Never Be Alone

by Paige Dearth

  When the door finally opened, Skinner took charge. “Hi, Mallory. This is Joon and Lulu.”

  The lady who had opened the door appeared to be in her upper fifties. She was fifty pounds overweight and wore tight pants and a T-shirt two sizes too small. Her brown hair was stringy and hung around her large, bloodshot eyes. She looked over the girls and stepped aside so they could all enter.

  Mallory crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. “Let me be real clear since you’re all new here. I don’t take no shit. You smoke, do drugs, or sell sex in my house, and you’re outta here. I need my money every morning if ya expect to leave your stuff in the room. Every day you wanna shower, I need two bucks a person. If I find out you stole a shower, I’ll kick your asses out in the middle of the night if I have to. How long you plan on staying?”

  “We’ll probably stay here tomorrow night too,” Skinner said, his voice shaky.

  “Then I need another twenty bucks in the morning. Another thing: don’t go in my kitchen, ’cause it’s my kitchen. I’m renting you a room with a bed. That’s it. Nothing else is included. If I catch ya in my kitchen or touching any of my stuff, I’ll kick your asses out in the middle of the night if I have to. You don’t want to test me on any of this, trust me. Another thing: no music, no loud talking or laughing after ten at night. I go to bed and I don’t like to be woken up. If you disturb me when I’m sleeping, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to you. I like my routine and none of you little shit stains will fuck with it. If you break any of the rules, I’ll kick your asses out in the middle of the night if I have to.”

  Mallory tapped her index finger on her forehead. “Hm, let me think, did I cover everything?” she said to herself. “Oh right. If you need to use the shitter to take a piss, I require three pisses before a flush, so do your damnedest to all piss at the same time. There ain’t no toilet paper in the bathroom, so you better buy your own if you expect to wipe your ass. If you clog my toilet, I’ll shove your fucking arm down there to plunge it. You got any questions?”

  The three of them looked at each other, and Skinner answered, “No. I think that was pretty clear.”

  “Good. Then go ahead and show your…what are these girls to you anyway?”

  Skinner stood straighter. “Oh, this is my sister, Lulu, and our cousin, Joon.”

  “Lulu and Joon,” Mallory said aloud. “What kind of names are those?” She held up her hand to silence them before they could think about answering. “Never mind. I don’t give a shit. Go show them the room and get outta my way.”

  Skinner led the girls up to the third floor and opened the door of the last room on the right. The room had a yellow haze from a small lamp sitting on the floor. The only furniture was a queen-size bed. The quilt on the bed lay crooked, and the thin pillows were bare, revealing the drool stains from other occupants. The only window had been covered with newspaper.

  The three laid across the bed. Joon covered her eyes with one hand. “That lady is crazy. I’m not sure we can make it here one night without breaking a rule.”

  Skinner rolled over on his side and propped his head in his hand. “Gunther said Mallory can be a bitch, but as long as we follow the rules, we’ll be fine.”

  “Did you see how big her boobs were?” Lulu asked and giggled.

  “I know,” Joon jumped in. “I couldn’t tell where her boobs stopped and her stomach started. She’s a bruiser. I wouldn’t mess with her.”

  “Yeah,” Lulu said. “Did you see the skull tattoo on her arm?”

  “I did, right above the knife dripping with blood,” Joon added. “Anyway, where’s Gunther? Is he here? We wanna meet him.”

  Skinner stood quickly, tucked in his shirt, and fluffed his hair. “He’s staying across the hall. I’ll go see if he’s in his room.”

  “Go get ’em, lover boy,” Joon teased.

  “Listen, honey, you can’t rush love. Besides, I’m not sure I like him yet.”

  Joon rolled her eyes as Skinner pulled the door shut behind him.

  A few minutes later, Skinner came back into the bedroom with Gunther. He was as good-looking as Skinner had said. Joon studied the new boy closely for signs he liked Skinner, and sure enough, when Gunther spoke, he’d put his hand on Skinner and kept smiling and laughing a lot.

