Street King

I'm dead, I've been dead for years. Meet me, a homeless boy of seventeen. I've been homeless for three years and the police have identified me as trouble and a pure nuisance, regardless of how little I do or move. I don't drink or take drugs as hard as that is to believe.

I suffer from one mental illness, depression. Do you blame me? If you could look at me, there is nothing to be happy or excited about. I'm a scrawny dirty, unhealthy looking wreck. I'm 5'9", the only reason I know this is thanks to the measurements stickers when you go into banks to use an ATM machine. That's the only reason I've ever gone into those rooms, to see if I have gotten taller. At the shelter they have a scale, I'm a very unhealthy 130 pounds although the scale floats at two or three pounds when nothing sits on it, so I'm less. I have unmanageable, thick brown hair. It hangs below my ears and I'm not sure if it is really this brown, or if it is permanently stained from the dirt and trash that is my home.

How did I end up here? Or do you really care? I don't care if you care, so I'll tell you anyway. I was badly abused by my parents. The only reason I am alive is because I left. You can say this is an exaggeration if you like, however, the night I left I had my shoulder separated, six ribs bruised on my right side, and my right eye fully closed. This occurred from a thick wooden broom handle while I slept. That was the best, or worst beating I had ever received from my mother. Best, worst, it all depends on your perspective. I received this because I placed a pot in the dishwasher, rather than scrub and clean it. I know this because as I awoke, just before losing consciousness, this is what I heard her screaming at me between impacts. This was not the norm from my mother, she normally swatted me with a backhand, used a wooden spoon, or a belt. She liked to grab my hair and throw me. That was her signature move.

Realizing my mother was now emulating the beatings my father gave me on a regular basis, which my father had actually followed up her work of art with his own similar beating, which welted the entire outside of my right thigh, bruised several more ribs on my left side and almost closed my left eye. This my father completed with his foot, still shoed with his construction boots, which of course were steel toed.

Beatings similar to this were common place from my father. I still today cannot remember a month going by without receiving a full bodied thrashing. He seemed to get enjoyment out of waiting until all the bruising had subsided and healed, until only the faintest shade yellow remained on my pale white skin.

Something about that last night was different though, perhaps it could have been a delusion I was suffering from passing in and out of consciousness. But I recall, real or imaginary, again I am not sure, but I recall my mother and father standing in the hall discussing how they no longer wanted me and they were discussing what to do with me. It always shocked me they remembered I was there at all. I would get up extra early in the morning, eat my breakfast, wash, put away my dishes and sneak back to my room. There I would wait until the clock showed 7:55AM and I would quietly go downstairs and walk to the bus stop. After school, I would arrive home before either of my parents, who would normally work until 4:00PM and pull into the driveway together, but in separate cars at 4:20PM every day like clockwork. I would not be heard form or seen until I was screamed at for dinner. There I would cross my toes hoping to make it through a meal without getting smacked, poked with a fork, occasionally a knife, not always a butter knife, or have some form of food or liquid thrown at and or on me
.
Regardless of how invisible I attempted to be, there was no avoiding their uncontrollable wrath. There were no apologies, or remorse. I was obviously a mistake, an unwanted curse on their otherwise perfect lives. So, when I heard their conversation in the hall, unbeknownst to them that they had not produced enough swelling to the sides of my head to block my ability to hear, I knew, that my life had been good to this point. It was an instinctive feeling within my soul that things were quickly going to get worse, much, much worse and fast.

Bruised and broken I sat in wait. I watched, literally the minutes tick by on my digital alarm clock from 11:19PM to 2:34AM ensuring my parents were deep in their sleep. Spending most of my life in my room, I required no lights to find my clothes. I was overly organized and was able to find specific pairs of pants and shirts without sight. I pulled on, somehow without screaming out in pain, my favorite and vintage batman t-shirt and a pair of brown cargo pants. Opening my bottom drawer I pulled out my favorite black zip-up sweater and two extra pairs of socks. I had planned and dreamed of this moment for years. Therefore, I had prepared a backpack with everything I felt I needed at fourteen to survive the first few weeks on my own, dried food, three knives, a swiss army utility knock-off, $300 in cash, which I had slowly siphoned in change from my mother's purse over the past year. The change I would exchange in the lunchroom for bills every Friday. I had markers, bristol board cut into large pieces to write signs so I could ask for spare change and food. I had no intention of going for help. I feared being returned home too much. On top of my dresser the last thing I grabbed, my Milwaukee Brewers baseball hat. I didn't like baseball, it was the only present I had ever received from my parents. I took it not for that reason, but because I needed something to cover my swollen, disfigured face.

