Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Fair. You think I should send him to Croton?’ she asked, referring to the high-security forensic hospital near the Connecticut border.

  ‘It’s a thought. I mean this could turn out to be small potatoes, but with two dead, someone pulling a gun, and someone else trying to get himself shot, someone’s worried and playing high stakes.’

  ‘Good point,’ she said, hearing the concern in his voice. ‘And, Ed …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll be by in the hour. And for God’s sake, please watch out. If you can’t do it for you, think about your kid.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, trying to use humor to battle her mounting fear. ‘I’ll stay in my office and hide under my desk.’ But her every thought triggered fresh waves of jitters. She’d put herself in harm’s way, albeit for the best of reasons, Jerod could have gotten shot … or someone else, and she had a baby to take care of, and she’d pissed off Janice more than she’d ever done, and it was clear that snaky Hugh was lobbying for her job, and at the rate she was going he’d probably get it too.

  ‘Good, then I’ll know where to find you.’

  FIVE

  At twenty-five, Chase Strand, a Department of Family and Youth Services social worker, could have been a model in the magazines to which he was addicted. Sitting in his small corner office that smelled of citrus zest, he glared at the cover of Men’s Vogue. Normally, he’d spend an enjoyable half-hour flipping pages while comparing his looks to those of the men in the glossy ads for Prada, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Abercrombie’s, and all the rest, commenting aloud, ‘He’s pretty good looking,’ ‘I’m better looking than him,’ ‘I’m much better looking than him,’ ‘How does that guy even get work?’ And then he’d think through the possible surgical solutions that might improve the model’s looks, a rhinoplasty, perhaps a chin implant. He’d evaluate the bodies of the underwear models and compare their features to his perfect abs, chest, shoulders, and legs, toned by daily workouts in his state-of-the-art home gym. He’d peer intently at each page as though his gaze could melt through the airbrushing, trying to see who’d had calf or pec implants.

  But not now. As he waited for his next pathetic excuse for a human being client, he was worried; his thoughts were dark; and he was furious, shit was coming undone, and he hated this feeling of things being out of his control. Making certain his door was locked, he reached into his Gucci briefcase and pulled out a prepaid and untraceable cell phone. He dialed Marky, and as soon as the phone picked up, laid in to him. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He was running,’ Marky said, sounding winded. ‘He knew I was looking for him.’

  ‘Why would he think that?’ Chase pushed. ‘Why was he even with those two? You should have made sure they were alone.’

  ‘Chase, I don’t know what Jerod was doing there. He’s been hanging around them, doing stuff for them … I think he was into that girl Carly. He was spouting some sort of bullshit about her being kidnapped. It didn’t make any sense.’

  Chase felt rage. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Marky! Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’ve been looking everywhere for him. I swear I’ll find him.’

  ‘You better, and take care of him.’

  Chase wanted to hit something, or someone. Every word from Marky reeked of carelessness and stupidity, but he had to pull it back. ‘OK, Marky, I know Bobby had one of the regular cells, and I know you didn’t retrieve it. It’s either with the body or somehow that nutcase got his hands on it. There’s also one missing from my loft; it’s not meant to go with the family kids, it’s for something else. Do you know anything about it? There were half a dozen on the living-room table next to the leather sofa. When I looked there were only five. Did you take one?’

  ‘Oh shit! I thought that was one of the ones I could take. I thought you’d gotten new phones, and I needed one …’

  ‘So you have it?’

  ‘No, oh shit.’

  ‘Who has it?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Chase, please don’t be mad … I gave it to Bobby; he said his wasn’t working. It was right before … I didn’t want him to be suspicious.’

  Chase looked down at his perfectly manicured nails and his long fingers. He pictured them around Marky’s throat. He’d watch as the fair-haired man’s face turned bright red. He’d see the fear in his eyes, desire, longing. ‘I need those cells, Marky. Find Jerod and get them. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Chase … If … when I get them, will you see me?’