  After a while, Lulu curled up on the bed, and Joon pulled the worn quilt over her. “We gotta get some sleep,” Joon said, trying to let Gunther know it was time for him to go. “Lulu just got out of the hospital today, and the doctor said she needs to rest.”

  Gunther looked at Skinner and raised his eyebrows. “Do you wanna come across the hall for a while? We can play cards.”

  Skinner nodded a bit too enthusiastically. “Yeah, that sounds great.” He pranced to the door and turned back to Joon. “I’ll be back later,” he said.

  She smiled and nodded. After the boys were gone, she turned to Lulu. “I hope Skinner found a boyfriend. He wants intimacy so bad I think he can taste it.”

  Lulu winked at her friend. “What about you? Don’t you want to find love?”

  “I have found love; I love you like a sister. Besides, all I want is stability and happiness.”

  Lulu lay back on the bed, took Joon’s hand in her own, and within minutes, was sleeping. Joon lay awake for most of the night, worried sick about her friend and facing the fact that she may have been losing Skinner to the new boy.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  On their last night at Mallory’s house, Joon invited Skinner to take a walk around the block.

  “So you really like Gunther?”

  Skinner smiled. “I like him a lot.”

  “I noticed. You spent both nights in his room.” Joon glanced at her friend out of the side of her eye. “We’re leaving here tomorrow morning. Do you think you’re coming with us or going with Gunther?”

  He sighed deeply before responding. “I guess I’m gonna go with Gunther. Listen, I don’t know if him and me are gonna work out,” he said, rushing to finish, “but I have to give it a try. Gunther’s a good man, and he’s really smart.”

  “Sounds serious already.”

  Skinner let out a long breath. “It’s not like I love him or anything, but I’m real damn close. I adore being with him. The past couple of days have been a blast. Gunther is so much fun to be around. I have an idea though. What if you and Lulu come with us? We can all find a place together.”

  Joon shook her head slightly. “I appreciate the offer, but it will be too hard to find a place for four people. I think we go our own way, but we should make a plan to meet up somewhere once a week. That way we can stay close.”

  Skinner lowered his head, and his long hair fell over his face. “I’m sorry, Joon. I didn’t expect to meet anyone. I know you have a lot on your mind with Lulu being sick and all. I feel like a total asshole, abandoning you.”

  Joon thought about being separated from Skinner and shuddered as gloominess swept over her. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine. Lulu is going to do great. She has to go for dialysis more often to make her better. And it’s almost spring. The weather will be getting warmer, and then we’ll have more options.”

  Joon and Lulu decided to stay close to Mallory’s house. It was still in the city, but it was more residential, with lots of apartment buildings.

  “Where are we going?” Lulu asked as they walked.

  “You see those three buildings down the way?” Joon said, pointing. “Well, Gunther told Skinner they’re apartment complexes. They have open hallways to access their apartment from the inside. We’re gonna sleep in those hallways for a while.”

  “You think we’re gonna get away with that?”

  “Sure. If we go in when most people are either in bed, or watching television for the night, no one will notice us. We’ll have to get out early in the morning though. During the day, we can spend time at Suburban Station or the library.”

  “You’ve thought of everything,” Lulu remarked.

  “I’m worri
ed about you. Dr. Becker is worried about you too.”

  Lulu shook her head a bit. “I get it. I know that you’re worried, but this is why I didn’t tell you in the first place. Unless I get a new kidney, I can die. I knew that all along. I wanna live what life I have left the best that I can.” Lulu stopped walking and took both of Joon’s hands in her own. “I’ve never been close to anyone since my grandmom died. You’re the only one. I need you to relax about my health so that it doesn’t make me worry. Okay?”

  “Okay. But only if you promise that if you start to feel bad, you’ll tell me, so we go back to the hospital. Besides, my blood test will be back soon, and then I can give you one of my kidneys.”

  “I hope you’re a match, but if not, Dr. Becker will figure something out.”

  Over the next week, Joon and Lulu slept in the hallways of various apartment buildings.

