Soul Stealers

There just wasn’t any reason to hold him longer, so Tommy was released from the jail two days short from the end of October. The skies threatened rain, but the sun, a bright orb was up for the battle against the steely grey. Tommy was waiting outside of the gates smoking the cigarette the lady guard, Bonnie, had palmed him on his way out. ‘Fuck, kid, calm down. Most kids are excited to be leaving here.’ She shook her head at him.
Poor fucking kid.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Momma”, he said, as she pulled herself out of the backseat of the taxi. She fussed with her hair; a brighter blonde than he had seen on her before.
“What a bunch of bastards, Tommy,” she declared, as she threw herself around him, “We can sue.”
“Yeah, Momma,” he whispered, pushing her away, “I don’t think so.”
Tommy looked at her as though she were crazy. And Momma flinched. “Let’s just go home,” she said.
Tommy stared out the window, as they drove through the country roads. It was so nice to see trees, and houses, and cars again. He wanted to ask the driver if he could roll down his window; just to feel the air, but he did not want to make anyone else cold. It had been cold every day in jail.
Momma soon started again. “If we sue, we can talk about deplorable conditions. I am sure everything was terrible there, wasn’t it, Tommy? Besides just falsely arresting you…..”

Inmates pissed on everything they could. In the corner of their cells for the hell of it Most of the prisoners would not drink the coffee, but Tommy wouldn’t eat the eggs or potatoes either. He knew they were powdered mixes.
(More)
It had been bad.

But Tommy just snorted out a laugh at her, “Momma, quit showing-off to cab drivers.” And that had shut her up real quick.
When they were home at the entrance of the apartment building, she grabbed him by the back of his shirt, “Just get in the fucking house, Tommy,” and she added, words of no thought tumbling out of her mouth; just anger. “Since you think you are a big man now, you need to start carrying your weight. And since you are mostly a good-for-nothing, I don’t see how else you can come into some money to support yourself. Because that’s what men do. Support themselves. So, you’ll have to sue. I’m not gonna keep paying for ya.””
“Momma, all I want to do is go home and go to sleep in my bed…”
“You don’t have a bed anymore,” Momma said. “Until you pay some rent, you got the couch.”

There was nothing for dinner that night. “Men feed themselves,” she told him.

“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Where?”
“Men don’t need to tell people where they are going,” Tommy slammed the front door behind him.

Minnie would not answer his raps on the window. Not even when he drummed out her favorite Judas Priest song.
His footsteps slapped the slick sidewalk, the rain came when the moon climbed higher than the sun.
He heard the car behind him and knew who it was without looking.
“Out looking for new victims?”, the cop sneered out his rolled-down window.
“Hey, man,” Tommy answered, “I’m not looking for any trouble here.”
And he kept on walking.

*Needs to get here
-Not even in a free country were their acts tolerated.

Opaque

She doesn’t know what to do. She did not expect this at all. She chokes on the heart in her throat. She wants to cry out. The very worst and the best in her life always happened together.

She remembers it all. The fear. The anxiety. Wanting to vomit from something she could not yet describe and from the snot. And Johnny at her window. 13 years old then, and she had to have been just turning four because the skies were their brightest blues and she only wears her panties that say it is Tuesday and she is warm; her hair is slicked to her forehead. Or maybe it is more blood.
God is punishing her for being disrepectful to thou parents.
Because she dropped her glass and broke it. Because she told her mother what to do. ‘Stop yelling’.
And as she cried, she wondered why Mother was not going to bed right now too. And she knows god wants you to cause no one harm. And Samatha’s mother had throw the butterknife at her and the blade had stuck into her head.
Samantha knows her mother hates her. And she is pretty sure God wouldn’t either.
But there is Johnny, with his brown hair always in his brown eyes. There like he always was when she cried.
“Hey now, baby, everything’s going to be ok…”
And the joy she felt when she looked in his eyes.

And the joy she feels when Tommy kisses her, his dark eyes and hands, they move right into her.
And suddenly she is there. Mother.
What is the reason? How is the reason…?
Samantha gets up from the picnic bench and runs.

Her family asleep and snoring as they always do. The skies were the transparent blue of a fine summer’s night. She is going into the fifth grade. And she has snuck-out onto the porch to celebrate her favourite time of the day and she would end up forever wishing she could remember the name of the book she had with her; a random one pulled from under her bed, as cover up if caught.
She could hear his tears as he walked by.
And she said, “Hey, now, everything’s going to be ok” and because she couldn’t bring herself to say baby, her words came out sounding confident. Tough.
Or so Tommy thought. So, he toughened himself up too. Because girls,even if they were just kids, can’t be tougher than him. At any time. Ever.
So, he sniffed off his tears and said back to her,”Hey, baby, everything is always ok.”
And the light of the night shone over him, as if he were an Angel, she thinks.