I opened my window to climb out of my second floor window, but the pain was too great, I couldn't lift the window. I dropped to my knees and cried silently in pain into one of my extra pairs of socks. I did this for several minutes. Finally I drummed up the strength to bury the pain, enough to walk to my door, open it and walk down the hall. Paranoid, I must have taken a good ten minutes to creep down the twelve stairs to the main floor and into the kitchen. I pulled a small pairing knife from the wooden knife block on the counter and opened the fridge taking an apple and an orange. The knife was in case I had awoken my parents. I was leaving, baseball bat be damned. On the back step, I reached down and picked up my running shoes. My shoes were not allowed in the house, regardless of weather. The night had been dry, at least the first night, my feet would be dry.

Once off the back steps and around the front of the house, passing our next door neighbours house I realized I hadn't taken a breathe, likely since I left my room. I broke into a run, well, for half a stride. The excitement, fear of what I had just done had made me forget about how badly beaten and broken I really was. I needed to get out of the neighbourhood and downtown before I collapsed.

Time dimmed on me, several times I dropped to my knees thinking I could not take another step. I was sure it was only 3 miles to the bus station from my house, it should take me an hour to walk. It felt like I had been walking for much longer than that. The sky began lighten as again I knelt on my knees, touching my face, feeling that it had swollen even more. Sometime later I arrived at the bus station and purchased a one way ticket out of town to a small city about six hours away. This place, I would start my new life.

The bus ride was long and uneventful, no one looked at me and my ticket was printed and accepted without even a glance. I sat a third of the way back on the bus taking a window seat and rested the left side of my face gently against the cool window. I closed my eyes and slept. I received a tap on my shoulder to hear the driver informing me this was my stop and to get off. The adrenaline of the night had worn off, the stiffness and soreness of my injuries had sunk in fully. I could not get up. I tried, but I could not move. I began to cry.

"Come on boy, don't do that. Just get up." The stale smell of his coffee and shaving cream filled my nostrils as he leaned in and rubbed my dislocated shoulder. I winced in pain and whimpered aloud. Frustrated he grabbed me under the arms, picking me and my backpack up and carrying me off the bus. He set me roughly on the curb, my hat falling beside me as I fell onto my side.

I could see his feet through the crack of my eye that had yet to swell shut. For the first time, he saw my face, "Jeezus kid, what the hell happened to you? Wait here, I'll get some help" and off he went. He was large bearded man, I could hear the thump of his work boots slap on the pavement as he plodded quickly into the bus depot and up to the counter.

I blacked out, or at least thought I did. I awoke some time later in a thicket of dense bush and grass. I lay curled up again on my side, head on my backpack and in even more pain than previous. I could hear the constant 'whoosh' sound of heavy traffic nearby, but could see nothing. To this day I have memory of how I made it to where I lay, but there I was out of public view and safe. I must have gotten to my feet and walked off without being held back or followed. Now I would have to keep an even lower profile. If my parents didn't report me missing, this bus driver definitely had reported me at the bus station. I had food, so there I lay for two days before walking out of the bushes to discover where I was.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered the alley I now call home. Here I have called home for the last three years. It was six weeks before I was first beaten and robbed by two other street boys. They took me in my sleep. Realistically, I had no chance of defending myself had I been awake. They were much bigger, stronger and older than I. They didn't get much, well, they got my backpack as empty as it was and two of my three knives. The utility knife I stash in the alley when I sleep to avoid its theft. They took that two weeks later when they came around again. Since then I've taken more beatings from those two. I was also beaten and raped from behind once by a shop clerk who offered me a meal after he closed his deli. He threatened my life if I told and reassured me that no one would believe a word I said anyway, "no one is going to believe a word you say about anything, a sight like you, or a business owner like me? Who would you believe?"