  One morning, Joon turned to Lulu. “We’re not freezing to death in the hallways, but we need to camp out somewhere during the day. We need a place to store our shit, so we don’t have to carry it around all the time. I know this guy in South Philly. His name is Tony and he works at a bakery. We could go see him. Maybe he knows where we could squat.”

  As they stepped through the doors of the bakery later that morning, the aroma of the homemade cakes, cookies, and pies hit them in the face. They both breathed in deeply. Joon walked up to the woman behind the counter and said casually, “Hi, Donata. Is Tony here?”

  “Where the hell have you been?” the woman asked, a broad smile on her face. “It’s been too long since I set eyes on you.”

  Joon tilted her head and gave the woman a sweet smile. “I know. I’ve been out of town for a couple of years. It’s good to be back though.”

  “Well, it’s good to see you again. You wait here and I’ll get Tony.”

  When Donata returned, Tony was right behind her, and he rushed at Joon, so they could hug.

  Joon pulled back a little and looked at him. “We didn’t know where else to go. I thought maybe you would know of some place we can stay for a while…just until winter is over.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Oh, sorry. This is Lulu. We met several months back. She’s cool though.”

  “Nice to meet ya,” Tony said, extending his hand. “I’d love to help ya’s out, but I’m still staying in North Philly. I know there’s an abandoned warehouse on the nine-hundred block of Poplar Street. A place called the Quaker Storage Building. Some department store used it for storage a long time ago. I ain’t never been there myself, but I heard about it. People stay there in the winter. It ain’t too far and is probably worth going over there to check it out. Where were you staying before now?”

  “We were staying in an abandoned house. It caught on fire and we lost everything.”

  “Jesus. That’s a lot to go through. Hey, look,” Tony said and turned to Donata. “Can we get these two a bag of goodies to go?”

  Donata twisted the ring on her finger. She looked up at the girls with a heavy heart that shone through in her gaze. “I’m sorry things are so bad for you girls. I’ll keep you two in my prayers.” Then she grabbed a paper bag and filled it with pastries, cookies, and bread.

  Before leaving the bakery, Joon gave Tony a hug. “Thank you, Tony. I would be dead right now if it weren’t for you,” she whispered.

  “I’m always around if you need me,” Tony whispered back.

  As the girls went back out to the cold, Joon thought about Tony’s offer and it comforted her to know there was someone willing and able to protect her.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  The girls spent most of the day at Suburban Station, begging for money. Just before dusk, they walked to the Quaker Storage Building. The dirt-caked brick building was many stories tall, and there was a fair number of windows that remained intact on the upper floors. Several of the lower-level windows were boarded up or smashed out, leaving gaping holes in the building’s façade. The girls circled the structure until they came to an open entrance. They entered slowly, being hypervigilant as they walked into a large, open room. Several homeless groups were camped out in different places on the first floor.

  “Do you smell all the pot in this place?”

  Lulu nodded and held her nose. “I also smell the piss and shit.”

  “Come on,” Joon said. “Let’s go upstairs. Maybe there’re fewer people up there.”

  When the girls reached the second floor of the building, they found more groups. As they turned to walk back to the stairs, to check out the third floor, a girl ran toward them yelling.

  “Hey, you can’t go upstairs,” she said.

  Joon’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the young teen. “Why not?”

  “A lot of criminals and assholes stay on the higher floors. We have like an unspoken rule that us regular homeless people keep to the first and second floors. The dickheads on the higher floors don’t bother us, and we don’t bother them.”

  Joon flipped her hair over her shoulder. “How do we know you’re not lying?”

  The teen scoffed. “You don’t. Look, my name is Scarlet. My group is over there in the corner. If you wanna stay here, you should find a group. It’s safer than being by yourselves. I’m trying to help, but you can do what you want. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Joon and Lulu watched as Scarlet went back to her group.

  “What do you think?” Joon asked.

  “I think we should probably go hang with Scarlet and her group.” Lulu looked around the room. “It’s not like we have a better option. And if she’s right about the people on the upper floors, we need to be protected. Two girls on their own make an easy target.”

