Less Invisible

by Emma Rose

  Besides that, everything in New York City was expensive in relation to our tiny income. Most of the time, we just put toilet paper in our underwear during our periods to soak up the blood. We were both thin, so there was never much heavy bleeding, but we couldn't afford pads or tampons anyway. We couldn't spare eight dollars for the smallest box of feminine hygiene products if we wanted to eat and have toothpaste to use that week.

  People don't realize that when you don't have much money you end up buying basic things at more expensive prices. Like if you have an apartment, you just get water from the tap and pay a utility bill. You don't really think about how much it's costing you, but if you're homeless you have to buy bottled water at two or three dollars a bottle. If you need a new pair of socks, you can't afford to buy twelve pairs for fifteen dollars. You have to buy one pair for three dollars.

  Homeless people don't have credit cards so they can't order things online for a cheaper price and when you live in a city there is no Target or Walmart. If you want to buy something you're at the mercy of the crazy pricing of New York City's shop owners. They know they can overprice things because the Wall-Street businesspeople, the models, and the celebrities will pay for it anyway.

  So in short, although we tried to save up, we never got very far, certainly not far enough to even think about leasing an apartment. The most we ever saved was six hundred dollars, but it got stolen from us by a pick-pocketer, and just like that we were back to ground zero.

  There were some days as a teenager when I wanted nothing more than to go to high school and be a normal kid with a normal family. I envied the kids who went shopping in boutiques after school and went home to have dinner prepared by their stay-at-home mom and were driven by their dad to sports practice in the evening.

  Then, there were the days when I thought living on the streets wasn't so bad. Don't get me wrong; I always wanted a roof over my head and room to call my own, but there were times when the homeless community was kind to us. We met people with stories as tragic as our own and we bonded and we helped each other out when we could. Momma and I got stabbed in the back a few times but for the most part, the friends we made were good to us and we were good to them. When you're poor, you have to be authentic.

  You have to be real. Homeless people are going to tell you how it is.

  That's the one thing I always appreciated about the street community. People were genuine. Sometimes genuinely good and sometimes genuinely bad, but always straight-shooters.

  I tolerated homelessness for years. It sucked but I made peace with the situation by believing that if I could be happy homeless I would be beating the system that was so against from the day I was born. I thought that if I could have a positive attitude about homelessness, I'd be rubbing it in the face of a world that seemed to hate me. This mindset worked for me for a while, but everything changed when my Momma died and my world went to shit.

  CHAPTER FOUR: OLIVER

  2016

  "Oliver Michael Connors, what the hell were you thinking?" Will yelled at me from across the table. He was standing, arms crossed with his green eyes furious, and his red eyebrows furrowed. I was only sixteen and hadn't had my growth spurt yet. At 5'8" tall, I was respectable amongst my peers, but compared to Will who was completely ripped and 6'0"- I was nothing.

  Let me just say, I hated when Will went all 'dad' on me. He's four years older and dad was on a week-long business trip, but still, he's my brother and he was only twenty - practically a kid himself. Why did he think he had the right to act this way towards me?

  I rolled my eyes in exasperation trying to put on a show like I didn't care. I wasn't going to let him see that he was actually getting to me.

  "That's not an answer, Oliver. Do you seriously want me to tell Dad that I caught you with weed? Do you even realize how much trouble you'd be in if he found out?" Will said using his thumb to push my chin up, so I would have to look him in the eye.

  "God, I get it, Will, I won't do it again. But honestly what's the big deal anyway?"

  "What's the big deal? Weed is illegal, Oliver. Do you want to throw away your future by getting kicked out of school- or even worse yet- by going to jail? Sometimes I just don't get it with you," Will said shaking his head in both anger and disappointment.

  Will had found a bag of weed in my backpack the night before. He thought I got it from a friend and that I only tried it one time. Little did he know, I was the biggest drug dealer in school. I was the go-to person people came to when they wanted a fix.

  But believe it or not, I never set out to become a drug prince, it just happened little by little.

  The first time I tried drugs I was in the seventh grade. I had just gotten on the Varsity basketball team and I was willing to do anything to fit in.

  I hadn't been a popular kid in elementary school. I mean, I had ADHD, an out of place Irish accent, and my best friend was one of the biggest losers in school, so it made sense, but I really wanted that to change in junior high.

  I walked inside the locker room after practice one day, and all of the other boys were snickering and looking in my direction.

  "He won't do it," I heard someone say condescendingly.

  "Ah, give him a chance. He's a Mick. They're always drunk over there. Who knows he might like to get high too," Caleb, the captain of the team sneered. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair; he was the tallest, strongest student in the entire junior high. He was not a person you messed with.

  I glanced over at Caleb nervously. He had a devilish smile and a cocky gleam in his eyes. I felt my stomach drop. "Damn, this can't be happening," I thought.

