Romeo is Homeless (19 page)

“How dare you blame our baby for what you did? You ungrateful son of a bitch!” she yelled into Reese’s face. The father stomped in the front door at just that moment, the smell of alcohol wafted around him like a cloud.

The man surveyed the broken glass and stained carpet, took a long step toward Reese and grabbed his arm in a vice-grip, pulling him out of her grasp and dragging him across the room. The father opened a small closet and pushed him into it.

He landed hard against the back wall, cleaning supplies on a dusty shelf rattling with the impact. The door slammed shut. Something scraped along the floor and thumped against the door. He was alone in the dark, only a sliver of light at his feet breaking the gloom.

He banged on the wood with an open palm. “Let me out! I didn’t do anything!” He pushed on the door with his shoulder, but it wouldn’t budge. “Let me out!” His calls went unanswered. He slid down the wall and sat on the floor, sobs shaking his shoulders. Chemicals and dust nauseated him. There were no voices on the other side of the door, only silence. Then a toilet flushed, and the slim light went out. At some point he fell asleep, sitting on the floor with his knees up under his arms. He was awakened by unbearable pressure in his bladder. He banged on the door again. “Let me out! I need to use the bathroom!”

“Shut up and go to sleep!” the father yelled from somewhere upstairs.

When the door finally opened, the room was bright with morning sunlight. He squinted against it and stood to exit the closet. His pants were damp with urine, the floor wet.

“You stupid little shit!” The foster mother handed him paper towels and bleach. “Clean that up!”

He stood when he was finished. She yanked his shirt off over his head and spun him around to face her husband who grabbed him by the arms. The man’s eyes were filled with sinister smugness mixed with twisted enjoyment.

Excruciating pain seared across his back. He screamed and fell to his knees onto the cold tile and out of the man’s grip. He tried to crawl away, but a second strike sent fire from his shoulder blade down to his ass. His arms and legs quaked, useless in any attempted escape. Each new impact brought fresh agony and tortured wails. After countless hits, his cries grew fainter until they were just mumbled groans. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

She slammed the bottle of bleach down beside his head and tossed the roll of paper towels next to it. Then a metal yardstick, sticky with blood, clanged to the floor in front of him.

“Clean that off. The floor, too.” She watched as he did as he was told. “There’s some on that wall, wipe that down.”

He sobbed through the chore. He could think only of his mother. At that moment he missed her, confused by a longing for her presence. Why hadn’t he told those cops he’d burned himself? They would have left her alone. He would still be home.

When he finished cleaning, he stood on trembling legs, grabbed the counter for support and stared at the bitch he could no longer call any kind of mother.

“That’ll teach you how to behave in this house,” she spat.

Not long after the second Christmas, after more than a year in that house of horrors, after he’d endured four yardstick whippings, a different case worker from child services knocked on the door. His mother was clean. They were taking him home. Just like that.

The foster bitch reached out to hug him goodbye but he backed away before she could touch him.

“We’ll miss you, sweetie. He’s such a good boy.” She turned a fake smile on the case worker. “So, how soon can we get another child?”

Within the hour he was at the door to his mother’s apartment. When she opened it, he cried, threw himself into her bony frame and hugged her hard.

She didn’t say a thing. Just patted him on the shoulder with the hand that wasn’t holding a cigarette. She peeled him off and pointed in the general direction of the living room. “Go sit on the couch.”

The case worker reeled off what she had to do. Stay clean, send him to school, feed him. Said they’d be back to check up on him and ensure she complied. They never did come back.

When the case worker walked away, his mother clicked the door shut and leaned her forehead against it. She turned to look at him, her face cold, arms crossed.

He smiled, surprised by a warm feeling of genuine affection for her. He stepped toward her, holding out his arms, desperate for contact, for kindness. For love.

