Chapter 5 (Beggar)

6 Years Ago

The streets of Washington are silent right now, colder than the few nights when I was stuck sleeping at the river.

I hate sleeping at that fucking place.

My feet are paining as I walk down toward the club this whore Patricia sent me to.

Bitch better not be wasting my time. I just turned sixteen with no education, no damn job.

I'm living on the streets with no warm clothes, no food, fuck, I don't even know when is the last time I brushed my teeth before today. The mechanism should be foreign to me by now. It would if I didn't go to school when I was younger, made it to the sixth grade before life turned fucked up and my mother died of cancer.

At twelve I was thrown in the system like the nobody's kid I became.

I told the social worker I didn't want to go, but what other choice did I have- none, that was what they thought.

I shut my mouth and took the burned hand I was dealt and stuck it out for a few weeks.

Got stuck with a group of the meanest kids I have ever known. I thought the grubby ones at school were bad.

Janet, who was my social worker at the time, an African American woman who probably ate for three every day proved that wrong the day she took me to that house.

Except for Ally, poor kid, I sometimes wonder how she's doing, where she ended.

The other kids in the house were a bunch of fucked up teenagers.

Luke was already selling pot. Gill was expelled at just thirteen for stabbing his teacher in his hand, but even they were fucking angels compared to the foster father, David Fucking Dale.

Asshole took from me, he raped me on the kitchen counter.

I took a tin opener and sliced his throat.

It was a good feeling as I left the fucker bleeding on the ground.

And then I ran, I didn't stop running until I was in a bathroom at the train station.

Took me back to the streets and here I am, sixteen, still a beggar. No dreams, no plans, just going with what life has thrown to me.

Well maybe not too bad, I have started the infamous job hunting.

Been all over town these last few weeks, looking in every place I can find. Nobody is hiring.

Apparently, I need a house address so I used one from the nicer parts of Washington hoping that would change their minds.

Patricia told me about this gig at this club called Bulls-Eye, so here I am walking nineteen blocks.

No food in my stomach, no water to help with my thirst.

My armpits are already sweaty even in the cold.

At least I had a river bath, which was the best I could get. No way was I walking to the station like most homeless folks around here do.

I have bad memories of stations. Bad memories of a lot of places.

Never-mind the river water was fucking freezing, and I got frostbite on my ass. Never-mind that the old man sleeping under the bridge saw me naked.

There is a sense of peace in the darkness, a relief.

My mother hated it, then again my mother hated just about everything.

Never saw her smile unless it was one of those forced ones she saved for the people who gave her a dollar.

It is another fuck load of time gone and hunger pangs striking in that familiar way I am used to as I see the sign- Bulls-Eye. It is an upper class fancy strip joint.

As I get closer I see the rich men in their three piece fancy suits walk in.

I don't need to be educated to know that those men are bad people. It's not the first time I have seen their kind.

My father is one of them.

I was much younger when I hunted him down, it was the first time I saw him.

And I hope not to see him again.

I walk to the guard at the door, the Italian bald-headed man is tall and broody. It's a long wait for my turn in the line and I hand him my ID card.

“Hi, I'm here for a job,” I say in a loud clear voice.

He looks down at my card and then at me.

The man stares a little too long at my old navy Sneakers that are riddled in holes.

“It says you're sixteen, we don't hire kids, come back when you're older.”

“What,” I yell, pissed off when he shoves my ID card at me and calls next.

“Kid get the fuck out of here, this is no place for kids.”

“Patricia sent me here, I used all my money up getting this stupid ID to come here for a job.”

“Excuse me,” A soft masculine voice sounds from right behind me and I turn around to tell him to fuck off.

I am caught with my tongue in my mouth as I catch the smiling face in my line of sight.

His hair is trimmed short, his face is so clean, his skin glows.

I open my mouth and close it. Thoughts of saying anything, muted as I stare awestruck at this beauty of a man.

“Hello, So what is a beautiful girl like you doing in this shit hole,” his words come easy, he is smiling, smiling at me.

It is like my world is no longer existent.

“Ah, I.. I... A... came for a job,” I drop my gaze as I speak to him.

My shy voice muttering and stumbling matching the inner emotions I feel right now, with this man in front of me.

“Do you have a name?” He asks, and for some reason, I look into his hazel eyes as I answer,

“Amariya.”

“Nice to meet you Amariya, you are Italian, beautiful, my names, Lucca Sanati.”