Before you read... this story was inspired by a documentry i saw on CNN about the sex and drug trade in russia... it was a horrid show i wish i had never seen... but i saw it nonetheless... and i saw humanity at the most lowest of lows of how these children of 8 9 10 years old were forced into despicable acts... this is a depiction of what i saw... the sadness...also this is entirely fiction...------------------------------
Behind Picket Fences…
“Come on Samantha!”, shouts Mrs. Maggie, “we’ll be late for your brothers graduation! We got three hours to drive down there.”
“I’ll be down in a minute Ma!”, as she put on her jeans. The drive was long but not to where she was hoping.
Now Mrs. Maggie was the most sweetest Southern lady Samantha had known, her daughter. But Maggie was old now, almost too old. Wore out like they say happens to clothes washed too many times. With a husband no longer there, in heaven she hoped, for the hell that he caused. But Maggie had forgiven him a long time ago, and now she only lived for Jared, her son and her bastard daughter, sired from another woman her husband had slept with.
Samantha, 23 now, knew she was not her mothers child, even though she was never told, she knew. She was plump but not so as to be unattractive. She had her way of looking good for those around her and herself. Sam as Maggie called her often was all she had left.
Maggie, she cried often she did. She cried for the man she never loved, she cried for her son, she cried for the daughter that was never hers. But she did this in private, after all she thought she had to be strong for her family. Working two jobs, one as a maid at the local hotel the other as a cashier at a butchers shop. Wages weren’t good… and times were hard. Or rather they were never easy. She kept her house pretty, and she often had visitors but even they did not know of the turmoil sloughing away her sanity. Nevertheless she smiled, and she always said, “Would you like some tea?”
Her son had left her too… and far away he was… some three hours away… and some eight years ago…
In a dark room he sat, thinking, very still, eyes wide open, breathing at a steady slow. A sigh and then the prick… he always hated this part. The sting.
Somewhere in the darkness someone unfolded shiny foil, the click click of a lighter, the sound of deep inhalation. He sighed with the murmurs swarming inside his head, the prickly feeling finally withdrawing. He closed his eyes and smiled, remembered and then cried… the sound of a belt cutting through the air, the crackling sound of leather against flesh. He jerked… his arm stung… it was the needle still dangling… the screams filtered through the racket in his brain, “Leave him alone!!...” “Damn you, you animal!” the screams again, the pain again it stung. The blood dripped, he smiled he did, pain was good. Click click he heard again… happy now… alone but happy… inhale… deep breaths… the release…
He had a girlfriend. She stayed close to him most of the time actually all the time. He told her he loved her often, and she told him the same. Sometimes she would sting him and then they would make love on that sofa, or maybe in some other room of that barren dilapidated house. They sighed together enwrapped and entwined. And then the prickly stings would begin again. Tiff she was to him, Tiffany to others.
They met outside Big D’s place hoping to score. She was nervous and looked down most of the time but he kept her company and offered her his sweater, which she obviously needed then. Since then they filled each others emptiness. Played with each others hair and loved one another. Even through the haze that clouded their minds they reached out for each other. There was passion and there was Tiff. Her story was much like his. She understood. She always did. They hustled the streets together to provide for food and the fix.
“Jared, we have blow enough for just this one night”, Tiff smiled looking at the plastic 3” by 3” bag. Only fifteen, and ripe to fifteen more she was. Jared enveloped in a knitted blanket, only looked up, whispered something and went back to looking at the pigeons outside the ledge on the window. Things seemed in place finally, he knew this world was pretty even without the sting, but he knew that there was also pain, and none when there was the sting and the heaven dust before him. He had found someone he couldn’t live without so he thought, but he liked thinking it. Its Tiff that made him complete.
Click click… the pigeons flapped… click… they flew away. They didn’t even touch the crumbs he had left there on the ledge. Snapping right out of his reverie… was not the click click of the lighter… but glass smashing. Tiff! His heart pumped too much blood to his head all of a sudden. The rush was unfamiliar, coursing through his veins the fear. He turned swiftly and ran towards what they called the “launch pad”, Tiff sprawled on the floor. His mind racing at the speed of light, but his body working in slug motion. He walked towards her. The fear… closer he got… the fear… Tiff!!!
Eyes rolled to the back of her head… the white of her eyes red… blood trickled down the side of her nose. A gargling sound lodged in the back of her throat, her body ravaged by violent trembling.