  "Do you know what this is, Connors?" he said, holding out a little piece of rolled-up white paper with what looked to be pieces of leaves inside.

  I looked down at his hand and didn't answer.

  "It's pot, Irish boy. Weed, marijuana. Heard of it?"

  I nodded slowly. Of course, I'd heard of it. I just hadn't been offered it before. My pops was constantly warning me about staying away from drugs.

  "Good. Now, we have a little rule about this, here," he said twirling the homemade cigarette in his fingers thinking he was the coolest person in the world. "You smoke this and you like it... or you're off my team."

  My eyes grew wide, blood rushed to my face, and my palms got sweaty.

  I did not want to smoke that thing. But I felt like I didn't have a choice. The desire to fit in and have friends was my only goal in life at the time. If this is what I had to do to make that happen, then I was going to do it.

  Reluctantly, I grabbed the weed out of Caleb's palm with my shaking hands.

  "That-a-boy," Caleb cheered, giving me a harsh pat on the back.

  I swallowed nervously and examined what I was holding like it was a ticking time bomb.

  "Here," Caleb said. He had pulled a lighter out and was now proceeding to light the drug. "Now go ahead, try."

  Nervously and with dread, I pulled it up to my lips.

  "Go on!" Caleb said while all the other boys watched and sneered.

  Quickly I closed my eyes, placed the cigarette in between my thin red-pink lips, and inhaled. I hated the taste. It was horrible. I immediately coughed and pulled the thing away from my mouth.

  I looked up and much to my surprise, the whole locker room was cheering like monkeys.

  Caleb chuckled and brought me in for a 'man-hug'. "Welcome to the team. Don't worry, give it a few more tries and you'll like it."

  I nodded and weakly reciprocated his fist pump.

  Suddenly, I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. It was a call from my father. He was probably waiting outside to pick me up. Honestly, I was relieved.

  "Hey, I got to go," I murmured, but nobody noticed. They were too busy hyping each other up. I quickly escaped to the safety of my dad's hatchback before they invited me to the park to light up.

  "Hey, chief! How was it?" Dad asked cheerfully as I slid into the passenger's seat.

  "Good," I lied
. I was so upset, but I didn't dare talk to my dad about it because I was afraid of what he would say. Instead, I just popped my earbuds in and zoned out into loneliness as U2 blasted into my eardrums. Dad wrote it off as just a preteen mood.

  As time passed it got easier and easier for me to say 'yes' when I was offered drugs. I began to accept it as something I had to do in order to be cool. A few months after my first experience with pot, I tried doing whippets. Halfway through eighth-grade, was the first time I had a ketamine pill.

  When I went to high school, Caleb asked me to be his wingman in regards to selling drugs. His dad grew marijuana in their apartment, and then traded it on the streets for all the crazy stuff. I agreed. I was already knee-deep in it all; why not start making some money off it? Caleb taught me all the tricks of the trade. The best places and times to sell it. How much to sell it for, who to sell it to, and most importantly of all how to keep it all a secret and not get caught.

  In a few months, I knew everything. Caleb was satisfied with how he had trained me, so he left school to help out his father. After all, now that I could take care of selling to the high schoolers, there was no point in him wasting his time there anymore.

  Being the 'drug prince' had its perks. First, the girls. If I wanted some, I got some. Second, the cash flow, for the first time in my life I was able to buy nice things for myself- new clothes, new phone, new everything. Third, everyone loved me. I mean not really loved me. Like they didn't really care about me or how I felt or how I was doing, but they treated me like a prince because I had what they wanted- a way to get high.

  The only problem with it all was that I wasn't happy. I was lonely and miserable. Instead of using drugs to climb the social ladder, I was now relying on them to manage a deep-set depression. There were lots of times I thought about ending it all, but then I remembered Jemma.

  Jemma, kind, gentle, sweet, Jemma. She was my very best friend for all of my childhood school days until one day in seventh grade when she just stopped coming. I remember I was rude about something and pissed her off, but it was only because I was still in a bad mood the day after my first smoke.

  Years after I last saw her, I would remember her happy smile, her gorgeous carefree laugh, and her gentle touch. When Jemma was in my life, she was always there for me. Now that she was gone, the memory of her and the hope that someday I would see her again kept me going.

  I kept my life, my drugs that is, a secret from my father and brother for almost four years. I typically kept drugs on my body where no one could find them and told my family that I had an after school job as a tutor to explain the money I was earning.

  I don't think they ever had a clue, until, well, until now when my brother rooted through my backpack to find a stupid cell phone charger.

  "Well!" Will exclaimed slapping me upside the head. "What do you have to say for yourself, Oliver Michael?"

  Suddenly, tears started to fill my eyes not because the slap really hurt, but because I was angry my brother had found me out and ashamed of the way my life was turning out.

  Will pulled a chair over and sat down beside me. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed as I sniffled and tried to control myself.

