by Addison Jane
Hearing the bell on the door ring, indicating a customer had come in, I ventured out, now refreshed and ready. It was strange to have the people come into the shop and speak to me like I was just another person. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia to know they had no idea that after the next few hours, I’d head back to the small tent on Bayward Street that I called home. Knowing that they could full well pass me on the street the next day and look the opposite way, slipping me into that box of ‘just another teen who had run from home and now couldn’t support themselves.’ They would look the other way or cross the street, so they didn’t have to make eye contact or pretend to ignore me as I pleaded for change.
No. In that moment, to them, I was a young girl with a job, helping them clean wine stains out of their shirts or vomit stains from their sheets because their child had been sick the night before.
I was someone else.
And it felt good to be that person, even if only for a moment.
It was almost lunch time when Mr. Song shooed me from his store with two apples and a peanut butter sandwich. I graciously thanked him and sighed in relief as I skated away, tucking the food into my bag even though my body ached to slide into an alleyway where no one could see me and scoff it all down. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning when some random guys had dropped off bottled water and a pizza as they videotaped their good deed on a camera.
It made me embarrassed and also a little angry that we were being used to validate their contribution to society. Just so they could go home and upload it to the Internet and show everyone how they had braved the lowly depths of scum, and were saving the world one pizza at a time. I desperately wanted to tell them to shove their damn pizza up their ass, and come back when their intentions were pure and from the heart, not just because they wanted a million hits on YouTube.
But if living on the streets had taught me one thing, it was that sometimes we needed to swallow our pride and accept the help that people offered, whether it was genuine or not. You didn’t survive here by being stubborn.
And essentially, survival was our main goal.
My body felt peace as I rolled to a stop at the end of the street that we called home. Bayward was a dead end street where a section of a new motorway had been put through a few years back. We lived underneath it, in what I would describe as a small community.
Ten tents grouped in a tight circle. Some broken pavement and logs surrounded an old drum which we used to create a fire when the weather was cooler. There was a high wire fence that was a sad attempt at keeping people out from underneath the roadway, but it never stopped us. If anything, it protected us from anyone who might stroll by and think that we’d be easy pickings.
We weren’t oblivious to the fact that teens who lived on the streets went missing every single day. Predators knew that no one would care if they disappeared. We could report it all we liked, but for the most part, the police felt as though they had better things to do than search the city for some anonymous teen who’d spent their time causing more problems for society than they were worth.
I ducked through the discreet hole in the fence before covering it back up and clomping through the rough terrain in my blades to my home.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called, slipping between the gap in two tents.
Layla sat atop one of the makeshift seats and turned to me, her face lighting up as she saw me. “How was Mr. Song today?”
Chuckling, I sat down next to her, tossing my bag to the ground beside me and beginning to remove my rollerblades. They were my prize possession. Getting around the city was made a lot easier when you had wheels and didn’t need to use your feet.
“Same old Mr. Song.”
She smiled and nodded like she knew exactly what I meant. “Kyle and Lee took off about five minutes ago, did you see them?”
I shook my head. “Where were they headed?”
“Making the trip across town to talk to that uncle of theirs.”
I pulled out the two apples from my bag and tossed her one. She caught it easily, her sad eyes brightening as she eyed the food. She hurried a thanks and took a huge bite, juice dripping from her chin.
“They’re going to see him again?” I asked curiously before ripping into my own apple with my teeth.
“They’ll be eighteen next month,” she mumbled around a mouthful of fruit. Layla was beautiful, even with little bits of spit and food shooting from her lips. Her blonde hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and her blue eyes were the color of the sky on the clearest of days. “They think he might be able to give them a job as soon as they’re legal to work behind the bar.”
Kyle and Lee were identical twins. Their parents had kicked them out at around fourteen when Lee had finally come out of the closet. Kyle was straight but had supported his brother’s way of life. Therefore, his parents had also given him the boot. Not that he would have ever stayed there without Lee, they were inseparable and hated being away from each other for longer than a day or two.
While most people would be shocked and surprised that a parent could push their children out onto the streets, not caring if they didn’t have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs, this story was one that we all knew well.
People often looked down on us, thinking that we were rebellious and rule breakers. But the reality was that the streets had made us this way. We didn’t all one day just get sick of our parents and decide we’d be better off living on the streets, begging for our next meal.
We wanted a home, and we desperately needed someone to give a shit about us, offer us safety and love, and some kind of security. The things we never got from our real families, but that we found here, in a dark, dingy hole in a back street of the city with people who had nothing to give but their hearts.
“Fable!” A heavy arm draped across my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug.
My body leaned into Eazy, feeling comfortable in his arms. For sixteen the kid was big, even though I’d watched his muscle and weight deteriorate since he’d been here. But he still made me feel safe.
“Hey E.”
“Layla said she was keen to hit the metro station later tonight. You want to come?”
