Free Blood Relations by Chris Lynch Page A

The carbon bubbles were popping, tickling, carrying the strong yeasty Ballantine head up into my nostrils. My mouth watered, but my stomach clenched.
    “You need a haircut, freak,” Augie said.
    I pushed the bottle away from my face. “You’re right,” I said, pointing at Augie. “I do. And I’m gonna get one, right now.” I quickly started backing way, back toward the front door.
    “So have a goddamn blast before ya go,” Terry said, following me halfway to the door with the bottle. “Get back here and drink the damn thing.” His voice rose. “It ain’t like the goddamn barber shop is goin’ any goddamn place.”
    “I don’t want it,” I said.
    He was infuriated now. He ran to catch me at the door, but I ran faster to get away. He screamed at me from the porch. “What are you, good ? You good now or somethin’, Mick?” And he heaved the full bottle at me, missing me by a mile as it shattered and splattered on the curb.
    Sully loves me. What is she talking about, Sully loves me? What a mental thing to say. A lot that’ll get me anyhow, Sully’s love. That’ll get me far.
    Whether I believed it or not, that’s where I found myself when I escaped, Sully’s house. I stood there on the sidewalk looking up at his bedroom window, in the house that looked just like my house. Like I’d done a hundred thousand times before when I was just looking for someplace to go to that wasn’t my place, that didn’t have my parents or my brother inside. The difference though was that this time I didn’t have two fingers in my mouth whistling myself blue for him to come down and claim me. This time I looked, stared up there like a freak on the sidewalk, and went on my way. If he had just happened to come to the window that would have been okay, I could maybe have stayed there for the weekend till May Day blew over, if he invited me. But he didn’t, and I couldn’t call or whistle for him this time. It just didn’t feel like I could do that now.
    I walked on, no destination, just on. I thought about it, where I wasn’t going, and felt a small scared shiver. It was the same nothing for me in both directions, forward and back. I had no home. My parents had cleared out, surrendered the place to the barbarians. Never even mentioned it to me, that they wouldn’t be around for a couple of days. And even though this was a regular thing for May Day and even though we all know they are going, is that right, that they shouldn’t say something to me? It’s like, the home , it isn’t there for me.
    But it was never important before, so it wasn’t important now. There were other places for me, even if they were few.
    “Hey freakin’ ho, muchacho , ain’t this a damn treat,” Ruben said as he pulled back the curtain from the small front door window. I listened as he unlocked three dead bolts, then threw the door wide open. “This may surprise you, but I don’t get a whole lotta visitors, specially on no Saturday morning.”
    It was such a happy, welcoming thing, Ruben’s broad gap-toothed smile, that it almost made me feel right. It almost made nothing else matter. “You want some breakfast?” he said. “I think I got a egg and a little skinny-ass frozen sausage.”
    But I had to tell him the truth. “Thanks, man, that’s really nice. But actually, I’m here to see Evelyn. Is she home?”
    Slam. Bolt, bolt, bolt. Ruben was gone from view and the door was again well secured. I sighed, rang the bell again.
    “Who is it?” Ruben’s voice sang from the other side of the door.
    “Come on, Cruz, it’s me.”
    His small fine face appeared in the window again. “Jehovah’s Witness?” he asked.
    “No. I’m here to see Evelyn.”
    “Evelyn?”
    “Your sister. Cut the shit.”
    “Sorry, I ain’t got no sister Evelyn. You mean Juana?”
    “Fine. I mean Juana.”
    “I ain’t got no sister Juana. Listen you, you better get outta here or I’m gonna put the dog on you. I mean it.”
    I turned and walked down