“I can’t believe you called the cops, you sorry little bastard!” He hadn’t even bridged half the short gap between them when she turned on him. Her body shivered, her sickly grey skin covered in goose bumps. “No one has come around to see me for months. I’m sick as a fucking dog thanks to you, you son of a bitch.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and bounced in place like a little kid needing to piss. “Gaaawwd, I need a hit.”

“B-but, Mom. I thought you got clean for me.”

“I got nothing! For nobody! But they said I was straight enough, said they’d bring you home.” She threw her hands up beside her face and shook them, palms forward, fingers splayed. “Yippee.” She turned her back to him, snatched another cigarette from the counter and lit it. Drawing in a deep wheeze of smoke, she looked at him over her shoulder. “Go to your room. Leave me alone,” she said on the exhale.

He stomped away, slammed his door, lay on his old bed and stared up at the stained ceiling. She knew he’d be home, but she couldn’t even put a sheet on the mattress for him. She didn’t give a shit if he was all right. Didn’t even notice he’d grown at least four inches. Probably wouldn’t care about the scars on his back. How could he think, even for a moment, that she cared about him?

Within an hour a series of sharp knocks startled him, then the door squeaked open and thudded shut. Muffled voices through his bedroom door spoke familiar words that filled him with dread. Then it flew open, and there stood Vincent. Could he smell him or something? It did no good to fight, he couldn’t stop it from happening. So he just gave in and got it over with. It hurt less that way. At least this time that prick didn’t butt a cigarette out on him. And nobody whipped him bloody.

Over the next months, the apartment became a revolving door of men. They alternated between fucking his mother and raping him. He wasn’t even sure if it was rape anymore. He had quit fighting. He didn’t want it. Didn’t like it. He just did it.

By summer his mother was so strung out she couldn’t even shoot herself up anymore. She asked him to do it for her. Vincent taught him how, step by step. The first time he stuck her with the needle, his hands shook so hard he missed the vein twice. Vincent was surprisingly patient. His mother just laughed.

One winter morning, late the following January, she woke him up and told him to come out of his room.

Bleary eyed, he plodded into the living room, rubbing his hands through his hair, and found good old Vincent sitting on the far end of the ratty couch. He groaned. “Come on man, gimme a break today.”

“Today? What’s so special about today?”

“It’s my birthday, man. Maybe my present could be that you don’t fuck me, huh?”

“Is that today?” His mother looked at him, her eyes dull and uninterested. “Which birthday is this?”

“Thirteen, Mom. Thanks for remembering. As usual.”

Vincent stood and extended his right hand. “Happy birthday, boy. Thirteen, hey? I guess I have to call you man now.”

“Really?” Did Vincent not see some kind of irony in that? “That’s what makes me a man?” He hesitated and then accepted the handshake with a limp hand.

“You bet it does.” Vincent tightened his grip and pulled him forward. He forced Reese onto the couch and then sat on his legs. “Done deal, I won’t fuck you today. But it’s time to give you wings, boy.”

“What? No! I don’t want that shit in me!” He pushed against Vincent’s thick shoulder, but the heavy man didn’t budge, just sat on his legs and cooked smack in that damn spoon.

His mother kneeled on the floor next to him and patted his arm. “Relax, baby. Lay back.” She pressed her hand against his chest and eased him back until he was lying flat on the couch, her face just inches from his. She stroked his hair and looked him right in the eye. “You’re going to love this. It’s the most perfect feeling. No pain, no worry. Just warmth and love. Trust me, baby.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The only time they touched was when he was smacking her arm or poking around, trying to find a vein he could inject her with heroin. He’d forgotten he had her eyes. That bluest of blue that, up close, still had a wisp of sparkle.

She brushed her thumb against his cheek and flashed a sweet smile while Vincent tied off his arm.

He should have objected. Should have stopped that man from poisoning his body, polluting his mind. Should have asked his mother why she was letting Vincent do this to her own child. But it was the most compassion she’d ever shown him. He was riveted, didn’t want to break the spell. She finally had something to share with him, something they could love together. He was connected to her for the first time in years.