“HELP!”, Jared cried. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
The cries echoed into nothing, after all who here, even if they could hear him would help.
Not a hospital for 4 miles. His mind raced but only to have no conclusion, just fear.
“TIFF!!!”
“AAAAAAH”, tears from his blood shod eyes fell onto her cheeks as he knelt beside her. He grabbed her head. “WAKE UP TIFF! NOOOOOO!”
He breathed into her mouth, “TIFF! PLEEEASE! PLEEEASE!” he whimpered.
“Tiff… Tiff… C’mon… PLEASE TIFF!!!!... NOO!!! TIFF STOP IT! DON’T DO THIS”
“Please please… please…”, his voice trailed, his lips quivered, the tears they would not stop! He was getting angrier! And so he hit her across the face “Wake up”, smack, “Wake up”, smack, “Wake up! AAAAh hAAAA” …. “WAKE up!”, his voice trailed again and interrupted by the sobs that rang from his very center!
He knew he had to run, run for help, four blocks to the nearest pay phone that worked. And so he did! He ran and ran! Legs seemed like they were too slow for the activity his brain demanded of them! Bawling as he ran, so fast, Tiff I’m coming! He thought. Buckling under the strain his body wasn’t used to, he stumbled but he knew he had to get to that phone. And call Big D. He’d know what to do. The blackened dirty buildings passed, a few prostitutes on the other side of the street, a siren somewhere, someone blaring… the phone… Big D. Its right there, the tears streamed down his face, he could see the phone booth so close… RUN! RUN! RUN! His mind bellowed at him. RUN! TIFF IS DYING! SHES DYING! WHY WON’T YOU RUN FASTER!. He struck the door and fell back down upon the impact. Getting up he fumbled, forgetting that he could not breathe, he fumbled for the few quarters in his pocket, opened the door and stood there…
He stood there… stood there as his world caved in before his very eyes… with one thought firing within the vault of his skull! But no words, no thoughts came now… He just stood there… staring at the empty space where the phone should have been. Yanked from its rightful place. Drained… he banged his fist against the box of the phone. Again and again and again and again and again! He kicked the door, the metal. He screamed… blood curdling scream… it echoed it did. No hope this time. Why…? Why…? He thought. “Tiff....” through the crying, “ I’m sorry Tiff! I’m so sorry! Sorryyy… TIFF!”
And he couldn’t stand any longer… inundated… overwhelmed… he passed into blackness… and fell unconscious…
When he awoke, it was colder, colder than it had ever been around him, he shivered. Jared looked up to the sky to see the dark blue hue, no moon not even stars, just the strangest blue the world felt relentless again. And then like a flood gate opened, he remembered. Tiff. She had gone, just like everything else in his life that he had pulled to himself. The emptiness was maddening, and the pain swelling out from the primordially tortured soul. He picked himself up and walked back to where Tiff lay. Solemn stare, not a flicker of a thought, just pain, the unjust pain, the evil pain. And just that one prick, a smaller kind of pain to rid the bigger more primeval pain.
Up ahead, blue and red flashed, an ambulance and a police patrol car. People in yellow coats, people in white clothing. They were taking his Tiff away, he knew because her arm tattooed with his name protruded out of the white sheet that covered the stretcher she laid on. And he looked down at his own forearm, “Tiff” with flowers around it. The flowers were dying… rotting away… they moved, he saw them move… rotting on his arm… he tried rubbing them off, but they were eating at him, rotting him from the inside… corroding his heart. Making him vacant all over again.
He knew what had to be done. This pain had to be fixed… Big D… he would fix him up. Big D… money… he had none… and he saw Tiff in his mind, just a flash, black straight hair covering her pretty face, grey eyes… money… he thought… hungry… the pain! Big D would understand……………………………………………..
“Sorry kid… Ju ain’t gettin no powder if ju ain’t got tha doe…” Big D said as he him self bent down and snorted the devils dust. Jared was shaking… pain… the cramps… his skin crawling with remembrance of Tiff… the itchy rotting flowers were going to devour him if he didn’t get any…
“Big D… I promise I’ll pay up… just a little… and I’ll pay you tonight.” The place smelt like sweat and like the smell of water that’s been left to stand for too long.
