The Innocents

and trotted towards the tramp.
The ground was soggy, and patches of algae made it more slippery. A sewage pipe sandwiched between the chicken plant and the picket fence had been broken by a random drifter. Their backyard absorbed the putrid water, and sometimes the runoff stayed there for days, stinking the surroundings.
When Ryatt neared the pisser, he said, “Scram, pops.”
The hobo turned and grimaced, displaying crooked yellow teeth and black gums. “Why?”
Calm as ever, Ryatt answered, “It ain’t a toilet.”
The old man let go of his dick—the stream of his business going wayward, some spilling on his own pants—and gave Ryatt the finger. “Oh fuck you, mother—”
Ryatt’s threadbare sneakers drove into the old man’s boney hips. His head whiplashed, and his body jerked to the side as he lost balance and fell into the runoff. But even in this moment of disorientation, the old man took care of the booze, his dirty fingers holding the neck of the bottle firmly as it stood upright on the ground. Priorities. However, the old man didn’t move. Perhaps the shock or the lack of energy contributed to the asshole’s urge to play possum.
Ryatt wasn’t bothered by guilt. Poverty costs souls. Only the purest and strongest came out of it as better people, like his mom. But Ryatt was no angel.
“Stop acting like you dead,” Ryatt said. “I’m going inside, and you better not be here when I come back because I’m bringing a shooter with me.”
Ryatt pulled a pair of keys from the jeans pocket and unlocked the back door but didn’t push. Instead he took in a deep breath and surveyed the vicinity. The reek of chicken meat, motor oil, sewage, and human waste, and the sight of graffitied lot, broken walls, and damned vagrants made him angry. This slum was what a devil’s anus must look like and only rectal worms thrived here.
And my mom ain’t a worm.
Understanding that he was a helpless man, unable to save his mom, brought a dose of electricity underneath his skin, giving him goosebumps. Ryatt’s purpose in life had never been clearer: get rich or die trying.
Fighting back the tears, he opened the door and stepped inside. He peeked out through a yellow tinted window. The old man pushed himself to his feet, rubbed his face on the muddied coat, and moved on, the pain and indignation of Ryatt’s kick apparently already forgotten. Homeless, they disgusted Ryatt. But if he was honest with himself, he and his mom were just a few months away from losing the roof over their heads. Random bullying from strangers would then become an unavoidable part of their lives, too.
No. Death was kinder than the streets. Ryatt would rather kill his mom and himself.
Iris and Ryatt called that building their home as long as he could remember. But there was no radio, no couch, no oven, no nothing. This was a house without anything that made it a home. A husk mocking Ryatt of his impotence.
Releasing a sigh of self-loathing, he looked at the ceiling and resisted the tears once again. His feet dragged him to a small counter camouflaging as a kitchen. A lone dining stool sat there.
A narrow corridor connected the kitchen to the rest of the house that made up their shop. Two doors flanked the corridor. Left and right. Together they formed bedrooms though Ryatt didn’t know if they could be called that since they didn’t own a bed anymore. One room was a seven-by-four den with an old mattress that might as well be named a ‘back-wrecker’ and could easily pass for a torture device to extract information from Commie spies. And the other room had none, just a floor, a pillow, and a torn excuse of a blanket. Iris, being the wonderful mom that she was, always took the floor.
On the countertop, Ryatt found a dish covered by a plate. He didn’t have to lift the china to know it was the sort of food the heathens and apostates would have been condemned to eat during the Inquisition: ramen. That goddamn ramen was going to be the end of him.
Taking it in one hand and grabbing a jug of water with the other, he made his way to the bedroom. He sat and dug into his meal. His hungry stomach sucked the thin noodles like a vacuum cleaner, even though his taste buds were light years away from being thrilled, but what could his mom do? She did the best she could with what she had. And in all fairness, it was Ryatt’s duty to provide and stand up to be a man.
Some man, he thought, being chased around the city by pigs, forcing Ryatt to scram like a scared little roach.
“We have a bit of soy sauce!” Iris’s voice sang from the front.
“I’m good, Ma,” Ryatt shouted back. “Don’t feel like it.”
Actually, he did feel like it. Anything to cheat his jaded tongue that he was eating tasty food. But the thing was, Iris loved soy sauce, too. And when he was shoving ramen down his throat that morning, he noticed that the sauce would last only for another serving, if that.
“Okay,” Iris said.
When Ryatt was done, like clockwork, his nemesis showed up. The contents of his stomach lurched up the esophagus. He needed a lollipop but his jeans pockets were empty.
Inadvertently cupping his mouth again, he dashed to the front of the shop. Ryatt inserted his hand in a jar that had a bunch of lollipops. He unwrapped one and sucked on it, and then felt the acids receding back to his stomach.
After taking three more, he returned the lollipop jar to the billing counter, beside a transparent box that had a picture of a dove. A fund his mom had created in Lawrence’s name to educate the kids from their block and help them steer