Listen To The Silence by Sheryl

Chapter 6

...no you can't go home

Jesse swung his feet dejectedly, staring idly down at the broken strap of a sandal. Figured it was broken, he supposed he could just go barefoot. It wouldn't be the first time, though the New York streets grossed him out even after all this time. Quite bad enough to have to dodge broken glass and bubbling asphalt, never mind the various unmentionable organic substances that regularly washed the roads and sidewalks. Still, trying to walk with one shoe flopping in the wind would only get him a broken neck...
Sighing, he kicked off the offending footwear, shrugging it off. Shoes were the least of his worries. If he could find one pair in a dumpster, he could find another. More important was the pinching grinding in his stomach, too long empty. The last of his money gone a day ago, he had no idea what he was going to do today. In the summer heat, garbage scavenging didn't usually yield results, the pickings gone over too fast to eat. His eyes wandered the glass edifice in front of him. Behind those walls, people called room service, had entire meals delivered to their rooms, didn't even have to get out of bed. Why did they rate? What made them so much better than him? His refusal to be beaten into submission to pay for his comforts?
Scowling, he glanced down at his now bare feet, disgusted at what he saw.
"I need a shower."
He sighed again, knowing it wasn't likely. His last access to an all over shower had been the pitying generosity of his friend at the Aston, over a week ago. He'd taken a fair number of illegal swims in the lake since then, leaving him feeling vaguely less gritty but noticeably more slimy.
God knew what was in that water.
His scalp itched maddeningly and he darkly envisioned legions of bugs trooping up and down the lanes of his hair.
"Probably practicing formation up there..."
His skin crawled at the thought, he hated to be dirty, hated the feel of it. Times like this brought unwanted memories, memories of his freshly bathed little boy body, clad in clean soft pj's, curled on the sofa in front of the TV... back then. Before. Before everything fell apart.
His gaze drifted up, taking in the glittering bronzed glass of the building in front of him. Nice place, palatial, rich people stayed there. Rich people like his parents, who never knew a hungry minute, who never knew what it was like to be cold, or hot, or sick, with nobody to care. Who could soak for hours in not only a tub, but a Jacuzzi, if they so desired. Soft sheets, fluffy blankets, thick pillows... warmth, safety... it had all been his once. All his, but the price had been too high. Better this existence with nothing, hot in the summer, frozen in the winter, hungry all the time, much better.

He pulled matted red hair back, unaware that even unwashed for weeks it burned in the summer sun, flame-like, almost artificially bright, striking. Affixing it in a grimy band, he leaned back, arms folding across his chest.
That boy was in there, in that glorious high rise. That boy, the one he knew... from... where? He shook his head, squinting a little against the hard glare off the glass. It was bad enough to be pimping himself on the streets, sleeping in the alleys, failing at everything, even at becoming a junkie, did he have to lose his mind too?
But there it was.
A dead on conviction that he knew the boy he'd literally run into last week, a sudden collision that had startled them both into frozen speculative stares. That boy, pulled away from him just as his mouth opened to speak, pulled away and most likely disinfected as soon as possible. Pulled away even as those clear blue eyes fired with recognition, as obvious surprise registered on his face, a sudden, powerful KNOWING lit in that gaze...
That clean, glowing, shining boy who's blond hair held not a spec of dust, who's flashing white teeth never missed an appointment with a toothbrush, who slept each night in luxurious climate controlled comfort, every whim catered to, no needs unmet. Pure, whitebread, cornfed, fame spoiled rich kid.
How could he mean anything to Jesse? How could filthy, hungry, skinny Jesse Doran, with no claim to fame but the name of his rich family, and his own unsavory reputation, know a boy like that? Crazy is what it was, what HE was, and he knew it. How else could he explain it? Inexplicable recognition of a kid he'd never seen before? And the voices, the voices that called him, endlessly echoing in the back of his mind, always faintly there, a hundred, thousand, MILLION times louder since his run in with the boy. Some kind of cataclysm, that meeting, triggering God knew what in his insanity riddled head. Voices, calling him, beckoning him, ludicrously telling him everything was alright. Ha. What did the voices know? Wish fulfillment, that's all they were, some sort of regret he couldn't acknowledge... crazy... he knew it, accepted it. And, accepting it, gave in to it. He'd sit here and watch the doors all day if he had to, simply for that one instant of relief... that one blinding moment that happened every time he laid eyes on the boy, that brief heaven moment of "It's you! You're there!" before reality reasserted itself, sealing his rising words, halting his steps. He couldn't talk to that boy, he'd be locked up on the spot. Still, talk to him or not, he had to see him, had to feel that one instant of comfort. It was, after all, all he had.

