Short Stories

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7:48 AM -- 5th and Linden

The woman stirred as the cockroach ran across her face. She would have brushed it aside had she been conscious. Instead, it made its way unimpeded across her cheek and forehead, before bogging down in her matted hair. The sounds of young children crying nearby shocked her awake. She sat up, confused, disoriented. The putrid stench of urine filled the doorway which had given her shelter for the night. It should have made her gag, but it was masked by the odor of the dried vomit on her cheek and chin. Besides, she had grown accustomed to it.

She looked around her. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t place it at first. She slowly stood and stretched, sweeping the hair out of her face. As she bent to gather her few belongings in the torn brown grocery sack she carried, it suddenly struck her. Her boys were gone.

She slumped to the sidewalk and rubbed her face with her hand. It wasn’t panic she felt; rather, a familiar feeling of anxiousness crept in as she tried to gather her senses. She knew she would find them as she had the other times. Perhaps they’d awakened before she did and went looking for food. Perhaps they were hiding from her, lurking around a corner, as they had the last time, or in a nearby dumpster, as they had the time before that.

She stood and looked around her. She looked first right, then left. She looked across the street at a group of junkies talking to a cop. She retreated a couple of steps in hopes that the cop wouldn’t see her. He didn’t. She turned around suddenly, as if expecting to see them hiding in the shadows behind her. But they were nowhere to be seen. Nor could she sense their presence. Slowly the realization began to sink in. This time seemed different. This time they were gone.

8:12 AM -- 7th and Elm

The woman made her way down and through some of the side streets off the Boulevard. Desperation began to take root. As she started to cross Elm, a truck appeared out of nowhere, sending her scrambling back to the curb. She tripped, spilling the contents of her bag. As she gathered her belongings she saw the cracked alarm clock she’d picked up from a thrift store on Magnolia a couple of years before. She wasn’t sure what she needed it for, but she’d grabbed it anyway. One night, she’d thrown it at a man who punched her older son for talking too loud when he was on the phone. It hit him in the head, cracking the face and stopping the time at 1:26. Instead of throwing it away, she’d kept it, figuring she’d get it fixed one day. She used to say, “hey, that old clock’s right two times a day...that’s about two times more than me!” She’d laugh and laugh at her joke. Her boys would join in the laughter. They’d laugh and laugh, too, sometimes laughing so hard that they wet their pants. They didn’t understand the joke...they just loved to hear their mother laugh. It made them feel safe. Made them feel it was all going to be all right. She didn’t laugh nearly enough.

8:21 AM -- 7th and Long Beach

The woman sneaked into the McDonald’s side door to use the bathroom. If the manager had caught her, he’d have thrown her out, as he had twice the week before. She didn’t care, though. She’d been thrown out of better places than McDonald’s...lots of times. She’d been thrown out of worse places, too...lots of times.

After she used the bathroom, she stood at the mirror, splashing water on her face. She scrubbed the dried vomit from her cheek and chin and brushed her hair out of her eyes. She looked long at the frightening image in the mirror. She thought of her two boys. She saw glimpses of them in her reflection. She smiled. It’s a good thing the youngest one looked like his dad, she thought. His dad was a good looking man. She smiled again. It’s a good thing the oldest looked like her. She laughed out loud, then fought back a rush of tears. She had to find them.

8:57 AM -- Pacific and Broadway

The woman approached a cop. She started to ask for help, but thought better of it. She turned away when the cop called out to her.

“Can I help you?”

She looked at the cop.

Her parents had tried to teach her that the cops could be trusted, that they were her friends. She’d lived enough to know that it wasn’t the truth.

Fear gripped her. “No...no, I’m fine.” She hurried away, back toward the Boulevard.

