Breaking Night by Liz Murray

Author:Liz Murray
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Autobiography, Breaking, New York (N.Y.), Children of drug addict, General, Homeless persons, Personal Memoirs, New York, Biography & Autobiography, Biography And Autobiography, New York (State), Biography, Women
ISBN: 9780786868919
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2010-09-07T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Boys

SAM AND I WEREN’T PREPARED FOR BOYFRIENDS, FOR THE INFLUENCE that loving a guy can have on your whole life. I can’t help but think that maybe if we had been ready, if someone had told us, things would have turned out differently.

Carlos came into the picture as a guest of the group, but by the sheer magnitude of his personality, he moved to center stage almost immediately. One lazy autumn day, as we walked up the stairs to Fief’s apartment, we heard the argumentative banter of male voices echoing through the hall.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Sam.

“Yeah, sounds like someone let a lunatic loose from the nutty bin.”

“No, I mean, I think it’s coming from Fief’s house.”

As we approached the door slowly and creaked it open, one voice, with a rich, news-announcer quality to it, boomed loudly above the rest.

“Son, son. Take this,” the voice prompted. “Give it your best shot. Tell me what you have to lose. . . . Well then, go on!”

When we turned the corner into Fief’s living room, we came onto a scene: some familiar and a few unfamiliar faces, around seven people altogether, crouched over a game of dice. Fief hung back, leaning against the wall. When I looked his way for an explanation, he shrugged. There, in the center of the action, I spotted the owner of the voice.

He was a stranger, this tall, slim Puerto Rican guy. His dark, wavy hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. His dress was ghetto sharp. Dominating his face were expressive brown eyes set just above a cluster of freckles sprinkled across his wide cheeks. There was something about the way he moved, the power in his voice—I couldn’t stop watching him. He clapped his hand hard onto a guy’s back, who with the prompt tossed two dice, dense, little red cubes, roughly against the wall. For a moment, their clicking descent was the only noise in the room. Then people shouted and raised their arms. Someone pointed and laughed into the face of the thrower.

“Whoa,” the impressive stranger yelled. “So close, Papa. Give it up now, that’s your slip.” A gangly-looking guy, whom I’d seen around Fief’s place only a few times, had suffered the loss. Defeated, he counted money into the stranger’s hand.

“Who’s up?” the stranger called out.

“Sam, have you seen that guy here before?” I asked her over the noise.

“Nah,” she said.

I remained in the doorway of the musty room, my eyes trailing from the graffiti on the wall to the ongoing game, for at least another twenty minutes. Sam lost interest and walked into the kitchen to rummage through Fief’s fridge. Finally, after collecting another round of cash from losing participants, the stranger snatched up his dice and called an abrupt end to the game.

“That’s it, gentlemen, until next time.” Hisses and noises of protest passed through the room. “I would go on,” he announced, looking down, running money through his hands, “but I’m busy. I’m taking her out to eat.

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