* Needs to Get Here
-pigment used to block out particular areas on a negative

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. When Daddy came home drunk again on Friday night, she waited in the kitchen playing Solitaire, until she could hear him snoring.
Creeping through the house and then into her parent’s bedroom, Minnie knew she would find her father’s pants on the floor beside the bed. The glow from the hallway bathroom provided the light for seeing into her his wallet.
Shit. There were no tens.
Oh, well. She took a twenty.

When Tommy saw Minnie on the other side of the glass, his heart leapt into his throat and he was so happy he wanted to cry. He put his hand on the glass and waited for her to put her hand up against his, and when she did not, he sat down.
He picked-up the phone and said to her, “Why haven’t you come? Have you been getting my letters?”
She shrugged. Brushed her hair from her eyes and for the first time really looked into his.
“Oh, Minnie. I’m so glad you’re here…”
Her eyes were empty of emotion.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked, and then he whisper rushed into her ears, “…Minnie, I love you…”
But nothing changed. Her eyes stayed blank.
“Oh my God, you think I killed her! Please, don’t do that…”” Tommy cried.
And she charged him, “I saw you with her, Tommy. I saw you with her.”

Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. But stoned or not; even asleep, Tommy’s words would come back to haunt her.

Dear Minnie,
How could you leave me here to rot? How could you not come see me? You must think I did it too. Well, fuck you, Minnie. FUCK YOU!!!!!!
Tommy

She cried and cried everytime she read the letter; and she could do almost nothing else but. She wanted to go see him, but she was too scared.
Climbing through her bedroom window late, Minnie walked the all-night over and over again.
And waited for the next visit from Officer Rialian. He stopped by every other day.

She did not go to school. She stayed in her room and her mother never came down the stairs to notice. She erased the school’s messages from the answering machine every day, before her father came home, until the one day, Daddy stayed home and Minnie had to go prentend going to class. And when she came home Daddy was waiting for her, with an envelope in his hand from the school. Thirty days missing. One more day and she would be expelled.
And he hit her.
He hit her.
He hit her.

Her return to school was the news of the week.

Punks

Dear Minnie,

You didn’t come. I wonder why. Maybe because you thought I was going to get out on Tuesday anyway. Is your Mom sick again? I guess by now you know I didn’t get out. The judge did’t show-up for court and the other one was on vacation or something. My lawyer was freaking mad. He was jumping up and down and stuff. He said “We’ll get those fuckers! We’re gonna fucking sue!” He’s a crazy guy. He gets so excited I swear he is gonna have a heart attack. But he also says for sure I will get out for Monday. They only have proof I was drunk. I want you to come see me on Saturday even though I am getting out on Monday–no matter what. Promise? The guys are cool here and all but I really want to see someone from home. I want to see you.
Did you go to the funeral?

Love,
Tommy

Punks

Thursday Afternoon

Dear Minnie,

I have been here for three full days now. The lawyer says he’ll get me out Monday. He’s a pretty cool guy. He goes on about how the cops are the real rats and they’re all corrupt and he tells me we will nail those bastards to the wall. He makes me laugh. It’s fucking great. Most of the time I spend playing cards with some of the guys or drawing tats in my cell here. I have given some of my flash to some of the guys here. A few already have some tattoos. Mostly stuff they have done to themselves here. Mostly without color. Mostly terrible. But that’s okay. A whole bunch of the them said they would come see me to have them covered up when I set up shop. If they all show-up, I have figured out I’ll make 6000 dollars so far. That’s fucking awesome. I can’t wait until I am old enough to apprentice. Birdie says she’ll teach me, but she doesn’t think I will want to do it for very long. Says I will probably give up. Don’t you think she’s crazy? Old people forget about destiny, I think. I do not know why I am writing about all the stuff I’ll just be telling you on Saturday. Just excited about it, I guess. It’s not too bad here in the joint really. Someone cooks me three meals a day. And I get a clean jump suit everyday. They are orange. You would probably love them. The guys told me not to drink the coffee here cuz the guards like to piss in it, but I do not like the shit anyway. I’d rather be drinking something else. The worst thing is I can’t smoke in here. I want one all the time. I will probably tug out all my hair before I get out. I’m not joking. There is some weird Mormon kid with big ears in here. Some of the guys says he’s here for fucking a sheep. I am not sure I believe that. But the kid is pretty creepy. All pale and stuff. There’s two black kids with AIDS here too. I wish you could see them, Minnie. But this is no place for a girl. I never want to see you here. No, that is not true. I DO want to see you on Saturday. I just mean I never want you to have to come here as a prisoner. I am not gonna be coming back here either. I miss outside. They do not let us out here. I guess I miss that even more than i do a smoke.
They’re starting to let kids outta their cells for supper so I gotta go.
I meant what I said in the park that night.