9:12 AM -- Broadway and Pine

The woman sat at a bus stop, staring at the traffic passing by her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, her life. As a little girl, she’d dreamt first of being a princess, and later a dancer. Her dreams faded, though, over time, as night after night she’d watched her mother and father as they fought -- over money, sex, the truck, tv -- it didn’t matter. It quickly became clear to her that she’d never be a princess, and that the only dancing she’d ever do was on the rotting mattresses of fleabag motels.

When her father drank, he got mad. When her mother was hurt, she drank. The bruises and cuts on her mother’s face and body made her cry as a little girl. She remembered pulling the sheets over her head every night and crying until sleep finally gave her a few fleeting hours of peace. Then one day, her father didn’t come home. The fighting, the yelling, the blood, the bruises all stopped. But not the drinking. There was more of that. Her mother stayed in the house days at a time, only coming out when the liquor bottles ran dry. She’d sworn to herself she’d never end up like her mother. She was right. She turned out far worse.

But none of that mattered now. What mattered was finding her boys. She tried to piece together the last few hours. They’d been with her when she’d found the doorway and settled in to sleep. They’d snuggled beside her and smiled as she’d hummed a tune she remembered from long ago. They’d slept the night in her arms, one on each side, clutching her clothes in their tiny hands. Or had they?

The word “breakfast” invaded her mind. She thought a moment, puzzled at the vague recollection. Why was this word coming to her? Why now? She wasn’t hungry. She hadn’t been hungry for days. Again, that word...breakfast.

9:23 AM -- Long Beach and 1st

The woman wandered aimlessly, first this way, then that. She knew she had to find her boys. She didn’t want to lose them as she almost had the year before. She’d left them with her mom as she went looking for work downtown. When she stepped off the bus, she saw the man she’d hit with the clock all those months ago. He’d put her to work from time to time up on PCH, at the motels. He acted as if he owned her after that. Sometimes, she felt like he did own her. As she stepped off the bus, she tried to hide, but he’d seen her. He gave her a half hug, then opened his hand. The crack looked good to her. She’d tried to go clean, but seeing it in his hand was more than she could handle. Just once, she told herself. They partied for two days. At the end, she wanted more. He slapped her, then told her he’d give her more...if she did some work for him again.

She didn’t like working the motels. It made her feel cheap and dirty. She carried a fantasy, though, a fantasy that one day one of her clients would rescue her from all this. He would marry her and treat her like a queen. A big house. A big car. More clothes than she could ever wear. Or, if not that, he would at least help her get off the street, let her have a normal life. The idea was so foreign to her. In reality, she knew it was fantasy. Her life was a nightmare.

She worked the motels for a month before she finally went home again. She walked in to see her boys watching television. They were filthy. Her mother was drunk, as always, and speaking very angrily toward a young social worker, who furiously made notes on a notepad. Her protective instincts took over, and she pulled her boys close to her. “You ain’t gonna take my boys...you can’t take my boys from me...” The social worker assured her she was not there to take her boys...this time. But she would be watching her, she assured her.

She had to find them. She stood and took two steps north before stopping dead in her tracks. She looked at the bag in her hand. She opened it and rifled through it. There they were -- a six pack of powdered donuts -- still in their package...breakfast. That was it...she’d told the boys she was going to get them breakfast. And she left them. But where did she leave them? When was it? Was it yesterday? The day before? The week before? “Oh, God....where are they?” Panic and fear began to grip her. She grabbed a woman walking by. “What day is this?!”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Shit,” she thought. She’d left them Monday, or maybe it was Sunday. She remembered staying with friends...no, strangers, it was. They were staying with strangers who’d said they’d watch the kids while she went to get breakfast. But what day was that? Whatever, it didn’t matter -- it was a long time ago. Way too long to leave your kids with strangers. They’d seemed like decent folks, but in this world, these days, it’s hard to tell. “God, let ‘em be okay...”

9:35 AM -- 2nd and Elm

The woman leaned against a wall. She remembered but two things about the apartment...a green door, and a Mexican flag. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all she had.