Big D stared at him, knew he could not take any chances, market was tight… but inside he knew Jared had no hope… and he felt sorry for him… and himself…
“Please…”, Jared reiterated, controlling his tone, “I’ll pay you double!! Just this one time”
Big D waved his had, a grave no, and Jared was being hurtled out onto the street, he kicked, he panicked, and he cried… then he begged outside the metal doors, locked forever… only until he got the cash…
He saw across the street, the car pull up and the lady get in, horrid looking lady… the trade that was common in these parts.
A different corner he turned… the bridge… he walked right to the edge… and he looked over… the street below… dirty… he had to make the jump… and then he heard… the car… he turned and saw a man… thin… the car passed him… but stopped a few yards ahead… the car reversed… the window dropped down… it was a nice car… black… a big car… “You lookin for a lift kid” said the hoarse voice from inside… his face covered by shadows…
Jared knew the connotations of those six words… and they rang inside his head, echoed back and forth… he stood there, turned now fully towards the car… he waited… thinking… searching for an answer. Was this the only way? He questioned.
“Maybe you don’t need a lift after all”, the man said… and just as the window was closing…
“Wait!”, Jared paused, “I… I … D-do… need a lift…”
“Get in the back”
And so he did… and they drove, quietly, “You hungry?” he asked.
Through the rear view mirror he nodded… and the man turned briefly to put a half eaten sandwich in his hands. Maybe after all he wasn’t going to do the obvious maybe he would help him, just give him some money and be gone. What a kind man he would be? He pondered. The bread was hard, and the meat cold but he was not complaining.
They headed into the city, now Jared was no boy, at 15, he had the demeanor of a full grown man in his prime. Hair black straight but wavy and his eyes a green brown.
They pulled up to a nice, but fancy three story house. The man turned again, this time for a longer while, “this ain’t my house, I just work for them rich pricks… lookin after them car and house…” Jared was wiping the crumbs of the corner of his lips…
“So how much you takin??”
Jared’s stomach lurched… his heart made the final dive… money… pain… Tiff… the prickly pain… the much need prickly pain…
“A hun-n-dred…” he stuttered.
“Ill give you twenty…”
“Seventy…?”
“Kid… this ain’t a negotiation, take it or leave this car!”
Jared stared wide eyed… blinked… he was bargaining for his soul… he could not believe the situation unfolding before him… his battered bruised soul… torn… he didn’t need it anymore… Tiff was… gone… and the leather crackled in some far niche of his brain. The pain… the unbearable pain!
“OK…” sadness but it would be over when he went back to Big D…
The man got out and opened the main door, and led him to the basement…
The pain… more now but he was going to be alright… just this one time… just a while longer… it would be all over… he cried… He couldn’t walk properly… because the pain in his ribs was so bad… the man had hit him hard in the side…
“Here’s the twenty,” the man stretched out his arm. Fishing again in the wallet… “and ten more for being a good fuck! Now FUCK OFF! You fucking fagot!” he snarled.
He walked out… onto the street… he stood he didn’t know what he had just done… the man screamed from the window, “Get the fuck outa here!!”
He did as he was told… thirty bucks… Big D would deal now… the pain… he felt something churn… and with a forward jerk he emptied his insides… vomit… onto the pavement… another bout.. and another… he wiped his face with the torn sleeve… and the pain… this time like a million needles poking from inside of him… Little did he know he did this this too many times to be accounted for…
* * *
“Big D… its me Jared! Open UP! I have the cash!!”
The door opened a slight bit allowing space enough for him to squeeze through. Inside he was pushed hard to the floor… kicked again on the same side as that man had injured him. He screamed for them to let him go but they didn’t… suddenly a bellow from far down the corridor… “Bring the bitch in!”
“Ju wan the coppas to come eh!?”, Big D spat. “Whach you wan now?”
“Some blow…”, Jared couldn’t open his eyes anymore… the left one in particular. Blurred vision but Big D’s sinewy was still visible. The thirty dollars fell to the floor. For a second he was forgetting what pain felt worse than the pain without the prickly pain.
“Jeeze! You ain’t got no doe for blow bitch!”, Big D reached for something behind the tatty sofa, a brown bag. “Ju can only get two of deez… you wan em?”
Jared now on his knees, his shoulders too tired he flopped his head in a nod.
