Too Many Rules

by G. L. Snodgrass

  He had me. I could see it in his eyes. A few kicks to the head and I’d be done. He stepped towards me with a shit-eating grin. My stomach lurched as I tried to scramble up. I knew deep down that I wasn’t going to be quick enough.

  Before he could get any closer a screaming angel-demon flew from the truck and jumped onto his back. Katie screeched as she tried to claw his face off. Her fingernails dug into the man’s face. He yelled and twisted to throw her to the ground.

  Seeing my opportunity, I launched myself at him. My shoulders caught him in the bread basket and my arms wrapped up like I had been taught. Eight years of football said that I should push through him and take him to the ground. The evil anger in me said to pile drive his head into the dirt.

  My fingers locked behind his back and I squeezed him in a bear hug while I lifted him. Turning, I threw him to the ground. Following him down I made sure my knee landed on his stomach.

  He let out a silent scream as I brought all my weight down on him emptying his lungs of any air. I didn’t give him time to recover but started to pound his face with my fists.

  My red world had turned full crimson by this point. I lost all awareness. I forgot about Katie, forgot about my burning gut where his knife had cut me. My hands were like diesel pistons pounding into his head. Every bit of hate and anger poured through my arms.

  Slowly the world began to come back into focus. A police siren pierced my hearing. Katie yelled at me to stop as she pulled at my shoulder.

  .o0o.

  Katie

  My heart continued to beat. I don’t know how, but it did. Scott was hurt. I know he was, I’d seen the knife cut across his stomach.

  For the first time since Jimmy got out of his car, I thought I might survive this. Scott had been amazing. Like a Mother grizzly protecting her cubs. He’d torn into Jimmy without hesitating. Nothing had scared him. He’d disarmed him and beat him to a pulp.

  I grabbed his shoulder and yelled, “Stop, please stop.” He was covered in blood. So much blood I thought I might be sick right there next to him. Wouldn’t that top everything off? He risks his life and saves me. I throw up.

  Scott straddled the man on the ground and finally stopped punching. His fists looked like raw hamburger. His eyes had a thousand yard stare, as if he wasn’t totally aware of his surroundings. My heart went out to him as he shook his head and tried to bring himself back to this reality.

  Eventually, he focused on me, seeing me for the first time. His shoulders slumped and he let out a huge sigh. “Are you okay,” he asked.

  My God, the man has been stabbed, cut, scraped, his eye was swelling shut, and his fists looked like they had been put through a meat grinder and he asks if I’m okay? I was made mute. I smiled and nodded.

  He smiled back and said, “In that case, does this mean we can get back together now?”

  “Yes, God yes,” I said as I hugged him around the neck. ‘Oh God thank you for giving me this man,’ I thought as a police car slammed into the parking lot lights flashing and siren blaring.

  I was going to have a chance at a normal life. No. We were going to have a chance.

  Epilogue

  Katie

  I loved watching my boyfriend at football practice. I hated the violence, but loved the fact that he got to do what he loved. I sat in the Nebraska University bleachers and finished my English 101 paper while Scott pushed and pounded for the offensive line. Nebraska had a walk-on program for non-scholarship athletes and Scott had wowed the coaches enough to make the team. He’d told me last night in bed that they were saying that he had a good chance to start for the team next year.

  Scott and I were living together in a small apartment off campus. My dad was paying for it. He hated the idea of Scott living there, but it was a little late for him to get all paternal on me.

  My father had found me at the hospital while they were working on Scott. I think Aunt Jenny had called him. He walked up to me and gave me a hug and I let him. We’d never be a real family, but he’d be the Grandfather to my children someday. I smiled thinking about having children with Scott.

  A horn sounded and I looked up. Practice was over. I scanned the group of men until I located number seventy-six. My heart fluttered as he turned and found me in the stands. Smiling, he jogged toward me. He looked so cute in those tight white football pants. I wanted to squeeze every part of him.

