Lachrymose Love

02 | a nosy bastard

I awoke with back pains like no other, you would have thought I would have got used to it by now.

I stretched and then quickly checked all my pockets. Not to see if anything was taken, I have nothing worth taking, to see if anyone had put something in them. As much as people pretend, this town is not the safest place to be. Everyone pretends like drug activity doesn't occur and that the occasional stabbings don't exist.

But people will put stolen drugs in your pockets when your not watching and then you're not only homeless but in jail for possessing certain drugs and allegedly dealing them too.

Although I've been in jail once, that being yesterday, drug handling and petty theft are two completely different worlds and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be caught up in the prior.

I went about as usual, looking for willing food banks and or churches and looking to see if I could hit the jackpot with any bins.

I learnt quite quickly that people here are not only pretenders but stingy too. They'll gladly throw away left overs but won't allow the starving to pick at them. They don't want to have it but won't let others have it either.

But despite recent complaints about my scrounging for food, which just so happened to be in people's bins, I continued with it up until the afternoon. After all the worst that can happen is someone telling you to piss off, followed by a string of colourful vocabulary.

And of course, the worst happened to me today...

"Hey! What do you think you are doing?"

I turned around at the sound of shouting, to meet the owner of the voice. A policeman. My luck was sticking to its title because I'm sure that he was working last night when I was arrested too. Yes, I remember him around the desk typing something on a computer as I was being dragged to a cell, although he probably won't remember me, mind you.

I didn't answer him, but instead shrugged my shoulders and started to walk away from the him and the bins. I didn't want a fight I just wanted free food. But of course nothing in this world is free.

"Hey, wait up miss."

I turned back around. Purposely looking downwards at the pavement in case he had somehow remembered my face out of all the ones he saw yesterday.

"Shouldn't you be going home by now, it's getting quite late?"

I almost scoffed at him. Home. Hah. I don't have a home, but not wanting to test the patience of the law itself, I answered in short sentences, hoping he'll get the hint that I don't need his help and he can go back to his job, making sure no one gets shot.

"I'm homeless." Well that wiped the concern off of his face and put him into some form of surprise.

"Oh." I think he felt sorry for me, or was being a nosy bastard, one of the two, because he still stood in the same position and showed no signs of moving.

"How old did you say you were?" He asked, not in the pedofile way, in a polite or curious matter. But then again, professional pedos would be able to ask it in that same manner.

Holding back the urge to say below the age of consent, I replied with, "Fourteen."

"And where are your parents?"

"I don't know." I sighed, bored and tired of the game of twenty questions.

"You better come with me then." The policeman said.

That instantly triggered something in me, making me burst out.

"I don't care if you wear a police badge, I've done nothing wrong and nothing illegal." I quickly rambled.