"God it's hot..."
He pulled the front of his shirt away from his sticky chest, grimacing a little, closing his eyes, weary. The bench was hot against his bare legs, splinters of peeling paint rough against sunburned skin. He could feel the sting as well on the tops of his legs, the front of his face, his feet. He was getting fried. Still, to move to the shade would be to move out of sight of this impossible high-rise, and he wasn't willing. Not yet. Not while the unanswered still rang in his head. Who was the boy? Why did he feel this strange attraction to him? Was he suddenly changing orientations?
He snorted, scornful of himself. If anything he was asexual, having no interest in either gender. No, what he felt for the boy wasn't desire... but what was it? It was blind, groping need... something that shouted, and clutched at his mind, telling him... what? Telling him what? His frustration peaked, he couldn't understand. Brooding, he missed the hiss of bike tires, the rattle of debris as a bike skidded to a halt in front of him.
"Kid, are you here again?!" Eddie's voice held scornful indignation. "Just what do you think it's gonna get you, sittin' here outside these rich folks place? You know what it's gonna get you?"
Jesse dropped his gaze to the sidewalk, ashamed to have been caught here again.
"Gonna get you ARRESTED is what, for stalking! You leave that rich boy alone, Jesse. You got no business here."
Jesse nodded, letting the wash of Ed's annoyance slip past him. He'd heard it all before.
"Where'd you get the bike, Eddie?"
The older man's face crinkled in a grin.
"Like it? Didn't even know I could still ride. Some fool left it laying against shotglass central..." He gestured vaguely at the reaches of Broadway, making Jesse grin. "Shotglass central", Eddie's scornful word for the shops that preyed on tourists, offering t-shirts, 10 dollar change wallets, and yes... shotglasses.
"You keepin' it then?"
"Hell and damnation no! This baby's about as sold as they get, and so hot it's burning my skinny white ass... now get yours up off that bench and stop mooning over this rich boy you wish you was. AndREW is in town, my man Andrew, and he's got a little bit of heaven in his hand, Jess... so come on."
"Man, Eddie, you shoulda been a poet..."
He groaned a little as he stood, stiffer than he'd realized, mildly surprised at how long he'd been there. Yeah, it was time to go... still, he couldn't help one more look over his shoulder, freezing in spite of himself as the long rays of evening sun picked out a sudden glint of gold. There... that was him! He watched, silently willing the boy to turn and look... but no. Out of the cab, up the steps, into the shining palace of bronze and glass without a glance in his direction.
Ed was right. There was nothing for him here. And the urgent whispering of the voices were only further proof of his madness.

"Eddie, wake up."
Jesse's voice was irritated, as he shivered lightly in the damp night air, his sunburn making overhot skin exquisitely sensitive.
"Ed, man... c'mon..."
Ed's nod was lasting an annoyingly long time, once again driving home to Jesse his status as failure. That it was a failure to be thankful for escaped him. He wanted the release, the oblivion, why couldn't it be his? Why couldn't something be his? He gazed with undisguised longing upon Eddie's drooling countenance... result of a rush of mainlined heroin, that mellowed out peaceful nod typical of every single one of his friends... but him.
He'd long ago realized that the drug had little effect on him, affording him no sweet release as it did the rest. No, for him nothing but a momentary dizziness, riding a wave of brief euphoria, then gone. It seemed, in him, to be neither addictive, nor dangerous. His numerous attempts to reach Eddie's level of escape had caused him to use enormous amounts of the drug, enough to have killed his friend ten times over.
All it had done to him, however, was make him nauseous and headachy. He couldn't get high, couldn't overdose, couldn't hide in it. Couldn't hide in anything, Cocaine making him sleepless, pot doing absolutely nothing, psychedelics mildly affecting his dreams, but not much else. The only substance he'd in any way reacted to had been crack, a disagreeable flood of sensation leading to a jaw clenched tight enough to hurt, and a raging tide of nausea that had led to one of the very few bouts of vomiting he'd experienced in his life. Figured the only drug he could feel made him sick. He was even a washout as a druggie. Hell, he couldn't even manage to work up an addiction to tobacco.