Tommy

Punks-Big Mistake

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. Mostly with other people. But that had not been happening too much lately.
There is no Tommy. There is no Krystal. There is no one who wants to know her.
Except Billiy-Boy. Always fucking Billy-Boy.
And Phillip.
And Phillip is so popular. And he is so blonde and blue eyed.
He says he will talk to her in front of others–but he doesn’t; at Minnie’s request.
He really wants to walk her home at night.

It surprises Minnie how much you can get to know when people claim you as invisible. She hears a lot of conversations these days.
“I bought some new lipstick…”
“That Susan Howe makes me so mad…”
“I love Patrick sooo much…”
“I love the colour. It’s great, right?”
“I am gonna punch her in the face, I swear.”
“I just know he is going to ask meee out.”
Melaine, Sandra and Nancy; smoking, in a circle of self-interest.
And she hears Phillip isn’t asking anyone out. No one at school thinks he’s a fag.
“He fingered me once…like a year a go…”
“He’s hot. I’d fuck him…”
“He probably has a girlfriend in Toronto. Or Paris or somewhere…”
“…A fashion model in New York City!”
and
“That’s the best muthafucka out on the field. My boy!” High Five.
It was always good news about Phillip.
He doesn’t deserve it. To be asociated with her.
So, when he says, “Minnie, I promise I love you…”, she just kisses him or grabs his dick–whatever will shut him up the quickest.
Nobody ever says anything bad about Tommy either.

Bridging

Samantha always hated going to church. ‘Thou shall not this’ and ‘Thou shall not that’. She felt it was pointless to be told not to do what she wouldn’t do anyway. And since she turned 13 and officially too old for Sunday school, there was no escaping Reverend Patrick’s rants. His very long, very loud, two-hour rants.
Not that Sunday school had really been any better. Everyone was loud there too. Poor Mrs. Chute’s voice was so high-pitched, when she yelled “Quiet!”, she just blended in with the screaming kids. Samantha felt bad for her, so she hid in a corner pretending to read her Bible; a pocket-sized copy of Huckleberry Finn or The Swiss Family Robinson tucked neatly inside, while the other kids ran dizzy around the room wearing the plump, little woman out. Mrs. Chute also came to teach religion class twice a month at the school. Mostly she would teach songs and read the stories she was never able to during Sundays’ classes.

At home, Samantha read other things. Things she would not bring into a church out of respect. If her parents were home, Samantha would read her school books. One time, she had been in her sister’s room and found a dirty magazine filled with naked pictures of women and stories sent in by the ‘readers’. After reading three of the tales, she deemed them trash. She had put the magazine back where she found it. She would never rat her sister out for anything.
But she had let Krystal know anyway. “I see you have been reading.”
And Krystal had let her know too. “So what, Miss Prissy? I will tell Mom and Dad you sneak out every night to the library. Who’s ass will they be burning then?”

When Samatha was twelve, she asked Tommy, “Don’t ya think it is creepy…? cremation…? burning yourself like that?”
“No, I like fire,” Tommy had replied. “I think I’ll do it when I die.”
And Samantha had been horrified. She said to Tommy, “It reminds me of….Hell.”
“I’m a hellraiser, Sammy. I might as well get used to the burnin’ a bit before I get there.” And Tommy liked the sound of what he said. He filed it away to use again and again. It creeped out the other kids too.
But he drew the pictures for Samantha. Jesus Christ on his cross and burning flames surrounding him.
She told him, “I think Jesus was black.”
But Tommy thought they would make real cool tattoos.

Not The End

As the tears dripped down her cheeks, she looked up to find Tommy standing over her, with his hands held securely at his sides.
She could see that one fist was more bulged than the other, and before she had time to think of the trouble, he stabbed her in the chest, taking the baby, while she and the pillow fell to the floor.
There was no crying, and no gasping for air, only running out into the cold January air where Tommy slipped on the ice, landing on the same knife he just stabbed her with.
The baby could never withstand the cold, she knew this, when she looked through the window. He was only wearing his diaper and undershirt and the wind was whipping.
She turned on the outdoor light, watching Tommy for the next hour, to make sure he was still breathing.
He had stabbed clean through her left tit. No real damage done.
When the rain started coming, thick with frozen ice, she turned it off and went to bed.
She set her alarm for 4:30 in the morning.
And Tommy was easy to wake-up then, and the baby was blue then.
Inside, she drapped their bedroom blanket over his shoulders and sat down beside him.
“So,how we gonna get rid of it, Tommy?” She pointed to the playpen, where she had put the baby.
Tommy started to cry.
And Tommy started thinking. Where…?

by
jessy & Queenie

Again

I feel lonely. She thought it to herself for the 100th time that day. Even amongst the stuff of others. The stuff she would trip over. The stuff in every freaking corner. Even amongst their mutters and moans, their words, their letters. Alone.
She rationalized. She generalized. Of course, everyone secretly feels this way.
Of course, they do.