Offering Eazy half of my apple, he smiled gratefully. “Yeah, I’ll come. Will Kyle and Lee be back in time do you think?”
Layla shrugged. “It’s a hike to the other side of town where their uncle’s club is located. It’s gonna take them a good couple hours to get there and back. I’m sure we’ll be okay to go without them.”
Layla was amazing on the guitar, she played with heart and passion. It was the one thing she’d never let be affected by her life on the street–her love for music.
Nerves settled in my stomach. I hated hitting the metro stations at night without a solid group of us. But it was one of the ways we made money to help us survive. And as it was, Friday night was the optimal time. There were people leaving the city after Friday night drinks with their businesses, or people heading into the center of the city to see the lights or hit the night clubs. And alcohol made people more generous with their money, but also made them a lot more unpredictable.
“We’ll be fine, Fay. We can take Andre and Coop.” Eazy gave me another squeeze before tossing the polished off apple core into the fire drum. “It’s gonna be all good.”
I couldn’t help but return his smile as he hit me with a boyish grin. While E had only been with us for a few months, he’d instantly become someone who I could trust.
We hung out for the rest of the day, listening to Layla tinkle on her guitar and another of our friends, Daisy, play sweet melodies on her violin. Just like Layla, Daisy thrived on music and sometimes I wondered if it was the only thing that kept her sane.
As night time drew near, I had hoped that Kyle would make it back in time to make the trip with us down to the station. Kyle was the one I felt the safest with, he was heavy set and smart, always had his eyes watching. While I wasn’t afraid to throw a punch or fight for mysel
f if provoked, I wasn’t naive enough to think that there weren’t men out there who were a lot stronger than me. And if that was the case and I was caught alone, I hated to think what could happen.
We would travel together but split up at various points in order to hit different groups of people. The way we worked was strategic and well planned. It needed to be. The streets of the city and the subway were dangerous on a good day, but at night they could be deadly.
I found my favorite pair of dark denim low rise jeans and pulled them on. Unfortunately for me, they’d just been washed and dried that day so pulling them on meant I struggled with them for ten minutes as I attempted to shimmy them up my legs, the fabric clutching to me for dear life even with the high amount of stretch they contained.
“You seriously should just get some new jeans,” Layla commented, watching in amusement as I lay on the floor of my tent, attempting to suck my stomach in and force the buttons together. It was an art form.
“Yeah, maybe it’s time for some backyard clothesline shopping.” I nodded in agreement as I pushed up off the ground and climbed out.
Layla clapped her hands. “Oh, I love that store, they have such a range to choose from.”
I gasped mockingly. “And it’s right in our price range.”
We both laughed as I hooked my arm through hers and pulled her toward the fence where the boys and Daisy were waiting.
Stealing was a very real part of how we survived. Clothing people had hung out to dry. A bag or a purse someone wasn’t keeping an eye on. Sometimes it was even money or wallets straight out of someone’s pocket. Pick-pocketing wasn’t my forte, but some of the other kids here had it down to a fine art.
We all risked a lot by thieving from people. Being caught meant possibly being arrested and time away–some of us already suffered through that punishment and were not ready to go back. We’d all prefer to have a job and earn money that way, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. But so far most people were reluctant to hire us, most of us had some type of criminal record and some of us were hiding away, so having a job meant it would be easy for people to track us down.
The thought made me shudder. Going back to my parents would be a death sentence. My father had survived my stabbing attempt, and he was out for blood—my blood.
And I would rather risk my life on these streets than give him the gratification of being the one to end it.
The streets were busy, bustling just like it was daytime.
People avoided us like the plague as the six of us strolled down the street laughing and shoving each other. Acting like a group of normal teens during a night out. Or at least that’s what I thought it would look like. I hadn’t really ever been given the opportunity to be a regular teen.
My father never let me leave the house unless it was for school. And the situation I was in now, was really anything but normal.
We stopped at the nearest stairwell that led to the tracks.
Some of the stations had full barred doors that you had to push through after swiping your metro card. But there were some stations, like this one, that only had one single bar that came across at your waist. Which meant we could jump it easily.
We stood at the top, needing to time our approach perfectly. There needed to be a train on the platform when we jumped, so we could run straight for it and hope we made it in time before the doors shut. There was sometimes security on the platform or at the gates, and as soon as they saw us, we were done for, so it had to be perfect.
I felt the rumble of a train below my feet and took a deep breath. “Let’s go!”
Taking the stairs two at a time, my friends’ footsteps echoed in the concrete space as they followed me down. My eyes looked around as I ran toward the entrance bars, not spotting anyone but not wanting to wait around to find out.
I vaulted over the skinny metal bar just as the train ahead of me pulled to a stop and the doors slowly slid open. My friends were quick, even with Eazy having to lift Daisy over the bar before throwing his own body across.
I dived through the doors of the train, one after another they followed me inside, Eazy squeezing in just as the doors began to close. The carriage we’d stepped into was pretty empty, but a few people still eyed us warily. I simply grinned and waved at them over-enthusiastically, and they quickly looked away.