"Eddie man, get your shit going, come on... please!"
He was nervous now, his head had started that weird compulsive shit, those half heard voices, louder than ever, and he wanted, needed, company.
He reached out, shaking his friend hard, and was rewarded with groggy blinking brown eyes finally looking into his own.
"Eddie, sit up, come on, come with me..."
Ed yawned, rubbing bleary eyes, head swimming. Damn Jesse, ruining his nod, what the hell was up with this?
"Jesse man, what is it with you?"
"It's comin' back Ed, I just need somebody to talk to..."
Eddie frowned, shoving himself upright, reaching for the tattered cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. Jess had the voices again. Damn sorry situation. He lit up, drawing deeply, wincing at the stale, trashy taste. Damn but he hated to steal butts from the trains. Older'n god more often than not.
"Jess, man, they're not there, ain't nothin' there..." He closed his eyes again, leaning back against the wall. Gettin' to be time to dump Mr. Jesse, if he didn't knock this shit off. The streets were full of unavoidable crazies, he didn't need to be hangin' with one. "If it ain't visible to the rest of us dude, it ain't there..."
Jesse nodded, hands clutching arms, shivering. "I know, but I hear 'em man, so just talk to me..."
"What'd you ever come out here for?"
Ed had always wondered, never asked, and now seemed as good a time as any. Jesse, the smartboy, bookish, well bred, out slumming with white junkie trash in the bowels of the Big Apple. "The core..." Eddie giggled madly at his own joke, coughed, spat into the dirt. "Tell me man, tell me how you came to be out here slummin' with old Eddie."
"You ain't old, Eddie..."
Ed smiled. It was an old joke, but he was and he knew it. Too old, he'd pushed his luck on these streets about as long as he could. The weight of his own mortality hung over him endlessly now, and he knew his time was almost at its end.
"Tell me your story, kid... damn shame, smart kid like you out here with the likes of this rucked out garbage..."
His gesture took in the sleeping forms of the other alley inmates, as he hacked out another round of smoke. "Lay it on me, I heard it all, believe it."
Jesse shrugged, struggling with the sick, anxious feeling that filled him, the pull toward the half heard voices in his head.  "I guess you have, Ed, but y'know, it's better out here. Nobody out here tryin' to kill me. Leastwise not for anything but money."
"Which you ain't got none of."
"So, I reckon I'm safe enough."
"Let's hear it then."
"What for?."
He picked absently at the mica studded dirt he sat on, wondering which was worse, dragging up that whole chest of aches, or coping with the ever louder voices?
"Eddie... I don't know... thing's used to be good for me, y'know?"
Ed nodded, flicking the end of his smoke into the distance.
"I know. You sit back and tell Eddie all about it..."
Jesse snorted, smiling a little.
"Like you care..."
"I am insulted, Jesse Doran, that you would even think such a..."
"Stuff it, Eddie. Okay... gimme one of them smokes." He lit the proffered cigarette, scratched aimlessly at his hair for a moment, let his eyes drift to the stars... "Okay Eddie... here's the thing..."

Free fall. To stare too long through this glass was to be in free fall, the walls receding as the panorama took over. So far down, the road and it's endless traffic toy-like, the vista of a models overview. Unreal. He'd been down there again. That boy, the one with the flame beacon hair. On the bench, again, today, just sitting. He'd seen him this morning, just waiting, watching. Seen him again as the cab dropped him off tonight. Had he ever left? Where did he live? The loneliness that came off him....he felt it in him, welling, a sadness almost too deep to feel.
He knew him. Knew he did, that thrill of recognition filling him even as his eyes registered that brilliant color, as his mind filled in the blanks. Vagabond, city street kid, filthy, ragged, probably homeless. He couldn't know him, would never know someone like him. He leaned his hot forehead against cool glass, chewing at his lower lip.
"I do know him... I do know him..."
Turning from the window, oddly disappointed that the boy wasn't down there, he yawned, thinking now only of bed. The muted mutter of the others, forever in the back of his mind, suddenly surged as his consciousness began it's decent toward sleep, even as he walked toward his room.
They were waiting for him there, waiting with instructions. It was almost time to leave, and they'd help him figure out how.
He turned one last sleepy gaze toward the window, resisting the urge to go back, fighting the absurd notion that he would see the boy down there, standing in the glow of the streetlamp, looking up at him. There was nobody there, and it was time for bed.
Sighing, he pushed the urge away, shucking off clothing as he walked, shivering a little in the predigested chill of the air conditioning, grateful for the summer quilt on the bed. He drifted into sleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, red haired boys forgotten in the sudden rush of telepathic conversation.

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