Tommy didn’t pay his half of the rent again yesterday.
Of course not. She saw it coming, watching him pretending it was not.
He tried to give her 100 dollars.
“Way to go, Mr. Coporate Confrence-Call.”
She was disgusted with him. With herself. She had seen it coming.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away…
She remembers the chanting voice of her first grade teacher. Mrs. McDonald. She was so old and she would move around the classroom so fast. She would go home and ask her grandparents why they did not.
She believed in that little rhyme.
She knew she was human. She knew she had to eat. And she hated the doctor.

Tommy said to her, “I could turn blue talking to you and you would still not listen.”
And when she looked at him, it only confirmed the obvious.
“Get out of this house.”

Daddy used to bang his fist on the dining room table and boy, it would scare the hell out of her. It was heart-stopping, scary shit.
Do you know how much fucking money the roof over your heads cost?
Do you?
Do you?
Do you?
She learned quickly to never look up. Daddy’s mouth was so large. And his stained teeth were long and menacing. He looked like the wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood’s granny.
It was just smarter to keep an eye on his fist, so at least you could see when it was coming your way.

For a long time, Tommy sat in the couch, instead of leaving.
“Let’s go for a drive.”
“No.”
“Let’s go for a drive.”
“No.”
“I am going for a drive,” he said.
And he did.
And when Tommy came home, he went upstairs to sleep, while she sat on the couch staring at the blank teleivison screen.
Because there was no cable.

She would pick up the baby when he cried. But he did nothing to elevate her loneliness. This mindless, drooling thing.
She would walk around the house holding him.
When she kicked one of Tommy’s shoes across the kitchen floor, the sudden movement made the baby spit up; some of it landing on her retreating foot.
She took him over to the couch and when she was done changing him; she placed a pillow over his face.
But that is not how she killed the baby.

Suzy.

Suzy walked down the hallways, books and files clutched firmly against her chest. She caught herself clenching her teeth. She hadn’t managed much sleep the previous night. She wondered how Tommy’s exam went. She wondered if he had went through her binder. She wondered if he had looked at chapter 4. She wondered if he had looked at her handwritten notes, especially the ones written below the algebraic formulae table.

“Fuck,” she thought, as she recalled for the thousandth time the intricate heart-crossed figures with Tommy’s and Suzy’s names in it…

~by vinny~

Suzy felt like an idiot…

But Suzy was no idiot. Tommy knew that.
For a fact.
He knew damn well he had passed his test and it was only because of her. He even admitted it right on his test. He answered the essay question with their dialogue.
Suzy was the smartest girl Tommy had ever known.
He had seen the pretty little hearts and his name always written in bold, with her black pen.
And Tommy loved Suzy too.
He sat on his bed and sketched her hearts, then wove flowers of skeletons through the curves. He drew a dagger underneath. He liked his drawing.
He thought it would make a cool tattoo.

And Suzy- no, no. Suzy was no idiot.
She met Jon McDermott, after class, at the abandoned factory down by the tracks. Sun shone through the green glass, and he just stood there up against the wall.
She got on her knees and undid his pants herself.
Jon McDermott’s daddy was a doctor.
Jon McDermott paid 50 bucks a pop.

“You’re really smart,” Tommy said to her, when he found her by her locker the next day. “All I can do is really draw.”
He handed her his drawing and she blushed because of the hearts.
“It’d make a real cool tattoo,” Tommy told her. “You want to hang out for a bit after school?”
And Suzy agreed, but was not even sure if she had said yes or only nodded her head.
Tommy asked her where she would like to meet after class, with a shrug and a ‘Anywhere.’
And feeling like an idiot again; Suzy couldn’t even stop herself, she asked, “How about we meet down at the old factory?”