  He read my mind as he ran to the railing and leaned in for his kiss. It had become a tradition before he hit the showers. No matter how hard the practice had been he’d always run over.

  “I love you Katherine Rivers,” he said with a huge smile.

  “I love you more,” I answered as I leaned down to share a soul-searing kiss.

  “Maybe, but I love you the most,” he said.

  The End

  Unwritten Rules

  G.L. Snodgrass

  Unwritten Rules

  Chapter One

  Austin

  My stomach clenched as I ducked behind the dumpster to let the cop car go by. That was the last thing I needed right now. Shuddering at the thought of being hassled I pulled my jacket collar up to avoid the biting wind.

  It was supposed to get colder than a church ladies ass tonight. Hardcore cases like Billy needed to forget about their pride and head for a shelter even if that meant I had to drag him there kicking and screaming.

  A quick scan of 2nd Avenue and no Billy. You’d think that an old crippled bum, drunk off his butt wouldn’t move very far. You’d think wrong. Billy knew every hiding hole and shortcut in the downtown area. Nobody knew more about disappearing when they wanted to than Billy.

  He must have scored pretty good and didn’t want to share. I didn’t want any part of his cheap ass hooch, he knew that. I wanted to make sure he was okay and know where he was in case I had to get him inside for the night.

  I pushed the hair out of my eyes and stepped into the rushing throng of people fighting their way along the sidewalk. They immediately parted around me like a stream around a rock. Each particle independent yet still a part of the whole.

  My shoulders hunched as their negative wave of anger washed over me. Things had changed. It used to be a quick smile of guilt or a softening of their brow in pity when people saw a young boy like me living on the street. Now, three years and twelve inches later it was anger and fear. Women clutched their purses tighter and pulled their children close. Men gripped their briefcases and glared from under furrowed brows as if asking why didn’t I have a job like a real man?

  I ignored them, once cataloged they were easily forgotten. Tourists, Marks, Prey, we had a hundred names for them. It came down to ‘Not Us’, not from the street, not important except as a resource. Billy, in one of his more lucent moments, had told me that we street people were the last group for which discrimination was socially acceptable.

  “A KKK Grand Wizard would rather be stuck in a room with an African American Black Panther than stand on the corner next to a street person,” Billy used to say. “The most liberal college professor would prefer to have dinner with a Republican businessman than share an elevator with one of us.” Of course, I might have cleaned up the language a little. Billy cussed like the Bowery bum he was.

  I hopped up on a street light foundation and hung from the pole with one hand as I scanned the street for Billy. When I couldn’t find him, I jumped down and head uphill checking his usual spots. My stomach lurched a little when I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in Chang’s doorway. Not on the stairs leading up to the back of the old glove factory. He wasn’t even parked behind the 102 Club’s dumpster. One of his favorite places because he could see the water from there while tuning out the street noise.

  “Why is this my problem?” I mumbled to myself as I continued my search.

  Because you owe him, that’s why. A thirteen-year-old kid didn’t last long down here without someone showing him the lay of the land. Billy had been that guy for me three years earlier. We’d sort of kept an eye out for e
ach other ever since.

  Some jerk honked his horn as I ran across the street. As if they thought I might learn a lesson and never do it again. Shaking my head at the total idiocy of some people I headed up to 3rd to continue my search.

  “Hey Austin, you looking for Billy?” Someone called from behind me. I turned and saw Jimmy the Crip leaning on his crutch.

  He held the proverbial tin cup and a cardboard sign hung around his neck on green yarn. The sign read “VETERAN, EVERY LITLE BIT HELPS. God Bless.” That was Jimmy, short and to the point. I was tempted to tell him about the spelling error, but knowing him, it was on purpose. Probably some theory about how it made people feel superior or some kind of crap.

  “Yeah, you seen him?” I answered as I walked up.

  “Yeah man, I saw him on fourth a couple of hours ago,” Jimmy said as he continued to watch the people passing by for any potential contributors. Trying to hold eye contact long enough to make them feel guilty about their 2.5 car garage and summers at the timeshare. “He was acting strange, you know, pretending not to see me and stuff.”

