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Authors: Lauren Baker,Bonnie Dee

Finding Home (6 page)

BOOK: Finding Home
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He looked at her as if he’d only just noticed her, which Megan knew wasn’t true because Mouth always knew exactly who was in his immediate surroundings. They all did on the street. It was a basic survival skill.

“Yeah.” He pulled a cigarette from a crumpled pack in his jacket pocket and lit it.

“So what’s up today,” she asked when she came back from the store and handed him the soda can.

He took it with a nod of thanks.

She pressed hers to her cheek, relishing the chill against her damp skin, the beads of moisture mingling with her sweat to cool her briefly. She wondered what impact the hot weather had on the sex trade.

“Nothing much.” Mouth tied the sleeves of his shirt around his waist in a loose knot.

Megan tried to keep her eyes from drifting to his naked torso. “Where is everybody tonight? They’re usually around at this time.”

He squinted at her through the smoke rising from his cigarette. “It’s not like we keep regular office hours.”

Megan rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to reply, when a car slowed down in front of them and Mouth stepped out from under the awning.

She watched him walk toward the car, her eyes zeroing in on his ass until she caught herself. As he leaned in the window, she got a glimpse of the driver, a balding man who looked like every other guy in a suit she might pass in the street. She glanced away. Mouth wouldn’t appreciate it if she scared off the john by staring at him. It amazed her how Mouth managed to look completely uninvolved in the transaction as he negotiated his price. He probably looked the same when he concluded his end of the deal. She pictured him going down on the man in the car and the thought made her shiver with disgust.

She hated seeing the kids bargaining their wares with the men, longed to march up to the clients and berate them for paying children to suck them off or let them fuck them. Okay, Mouth could pass as an adult, but some of the kids definitely targeted the pedophile market.

Observe, don’t get involved, she reminded herself. You’re here to report, not judge. But she wanted to slap the bastard’s face.

Mouth crushed his cigarette under his heel and climbed in the car, flashing her the briefest of looks and a quick nod. She knew what it meant. He’d be back in fifteen minutes or so with one more satisfied customer to his credit.

At least the guy was a fast one, because Mouth was back within ten minutes, strolling up the street, still swigging from the by-now tepid can of soda.

“That was quick,” Megan said as he approached.

He smirked. “Yeah, well, sometimes they can’t help it.”
“Was he a regular?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“No reason, just trying to get an idea of what it’s like.”

Mouth snorted. “You want to get an idea? I’ll send the next guy your way.”

Megan bit her lip. His acerbic comment made her feel like a complete fool, in way out of her depth, pretending she knew what was going on when all she was doing was skimming around the edges.

“Mouth! Mouuuuuuth!” An anguished scream rose above street noise. Elf ran toward them up the sidewalk. He looked panicked, tears streaming down his face.

Adrenaline shot into Megan’s system and her heart pounded.

Mouth pushed past her and ran toward the boy. “What happened?” Out of breath and shaking, Elf drew big gulps of air and tried to talk at the same time, but nothing came out.

“Calm down.” Mouth squeezed Elf’s shoulder, his tone gentle and reassuring.

“It’s Ricky,” Elf gasped. “He’s… I don’t know, man, he’s OD-ing or something. I don’t know what—”

“Where?”
“Back up in the alley.” Elf pointed behind him.

Mouth sprinted off, leaving Elf and Megan behind. They raced after him, but he was a good fifty yards ahead. For a smoker, he could really run.

Megan recognized the alley as one that Ricky had shown her on one of her first visits. It was secluded enough to serve as a useful place for a quick fuck or a fix, as the profusion of used condoms and needles scattered on the ground indicated. The alley stank in the baking heat.

Ricky was slumped on a flattened cardboard box against a brick wall, his head lolling to one side. He was gray and his lips had a bluish tinge that made him look dead. A needle protruded from his arm, just under the crook of his elbow, and a leather strap hung loosely around his biceps. He looked like a poster child for an anti-drugs campaign. Except that this was real, and for all Megan knew he was already dead. Her breath caught in her throat.

Mouth knelt down, feeling for a pulse and pulling Ricky’s eyes open. He removed the needle from his arm efficiently and set it down out of the way on the ground. He turned to Megan.