Look What You’ve Done

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. And man, she wished she had a joint right then. But she had rolled up all the roaches for Tommy earlier.
Minnie could feel her heart starting to race again, she felt like she was going to puke again. She raised her hand to cover her mouth. But it smelled of river water and rotting wet leaves.
She could not stand the smell of the summertime creek stained to her hands.
And Minnie puked again.
And Minnie swallowed it again.
Her eyes burned worse than her throat. She did not let a drop out of anything out.
What if they could use her vomit to figure out she was there? Through DNA or something? That thought would rise up much higher in her throat and it was strong enough to make her swallow.
But not strong enough to make her leave the park.
She knew a joint would give her the courage.
She just walked in circles.
Until she saw him.
He was there. Sitting with his head propped up against the seat of a bench and sleeping; a large bottle of vodka stuck between his legs
“Tommy, you gotta get up.” She bent down to speak loudly in his ear, when she reached him.
And Tommy opened his eyes.
“You gotta go home.” Minnie tugged on his shirt. “Come on.”
And Tommy smiled at her and he pulled her over close to him, so her head was on his chest and he said, “In a minute, Minnie…in a minute.”
And her clothes were so wet and she was so cold, and he was sleepy warmth, so she stayed for a minute.
“I love you, Minnie. I promise.” He muttered; hugging her closer.
“You gotta go back home then, Tommy.”
“I’ll go, if you go,” he said.
So she grabbed the bottle out from between his legs and said, “I am taking this with me” and she brought the half empty bottle up to her mouth and she closed her eyes. Liquid white tore down the back of her throat.
Minnie did not kiss Tommy good-bye. Instead she warned, “You better leave”, and then she turned and walked away.
And Minnie did not look back.
When it started to rain, it did not make her feel clean. She stopped and tried throwing her head back and stretching out her arms, but she knew she did not have the right to.
She knew she could forget every minute of the night.
Even Tommy telling her he loved her. Her mother had warned her a long time ago, to never believe a drunken man saying that shit.
So instead, she just kept on walking home and thinking about the DNA that might collect in pools of water.
She drank the other half of the bottle.
And when Minnie got home, she washed it carefully with warm water and dried it with a dish towel, placing it under the sink with Daddy’s collection of empties.

Tommy, 13

Tommy grasped his hair in exasperation as he flipped his notes furiously.
The clock was ticking fast.
“I’m never going to make it in time,” he thought. “Only 4 hours till the exam.”
He took out a stack of notes, crisp sheets of paper filed neatly in a binder. The name “Suzy” was penciled smartly at the top, happy pink drawings of flowers as decoration. The little hearts that accompanied the flowers caught his attention. He raised an eyebrow.
And then he wondered with disgust how the girl has her head in the clouds.
“Chapter 4, chapter 4,” mumbled Tommy. He frantically turned the pages. He froze in horror as he found the right one.
“…the fuck?”
He examined the scribbling, shaking his head slowly, like some imbecile.
And then Tommy fished out an eraser quickly…

~by Vinny~

He scrubbed the pencil lines off of the page. Erased her name.
Tried to erase the picture of her in his mind.
He tried focusing on the fast ticking of the clock; reminding him he had work to do. Tried remembering that he was in a library and he should be reading. Like everyone else. He tried thinking about Suzy. How she would be there in 20 minutes, and how he needed to know something. But everytime he looked down, he saw the imprint of her name left behind on the page.
Read Chapter 5, he thought. And he flipped the pages, until he found it.
But it did not work. He just could not stop thinking of her. And he did nothing else.
Until Suzy’s voice came from behind him.
“Oh, good! You are on Chapter 5!”
He turned around, in his chair, and smile at her.
And she smiled back at him and reached out to tug on his arm. “Come on. We got to get out of here.”
And Tommy could not agree more.
They sat under a tree, at the park across the road.
And Suzy had a little radio. And she turned it on. “Listen, Tommy. The Berlin Wall is coming down.”
“Who cares?” he replied.
“Did you even read Chapter 4?” Her eyes opened wide.
He spent the next 20 minutes doing just that.
And then he had three hours left until the exam…

Soul To Keep

She got herself a ride over to the next town and then she walked for the rest of the night. She walked a lot during the day too, and that next night she slept in an abandoned car, behind a gas station. The owner found her there in the morning, and gave her two cigarettes and a cup of coffee, before sending her on her way. He did not have the mind to care where she was from.
But she did.
So she walked some more.
Until she found a pay phone and she called back home; collect.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Nobody is looking for you, Miranda,” her mother replied, listening to her daughter sigh in relief.
“You haven’t called the police?”

Miranda walked all day. She found a dollar and then a little shop that sold coffee for that much. She sat at the counter.
The man who sat beside her wore a red plaid shirt. He offered her one of his donuts. “You’re too skinny,” he said.
And she laughed and took the offer. “Where you headin’?”
And he replied, “Nowhere, I am parked for the night.”
He asked if she wanted to have a nap in the cab of his truck.
She took that offer too.
The lights from the parking lot barely made it into the sleeping space of the truck. He came on her stomach, but he never touched her, happy just to look at her out-lined naked.
He offered a ride for all of the next day.
And she accepted. “Thank you.”
In the morning, she went to wash up.
“Here’s five bucks. Get us some coffee, while you’re in there,” he had said to her.
She cried in the parking lot, when she realized he was gone. Until she remembered the pack of cigarettes in her coat pocket.
And then she started walking again.