She thought back to a month ago. Life had been better then. They’d had an apartment. The welfare checks were enough for them to get by on. She’d made rent two months in a row. She’d been working, cleaning houses part-time. Her oldest boy had even been attending kindergarten...also part-time. Their apartment was small, but nice -- a bed for her and sleeping bags for her boys to sleep in. They’d gotten the sleeping bags at a church nearby, where they used to get clothes from time to time. She’d even stayed clean for over a week. Then she’d run into that man again -- this time at a bus stop on Alamitos. At first he didn’t seen her, but then he called out to her..."Hey!” She started to run, but knew it was of no use. He always seemed to find her and he always seemed to catch her. Besides, she liked what he gave her. “You comin’ back to work for me?”

She saw the rock in his palm. She nodded. “'Course, baby.”

She and her sons were kicked out a week later. The landlord had caught her using in the hallway. He wouldn’t tolerate that. When she brought her kids home from McDonald’s the next day, the locks had been changed. They’d been on and off the streets ever since. She’d tried to call her mother, but couldn’t remember the number. Some nights she’d stayed with the man. He’d watch the boys while she worked the motels on PCH. A couple of times she took the boys with her when the man needed a break. She didn’t like to do that, but there was usually a TV in the room. Besides, the boys were young...they didn’t really pay too much attention to what she was doing. They just watched cartoons until she told them it was time to leave.

9:40 AM -- Long Beach and Maple

The Blue Line shot past the woman. She saw some of the faces on the train. Those were the faces of people going places in life, she thought to herself. She wondered if any of them had seen her sons. She thought about trying to find some of them when they came back later in the day. She could ask them if they’d seen her boys. It was no use, she decided. The boys could be in New York by then. She needed to find them now, without the commuters’ help.

She looked up and down side streets in all directions, looking for the apartment with the green door. She saw the dirty bookstore at Broadway. She’d found clients there before. The bookstore gave them ideas on how to spend their money. She gave them opportunities to spend it.

A sharp pain in her leg caused her to slump to the ground, writhing. She tried to rub out the hurt, to no avail. Passersby passed her by. No matter. She didn’t want their help anyway.

She remembered him kicking her. It had been on Friday night. She’d gone to work at the motels. She’d had a good night. Then she met one more client. He was a businessman...from Downey. He’d gotten angry when she’d fallen asleep on him. He took her money and left. When she woke up, she saw the money was gone. She was scared. Her man wasn’t going to like that...not one bit.

She was right.

“You bitch!” She can’t remember if the words or the slap came first. Either way, she remembered what came next. He kicked her in her leg, hard. He stumbled when he kicked her, the result of a bum left leg from a car accident years before. Nevertheless, he was still able to get some force behind the blow. His thick, heavy boot felt like a sledgehammer striking her below her left knee. The intense pain lasted for three days. Now it was more intermittent, hitting her in sharp bursts that crippled her for moments at a time. The bruising and swelling lingered. That would cause her concern if she worked the nice hotels downtown. But she worked the motels on PCH. No one was looking at her legs.

She sat for several moments as the pain gradually subsided. When it was finally tolerable, she gathered her strength to stand.

9:53 AM -- 4th and Long Beach

The woman needed food. She needed something to drink. She needed a lot.

She rummaged through a dumpster in the alley behind a small cafe. The smell of rancid grease would have stopped most from looking. But she was desperate. She found some soggy bread and a head of rotted lettuce. It would have to do.

She walked into the new outdoor mall on the west side of the boulevard. The mall pissed her off. They’d torn down the old one, and built a new one. All the while, there were more and more on the streets who could have used the money. “What the hell are they gonna do with a new Albertsons?” she thought.

She was able to hit up enough strangers to make a phone call. She found a pay phone and dialed her mother’s number. Her mother answered. She was drunk...again.

“Did I leave the kids with you?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? Where are you anyway? You haven’t lost them boys?”