“You got your cell? Call 911. Get an ambulance here. Now. Tell them it’s a heroin overdose.”

She obeyed, giving directions and describing Ricky’s condition as best she could. Mouth supplied details, until finally she handed the phone to him and went out to the road to flag down the paramedics when they arrived. Her pulse pounded and sweat ran down her body, making her clothes cling to her clammy skin. Adrenaline flooded her system like a strong jolt of caffeine and she bounced on the balls of her feet. She alternated between searching up and down the street for an approaching ambulance and looking back toward the opening of the alley in which Ricky struggled for life.

It was a long wait. Apparently, in the list of emergencies taking place all over the city, theirs didn’t rate high enough for a prompt response. Megan suspected the fact it was an OD on the street didn’t help.

Mouth appeared at the alley entrance, carrying Ricky out to the sidewalk, arms straining and sweat running down his chest. He laid the unconscious boy carefully on the pavement and Elf lent his shirt to put underneath Ricky’s head.

“Fuck, man. Oh fuck. Is he gonna be all right?” Elf kept saying, as he hovered and shifted from foot to foot.

Finally Mouth turned and thumped him in the knee to get his attention. “Hey. Cool it. Why don’t you help me out here?” He had Elf sit on the sidewalk next to Ricky. “I want you to keep talking to him. Tell him he’s going to be okay, that everything’s going to be okay. Just ‘cause he’s unconscious doesn’t mean he can’t hear you. You have to be calm.”

Megan watched Elf collect himself. He grabbed Ricky’s hand and held it, patting it and repeating his new mantra. “You’re gonna be okay. They’ll be here soon. You’ll be okay, man.”

For the first time, Megan became aware of the attention their crisis was drawing on the street. People watched the show with interest in small groups or pairs, talking in hushed tones to one another. She wanted to scream at them or shoo them away like a flock of annoying pigeons. No one offered a blanket. No one offered advice. No one asked if he could help.

Pulling on the shirt he’d been wearing round his waist, Mouth came to the edge of the street where Megan stood waiting for the ambulance. They both looked up the length of the boulevard for flashing lights.

“Call again,” he said grimly after a few seconds, his voice lowered so Elf wouldn’t hear him. “He’s barely breathing. Tell them it’s a fucking emergency!”

Megan didn’t argue. She pulled out her cell again and pressed redial. “Hello. I called about fifteen minutes ago reporting an emergency. I want to make sure the ambulance is on its way. Can you check for me? It’s an overdose.” She gave the location, repeating all the information she’d already given during her first call, and the operator assured her an ambulance had been dispatched and should arrive any moment.

When she hung up and told Mouth, he snapped. “Fuck that! This is taking too fucking long. Get your car.” For the first time she saw real fear in his eyes. He might be starting to panic a little.

“But if they’re almost here, it’d be better to wait for the paramedics so he can be treated right away. I think we should—”

Before she could finish her argument, the whine of a siren far down the street interrupted. A few seconds later, the emergency vehicle pulled to the curb.

The paramedics strapped Ricky to a gurney and loaded him onto the ambulance in a matter of minutes. One of the EMTs, a graying man in his forties, turned to them. “We’re taking him to the ER at County. You guys following?” The EMT had a skeptical look in his eyes as he took them in. Clearly, she was doing a good job of blending in on the street.

“My car’s just down the road. We’ll meet you there.”

ZY

When they reached the ER, the nurse at the triage station was unhelpful. She stared with disdain at Elf’s dirty, tear-streaked face and stained T-shirt and Mouth’s street hustler demeanor, all low-slung jeans, open shirt and attitude.

Megan wished she wore her discreet nose stud instead of the ornate Thai ring she liked to sport on the street. “Excuse me,” she said with all the authority she could muster.

The nurse turned to her with barely-disguised contempt. “Yes?” “We’re here for a friend of ours who came in by ambulance in the past five minutes. Drug overdose.”

The nurse rolled her eyes and made a show of checking her register. She looked back at them. “If you’re not immediate family, you can’t go in with him. You’ll have to wait in the waiting room.”

“He doesn’t have an immediate family,” Megan said. “Can you please give us a break and let at least one of us go and be with him?”