Big D threw the bag at Jared, “Now don’t be comin bak ere! And tell that bitch Tiff when you see her that I won’t be dealin her nothin’ if she don’t give me none… Ju got dat shit boy”
The imaginary sound of leather cutting through the air, he grabbed the bag, “She’s dead!” And he limped out of there. Silence…
He breathed the cool air, his ribs hurt… his legs fatigued… muscles engorged with lactic acid… the pins… the needles… his eyes watered… tears mixed with blood. Silence all around him… Tiff… pain… sweat on his brow felt cool… things will get better soon… Some recess far away in his head, spoke to him…
“I am here”
Tiff…
“Yes… I am here…”
Why?
“Don’t you want me here?”
I do.
“Walk with me…”
Ok.
Tiff I miss you so much… why did you leave me…
“I love you”
“Tell me why you left me here!”, this time he screamed out aloud.
“I am still here… talking to you aren’t I?”
No but your not here. I can’t see you. I can’t feel you. I miss you Tiff!
“And I miss you too! Go to the bridge… do u remember the bridge…? where we slept…?”
Yes.
“I am there.”
You are?
“Yes… C’mon now…”
Jared walked to where his mind led him… the bridge where they slept… in the cold… together… Tiff was going to be there… Madness consumed every nerve, every fiber of his body! He didn’t even realize it. Slowly but only steadily his grip of realness was slipping through his hands. Its strange what kind of madness can do this to you. He felt pain… hurt… sick… he let another somebody desecrate his body… his soul… insanity was creeping in… pain… the prickly pain much more required than this one! Yes that is what Big D had given him. Hurt killers. Two of them.
The bridge was here… he was standing there under it… where he was supposed to. Tiff is here. Somewhere but where… Tears… blood… Madness…
“Tiff I’m here!!”, he called out.
But no answer came his way… not the one he was hoping for. Sanity spoke…
“I’m dying Jaaared… dying….”
He cried and he shuffled in the bag to bring out the yellowy injections…
“No! Your not dying! YOU’R NOT!!! AAAAAH !!!”, shaking now uncontrollably…
A prick… the blood just a bit drawn up… now flowing in him like liquid fire…
“I’m here Jared… right here… turn around… I’m behind… up”
He whirled around
“Right here Jared! Can’t you see me?”
Tiff… stop it… sanity spoke… insanity demanded …
“Where Tiff? Where? Are you there? You are? Where? I cant see you! Don’t go!”
“Jared! Don’t play games! I love you! Aren’t you going to hold me…? aren’t you going to play with my hair? I love you!”
Tiff!
He began his walk… leaving the other Harry needle behind… topside he must go to find Tiff… She’s waiting there…
On the bridge… blurs… fades… swaying on his feet looking into nothing… lights ahead…
It’s a car, it pulls up… red one this car was… pretty car… Tiff…
“You lookin for a ride?”, new words but they meant the same…
Jared stared into the car… but in his head he saw Tiff… she was there… were this car was going to take him…
“I’m coming”, he said.
“Good.”
He got in… “take me to Tiff… please…”
“Sure Tiff is here”, he lied… but Jared didn’t care… nor did he know…
“You look pretty banged up? You awright?”
“Huh… Tiff…?”
This man only thought he wouldn’t have to pay for this nice looking boy, now that he was completely out of it… free pleasure… not often comes by… he felt lucky the son of a bitch…!
Sitting on the back seat… the world around him flickered… black now light… black now light… black… now green… grass… happiness… coolness yet the warmth in his insides… so much light… no pain… where’s the pain…? Voices sang… he was floating… flying… New sensation… he liked it a lot. He smiled… and then he remembered… not Tiffany but Mum…
“Mom………………….”
Like that he slipped into where I cannot go… but he is there some place… now safe… for I have cried to many tears for him. And he has told me his tale too many a time….
* * *
News of her sons death reached her 6 months later… Samantha was so little… the took her away… they did… because Maggie was now gravely ill with her own world crumbling and slipping beneath her feet… mentally ill… psychosis of the severest kind… and now Jared and everybody else lived inside of her head… He’s graduating with honors… he’s got a wife… she’s got grandchildren… Samantha is there too… she’s happy… she makes her happy always… her husband loves her… loves his children… things are pretty…
Now eight years hence… Samantha takes care of her.
Samantha… who loves her… she knew her mother was not really talking about Jared graduating… There where visitors outside…
It was Mrs. Betty from next door…
Maggie looked up…. Her face lit up and a smile broke upon her aged face….
“Would you like some tea?”, she asked………………………………..
-The End