“No, I haven’t lost them. I just wondered if maybe...” There was a long pause. “Never mind, Mama. I gotta go.”

“All right, then. You better find those boys.”

“Don’t tell that social worker...don’t let her know what happened. You can’t let her take my kids.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to tell her anyway...when you comin’ home?”

“I don’t know. Bye, Mama.” She hung up the phone. She fought back tears, then turned toward the Boulevard.

She felt sorry for her mother. Her life had been hard, even harder than hers. She’d been drunk for years -- a “functioning drunk” she called herself, which meant only that she’d somehow maintained a number of minimum wage jobs for the past thirty-four years while drinking away her memory day after day. Maintained them until her managers invariably lost patience with her binges and tardiness and sick days. She said she drank to forget her past, avoid her present and shorten her future. She wanted to be aware of as little as possible -- life hurt that much.

She had five children herself. All but one had children of their own. There were thirteen grandchildren in all. Eight were in foster homes. Two more were on their way.

10:17 AM -- 4th and Alamo

The woman continued to look in vain for the apartment with the green door. She slumped in the middle of the intersection. A car slammed on its brakes, just missing her. The driver yelled at her as he made his way around her. She flipped him off and told him to go to Hell. She started to cry.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. She turned to see the man. “No!” She struggled to scramble to her feet. She ran to the sidewalk, tripping over it, but maintaining her balance.

“Where you goin’, girl?! Come back here!” The man chased after her.

“I don’t wanna go nowhere with you!”

“Where’re them two little ones? Where you hidin’ ‘em?”

She reached the corner and turned. He struggled to keep up with her, but his limp prevented him from gaining on her. “You finally lost them boys, did ya?! Whoo Hoo, girl, you better off without ‘em! You just better hope I don’t find ‘em before you do. I’ll put their little asses to work, I swear I will!” His laughter mocked her pain and fear.

“You stay away from my boys!”

She was able to put some distance between them. She rounded a corner and was out of his sight. She ducked down an alley and hid until she saw him pass.

10:43 AM -- 5th and Linden

Slowly the woman emerged from her hiding place. She looked up one side of the street and down another. She saw the doorway she’d slept in last night. She shuddered as she realized she’d come full circle over the last few hours. Full circle, and she still couldn’t find her boys. She looked across the street to where she’d seen the junkies talking with the cop just three hours before.

Then she saw it. The green door. The tattered Mexican flag. She cringed as she saw it in the daylight. How could she have left them there...with strangers? The junkies that morning...the children’s cries she’d heard in her sleep that morning. She was so ashamed, more than she’d ever been before. She hated herself. She wanted to die. She started to turn away, frightened to venture any closer. But she had to see them. She had to see if...

“Please, God, let them still be there. Please let them be okay.” Sure, she told herself. The strangers were good people. Surely they had taken care of her sons. They’d had plenty to eat. They’d had plenty to drink. They’d slept well every night.

It all seemed so eerily familiar. A week before she’d hidden from the man. After he’d kicked her, she’d grabbed her kids and left him. They wandered the streets for what seemed like hours before running into a woman she’d seen at the church getting food. The woman had asked her if she had a place to stay. She invited her and the boys to stay with her in an abandoned apartment she and her friends had broken into. She was grateful and followed the woman.

There were four others staying in the apartment. Drug paraphernalia was everywhere. The three men and two women were junkies, the worst kind, she’d thought. Yet, they’d helped her when she needed it most. They’d given her and her boys shelter from the terrible world outside. More importantly, they’d given her a place to hide from the man. They partied together, the six of them. Sex, drugs, their own brand of rock and roll. They partied like walking dead. They laughed and danced together. She grew suddenly very trusting of these people, whose names she didn’t know. She trusted them enough to share their drugs with them. She trusted them enough to sleep in the apartment with them. She trusted them enough to leave her kids with them while she went to fetch breakfast. “Why did I do that?!”

