Chapter 19: Another Life, Again

When I awoke this time, I remembered everything.

I remembered my father Sam and my mother Matty. I remembered Sarah, my loving little sister and Jason my best friend and I hoped they were all unhurt. I remembered before them - Maria and my boys. But most of all I remembered Melody and April and the bastards who killed them.

They would pay, but how? I could make my way to California and attack the office, but I probably wouldn't get all the ones I wanted. I had to think, I had to make a plan. I needed time. I would have to try and fit in here until I had it figured out.

By mining the memories of the others in the house I could manage it. They would never know anything was wrong. Once I had a plan I would just disappear, another white trash runaway. This 'family' wouldn't shed a tear.

The clock said 4:00 PM. I got up and left the room. My 'sister' was back in front of the television, a bag of chips in her lap. She didn't even glance in my direction as I sat down.

How would 'Wesley' normally react in this situation? I dug around in her mind to find out.

She was still trying to figure out what she had seen earlier. Why had her brother been crying like that? When she had gone back to his room she had been planning on firing a couple of zingers because he was crying. But the heartbreaking sobs had stopped her. She couldn't have hurt him any more than he already hurt. She wouldn't want to hurt him that bad. She had stood there trying to think of something to say, something to ease his pain. But she had no experience in being nice to her brother, or anyone else for that matter. So she had simply closed the door as quietly as she could and left.

Under normal circumstances she would have insulted him the moment he walked in the room. He would have responded by calling her a fat bitch or something else and they would have insulted one another back and forth until they ran through their usual repertoire.

But now, she was worried about him. She had seen him beaten severely, by their mother, by their uncle Robby, by other kids. She had seen him humiliated in school, in the street, but she had never seen him cry like that. Had never heard sobs like that coming from his room.

She wanted to ask him what was wrong. She wanted to find out if he was thinking about killing himself. She didn't think she would want that. She was worried.

"I'm okay now." I said flatly, speaking with a southern accent that matched her own. I kept a tendril of awareness in her mind.

"Like..." she had been about to say 'like I care' which would have been her usual, automatic retort. But she was worried about her brother. It was a feeling she was not used to.

"Are you sure? You're not thinking of doing anything... crazy or something?"

"No." I wondered at her unfamiliarity with basic kindness, her uncertainty of how to handle concern for another.

As we watched television I searched her mind for more details.

We lived in a crappy trailer court outside of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Our mother's name was Marsha. She had been a free spirit in high school, until she got pregnant with Susan at sixteen. The father had stayed with her, though they had both dropped out of school. When Wesley was born less than a year after Susan he had enough and was gone.

Of course our mother blamed everything on us. It was Susan's fault she never graduated from school and had no decent job prospects and had to work the night shift six days a week. It was my (Wesley's) fault that she had lost her man and never lost the weight she put on during her two pregnancies and had, in fact gained more since.

'Uncle' Robby was not our uncle, but the only guy she could get to sleep with her on occasion - if she could get him drunk enough. She wasn't physically ugly, though she wouldn't be called pretty by any stretch either. She was basically plain and overweight. Her main problem was that she was permanently angry. Life was unfair, and it was everybody else's fault. Her anger only got worse when she was drunk, which was usually.

Marsha was a negative and unpleasant person and only a few would bother to socialize with her, those as negative as her. But for her children she was a monster. They had grown from babies to middle stage adolescents with no concept of love, only anger and hate. For a kid like that making a friend was hard enough, Marsha's behavior had made sure that any friends we accidentally made didn't last.

I thought about the contrast with how Sam and Matty had raised their children. Danny and Sarah had learned about love at home, hate was taught out on the street. Even as tortured as Danny was, home was a safe place where he knew he was loved. In this house, home was where the hate and anger was taught - and the street is no place to learn about love. I hadn't intended to do anything here other than figure out a plan and leave, but this girl deserved some sort of chance.

"I've been thinking. Do you think that this is all there is?" I asked her.

"What do you mean?"

"Hate. Is hate all there is? Isn't there supposed to be love? People in movies and on TV are always falling in love, loving their families... shit like that. Do you ever wonder what its like?"

"It's not for trailer trash like us." She snorted. I found that to be a very sad statement.

"Maybe," I thought for a minute. "Susan?"

"What?"

"I don't hate you, Susan."

"Yeah? Well... I don't hate you either... loser."

It was a start.

When we heard Marsha stirring in her room we left, going separate ways. I walked around the trailer court. It was about what one would expect, low to no income, occasional small time drug dealer, mostly welfare moms or working poor - some like Marsha, others doing the best they could. I stayed gone until I was sure Marsha had left and then returned home. There wasn't much to eat in the house, what was there was junk.

"Are you hungry?" I asked Susan as she came inside.

"Are you saying I'm fat?" She snapped automatically.

"No," I said calmly, "I'm hungry, I wondered if you were too?"

She looked at me oddly. "Yeah, I guess I'm hungry. You got something to eat?"

"No, but I thought that we could go get something." I was starving. My body was already trying to catch up to my final height and weight.

"You get some money?"

"No, but I know where I can get some. Come on."

I left the home and she followed, more out of curiosity than any belief that I really had a plan.

I had a plan to get money, what I didn't have was a plan to get revenge against those bastards who had killed April and tortured my sweet Melody to death. It was a constant buzz at the back of my mind.

We walked to the nearby strip mall I had found in her mind and there were quite a few people there. I pulled Eric's favorite trick and, while broadcasting generosity, asked people for money. In fifteen minutes I had about thirty dollars.