She walked until she met Tad, inside just another little town. He said he drove. He said if she came over to his house, he would borrow his fathers car and take her somewhere. Anywhere.
“Where do you want to go?” He asked her.
“Who cares?” she laughed, as she followed him home.
But his father was not there.
And he said, “That’s okay. He will be home soon.” They would hide her in his room until then.
And the next morning, Miranda left without getting a ride and with a ten-dollar bill balled up in her hand.

On another simple Main Street she walked, until she saw the pay phone.
“Hi, Mom,” she called again and before he mother could say anything she rushed out, “I am pregnant.”
And then her mother said, “Jesus Christ…..Miranda…..Miranda, don’t come home till you get rid of that.”
She hung-up and walked into a pharmacy. She wandered up and down the aisles, listening to the radio. Music she did not know. She looked at hair dye and she looked at shampoos. She wouldn’t buy anything, but would stand in front of the notebooks and pens and wonder if she should.
But she knew she had to walk.

Just three miles from the highway rest stop, she thought she would collapse. It was past two-thirty in the morning and she knew there would be no ride.
Two hours later, she arrived, blood soaking through her pants. She was crying so loud the waitress called an ambulance.
And the doctor at the hospital said her baby was fine. It still had a heartbeat.
And she turned to the wall and she cried some more.
And the doctor said, “Did you not want it to be?”
And she said, “No.”

When she woke-up, the doctor was standing over top over her. “Are you listening – can you hear me?” And when she nodded yes, the doctor told her, “It has been taken care of.”
The doctor said she could stay in the room for a day or two. She could have food to eat and she could get some sleep and she could use the shower as often as she wanted.
And she could make phone calls.
But this time when she called her mother, no one answered.

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. Minnie also liked to get drunk.
Phillip liked getting drunk too, but all his friends had plans.
“Minnie,” he said to her, when he saw her going into the girls room, during class time. “Minnie, do you wanna come over on Saturday night?”
And Minnie sneered at him. “Fuck off, asshole,” she said.
And she watched him as he did.

Minnie sat on her bed Friday night.
Listening to her mother. On the phone, in the kitchen. Still only coming out of her bedroom when she had to.
“Mom…Mom….I know, Mom….” She repeated, into the phone.
When Minnie could not listen to whining anymore, she reached over to her stereo and put on Fleetwood Mac as loud as she could. She listened to Go Your On Way and thought of Tommy.
When her mother came downstairs she noticed her, but pretended not to. Until her mother reached over and unplugged the stereo.
“What the fuck?” Minnie said.
And her mother replied, “Grandma is coming over tomorrow for supper. She thinks your presence there on Sunday would just upset everyone else.”
Minnie did not bother to say another word to her mother. She leaned over and plugged back in the stereo. She hit tape deck #2. Slayer pierced the air.
Minnie picked up the phone book and found Phillip’s number ten minutes later.
“Are we going to get drunk?” She asked him.
“Of course,” he replied.

Minnie showed up at his house at three in the afternoon. He was still wearing the clothes he had slept in. And his hair was flat. Rubbing the sleep from his face, he said, “Lets start with a gin and tonic.”
And Minnie agreed. “Whatever.”
While he made the drinks, Phillip asked her how her how her weekend was going.

He showed her every room in the house.
Then he showed her the Nintendo. They played all the games.
They watched the evening news. Just in case his parents’ flight went down.
Then they played some pool and the rum came out. And the rum did not agree with Minnie.
He rubbed her head and back, while she vomited in the toilet.
She looked in the gold frame mirror, after she rinsed out her mouth. And Phillip came up behind her and cupped her breasts.
“It’s my birthday,” he whispered to her.
“I am missing my Grandma’s party to be at yours.” She turned around, so he could kiss her.
In the morning, as she was leaving, Phillip said to her, “I do not believe the things they say you did, Minnie.”
“You’re not the only one, Phillip,” she replied. “You’re not the only one.”

Over Your Head

When Tommy woke-up he found himself staring up at the ceiling and then at the window, up too high. Not right.
The sunlight coming in the room was leaving dusty rays on the window sill and in the air.
What the fuck…? Tommy could not understand anything. He sat up fast, his bare feet hitting cold cement. He was suddenly alert; his eyes scanning.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered. “Oh, fuck.”
White painted bars. Steel toliet. Bars. Bars. Bars.
Fucking bars…Where the fuck are my shoes?
“Oh, fuck,” Tommy squeaked. He felt dizzy.
He focused his eyes on his feet; stretched them across the steel. He noticed the bottom of his jeans were damp and itchy against his skin.
“Don’t puke, Tommy,” he said outloud.
Why the fuck am I here?
Tommy called out, “Hello…?”
But no one answered.
On shaky feet, Tommy made his way to the bars. “Hello…Hello…”
He looked down the hallway as far as he could, noticed he was in the last cell. Noticed the white video camera up in the corner.
“What the fuck?” he yelled. “Hello.”
He grabbed the jail cell bars and tried to shake them. “What the fuck?”
And the officer who came down the hallway had gray hair and shiny black boots. “Just calm down, Son.”
But Tommy didn’t want to do that.
” What the fuck? Why am I in here? Let me the fuck out of here.” He clenched at the bars, until his knuckles went white. He let go, when he noticed the officer watching his knucles, too.
“I think you know why you are here, Son. Your mother will be here soon.”
“What? I don’t want her here. You tell her fucking not to come.”
“Then you will never get out of here, Son,” the officer reasoned, with the angry boy.
“Where the fuck are my shoes?” Tommy screamed in the officer’s face and slammed himself against the bars; his last-ditch effort at being brave because he could feel the tears coming on.
“So young and so vicious and so frail,” the officer sang, as he turned his boots around and walked back down the hallway.
Tommy threw himself back onto the metal bed.
And then Tommy cried.