  He placed one of his big hands gently on my shoulder, "Ollie, look at me bud."

  I gazed into his eyes like a stupid, lost puppy.

  "Are you okay?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

  I nodded my head.

  "Alright then, mate," he smiled, ruffling my hair, "I won't tell Dad. Just promise you won't do anything stupid like this again. Got it?"

  "Okay, Willy," I agreed, ready to have the conversation end.

  "Let's go grab some pizza, alright?" Will suggested.

  "Okay," I answered feeling shy.

  "Why does my brother have to be so perfect and why do I always have to fuck things up?" I wondered. I felt like shit compared to Mr. NYU, perfect smile, church boy Will, but it's like they say, some people are just born wild.

  CHAPTER FIVE: JEMMA

  2018

  My Momma died on a Tuesday in April or maybe it was a Wednesday. When you're homeless, keeping track of the days doesn't matter as much.

  In movies and books, when sad stuff happens, it always rains, but it was a sunny 70-degree day when my Momma died.

  That morning we were walking from a shelter we had spent the night in to the subway where we would sing and perform for change. We were crossing the street like we did every day when some mad man in a taxi drove right through the intersection on a red light. Momma pushed me away from the car, but she didn't get herself out of the way in time. The cab hit her and she died instantly when her head hit the asphalt. I can still hear the crash in my head. The car horns, the screaming, the screeching tires, the thud of Momma's body hitting the road, and then, of course, the sound of my uncontrollable crying.

  I could not be consoled. Not by strangers who came my way, not by social workers, not by anybody. I told them all to fuck off and then they looked at me like I was some sort of horrible bitch. The one and only person in the world who loved me had died; how did they expect me to react? I was now officially all alone in the world.

  The police came and the ambulances, but no one could help my Momma. She was dead. They sent her to the hospital for an autopsy, then to the morgue, and then to the crematory. I didn't have money for a funeral so I, at eighteen years old, signed a release form with the coroner's office, and Momma's ashes were buried in a common grave on Hart Island off the Bronx. It all happened in twenty-four hours. It was both the fastest and slowest day of my life.

  People offered to help me out. There was a charity at the hospital that would have given me a place to say and food to eat, but I declined. I felt alone and I wanted to be alone.

  I headed to Central Park to camp out when it was all said and done because that was my Momma's favorite place. I laid my sleeping bag down under a tree. It was dusk and all I wanted to do was sleep. Sleep would numb the pain for a while. I closed my eyes, but to my horror sleep didn't come. Instead, all the memories of Momma came flooding back.

  Her ocean blue eyes.

  Her long blonde hair.

  Her brilliant smile.

  The way she would give to other people when she had hardly anything to give.

  Lighting candles together in St. Patrick's cathedral.

  Her angelic voice ringing through the subway station when she would sing, Amazing Grace.

  The words she'd whisper to me every night: Jemma, you are worth more than you know. Someday you'll go and do amazing things in this world.

  Her soft hand holding mine as we fell asleep.

  I shut my eyes tight and bit my lip to try to stop crying, but it did no good. The tears just kept coming and coming until finally my body gave up and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX: JEMMA

  After Momma died, I no longer felt content with being homeless. Singing on the streets wasn't the same without her and sleeping under bridges by yourself is lonely. I remembered what Momma used to say to me "someday you'll go and do amazing things in this world." Growing up, I didn't really believe her, but now I wanted to prove her right.

  I wanted to get a job, but I didn't know how. Plus, after only completing half of the seventh grade, I was sure no one would want to hire me.

  I was left with only one option, I would have to sing. It was the only thing I knew how to do. I wasn't really sure if I was any good or not, but I was able to make a decent amount with Momma before, so I was sure I might be able to make some now. Plenty of people told us my voice sounded just like Momma's and one thing's for sure, Momma had a beautiful voice.

  My plan was to hustle as much as I could so that I could save up and be able to afford a lease on an apartment by fall. Of course, I wasn't sure how I would do it without a bank account or any experience with that sort of thing, but I had a newfound determination and I wasn't going to let anything stop me. After I got a roof over my head, I would get a real job.

  Every day, I
woke up at dawn, washed up in a McDonald's or some other public restroom, and set out for the day with all of my belongings in my hands or on my back. I never carried around much, just my sleeping bag, a grocery bag with some toiletries, and an old black back-pack with a few extra changes of clothes.

  Then, I'd wander around until I found a spot that felt right to me that day. Maybe it was a street corner, in front of a theatre, times square, or of course there was always the subway station. About five days into my solo singing career, I decided to sing on Union Square. I'm not really sure why, but it just felt lucky to me. Thankfully, my intuition had never been more right.

  I was starving that day because I hadn't eaten since the morning before, but I didn't want to spend much money on food because I needed to save every penny for the apartment. It was also rainy the entire day, which is not good for any street performer, so I was in a crappy mood. Let's just say it was a sad song day.