Ten(6)

I was taken in by my Dad’s brother; he was also the guy who took over running the family business, which I knew from an early age involved heavy drug involvement. The comforting words I got from him when I arrived were, “He should have buried her out the back with the rest of the wildlife. Fucking idiot. I knew she’d be his downfall.”

Thirteen years old, lost both parents, and that was what I got. How did I even end up with him? Why wasn’t I put in the system or sent to one of my many aunts? It was because my destiny was here, or so I thought. It was back then when I first saw her. Alex.

When you think the sun will never shine, and life is lived in the darkness of the night no matter the time of day, then out of nowhere a beacon burns so bright it obliterates all the darkness - that was Alex. She sat on her lawn buckling up her skates, and she had flowing auburn hair and big doe-like eyes that found mine and held me mesmerized. It wasn’t a sexual attraction. We were young, and to put what we shared down to that would be weak. It would be unfair to both of us. For me, seeing her for the first time and every time thereafter was like being awoken, finally knowing there was good in my life.

Our connection was formed long before our bodies ever met. We were made for each other, a pair crafted from the same soul. How does the saying go? A match made in heaven? That’s what we were, but that match was struck and the flame burned us both.

Anger bubbles and roars out of me, the wall taking the brunt from my fist as I jab a few times, causing my skin to tear and bleed. The rain dilutes the blood pouring from my knuckles and I wish it could weaken the pain, but it’s still right there, as vivid as the day it happened.





TEN YEARS AGO

I couldn’t believe what Jonah had gotten himself in to. We’d been friends for seven years but we’d been drifting apart, heading in two opposite directions. I couldn’t wait to leave this place and start planning my future, which involved telling him I was in love with his baby sister. I’d been putting it off since forever because Jonah was temperamental. There was something missing from him. He’d appeared lonely and beaten down by life ever since I’d known him, despite coming from a family that loved him. He always had a connection with Alex I never understood, but because I don’t have siblings, I couldn’t claim to know if it was abnormal or not.

Jonah had a problem with drugs and never knew when to stop. I liked to smoke the occasional joint but that stopped a long time ago, when my hockey coach informed me I had a real shot at getting a scholarship. Jonah, on the other hand, moved on to harder stuff. His drinking and reckless behavior became out of control, and as much as I loved him and would do anything for him, it was a dangerous path I’d worked hard to stay away from. My family lived that lifestyle, and for some bizarre reason, Jonah liked the way they were and didn’t understand why I was the way I was with them. I lived with my uncle but I wasn’t a part of his life. I came and went as I pleased, and when I was home I spent all my time in my room. He was rarely there anyway. He spent most of his time with his chosen whore of the month. He always told me my father’s weakness was women, but he was a hypocrite because he was addicted to the same poison.

Jonah thought my uncle was cool, that the money he had in stacks overrode the way in which he made it. He liked the power my uncle had in this town. Despite Jonah’s Dad being the sheriff, he thought my family dealing drugs and whoring out women gave them a type of power he craved. He was young and foolish to think that, but if I’d learned anything from being Jonah’s best friend over the years, it was that once he had something in his head it was hard to convince him otherwise.

He was his own person, and he didn’t bond with people easily. I was his only true friend and I still don’t know why he chose to let me in, but he did, and as his best friend I always tried to be a good one and look out for him. I’d often taken the blame for things he did so he wouldn’t get in trouble with his father. I’d been his alibi when he slipped out at night without me to do stupid shit. I always felt like I was in his debt because I was in love with his sister and he knew nothing about it. He wouldn’t understand or accept us, I knew it from the beginning, so I made Alex keep us a secret, and it troubled her. I couldn’t do this anymore, and as soon as school was done I was going to tell Jonah I was in love with Alex and hope he could deal with it, because nothing was going to keep us apart. Jonah wasn’t our only obstacle. Alex’s parents were not fond of me, or the family I was born into, but she was willing to risk their disapproval and their wrath so I had to man up and risk my friendship with Jonah.