  I nodded in understanding. Billy could get weird at times, feisty and mean. Yelling about some guy named Charlie crawling through the bushes to get him. I learned to leave him alone when he got like that. My world was filled with enough craziness.

  “Where on fourth?” I said.

  “Over by the Art Museum,” he said as he held his cup out for someone to drop a couple of quarters. They tanged as they hit the bottom. “Thank you, God Bless,” he said to the woman as she continued on her way, never really seeing him. Like I said, invisible.

  "Thanks, Jimmy," I yelled over my shoulder as I headed to Fourth. The least I could do would be to locate Billy and make sure he was alright.

  As I walked, I instinctively looked for easy marks. A loose wallet in a back pocket, an open purse that wasn’t being thought off.

  I didn’t do that stuff much anymore; only when I got desperate. People didn’t let young men my size get into their personal space. We set off way too many alarms. It’d been a lot easier when I was younger. Nobody ever paid attention to a short thirteen-year-old.

  My shoulders slumped in relief when I spotted Billy passed out inside an alley off Fourth. He leaned against the brick building with his head to one side, mouth open, snoring like a chainsaw. His brown leather jacket torn at the elbow and ripped jeans couldn’t hide the old man inside. He had a short gray beard with stringy gray hair peeking out from under a black wool watch cap. Street grime was permanently embedded in each wind burnt wrinkle like some Pacific island tattoo.

  My heart started beating and my breath final began to return to normal. Thank god, I didn’t know what I would do if anything happened to this old idiot. Squatting down next to him I gently shook his shoulder. An empty bottle of Jack Daniels lay next to him. Where had he gotten the money for that and why had he wasted it on the good stuff?

  He was way too far gone for me to wake up. I’d have to let him sleep it off and get him later. I pulled his jacket tight around him and zipped it up.

  The hiss of airbrakes from the street made me glance over my shoulder. A big yellow school bus was stopped in traffic. Rich brats from the suburbs. Come down here to the art museum to soak up a little culture.

  I watched a boy flick the ear of the kid in front of him who turned around and punched him in the shoulder while grinning. Two girls, obviously in high school had their heads together giggling about something.

  My stomach clenched tighter than a preacher’s wallet and my hands instinctively shaped themselves into fists. I despised these kids with a pure burning hate, with all their fresh, clean clothes, their full stomachs, and easy laughter. Anger coursed through me as my muscles bunched up in tense knots. Most of all I hated that they’d be going back to nice warm homes with happy moms and loving dads. Like I said, brats. Each and every one of them.

  My eyes roamed over the windows drifting across their fresh-scrubbed faces until I came to a goddess dressed in green. My heart stopped beating and dropped into my guts as I sucked in a breath of air before forgetting how to breathe.

  She was gorgeous, long straight blond hair and blue eyes that reminded me of the harbor on a winter’s morning. You know that blue that’s deeper than a color has a right to be. High cheekbones and lips begging to be kissed.

  Our eyes locked for a moment in recognition. We were the only two people in each other’s world. Her eyebrows raised and her lips turned up in a small smile that made me want to storm the bus and rescue her from the evil dragon.

  Okay, it was only a smile from a girl on a bus, but it could change a guy’s life. Suddenly living down here didn’t seem like enough. Suddenly there was something pure and good in the world worth working for.

  The air brakes released in a hiss of air and her smile dropped as she realized they were moving on. A quick look of fear crossed her eyes and then she shrugged, smiled again, and raised a hand, pressing it against the window.

  We watched each other as the bus moved on down the street. Tearing us apart. Her to some happy future full of trusted friends, the college quarterback and a large house on a hill. Me back to the streets and another day of scrambling for enough to survive. It felt like someone had gutted me with a fish knife. A thousand thoughts of what could have been, what should have been passed through me like rainwater down a drain. Five or six years from now she’ll be marrying her college sweetheart while I’m either in prison, dead, or still on these streets and I honestly didn’t know which would be worse.

