Blood in the Water

PART ONE





1984



Paul dragged himself up the splintered wooden steps to the door of the dusty trailer that served as his family home. Family? That was a laugh. He didn’t know who his pa was. It was just him and his mom, at least most of the time, some of the time. There was usually some fella that he was supposed to call ‘Uncle’ around. Sometimes they stayed for a month or more, but they never did stick around for long. His ma thought he didn’t know what was going on, thought he was too young to figure it out. He thought maybe he didn’t understand it all the way through, but he understood enough.



He let himself in, being real careful with the door as he stepped inside. If you didn’t keep hold of the door it swung back and hit the wall behind it with a loud bang, since the trailer wasn’t leveled quite right on its supports. Until he was sure it would just be him inside, he’d try to make no more noise than a mouse. The latest ‘Uncle’ had a real bee in his bonnet about noise. Any sound earned Paul a yelling at or a beating, depending on where his ‘Uncle’ and Paul’s mom were up to with the booze or their pills. Yeah, he understood enough.



He crept into his home and shut the door behind him with the barest hint of a click to announce his presence. He hadn’t heard any voices from outside, but that didn’t mean nobody was home. No one was sitting on the couch. Yeah, that was funny too. The couch was actually padded benches that ran round the three walls of the trailer at one end. The trailer was roughly divided into three parts. The couches with the fake wood table in the middle that did double duty as both desk and dining table made up the living area. The middle third of the trailer had the kitchen on one side and the toilet and stand-up shower opposite. The last bit of the trailer was taken up by his mom’s bedroom. Paul slept on the couches, covered in a ratty, stinking throw. When he was younger his mom had let him share the bed with her, but then the long line of ‘Uncles’ had started to arrive and he’d been told to sleep on the couch instead.



He left his school bag on the table and tiptoed to his mom’s bedroom door. It wasn’t locked. He opened it with well-practiced silence and peeked into the room. It was dim inside; the daylight had given up trying to get through the curtains that were sagging off the rail. His mom and his latest uncle were passed out face-down on the bed, still fully dressed this time at least, shoes and all. He went back to the table and got his homework out. At least he could get it done before the yelling started.



He’d managed to finish all his homework tasks and still there were no signs of stirring from his mom’s room. Looked like he was making supper, then. He made sure to put his school bag away where it wouldn’t be tripped over and then started to make mac ’n’ cheese from a packet mix. He made enough for himself and then some. Chances were that his mom and her friend wouldn’t want any, but if he didn’t make enough for them they’d call him selfish and lazy. If they didn’t want it they’d say he wasted food. He couldn’t win either way, but it made him feel better to make some food for his mom at least.



While he was waiting for the food to heat through he ran through in his head the list of chores he had to do. All the surfaces needed wiping down, and the floor was beginning to need a mop run over it. The laundry needed doing sometime soon, too. All his clothes might be hand me downs from neighbors or from the Goodwill basket at the local church, but he still took care of them when he could scrape the change together for the laundrymat machines. If he left it to his mom they usually got left in the basket. She just kept forgetting about stuff like that. Ever since that teacher had sat him down and quietly explained why it was that none of the other kids wanted to sit near him in class he’d made sure he got the money to keep his stuff clean. Doing a few chores for Mrs. Pitt in the next trailer over on a Saturday usually got him enough change for a couple of washes.



Supper was nearly done when the door to his mom’s room opened.



“What’re ya doin’ ya skinny li’l shit?”



His Uncle’s voice was a bit slurred. Whether it was sleep or something else Paul couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that the tone didn’t sound good. And he’d tried so hard not to make too much noise.



“I’m fixin’ supper, sir.”



“You done woke us all up with all that bangin’ and crashin’. Ya make one hell of a racket, boy.”



Paul didn’t think that was fair at all. He hadn’t made hardly a sound, but he knew better than to try and argue. He hung his head. He didn’t want the man to see how angry he was, and he really wanted to avoid getting in more trouble if he could.