I hated how things were with us. I knew he’d been dealing to kids at our school and that the drugs were coming from my family. They had to be because my family wouldn’t tolerate someone else dealing on their turf. I know they used him because they couldn’t have me. I’ve never known a family so hell bent on dragging everyone down to their level. You’d think they would be proud that I was getting out and going to make something of my life, but no, not my family. They saw it as a betrayal of the family name. How pathetic. I worried that I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to help Jonah, he was in too deep, and every time I’d tried to help him in the past he threw it in my face. I felt like I owed him because of things with Alex. I’d been behind his back when it came to her but you can’t fight fate and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t because my soul gravitated to hers. We revolved around each other; I needed her and she needed me. Nothing made sense if we couldn’t be together. I had so much wrong in my life that when she entered my life I knew it was right. She was my right. She was ten years old when I first saw her, and although we were only young, something clicked inside of me. I felt home, content even, for the first time in my whole life. People who have a shitty upbringing and get dealt bad cards are used to the bad but not the good, and when something as good and precious as Alex comes into their life, they need to realize it’s fate, a gift, something they need to hold onto with both hands. Maybe with something so amazing and good in their life they don’t have to repeat the cycle of what came before.

I’d seen just about everything bad you could see in life. I thought it was normal, my Dad beating my Mom, but when he eventually killed her, I knew this wasn’t how other people lived, and not how I wanted to live.

There were kids in my school who didn’t have a great home life, but mine seemed to be in the extreme. I owned it though. I was who I was but it didn’t define who I could be, and I wanted to be a pro hockey player with Alex by my side.

It was hard for me to make friends. I was a lot more mature than my peers but on a team, playing hockey eclipsed all the shit in my home life. I was a part of a brotherhood there. I felt invincible on that ice.

I struggled in school; I think it was communication issues. My vocabulary was pretty much grunting in acknowledgment when being spoken to and head nodding to shit I wanted from the dinner menu. It wasn’t that I was incapable or behind for my age, it was the simple fact that I wasn’t used to being asked my opinion or a question of importance. I also wasn’t used to being heard or taken seriously. My family wasn’t conventional or sane. It made it hard for me to relate to my peers and make friends. I was pretty much a loner unless I was on the ice with my teammates or with Jonah, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t raised on love and hugs so I didn’t expect it or look for friendships. I looked for a way out, a way I could count on just me and do what I loved doing.

Most kids raised with the parents I had would have followed them down the dark path, but when you’re not fucked off your face on drugs but watch others lose their identity from them, it’s the best form of ‘just say no’ you can get. The message I got from drug taking is that it scars everyone around you, washes dreams away, and if it doesn’t kill you, it keeps you captive in its grip for life, or sends you to prison.

One thing about my Dad; he didn’t use his own product or keep it on our premises. That being, said he didn’t stop my Mom from using it.

We lived in a nice house on the outskirts of town, and despite being raided regularly, the cops never found drugs there. It didn’t stop them from seizing our shit all the time. I must have been through ten cells and five laptops over a two year period. We got the things back when they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Dad. He was clever and had been raised in the criminal world by his father, whose name muttered was enough to cause fear amongst the dealers and thieves. He eventually got caught for a speeding ticket and just happened to have an underage hooker with him. Caught red-handed, dick out and cum running off her chin and everything. He lasted two weeks in prison before he was murdered by a twenty-year-old who was trying to impress another inmate. He was stabbed just once with a shiv made from a toothbrush. It punctured his heart, and no one rushes to get you help in prison, so he bled out outside his cell. Hard man Moore, offed by a teenager sent in for grand theft auto. My Dad had a lot to prove and recover from when he took over his father’s business, but the criminal world was in his blood, he’d been groomed from an early age to take on that world and he did it well. My Mom was his downfall. He was obsessed with her. She was only seventeen when he first met her. She came to my uncle’s with my cousin, and my Dad was there sorting some business, and that was it. He claimed her. She dropped out of school and moved in with him, took a liking to his money and power, and before she knew it he’d knocked her up. She couldn’t cope with being a parent or a wife. My Dad wasn’t the gentlest of creatures and what once was infatuation turned to resentment and hate. His attention didn’t stay with her either. He fucked anything in a skirt and would spend days away from home. Mom got high to escape the life she’d ended up in.