Time kept dragging on. Momma did not come for hours. Tommy listened for the whistling trains as they left town. Four of them went by, before she arrived.

When she came, her face was gray and her dress was yellow. Her white shoes moved slow down the hall. She clutched the cold, white bars of his cell; keeping her eyes on the concrete floor.
Tommy did not get up from the bed. Just looked at her. “What the fuck is going on, Momma?” he finally asked, when she did nothing.
And her laugh was bitter and when she looked up her eyes were anger. “You little bastard, you stole my fucking last bottle of vodka.”
“Oh, my God. Is that why I am fucking here? Did you fucking call the cops on me Momma? Holy fuck.”
“Shut the fuck up, Tommy. They found you passed out and stinkin’ in the fucking park.”
And Tommy knew it was true.
She shook her head and snorted at him. “Samantha is dead.”
And Tommy knew that was true, too.
“Do you fucking kill her, Tommy? Did you fucking kill her?” He watched Momma lose grip of the bars, collapsing low to the ground, onto her knees. She clutched at her thin sides. She shook. She whimpered. “Did you fucking kill her?”
And Tommy did not get off the painted bed. He just turned his head, so he did not have to watch her cry.
“God will forgive you, if you tell the truth, Tommy. God, just tell them the truth when they ask you, Tommy.”
And Tommy snapped his head towards. He could taste the scream in his mouth. “Just get the fuck out of here, Momma. Get the fuck out. You fucking pitiful whore, Momma, just go.”

Punks-Third Time’s the Charm

It’s 3 a.m.

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. She felt bad that she had not saved Tommy any of the pot he had bought earlier that day. But he did not ask her where any of it was, instead he just pulled her down to the floor beside him and filled his mouth with hers. She ran her fingers over his bare, smooth chest and felt his heart race beneath her fingertips. She did not resist, when he turned her around, as he undid the zipper of his jeans and lifted the red t-shirt she was wearing, so he could enter her from behind. He leaned, reaching forward, grabbing her breasts and squeezing hard,as he used them to push and pull his dick in and out of her.
She could feel his teardrops falling on her back. When he was done, she gave him her KISS sweater, so he could keep himself warm, then she rolled the roaches that were left; mixed with tobacco from one of his cigarettes. She let him smoke the joint to himself. After, he told her he liked fucking her that way, then he kissed her and left.

Minnie was smoking the first of the three cigarettes Tommy had left her. She was tired and would save the other two until morning. And because she had decided not to go to school in the morning, she did not set her alarm clock.
She knew the footsteps on the stairs were her father’s, before she saw him. She had not heard him cross the kitchen. He knew.
He was standing there, at the bottom of the stairs, in nothing but his red underwear and he knew.
“Well, well, well,” he said, as he strolled over to the foot of her bed. He crossed his arms, over his chest. He shook his head. Tongue in cheek. “Well, well, well…I knew you were a whore, but I just could not prove it.”
He grabbed her ankles, jerked her downwards. The red t-shirt slid up.
No fucking underwear,” he muttered, staring down at her nakedness.
And she did not care because at least he was not looking in her eyes.
When he yanked her legs, spreading them wide apart, coming up between them, Minnie thought he ws going to hit her in the face. She put her arms up over her face.
He reached in underware and pulling himself out; he moved himself over her and rubbed the head of his cock up and around her hairless cunt lips, then over the inside soft and pink flesh; still slippery with Tommy’s cum. And then he slammed himself inside of her.
She came three seconds after he was inside of her. God help her, it felt good.
He could feel her muscles tighten and relax; could feel her quickened breathing on his shoulder; oh she was so tight.
He grunted, when he came inside of her.
And when he pulled himself up off of her, as he began to walk away, he said, “That boy didn’t do that for ya though; now did he?”

