Blood Will Out by Jo Treggiari

Author:Jo Treggiari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2018-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Here begins my education.

Albany is a cesspool.

I found some things out pretty fast.

There are evil monsters in the world.

Kids are powerless. Nothing but prey. Fodder. I lost everything in the first few days. My meager belongings, my coat, my precious jars and sketchbook, and when those things were gone, the predators went deeper and possessed the parts of my body that were unprotected by armor. I suffered it, went to my quiet place until they were done with me. It didn’t take long and sometimes they bought me a bowl of hot soup or a coffee following the act, as if we had actually conducted a social transaction. And once, the man threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill onto the ground near me before he walked away zipping up his pants. After that I made sure I got paid something for my services.

I sold drugs and I sold other stuff that looked like drugs to stupid college students. I stole what I could and flogged it in the back streets and the alleys behind the restaurants, and I made sure to hide my money in my boots and sleep with one eye open. The shelters were the worst for beatings and muggings and so I avoided them and found places under bridges and in abandoned warehouses.

No one will hire you. But if you volunteer or work for free you can get in the door. No one asks too many questions if you practice invisibility and learn how to forge signatures.

And eventually getting the necessary ID papers is not impossible. If you can pay. People see what you want them to see. I became adept at becoming what was needed or expected, and no one seemed to care overmuch. Such is the nature of this busy, bustling world we live in.

Once I’d scraped up enough money I took a room in an old lady’s house, Mrs. Randolph. She had no husband or family but she did have various properties, lung cancer and cats. Nine of them, mostly inbred tabbies with extra toes, so that they walked splayed on fat cushions. They slept on her bed with her and about a hundred throw pillows. She was submerged, as if the bed were swallowing her up, as if all those cats were suffocating her. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t come along?

It was serendipity. I was walking by; she was out on the porch trying to coax a tiny black-and-white kitten down from the roof. I climbed up on the railing and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, ignoring the sharp pinch of its claws.

Much later, I trussed it up by the legs like a turkey and left it under my bed for twelve hours. It never scratched me again after that, though it would hiss and spit at me from the safety of the mantel.

Mrs. Randolph was glad for the company, and the little bit of money I was able to pay her augmented her disability checks.

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