She slowly and inconspicuously made her way across the street. She pushed on the door. It opened. She walked into the dark, dank entryway. The apartment was on the second floor, in the back.

Apprehensively, she made her way up the stairs...one step at a time. She was scared. Scared of what she might find. More scared of what she might not find. She reached the top step. She spotted the doorway at the other end of the hallway. She approached ever so slowly, ever so quietly.

When she reached the door, she saw that it, too, had been left ajar. The chain lock was broken and lay on the floor in the threshold. She pushed open the doorway. She peered inside. Nothing.

“Boys?” No answer. “Mama’s come to get you...” Still no answer. The silence stung her, sending shots of pain and fear through her soul. “Let’s go, boys...let’s go back to Grandma’s...”

There was no sign of life in the apartment. A wall clock, some empty food containers, a few used needles, and a broken chair were the only signs that anyone had been there in recent days.

Then she saw his shirt. It was a blue shirt, with red and green stripes across the chest. It belonged to her younger son. She squinted in the dark, straining to see if it was really his. It was.

She picked up the shirt and smelled it. She let out an audible gasp. She clutched it to her chest and fell to her knees, sobbing. “Where are they...where are my babies...?”

She was so tired. Life had made her that way...or at least, life as she lived it had made her that way. She crumpled into the fetal position, hugging the shirt and sobbing. “I just want to be okay...God, I just want to be okay...”

She didn’t hear him as he entered the apartment. She didn’t hear him approaching her from behind. She didn’t hear him as he mumbled her name under his breath. “Bitch...”

She didn’t hear him coming, nor did she hear him stumble on his gimpy foot as he delivered the kick to the back of her head. It’s hard to hear when you’re unconscious.

Knocking her out wasn’t enough for him. Time after time, his heavy boot landed on her body, sending her deeper and deeper into sleep. Her already frail body offered no resistance. Her ears were spared the litany of insults he shouted at her. It was no matter. His words of disdain for her could never match the disdain she felt for herself.

He kicked her until his bad foot could take it no more. And then he left her alone.

1:26 PM -- 5th and Linden

She felt no pain. She was lost in her dreams...dreams of a better day. She saw herself dancing at her wedding to a wonderful man who wanted to take care of her and treat her like the princess she’d always wanted to be. Her sons were at the wedding -- they laughed and smiled as they danced alongside her.

Her dream skipped, as a record would skip to the next track. In this one, her mother was sober, the curtains in her house open, letting the sunshine in. She’d just made Thanksgiving dinner for the woman and her family. Her brother and her sisters were there. Their kids were all there. Everyone was happy. Everyone was smiling. Everyone had so much to be thankful for.

Her dream skipped again. In this one, her husband read the paper in the family room of the big home he’d bought for them. She lay down between her two boys and snuggled with them. They asked her to sing to them and she did. She sang until they drifted off to sleep, smiles of contentment and peace on their beautiful faces. It made her smile.

In dreamland, all was well for her. In the real world, her body was rapidly shutting down. She coughed up blood, a mouthful at a time. She nearly choked. The gagging awakened her. Now she felt the pain of the beating. She felt nothing in her hands and feet. Her head throbbed. Her body ached. “Oh...God.” She tried to move her head, but couldn’t. She strained her eyes to look around the room. She saw the clock on the wall. Though her vision was blurred by blood, sweat and tears, she was able to make out the time. It was 1:26.

1:26. “Well, I guess that old clock’s got me beat again...” She managed to laugh a little, but stopped herself when the blood gushed from her throat. She thought of her boys. She imagined them laughing at her joke. She smiled as she heard her children’s laughter. Then the smile faded as she started to cry again.

“Please, God...take care of me...” The words were difficult to utter, and barely audible, but she managed. Moments later, she managed a few more..."please, Jesus...take care of my babies...”

She closed her eyes and began to drift away. A cockroach made its way across her face, causing her cheek to twitch ever so slightly.

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