I've also been stabbed and robbed by a hooker. Roxy, a heroin addict, she had a rough night, she had been beaten and robbed by a John and she stumbled into my alley and tripped over me as I slept. Luckily for me she was a complete wreck and it shallow to the meat of my thigh. I gave her what I had. I would have anyway if she would have asked. I still like Roxy, I don't think she remembers or knows what she did and I don't have the heart to tell her. It was almost a year ago anyway. When she's not drying up and going through withdraw, she is almost like a big sister. A really distant big sister, but she will drop off snacks and stuff for me to eat, sit with me and keep me company into the evening on occasion. I've tied her off and shot her up a couple of times when she's tweaking too much to reliably find a vein. You can tell she was beautiful once. She's twenty-three and had things ten times worse at home than I did. I was only ever beaten by my parents. She had things done to her much worse. Her arms are all scabbed now, her blond hair scraggily and oily. She's been an addict for about two years and on the streets for five she told me. She ran away too, we have a lot in common, which is why we get along.

Other than Roxy, I try not to associate with the other street regulars in the area. There is always drama & trouble. As much as I can I keep to myself. I am always polite and say hello, but that's where I try to keep it.

The police on the other hand, I'm not really sure what their dislike of me is. I've been arrested twice for solicitation of Roxy, once when she was giving me spare change in front of a hot dog stand in the middle of the afternoon. I get the loitering complaints, I never move, I try to stay back away from the fronts of their stores, but on days when I have no money and am starving, literally can feel my stomach collapsing on itself from lack of food I put out my Brewers hat and stare at it hoping to make five bucks so I can get something fast. The cops never walk by without stopping and patting me down. Never have they found anything, yet they continue to search, waiting for me to give in to the street I guess.

I have no idea why I haven't taken up drinking, smoking or shooting. I just never have, I'm essentially living on skid row. Addicts and crazy people are endless around here. It's hard to tell the schizo's from the addicts sometimes. The conversations with themselves are as believable as the other sometimes. I've just always said no. I have a hard enough time getting by sober, maybe that's why. I don't think I'd survive without thinking half straight. Maybe it's because I've seen so much death from drugs and drinking. I wouldn't cry so much if I were high, I might even be happy for a moment, yet I don't look at it as an option for me.

So far today, I've eaten half a donut, three quarters of a coffee from four different cups and a black banana. It's a good day, I'm awake and my stomach feels relatively content, to the point I've wandered from the safe confines of my hovel and have wandered three streets over, onto 118th just to get up and move. It's worse on this end of River Street, this is the real skid row, homeless and addicts litter the sidewalks. Every ten feet is another sleeping bag or shopping cart filled with someone's forgotten, lost or wasted life. I hate it over here, yet I come every so often. Maybe it's to remind myself that at least I haven't reclined into this part of the city yet. I hope to never be here long term. I'll walk to 120th and then turn right a city block and walk down Franklyn Street, before heading back to hovel home.

"Hey kid. Psst Hey kid," please don't ruin an okay day for me, I think to myself as I look down to the man lying still in his sleeping bag, "got any brown?" Heroin, I shrug, shake my head no and quickly move past. As always, I regret my decision to leave my space and begin to rush to get back. I return quickly without further incident.

As I enter my home, I see an old man sitting amongst my bed and belongings, "Hey man, this is my stuff, my bed. You got a go."
"Who are you to tell me to go? You scrawny shit. I sit where I sit, I stay where I stay," he was skinny, kinda like me, taller, there was an obvious strength and muscularity about him that I so desperately lacked. He had grey hair, to his shoulders, it looked like he just washed it. His face deeply tanned, so weather worn, his cheeks and arms, hell all of his skin looked like wrinkled tanned leather. He never looked at me, just stared at the wall pulling a long drag off his cigarette.

I sat down across from him and stared. He glanced over at me before taking another long puff. As he exhaled, he asked, "What? That's it kid? You just going to let some stranger come into your home and take everything you own? You're not going to fight for your life?"
"It's just a blanket," I replied, looking down to the side of him.

"Naw, man, it's more than a blanket. It's a piece of you. You don't have much out here kid, you gotta keep what's yours. That's why those two punks keep coming back and kicking your ass. You're an easy target. They don't even care what they take from you," I just stared at him, realizing he had been watching me... and watching for a long time.