  ‘Get them and we’ll talk.’ At least he’s motivated, Chase mused, knowing that Marky would do anything, absolutely anything, he asked.

  ‘I swear I’ll get them back.’

  Chase hung up, and stared at the handsome man on the magazine cover, knowing that could easily have been him. On numerous occasions, since he’d been a teen, he’d been approached by talent agents and modeling executives. They’d tell him he had the look, that he could do both commercial and lucrative editorial and high-fashion work. He’d smile, flash perfect white teeth, let them linger on his blemish-free skin, full lips, high cheekbones that gave his face a slightly feline quality, and his thick head of near-black hair that he currently wore a bit longer than usual so that its natural wave could flop casually across his forehead and curl at the base of his neck. But it was his large golden-brown eyes framed by long lashes that were his best feature. They’d offer him contracts and set him up with important photographers to get a book put together – all on them. He’d enjoyed the photo shoots, and more importantly the hard, cold, photographic evidence of his beauty. But his face, his body … his cock were not on the market, at least not to be used by anyone other than Chase; they gave him power and control. Being a male model, or some pretty boy actor, was not the future he envisioned. He was going to have true power, respect, authority, and money; he was going to be a plastic surgeon, and to achieve this he would do whatever it took, which currently included dealing dope to wealthy college kids and the occasional sale of young white girls to foreign brothels or to men with wealth and a taste for something pretty, young, and disposable. Medical school wasn’t cheap, and even with scholarships he was looking at 40K a year for tuition alone, not to mention the taxes and fees on his condo – nearly five grand a month – and his need for high-end clothing. He couldn’t possibly get by on less than two hundred a year and even that was tight.

  His phone rang; it was the receptionist. ‘Hi, Chase,’ her voice slightly breathless, ‘I’ve got your grandma’s aide on the phone. Do you want me to take a message?’

  ‘No,’ he said, bracing for the worst, ‘put her through’.

  The line clicked. ‘Mr. Strand, this is Dorothy, I hope you don’t mind me calling you at work.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said, wondering what this was about to cost.

  ‘I just thought you should know I’m starting to see skin breakdown on Grace’s lower back, I don’t think second shift have been turning her as often as they’re supposed to.’

  ‘How bad is it?’ He pictured his grandmother, with her angel-white hair and wrinkle-free face.

  ‘I think I caught it in time, but she needs an inflatable mattress cover, preferably one with adjustable temperature … Medicaid won’t pay for that.’

  ‘How much?’ he asked, knowing he’d pay. Grace Strand was the only person in the world who’d ever given him a taste of that most elusive drug – unconditional love.

  ‘The best one’s about fifteen hundred dollars.’ She was about to say more when he interrupted.

  ‘Just do it, I’ll pay you this weekend, and pick up some more of those microwavable bed-bath packs.’

  ‘Sure, and Mr. Strand …’

  ‘Dorothy, after all these years you can call me Chase.’

  ‘Chase, I really appreciate how you take care of her, you’d be amazed how few do.’