  “All right, but here’s the deal. If they’re anything like Fipple and the girls we just got rid of, we find another group. Okay?”

  Lulu put her arm over Joon’s shoulder. “Okay, whatever you say, boss. You know, technically, I should be the boss because I’m older than you.”

  Joon rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m the boss because I have the bigger mouth. Besides, I’m taking care of you, remember?”

  The girls approached the group slowly. Once they were in their space, the others all turned to stare at them.

  Joon stepped forward. “So I’m Joon, and this is Lulu. We thought you might let us join your group.”

  Scarlet smiled brightly. “They were gonna go upstairs, and I stopped them. Told ’em they could stay with us.”

  A boy stood and walked over to them. “I’m Rick. You’re welcome to stay as long as you agree to our laws. We share our beer, cigarettes, and pot. We all gotta bring in food or money. If any one of us is in trouble with another group in the building, we all fight. No stealing or fighting within our group. That’s about it.”

  Joon glanced at Lulu to show solidarity, but the rules made sense, so she quickly nodded. “That’s fine with us.” She held out what was left of the bag of baked goods Donata had given them. “We got these this morning.”

  Rick reached out, took the bag from her, and glanced in it. “This is great. Thanks.”

  The two joined the group, and once introductions were done, they all settled into their spot. Most of them were between fifteen and seventeen-years-old, and many had been on the streets for several years.

  Joon and Lulu lay together, attempting to generate body heat under the blankets that Skinner had given them. In the morning, Joon woke with stiff muscles. She pushed Lulu’s hair from her face and looked at her friend’s pale skin and the deep circles under her eyes. “How do you feel?”

  Lulu’s teeth chattered. “Like a fucking popsicle.”

  “Yeah, me too. Today we gotta get some better gear.”

  “Fine,” Lulu said. “We’ll rob a bank and buy everything we need.” She smiled a bit ruefully.

  Joon gave her a dry look before she started getting up. “Let’s get moving. It’ll help warm us up.”

  As the girls left the warehouse, Lulu asked, “Where are we
going today?”

  “I’m not sure. I figured we’d go to the library. Warm up a little. It’ll give us time to think.”

  They walked for a few minutes before Lulu broke the silence. “Joon, sometimes I get tired of having nowhere to go.”

  Joon glanced at her friend. “I know. It makes me feel lost. I don’t let myself think about it too much, but when I do, I feel like shit. I think about what life would have been like if my parents hadn’t died, and then I get pissed off. I didn’t do anything to deserve this shit and neither did you.”

  Lulu pulled her coat collar up. “The bright side is we have each other.”

  Joon looked at her friend again, a bit more intensely this time. “You and me are lucky that we met. I…never mind.”

  “What? What else were you gonna say?”

  Joon wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “I’m worried about you. About you being sick. What if I can’t take care of you? What if something bad happens?”

  “I’m going to be fine. I don’t want you to worry about me. You and me will always be together, even when we’re old and gray and walking with canes.”

  Joon wanted to believe her, but she didn’t know how to have hope about this. In place of optimism, Joon had learned how to retreat from her dark reality and focus inward, to maintain her sanity.

  She pulled the door to the library open, and the warm air hit them like a soft summer breeze. “I don’t think about what my life is gonna be like when I’m older. I’ve tried,” Joon said, “but I can’t see anything but all the nothingness I have now.”

  Lulu sat at the nearest table and took several deep breaths, trying to stabilize her breathing. “You have to think about where you’ll be when you grow up.”

  Joon laid her head on the table as she sat across from Lulu. “I don’t know how. Every day I live on the streets, all I can think about is how I’m going to eat or stay warm or get clean. Regular people don’t see us, ya know? They only see dirty people who must’ve done something wrong. People like Aron get to go on with their lives, and I get to live like an animal. I could’ve stayed at Aron’s house, and she probably would have killed me. The system failed me. People failed me. But what really bothers me is that I failed myself.”