  Chapter Two

  Casey

  I watched a businessman in a gray suit step around a homeless lady wearing twelve layers of trash bags like T-shirts. She was talking to herself as she pushed a beat up shopping cart jammed pack with all of her worldly possessions. The man didn’t really see her, all he saw was an object to get around.

  The city was so different, so extreme. It smelled like truck exhaust and brick dust, a dry, gritty smell scratched the back of my throat. The tall buildings fought to keep the sun away and hid the shadows in the darker gray corners. My heart beat a little faster and my eyesight became sharper.

  “You’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy,” I mumbled to myself.

  “What?” Stephanie my seatmate and 2nd best friend asked. She’d grown quiet as we entered the city. Her normally chatterbox attitude had been diminished significantly. She was probably thinking like me about our friend Jean and wondering if this was where she came when she ran away from home.

  I still got angry every time I thought about it. Your bestest best friend was not supposed to run away from home without giving you a chance to talk her out of it. Even if it was partially your fault.

  How did people live like this? What kind of country were we when we left these people behind, I wondered. How would Jean survive?

  Like every girl I knew, I’d been repeatedly told about the evil lurking down here. Ghost stories about runaway girls being found dead in some abandoned lot or sold into prostitution in some overseas brothel. I'd always treated them as if they were scare tactics to get us to mind our mothers. Sort of like fairy tales told to little kids to get them to eat their porridge.

  My stomach turned over as I thought that maybe there might have been some truth in those stories. This wasn’t like home. There, I knew the people. I knew the places. I lived in a safe suburb surrounded by safe homes laid out in a meandering grid with perfectly mown yards and kids on bikes all wearing helmets. The kind of place you knew was safe. Sure there was the occasional wife beater and abused child. But that was always behind closed doors. People we didn’t know. This was different, here everything was out in the open. All of it mixed up together.

  A safe place. That was the difference.

  At home, no matter where I went I knew I could go to a safe place. My dad would have killed anyone who messed with our home. Mom was ever vigilant and always full of fun. Our house was the place the neighborhood kids preferred to hang out. Cookies and
Kool-Aid were always available. Mom worked at home so she always seemed to be around. If I skinned a knee or some kid was hassling us, Mom was there.

  Had Jean found a safe place I wondered? Why had she left, would I ever know for sure? It couldn’t have been just because I agreed with her mom that Tommy Ballard was a jerk. I mean she gives him her virginity and then he dumps her two days later. Tragic, I know. But run away from home. Come on. There had to be more. Something she hadn’t told me. Whatever it was we could figure it out. I needed her home, in a safe place. Please let me find her I prayed.

  The bus continued to creep through the traffic, moving ten feet at a time. It was going to take forever to get to the museum. A movement in an alley drew my attention. A boy, my age, dressed in a gray hoodie and jeans was crouched over a man lying on the ground. Was he robbing him, rolling a drunk I think they call it? Oh My God. Was I witnessing a crime right here in front of me? Didn’t these people have any kind of morals? Where were the police?

  The boy slowly zipped the man’s jacket closed and moved something away from his side. He wasn’t robbing him, he was helping him. My face flushed as I realized how wrong I’d been. The only saving grace was that he didn’t know what I’d been thinking.

  He shifted the man’s arm and then looked up. Our eyes met and locked. It was like someone shoved a needle into my heart. A surge of adrenaline flushed through my body setting every nerve ending into an electrifying tingle. He had to be about my age only his eyes were so much older. Like they had seen things I couldn’t imagine.

  Maybe some Native American somewhere in his family history, black hair and high cheekbones with a strong nose that’d been broken in the past, maybe more than once. It was his eyes that held me, captured my soul and held it in gentle hands. Chocolate brown, deep with long lashes. I swear I forgot how to breathe. My mouth went dry and my heart jumped in my chest as we continued to stare at each other.