  ‘She’s a great woman,’ he said, flashing on an ancient memory of playing by his grandmother’s side as she pick
ed tomatoes and basil from the garden behind her three-story home in Park Slope. As he hung up, he knew that in addition to the $1500 for the inflatable mattress cover – probably an inflated price – he’d also slip Dorothy an extra couple hundred. On Saturday, he’d take the subway to Flatbush, as he did every week, to the hellhole of a nursing home that had warehoused his grandmother for twenty-one years, ever since she suffered a catastrophic stroke, with what the doctors called locked-in syndrome. He’d sit with her and hold her hand, feeling the crêpe-paper fragility of her skin. He’d talk to her about his ambitions, that he was going to be a doctor, that his aunts – her daughters – Kelly and Donna with their fat husbands and ugly children would regret the way they’d treated him, and treated her. Grace had taken Chase in after his parents had died within a year of each other. His nearly famous fashion-model mother OD’d on heroin. Ten months later his cracked-out nightclub-promoting father blew his heart out at the end of a glass pipe – Chase was four. Yet strangely, the following months living with his grandmother were the happiest of his life. Then Grace had her stroke. He found her on the kitchen floor, her eyes open, unable to move, spittle dribbling from the corner of her mouth. The brightest light in his life had just gone out. His aunts Kelly and Donna, both with their own families, refused to take him in. Years later he’d understand why, too jealous of his beautiful mother to give a shit about him, and furious that any money Grace had, as well as the big house in Park Slope, was sucked up by the state to pay for her nursing home. At the age of five Chase became a ward of the state, and like the kids he now worked with, his life was a series of foster homes and group homes. When he was still very young there was always the hope of full adoption, and likely couples dangled the prospect of a stable home, security … love. But each time something got in the way, and he’d find himself, battered suitcase in hand, moving toward the next.

  The worst came when he was thirteen, just removed from the foster family he’d been with for three years after he’d attacked his foster father, who’d tried to rape him. His foster mother had called him a liar; it wasn’t the first time. Given the chance, he would have killed them both and felt no remorse, but now, sitting in his small office, with its single window, he realized that if it hadn’t been for that horrible twist of fate he’d never have met Janice. And one of the many ironies in their relationship was that while he regretted not bashing in the skull of his foster father, it was with Janice and her cheating husband that he got his first heady rush of what it feels like to take another’s life.

  His intercom buzzed again. ‘Chase, your three o’clock is here.’

  ‘Send her down.’

  Moments later, a knock at his door.

  ‘Yes.’ He looked up as someone tried to turn the handle; of course it was locked. Chase couldn’t stand being intruded on. He got up, as a girl called through the door.

  ‘It’s Morgan. I’m here for my appointment.’

  He smoothed back a bang and opened the door onto a fifteen-year-old dressed in a midriff-baring jersey top, low-rider jeans with faux stone-washed stripes that ran up the front of her thighs and down her back from ass to ankle, and bright pink flip-flops with red beads on the straps. Her hair was a mess of home-dyed blonde, streaked with near-white highlights. Her blue eyes, lined in black with mascara that had clumped, looked up at her six-foot-two gorgeous hunk of a counselor. ‘Hi, Chase.’

  ‘Hey, Morgan, come on in.’ He met her gaze, enjoying the effect he had on her. ‘How’s your month been?’ he asked, motioning her toward a chair on the other side of his desk.

  ‘You have no idea,’ she said dramatically as she flopped down, her left leg hooked over the seat’s padded arm, her midriff exposed. ‘Everything sucks! My life sucks! I wish I were dead. I can’t believe I have to stay at that place for three years. You got to get me out of there.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘let’s get the details. I take it that you’re not loving the new group home.’

  ‘Yeah, right, that place is for retards, Chase. They don’t let me do anything; it’s like being a prisoner. The food sucks, there’s a nine o’clock curfew, they don’t have TVs in the bedrooms, and they won’t let us have cell phones; they don’t even have Internet! My roommate’s on medication and I don’t mean to be a total bitch, but she stinks, like shit, the whole place stinks.’

  ‘How long have you been in there?’ he asked, not caring, but finding that the words just came.

  ‘Two weeks. I can’t take it. Please get me back into a foster family.’