…and I Must Be Lonely

Samantha was sitting on her front porch, as he walked by. She whispered his name, jumping up, to run towards him.
“Jesus,” he jumped, too. “What are you doing up so late?”
“Shhh,” she whispered. “Lets go back to the park.”
“What are you doing up so late?”
She looked down towards the ground, then handed Tommy over the book he had just noticed. “I was reading this, again.”
Tommy looked at her queerly, after he read the title, in the streetlamp light. “Charlotte’s Web? I had to read that in Grade Five. Why are you reading it?”
She looked at him, embarrassed. “I like to read it once a year still. I probably do at least once a year.”
“But what for?”
“It makes me remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Come on,” she began to run. “I’ll race you to the park.”
Tommy beat Samantha fair and square, to the picnic bench, near the big oak tree.
When she sat down Tommy wasted no time; he never could. “God, Samantha, I really want to kiss you.”
“You always want to kiss me, Tommy, and I always tell you no.” She sighed at him, but smiled.
“But you never, ever stop me,” He said and to prove his words were true he kissed her.
And when Tommy right hand covered her breast, she pulled away from him and said, “Oh, Tommy, I pray the Lord forgives me for you.”
And Minnie, standing behind a different tree, at the park, was crying hot tears of betrayal and was swallowing,No, you better be praying to God, so He’ll fucking save you from me…
That is until she saw Samantha’s mother, storming towards the picnic bench.

Tattoos of Memories and Dead Skin on Trial

Dear Tommy,

I do not know what to do. It is two o’clock in the morning and I am sitting up here in the hospital and I should be studying for my history test, if I am awake anyway, but I am bored of reading. Mom’s at work tonight and everyone else is too tired to come up here and I did not want Grandma to be alone. It would have been the first time. Everyone says she is going to die. No one comes right out and says it to me though. Which is stupid. I am fourteen years old, (almost 15!) not four.
I went to visit your grandma for a little bit tonight too. I hope you do not mind. I just know it is really hard for your family to make sure there is someone there for her all of the time.
It is so weird that both our grandma’s are here doing the same thing, at the same time.
Sometimes I feel really bad because I think of all the times I just hated my Grandma.
This one time, Mom had found some writing that I had done. I was in grade five. I kept it tucked into the book I was reading, as a bookmark. And I would read it every time I opened the book. Sometimes I would read it twice. I know I read it a lot. I remember.
I knew it was good too, Tommy. Because it scared me. It really, really scared me. My own words terrified the crap out of me.
It was about Hell. How it must look. How it must feel.
When my Mom grabbed me by the arm, she was pretty mad, waving my piece of paper about. That scared the crap out of me too.
She dragged me to the car and Dylan and Scott were already strapped in the backseat and she made me get in.
She said, “I called your Dad at work. He is going to meet us at your Grandparent’s.”
And they were all there. Dad and Grandma and Grandpa and all my Aunts and Uncles. They made me sit there in a chair, waiting on Aunt Deborah and Uncle Wyatt to show-up, while they passed around my writing; gasping and looking up at me to shake their heads. Even my two older cousins, Drake and Phillip were there and they read it too. (you know Drake. remember you met him that time at the church picnic?)And when Aunt Deborah and Uncle Wyatt finally arrived and read my words…all Hell broke loose.
And that scared the crap out of me too.
They yelled at me: “Where did you copy this from?” “What book is this from?” Drake aside: The Satanic Bible “The Devil is in you” “She is going to Hell. You are going to hell”
Just this dizzy sea of angry red faces.
And it made me angry too because they did not believe I had written the words. I kept saying, “I wrote it. I wrote it.”
I looked at my grandmother and I said, “I wrote it.” And she believed me. But instead my grandmother said, “The Devil wrote this.” And then she lit her green lighter and lit the paper on fire.
And I cried and I cried and I cried.
I hated her so much for taking my words away.
The Devil did not write it. I had. Even if the Devil had worked his way into my soul, why would he want to show his kingdom under such unforgiving and terrifying light? In fact, if my soul was taken over by anyone it would have been God. Maybe He was letting me in on a little secret.
When I think back on it now, I am still sad I do not have that writing anymore. I tried to re-create it so many times, but never could. But I think my grandmother was trying to do some good. When she pronounced the work of the Devil everyone else took it to be I was in the clear. Saved from Hell. Whatever. She might have saved me from them bleeding me.
And besides, I know God is on my side and I have known that for a long time. And I know He is on your side too.
But I still did not talk to my Grandma for three months.

I feel really bad because of the other day, when you told me you could not come see your grandma because you felt bad for not always liking her. You are not alone. I feel bad too, but I still wish you would come up and see your grandma and stop beating yourself up over all the bad things you think you have done. Because you do lots of good things too, Tommy. Like making me smile. And He knows that too.
And that’s all that really matters.
Write back soon,
Samantha