The nurse frowned in annoyance. “Look. The boy’s not conscious anyway. It’s better if you just stay out of the way of the emergency personnel so they can treat him. Someone will let you know as soon as he’s been stabilized. For now, you need to go to the waiting room. If you want to be useful, you can fill out his admittance information. Address, insurance, that sort of thing.”

Megan stared at her. It was so obvious Ricky didn’t have any of those things that she wondered if the nurse mocked them. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This kid is fighting for his life in there and you want us to fill out paperwork!” Her voice rose in indignation.

Mouth took her arm and pushed her gently away from the desk. “Excuse me.” His tone was low and polite. “We’re not trying to make trouble here…Ms. Thatcher,” he read her nametag. “I understand you’re just following policy, but our friend doesn’t have any immediate family. We’re the closest he’s got.”

He pulled tiny little Elf beside him. “This boy needs to see his friend is being taken care of. Can you please just let him look in the room for a second, then we’ll come right back? We promise not to get in the way.”

Ms. Thatcher looked from Mouth’s beseeching eyes to Elf’s waifish face and her expression of cool efficiency slipped a little. There was an indefinable softening of her eyes and in the grim line of her mouth.

“Please,” Mouth said again, submissive and respectful.
“Not all of you,” she said. “It’s too many. But I guess it wouldn’t hurt if two of you had a quick look.” She raised an admonishing finger. “But come right back. If you get in the way of the emergency staff, they’ll have my head for letting you through.”

Mouth turned to look at Megan.
“I’ll wait for you guys right here,” she said, waving him on through the security gate. She couldn’t quite believe he’d been able to tame the bitch. The way he’d managed to talk his way past her, by looking submissive and respectful of her authority, amazed Megan, and spoke volumes about how he’d had to learn to adapt to circumstances to survive. While Megan lost her temper, Mouth had immediately known which tone to adopt to bypass the woman’s hostility.

Once again, he’d proved more mature than she. Megan found that unsettling, not least because it increased her incipient attraction. He might only be seventeen, but Mouth had shouldered adult responsibilities much earlier than Megan ever had and it showed. He was also probably far more used to being treated like trash.

She sat down in one of the hard-backed plastic chairs welded to the floor of the waiting room, trying to steer clear of the sickest-looking people, and prepared for a wait. She expected Mouth to stick around the ER until he knew Ricky’s situation was resolved, no matter what the nurse had said. Megan wished she had something to read to pass the time, but all she could find in her bag was her notebook. She pulled it out with a pen and made a few brief notes, jotting down the basics of what had happened in case she wanted to write it up.

As the minutes ticked past, Megan became absorbed in her notes, lifting her head now and then to take in her surroundings. She thought it might be worth trying to capture the atmosphere in the waiting room, the smell of stale sweat and grime, overlaid with hospital disinfectant, the stark neon lighting which made everyone appear gray and drawn, the resigned expression on the faces of most of the people huddled on chairs, clutching an injured limb or cradling a crying child.

One couple in particular caught her attention, a beautiful, very pale woman with dark hair, who was holding an elderly woman by the arm. The old lady was impeccably dressed, but looking closely, Megan noticed her well-tailored jacket was threadbare. She breathed with some difficulty. Both sat up straight, and the younger woman had the older one’s hand in hers and stroked it with her thumb, absent-minded, while glancing nervously toward the triage desk. A mother and daughter, Megan guessed, and obviously not used to this. She wondered why they were here—what sorry tale of divorce or bereavement might lie behind the straitened circumstances and the faded gentility of the pair.

Her musings were cut short by the return of the boys. Mouth’s gaze dropped to Megan’s notebook and she put it away with a fleeting feeling of shame. It seemed wrong to work on her article while Ricky was…whatever he was. Mouth and Elf looked okay, not distraught, as she’d feared. Ricky must have survived the ordeal.

She got to her feet. “So?”
“He’s going to be all right, but they’re calling Social Services on his ass, on account of him being a minor with no address, so we bailed. I don’t want them sniffing around
my
ass.”

Elf nodded, as if to emphasize the point. He still looked upset.
“Hey, Elf, I’m sure Ricky will be okay,” Megan said.

The boy nodded again, but said nothing.
“He’ll be back,” Mouth said. “You know what it’s like, they’ll keep him for a few days, then he’ll go to a group home or something, but he’ll get out again.”

BOOK: Finding Home
4.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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