Chapter Text
Most kids remember the good things first. Like the smell of their mother's cooking, some Christmas morning, or the dog they had when they were six. But I remember the sounds of glass breaking and my folks hollering at each other. It happened so often that it might as well have been the clock on the wall.
By the time I was ten, the shouting stopped. You'd reckon things got better, but naw it was because my Ma died. Funny thing is, I can't remember the last thing she said to me. Folks always act like the last kind of speech sticks with you forever. But it all seemed like a blur. Just one day, she was there, then she got 'sick' and died. I was ten, but old enough to know she wasn't just 'sick'. She had overdosed, but no one ever admitted it.
I guess I should have seen it coming. She'd sit by the balcony window at night sometimes, just staring at nothing in particular. Maybe it was the sky or the horizon or the bustle of New York City below. I couldn't tell, and I never asked her neither. We were never close, but she wasn't all that bad. She'd be the one stopping my old man from beating me up. Maybe in all honesty, I wish he had, so he wouldn't have taken it out on her as badly as he did.
It was one Tuesday night when I came back to the apartment. It was so silent you could hear a pin drop. I knew my old man wasn't home yet. "Ma?" I called out. I called for her again when she didn't answer. Then I noticed the bedroom door, barely open but just enough so I could see the light from it. "Ma, you in here?" I spoke, wrapping my knuckles on the door. Then I saw her. Her body laid on the bed, her arm drooping over the edge. I approached her carefully; her eyes were closed, and her head turned away. "Ma, I'm back," I muttered barely above a whisper. I shook her by the shoulders. "This ain't funny." I knew she wasn't trying to be funny. I knew that there was nothing funny about this. "C'mon, Ma. Wake up. You gotta wake up!"
I felt tears threaten my eyes and wiped them away quickly with the sleeve of my jacket. She was gone. And she hadn't even said goodbye. Funny how death worked. It could take away people so easily before you could expect it. Maybe that was the easiest part of life. Because life sure wasn't easy living.
My eye caught something on the bedroom dresser. It was Ma's Saint Christopher's medal on a chain. The silver was all scratched up, and the clasp barely worked half the time. I stared and stared and stared at it. It was supposed to protect her, I thought. I didn't believe in that crazy shit, but she did. And look how she ended up.
I reached over, picking it up, dangling it from my fingers. I don't know why I decided to wear it then, but I suppose it being hers before it was mine was reason enough. I looked at my ma again. Her bright blonde hair laid in curls on the pillow. Her eyes closed under her lashes. She looked younger and at peace. I guess most people did when they were asleep. I wanted to tell myself that she was just asleep. That's right. She was asleep.
I pulled the covers around her so she wouldn't get cold. Then I left the apartment. I don't know where I was walking to. Just somewhere away from this place. I tugged the jacket around the collar, bringing it closer to myself, the winter's air biting at my bare skin. I lit a cigarette and took a long drag. Ma didn't like me smoking. Said I was too young, but I would anyway when I was out.
Somehow, the city felt different, and I couldn't put a finger on it. Maybe because for a moment, there wasn't anybody waiting for me to come home. Ma hadn't been ideal. She'd never look after the place proper. And she'd snap at me whenever she felt like it. But she had a heart. It might not have been the purest, but it was a heart that I had grown to like, even if I didn't show it. I hated feelings. I hated feeling them. But a part of me wished that I had shown her that I was capable of feeling. That I wasn't just another hood. As I walked, I felt people stare at me, their gaze burning holes into my skin.
I crossed the street without looking. A car blared a horn. "Watch it, kid!" But I kept walking. The medal felt cold and heavy on the chain, and suddenly I hated it. I hate the city. I hated the cold. I hated everything this place had to offer.
I knew exactly what happened to kids like me. When you grow up in neighbourhoods like this, people already got your story written before you can even attempt to write it yourself. Hood. Delinquent. Troublemaker. Future jailbird. Maybe they were right. Ma was gone. I dropped out of school in the summer. And on top of that, my old man didn't care none. The thought of that should've made me feel free. But instead, it made me sick.
I stopped outside of a pawn shop and stared at my reflection in the dark window. A skinny ten-year-old boy with a cigarette habit, a dead mother and a drunk for a father. Some real future you got there, Winston. I laughed, but it came out all wrong. Everything felt so wrong.
I don't even remember what happened next, but I ended up throwing a brick at the pawn shop's window. I remembered wanting to get out of this place. Out of New York. And I stood there staring at my reflection in the window. The longer I looked, the less I recognized the kid staring back. No matter where I went, I'd still be him. And I didn't want to look at him anymore.
The moment the window had exploded inward, the reflection had disappeared, and everything went quiet. All I could hear were the alarms screaming, then the sirens and the sound of my ragged breath. All I could feel was the cold biting at me, my cigarette fusing down and the icy chain around my neck. I guess I was pretty mad. At what? Only if I knew. Maybe that I hated not having anyone to blame it on. It was easier when you found someone else to point your finger at. I remembered using to blame my old man all the time. But I wondered what use that would do? It wouldn't change anything; not for him to care, not for how folk see people like us, not anything. You'd still be stuck where you are with who you are. And I was Dallas Winston. A good-for-nothing hood. And somehow that didn't bother me anymore.