A pinprick of pain was followed by a burning sensation, then a warm rush coursing through his veins. Something tugged at his throat and nausea rolled up his body. It ebbed in his chest, the bile subsiding. Warmth spread through him, over his skin and up into his scalp until it rippled out through his hair. He was floating, painless. Happy. It was the best birthday present he’d ever gotten.

In the mornings that followed, his first waking thought was about that initial high, that peaceful feeling he had never known before. That perfect moment. He wanted that again. Within a week the craving occupied every moment of the day. He used to watch junkies shooting up in the alley out of curiosity – now he watched with envy. He knew what they were feeling – and he wanted to join in. But he didn’t trust any of them. And he refused to ask his mother for it. He didn’t want anything at all from her. Their connection had only lasted as long as that first high, then they were back where they started – resentful. And hating each other.

He struggled in the coming weeks, battling his craving for that perfect feeling heroin brought him. One morning, out of desperation to feel something – anything – he picked up his mother’s cigarettes and lit one, inhaling fast. A rush of blood to his head made him dizzy and he coughed the smoke out. His throat burned and a small surge of adrenaline flew through his body. A miniature high. It didn’t last much longer than the inhale, but it was worth doing again. He took another long drag. No coughing this time and the taste was intriguing. At least cigarettes wouldn’t kill him. Not as quickly, anyway.

When he had smoked it down almost to the filter, he eyed the smoldering remains. He lifted his shirt and pressed the lit end to his ribs. Another rush of adrenaline ran through him as the ember seared his skin. When he pulled the cigarette away, the relief was immediate. The pain was intense and short-lived, his mind focused and clear. He was in control of the torture, in control of when it stopped. Just plain in control.

His body soon adapted to the new stimulants. The rush he got from nicotine lapsed into just another craving he had to feed. Even butting the cigarettes on his skin had lost the desired effect. His control was absolute, the pain fully anticipated. The release barely registered.

He awoke one day in March, shaking and agitated. The inescapable craving was intense – he had to feed it. In the kitchen he pulled the bag his mother kept her works in from above the fridge. No heroin. Just needles and tea lights and alcohol swabs and the spoon. He threw the bag back into the cupboard and swore. Stupid bitch used it all. That meant only one thing – someone was coming to visit today.

Maybe a stray baggie lay around somewhere, some residue or skiff of powder to take the edge off. His hands quaked. He rummaged in the drawers. He yanked one open, loose cutlery clattered against the wood. The blade of a paring knife caught the light of the bare bulb overhead. He stared at the knife and then picked it up, turning it side to side, watching the light glinting off its edge.

He held the blade flat against his arm a few inches above his wrist and pressed. The blade pushed against his skin, leaving a thin indent when he pulled it away. He angled the blade and touched it to his arm again, then slowly drew it across. When a trickle of blood left his veins and wet his skin it was sweet release, like the shit of his life left with it. He watched thick crimson drip from the shallow wound. His mind cleared, he was focused and alert.

He rinsed the knife under the kitchen tap, wiped it off on his jeans and put it back in the drawer. He let cool water run over his arm, intrigued as it mixed with his blood creating pink swirls that circled the drain. He held a paper towel to his arm until the blood clotted, then put on a jacket and left the apartment before Vincent or one of those other bastards descended on him.

For the rest of that month he alternated between releases. Fresh pink scars crisscrossed his forearm, each new cut a bit higher than the last. Sneaking his mother’s cigarettes one at a time wasn’t enough, so he just stole whole packs. She figured she had smoked them herself – he could dupe her into believing almost anything. And he shot up whenever he felt like it. It took a few tries to get used to doing it to himself, but he soon figured out how to overcome the awkward angle, the syringe gripped in his fist, his thumb on the plunger.

He abided by his mother’s increasing indifference and unresponsive daze. She never noticed the wounds on his arms, the burns on his ribs, the scars on his back from the foster mother’s yardstick whippings. He didn’t even bother to try to hide them from her. It was like she didn’t see him at all.