will buy it. The
gun-running, however, is his main source of income and he is good at it. He makes sure of it – working at night and all alone. No one in their right mind would cross his path in the wrong way because surely there would be trouble. Elijah’s next goal after doing some dealing was to work alongside Jon personally, selling illegal weapons and ammo.

Well, Elijah didn’t get that far, but I can’t think about that right now – it only brings a deep sadness that I can’t budge. So instead, before I go to work, I need a fix.

It may be sad, but meth is the only thing right now that helps. It helps me get out of this misery, this hell-hole that I call my life. Sometimes I feel incredibly lonely – alone and unwanted. It feels like I am the one who everyone directs their anger or hatred against. Am I really that horrible? Is that why I never had a family to love me? Damn, I can’t keep thinking – it’s driving me insane.

The thing that worries me is that I only have one bag left now from what Elijah
gave me. Like I said, I’m not an addict. Meth gives me the most amazing feeling. I only use powder form. One or two lines do the job, and for about twenty minutes I feel incredibly relaxed, calm and happy. It’s a state of bliss that is indescribable. A feeling I never managed to have, before now.

Granted, I never thought I’d be one to use. I remember thinking that all the girls on my block who used were ridiculous – and disgustingly skinny. I have probably lost about ten pounds, but I don’t look that disgusting. Well, at least
I
don’t think so, and apparently neither do my customers. Ten more pounds, though? Now, that might be going too far.

So I will lie here, under my blanket and enjoy this sensation for a while, then head off to work. My blanket is comfortable and warm, I love it. It also reminds me of Elijah.

My mind slowly drifts to a night, a couple of months or so ago. That night everything changed, for both me and Elijah.

It feels so real, as if it is happening all over again. But I smile…

I had been alone for most of the day, doing nothing at all, really. I went to the park and fed the doves a little bit of stale bread that I picked from Flannigan’s trash, then walked the streets until dusk.

I remember being excited because I was going to see Elijah later on. That was something I never really felt with him before. We were best friends, and we liked to hang out together, but this really was something new.

He didn’t make definite plans to come see me before I went to work, but I knew that he would. It was becoming a habit and I knew he would want to get out of his house for a while.

Anyway, I was sitting alone under my bridge for a couple of hours before I heard footsteps and the shuffle of gravel, as
someone walked towards me. No matter what, even though I was expecting to see Elijah, I felt a quick chill shoot down my spine. It’s an unnerving feeling being alone in a pitch black area. I’ve seen horrible things happen to people and heard many other stories; I refuse to be another statistic.

But there he was, that familiar figure emerging from the shadows. I actually had to push back the giggle about to escape my mouth as I watched Elijah walking towards me in all of his glory. He was always so predictable, with his Bose headphones attached to his ears – music was definitely a big deal to him: hip-hop to be exact. His clothes were always nicely pressed and he never left home without a gold chain around his neck. Fake, of course.

I will never forget how remarkably sweet and caring he was when he gave me my new blanket. He seemed a little embarrassed because he wouldn’t look me in the face as he threw this bag on the ground in front of me and unzipped it, revealing a blanket. My blanket.

That was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. It might sound lame, but it’s true. The blanket is huge and made out of fleece, so it does the job, you know? Immediately I got rid of my ratty old blanket. I’d used that one for a year, so it was a giant mess. There were big holes which let in all the cold air, making the comfort of warmth hard to come by.

It was that night that I really began to think that I might have liked Elijah. I couldn’t get over the feeling of it being weird though. We were really good friends and I didn’t want to ruin that. I couldn’t help but find him attractive, even through his forced ‘tough guy’ demeanour. It was humorous actually, because deep inside he really was a sensitive and caring guy – not tough at all. The sad thing is, I never did get to tell him…

Where was I? Oh yeah, how everything changed.

Elijah was a talker, rarely giving me any time to speak about anything. I didn’t
mind it though; it often made me feel like I had a normal life, even if only for a moment. Sometimes he would go on and on about his life at home, and how he couldn’t stand his father. I didn’t understand that either, because in truth, his dad cared about him and was only being protective. That isn’t a bad thing. He talked about girls sometimes too, which never failed to make me laugh. He acted as if he was the next Don Juan.

That night Elijah was talking about something completely different, though. It’s been over a year since I have been in school and I actually miss it, so when he started talking about wanting to quit I couldn’t understand. He only had a year left until he would have graduated, but he thought that he could make a good living out on the streets, that an education didn’t really matter.

Thirty minutes went by fast, and by the end of our conversation I was scared. Scared for him and what he wanted to do with his life. But what could I have done? I didn’t have the right to preach to him about what
was right or wrong because, let’s face it, I work on the streets seven nights a week. I should have preached to him, though – and maybe then he would have made it.

Anyway, after Elijah rambled on about his goals in life, he made it known that he wanted to work for Big Jon. I told him upfront that I thought it was a horrible idea and that he could get hurt. He thought that he could handle it and be successful. In my eyes, selling drugs is by no means being successful, but out here, when someone has their mind set on something, they do it. I thought that if I didn’t help Elijah, he would try to take it into his own hands – and that scared me.