  Chase looked at the top folder on his desk; they were all thick and Morgan’s was no exception. She’d been a ward of the system since she was two. Failed out of a dozen foster homes, and was now in her fourth or fifth group-home placement. ‘OK,’ he said, looking at the little piece of trash as she slathered on a fresh layer of pink lipgloss, ‘I think your last foster family was the final nail in that particular coffin.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ she asked, not liking it when he criticized her. ‘It wasn’t my fault. He’s the one who came on to me. Aren’t you supposed to keep shit like that from happening? Don’t you even screen those creeps?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ he said, having had to handle a few horny creeps of his own as a child and teenager. Though his tactics had been different from Morgan’s, who viewed herself as a victim of everything and everyone. The first time he’d been molested was when he was nine, by his foster mother’s boyfriend. It didn’t go far, but the man begged Chase to tell no one, and promised it would never happen again. Chase could still see the raw fear in Jack Harrigan’s eyes and smell the whiskey on his breath. More importantly, he knew that Jack’s fear gave him power. He’d stayed in that placement for another year, when he’d left, it was with fifteen hundred dollars in cash and a gold pocket watch that had belonged to Jack’s father. ‘But human nature,’ Chase said, looking at Morgan, ‘stuff happens. You’re a pretty girl, Morgan. I don’t think we’ll be able to get you back into a foster family. They want them younger, so you’re left with either a group home or one of the bigger facilities. Which if you think it feels like a prison now, those places have ten times more rules. And frankly, we’re running out of group homes. This is your fourth?’

  ‘Fifth,’ she said. ‘Chase, you’ve got to help me. I’m not kidding. I can’t stay there. I’ll do something crazy. You know I will. You’ve got to get me out of there. I spoke to my mom … she said I could stay there.’

  Chase looked at her. He had more important things to do now, but he was struck by her monumental stupidity, that despite all the horrible things her crack-addicted prostitute of a mother had done to her, she still wanted to go back to her. ‘Morgan, first there’s no way the department would ever let you return to your mother while you’re a minor; she has no parental rights, they were terminated when you were eight. Second, the five or six times that reunification was tried ended up with either you running away or the department having to pick you up after Cathy overdosed or got arrested. It’s not an option.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she repeated, pulling at a lock of her frizzed-out hair. Her lower lip pouted as she looked at Chase. ‘I don’t know why I have to stay there.’

  ‘It’s stable, you can walk to school. It’s the best we’ve got.’

  ‘What do I need high school for? It’s not like anyone cares about that, and I’m going to be an actress. I don’t think they check diplomas in Hollywood … Is that a new watch?’ Her eyes caught on Chase’s gold Movado with its sleek black onyx face and absence of numbers.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ he said, letting her view the recent purchase. ‘This is why you need to finish high school. You can’t get nice things unless you have a way to make money. I don’t want to destroy any dreams you have, but Hollywood is a long shot. Thinking you can just go out there and hit it big lands people in trouble. Suddenly you’re in California, no friends, no connections. You start making some bad choices, hook up with the wrong people. It doesn’t go well.’
/>   ‘I don’t care,’ she said, digging in. ‘The first chance I get I’m out of here.’

  Chase sighed. ‘You thinking of running away … again?’

  ‘What else can I do?’ she intoned. Her eyes started to tear, further smudging her thick mascara. ‘You’re not helping me. None of you ever do. It’s just, “Here’s another group home, Morgan,” and then all the things I can’t do. I want to see my mother. I want to stay with her. Why can’t I?’

  He leaned back, watching as this train wreck of a human being collapsed. Her runny makeup was rapidly transforming her into a puffy blond raccoon, but underneath the bad dye job, and the amateurish attempts with cheap cosmetics, she wasn’t bad looking. Unlike many of the girls who insisted on midriff-baring clothes, Morgan’s belly was flat and toned. With a little work, he thought, she’d be a respectable piece of merchandise. She was also at that critical age – fifteen – when if a kid ran from a group home, not much was done to get them back. A missing person’s report would be filed, and that’s about it. There were too many others, and it was the younger kids that got preference. ‘Look, Morgan,’ he said, pushing a box of tissues toward the weeping girl, ‘you know I care about you.’ His voice was soft as a kiss. ‘I’d worry if you ran away, bad things happen out there.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she sobbed and pulled a hunk of tissues from the box. ‘I can’t stay in that place.’