"How did you do that?" Susan asked, amazed.

"I guess I look pretty pathetic."

"You got that right."

We spent it at a Taco place and ate our fill. We were sitting there, empty wrappers surrounding us and sipping our drinks. She was studying me, still puzzled.

"Why you being nice to me?" She was still a little worried. She thought that I might be being nice to her as a way of saying goodbye.

"I don't know, you're my sister, if I can't be nice to you, who else is there?"

"You never have before."

I thought about the relationship between Danny and Sarah, both before I came along and after. So very different than the way these two had grown up.

"I'm thinking about a lot of things I've never done before." I decided to try something, she was already half convinced I was about to commit suicide. "This morning, I was about ready to kill myself." Her eyes widened. "I didn't know what else to do. I heard you come in my room. I was waiting for you to rip on me for crying. But you didn't. That made me think that maybe one person, maybe you... cared about me."

"Yeah, well... don't let it go to your head. I... just don't want to see you do anything stupid that's all." She wasn't so worried now. But she was still a little confused. This was probably the longest she had gone in the presence of her brother without a violent argument.

We sat there, finished our sodas and walked back home.

My foray into madness had lasted several weeks. School had already started. The next morning was a Monday, a school day.

It was also a day I discovered some disturbing changes in me.

The lockers in this school were handed out on an alphabetical basis regardless of grade. That meant my sister's locker was right next to mine.

After third hour I was headed for my locker. I was almost there and I saw Susan just backing up from hers to close it. Three guys were passing, Susan stepped back into their path and the one closest to her shoved her out of the way, hard. She slammed into the lockers.

"Watch it, bitch." Said the guy who shoved her. My mind flashed on me saying that if 'you fuck with my family I am going to hurt you bad.'

He and his friends were laughing as he passed me and I lashed out with my left foot, catching him behind the knee. Driving through, my foot slammed his knee to the floor. I stepped up with one foot still on his leg and grabbed his chin in the crook of my elbow.

I barely stopped myself just before I snapped his neck. I had fully intended to do just that. I guess I wasn't completely sane just yet. I didn't kill him because I didn't want to go to jail.

I stopped, standing on his leg, twisting his head just enough.

"You will not do that to my sister." I growled in his ear. Then continued in a whisper. "You should know that I could come up behind you any time I want and do this. If you retaliate for this - I will, and next time I will snap your neck. So either you decide you were wrong for what you did to my sister and forget about this, or one of us goes to prison for killing the other. Its your decision."

I let him go and continued to my locker. Susan was rubbing a forearm and looked at me confused. "What do you think you are doing? Tony will kill you."

"I think that since nobody else will ever be looking out for us, we have to look out for each other. What is he doing?"

She looked past me. "The other two bozos are helping him up and they're leaving." Then she looked at me. "I guess I should thank you then."

The warning bell went off and we had to hurry to class. I didn't see her again the rest of the day.

That afternoon, while walking home, I was trying to think about how I would get revenge. It was hard to think because I was so horny. The school was a small one but there were still a lot of hot girls running around and all those firm tits and tight little asses had my teenage hormones in a full boil.

I passed a group of girls sitting on a car in front of a mobile home. I used to see these same girls in some of the neighborhoods back home. They were high school age, trashy and very hot - Seventeen going on twenty-seven. They were next generation of trailer park welfare moms.

I entered the mind of what looked to be the oldest. I made sure she noticed me then made sure her thoughts headed in the right direction.

She spoke to her friends without taking her eyes off of me.

Her friends tried to stop her but she started towards me.

"Hey, Wesley." She said, approaching me.

"What?"

"Wanna come to my house and smoke a joint?"

I tried to look uncertain. Then, "Sure."

We were almost to her house when Susan spotted us and cut us off.

"Hey, Tina," she called, "come here for a minute."

I realized I had not even looked for her name in her mind. I hadn't known what it was until Susan said it.

They stepped a few yards away, I rode just enough of Tina's mind to overhear.

"What are you doing with my brother?" Susan was asking her, she sounded angry.

"Why do you care?"

"Don't play dumb and don't forget I can whup your ass. You know about that shit with Tony today, you taking my brother someplace where he's gonna get beat up."

"Fuck Tony!" She spat. "That sum-bitch been seeing Cheryl behind my back. I wouldn't do shit for that fucker no more."

"Oh," Susan said, confused. "Then why you walking with him?"

"Relax," Tina said, pausing briefly to figure out what to tell Susan. I helped her decide. "If you must know, I was bored and curious, and so I thought I would bust your brother's cherry. You got a problem with that? You think he won't want to?"

Susan seemed placated. "Yeah. He'll want to. Look, have your fun but be nice about it okay? He... he's kind of had a rough time lately."

"Since when do you care?"

"You know my family. He and I gotta look out for each other. We ain't got no one else." She was catching on quick.

Tina softened. "Sure, he's not so bad - don't worry, I'll be nice. Hey, maybe this will help smooth out that rough time, huh?"

Susan headed toward our home and I continued on with Tina pretending I still didn't know what was going on.

We got to her house and she fired up a joint. After a few tokes each, she sat back and we started talking. We talked a bit about school and about the neighborhood. She was getting stoned - the pot had no effect on me.

"Have you ever seen a tit that wasn't in a magazine?" she asked suddenly.

I stood. "If you're just gonna make fun of me, I'll be going."

"No... I wasn't... I just wondered if you wanted to see mine, that's all."