“What stop are we getting off at?” Daisy asked, still breathing heavily.
“As close to the city center as possible. Andre and Coop can get off with you, and we can carry on to the next station.” I knew Andre and Coop were capable of holding their own against any trouble even though they were smaller than Eazy. They looked older than a lot of us, which was usually enough to deter any assholes from thinking they could pick on a bunch of kids. Especially when Daisy looks like a little porcelain doll, with her dark hair and pale white skin, and the fact that she was all of five foot nothing.
Ten minutes and one impromptu pole dance from Layla later, Daisy and the boys jumped off. More people climbed on the train at the station, and that gave me hope that tonight might be a good night.
As if on cue, my stomach grumbled angrily. Neither Eazy nor Layla took any notice, no doubt their own doing exactly the same thing. One thing we all knew, though, was that no matter what, we’d find some way to get through another day. Together.
We got off at the next station and set ourselves up.
Layla placed her thick sweatshirt on the cold concrete floor and laid out her guitar case before sitting down and quietly picking at the strings.
I sat a few feet away on top of my backpack, and Eazy sat down the line further on a bench seat, looking like he was just another guy waiting for a train. We found that people were more likely to give money to girls than they were to boys. We were more approachable and more able to pull on the heart strings. Boys tended to not like to admit that they were struggling.
E was one of those kids.
We were right to take advantage of this Friday night. As Layla filled the station with the beautiful sound of her guitar and voice, people were entranced with the sweet melodic sounds that came from her, and the way her fingers drifted so effortlessly over the strings of her instrument. The girl had some serious talent.
The flow of people was even busier than usual. We heard comments about Twisted Transistor, an internationally known rock band playing a gig not far from the station we were at. If you didn’t know who they were, you were living under a rock, a large massive fucking rock. They were everywhere, especially when their lead man Ryder Oakley ended up with a Motorcycle Club Princess. When that news story broke, so did hearts all around the world.
Lucky for us, the concert worked in our favor, because the people were mostly young and pumped up ready for a concert, and seeing Layla playing her guitar just helped to elevate their excitement. I watched in amazement as they stood around Layla, requesting songs and singing along with her as they tossed money into her guitar case.
Eazy moved a little closer, situating himself in the crowd of young people, so Layla was within reach. A lot of these kids were drunk already, and while they were being generous with their change, some began to get a little too boisterous.
After about twenty minutes, I could tell Layla was started to wear down and needed to take a break. But the enthusiastic fans chanted for her to keep playing. Eazy caught my eye and we both started to push through the crowd that had gathered.
“Sorry guys, we need a small intermission,” I called over them as they chanted for her to play something from their favorite band. Most groaned and moved away, heading up the stairs with their excited voices bouncing off the walls as they prepared themselves for what, I don’t doubt, would be an amazing concert.
“Come on, I gave you money, I want a show,” one guy slurred. He was wearing a Twisted Transistor T-shirt, but with how drunk he was, I could almost guarantee that the security on the door wasn’t going to let him or his buddies inside.
E stepped in front of Layla, folding his arms
across his chest. “You got a show, now get lost.”
A guy behind them pulled out a fifty dollar note and waved it in the air. My eyes widened. “How bad do you want this money?” he taunted, his body swaying slightly.
The others chuckled, but Layla, E and I stood our ground, not saying a word.
“I’ve heard of you homeless kids. Willing to do pretty much anything for a few dollars.” His voice was cold and calculated despite his inebriated state. “You girls take your shirts off and give us a little show, and it’s all yours.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped, taking a step forward, my anger spiking. “We don’t want your rich kid ‘daddy pays for fucking everything’ money.”
I heard another train pulling up to the platform in the background, the rush of wind billowing around us and chilling my body.
A flash of darkness flared in the boy’s eyes. He reached out and wrapped his hand around my wrist, pushing me back against the concrete wall. Eazy moved to step in, but one of the other guys threw a sucker punch, hitting E on the side of the head and throwing him off balance.
“Eazy,” Layla screamed as one of them jumped on top of him, he got another punch in before he was thrown off and Eazy leaped on him, delivering a harsh blow to the kid’s cheek.
The bastard moved in closer, but I wasn’t about to take this crap lying down. I pulled him toward me and raised my knee, connecting it with his stomach. He doubled over but didn’t release me. Instead, he pulled on my arm, tossing my body to the ground. My elbow connected with the concrete and I cried out in pain, the jolt bringing tears to my eyes.
I heard hurried footsteps around me and loud voices. Out the corner of my eye, I saw someone pick up Layla around the waist and pull her away from where she was attempting to drag the two other guys off Eazy as they had him pinned to the ground.
I screamed as I felt a foot connect with my ribs and looked up to see my attacker looming over me, spouting some crazy shit from his mouth that I couldn’t understand due to the pain taking over my senses.
