Listen To The Silence by Sheryl
Chapter 7...something has to change, undeniable dilemma
The fly had been there a long time, and his eyes
were starting to hurt. He realized in some remote recess of his mind that it was because
he'd not blinked, shrugged it off, the fly looming in his sights, blotting out the grim
scene in the alley. Just the fly, on it's flatly shiny floor of iris and cornea, tiny legs
infinitely busy. His eyes hurt so much. Brief anger surged, frustration that the fly would
not get off his eye, the thought becoming a jingle, senseless, chaotic.
Pain brought him back, the pain of deeply clenched palms digging
half moons of nails into palms still soft with boy skin. Crimson crescents that stung like
razor cuts, making him gasp, making him blink, the blink bringing tears to aching eyes. No
fly. No fly on his eye. No. The fly was on Eddie's eye. He leaned forward, swiping the
salty runoff from his face. What did it feel like, to have a fly sitting on your eyeball?
He'd have asked Eddie, but he couldn't. Couldn't because...
He sat back suddenly, breath clogging in his throat, as the
horrible black shock lifted, unveiling the horror in front of his face. He couldn't ask
Eddie what it felt like to have a fly on his eye because Eddie was dead. Dead as a
doornail, along with Mike, Lewie, Angelo, and Skeet. Kevin and Rod looked alive, they were
breathing at any rate, but who knew if it was a nod they'd come out of?
He'd known the stuff was bad, known as soon as Eddie pulled it out, some stinging dark
knowledge flooding him suddenly, instinct telling him that the smack Ed had in his hand
was death. Poison, too pure, too laced, too something. He'd known, flinching away from the
offered drug, daring in his extreme of fear to touch Eddie, to grab those scrawny ropy
arms, and hold on, begging, pleading with him.
"Man don't do it, it's bad shit Eddie, bad shit. The baddest shit you'll ever see,
just trash it..."
His words had become rambling, and Ed had grimaced sourly, shaking him off, resenting the
touch. Ed hated to be touched. His arguments had been typical Eddie.
"No man, this shit is GOOD, this is the FINEST... unless..."
The eyes had narrowed, taking in Jesse with a shrewdness that had scared him. There was
something predatory in that gaze and in that moment he'd realized that Ed was not his
friend. Ed had been protecting him, God knew why, but Ed was not his friend. "Unless
YOU had something to do with something, m'man Jess, is that it?"
Jess had seen the hostile gathering of the others in the alley, this
hidden, exclusive home to the homeless, their street sharp eyes arrowing in, searching.
"No man no..." Jesse had swallowed panic, sighing.
"No, it just looks weird, Ed, look at it... you guys, don't it look weird?" He
was safe then, he knew. It did look weird. Wrong color, wrong texture, wrong everything.
"It looks like really bad hash guys, come on... you're gonna smoke that shit?"
Mike had grinned humorlessly, shaking his head, teeth flashing in
his skull like face. "'N gonna pop it. You just shut up, pretty boy, unless you know
what's good for you. Do ya? Huh? Do you know what's good for you huh?"
He'd shoved Jesse hard, rolling his eyes as Ed stepped in and motioned him away, laughed,
his friends joining him, turning his back on Jess. Eddies expression had boded no better,
his disgust clear on his gaunt features. He'd turned then, shaking his head, leaving Jesse
to watch in helpless fascination as they fixed, popped, died...
"How much time has gone by?"
His head shot up. Who had said that?!
"Jesse, how long has it been? Jess, you have to
leave this place... and leave it now... they can't let you live... they'll
remember..."
The voice faded, meaning sinking home.
He looked up at the sky, learning nothing from the smog
blotted black, looked back at Ed, eyes drawn again to the fly, this time not with
hypnotized horrific shock, but with utter loathing. He reached forward, shooing the insect
away, staring down at the dead face of the man who had been the closest thing to a friend
in the city he'd had. Ed hadn't loved him. Hadn't really even liked him he supposed, but
for whatever reasons he had taken him under his wing, begun to "show him the
ropes", kept the others off him.
Horror rose in his throat now, as he watched Kevin begin to
stir. Kevin, who called him "pretty boy" and "girly boy" and who had
taken on Eddie a few times already for the privilege of "doing" Jess.
"I don't have anyone to stop him now..."
He shoved the panic down, breathing it out. Kevin was
moving yes, but he'd be out for a while. The stuff had killed, it would not let him go so
easily. But when he did wake up, he would remember. He would remember Jesse not wanting to
touch the stuff, remember Jess telling Ed not to touch it... and he was all alone now.
Knuckling away tears he didn't even realize he was
crying, he stood up, wincing at the ache in legs nearly too stiff to move, and stepped
closer to Ed's body.
"Man... I wish I could say you deserved better... I suppose in
your own way, you tried to be a good guy..."
Even as he said the words, his heart refuted them. Ed had a reason
for taking care of him, and if he hadn't he'd have robbed him blind and thrown him in
front of a bus.
"Let's not romanticize, huh Eddie? I suppose you'd do the same..." He bit his
lip, grimaced at the cold stiffness of the man's hand, as he brushed it out of the way,
reaching into pockets. There wouldn't be much, Ed had scored, there would be little money.
What there was, he took, and the little packet of assorted drugs as well. They had street
worth. Moving quickly now, he closed in on the other dead men, efficiently stripping
their p
ockets, fingers, and necks of anything of value,
moving finally to the unconscious ones, sighing a little in relief at the living warmth of
their bodies. Even Kevin didn't blink, and in his pockets Jesse found a goldmine, the
wallet of a man who had sold and not yet dropped.
"Sorry bro... guess you'll be in for a little trouble later. If you live..."
Straightening up, face suddenly set, Jesse shook his hair back,
eyeing the alley one last time. It hadn't been much of a home, but it was all he'd had. He
couldn't stay downtown, they'd be looking for him. Only Ed knew of his penchant for the
Upper Wests... and Ed was dead. He'd go there, maybe he could find that kid...
He skirted the alley silently, the voices already clamoring for
attention.
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