The Bittersweet Life of Amy Clark(EDITING)

Chapter Seven

     Was I jittery? I didn’t notice, but I supposed I was. The whole situation made my nerves jingle. If Jessie was looking to score some serious weed I wondered where the next month’s food was going to come from. How was he going to pay the bills? Now on more than one occasion he went dumpster diving and fed me scraps from the garbage bin. It wasn’t so bad when you were starving. And sometimes there were gems lurking beneath the rotten meats and cheeses. Like potato chips took forever to decompose. And then there was cereal and bread that seemed fresh enough to eat and think it had just been thrown out a minute ago. I am not saying I love dumpster food, but when it is all you had…it was everything.

     What I found disturbing is the things Norman, his friend, would find and give to his two sons. It would make your head spin!

     “I am fine,” I lied and tapped my fingers against my arm as I looked around. “So you know all about my screwed up life. Tell me about you.”

     “Well, for starters, I am an only child and my parents divorced when I was still young. We moved around quite a bit until eventually my Mom figured a whole new start was in order. We never stay in one area longer than a year. It is hard to make friends that way, but I manage. She thinks a smaller town is somehow safer and I guess easier,” Alice explained.

     I laughed. “Then your Mom doesn’t know small towns very well. This place is a shit hole.”

    And it was. It was a dying town.

    Alice smiled weakly. “I noticed that. How can you put up with it?”

    Two tall glasses of murky liquid slid across the table and under our noses. The waitress tossed two straws and then returned to other tables where her manners were more warm and graceful.

    “I do not have a choice,” I said.

   Choices were for the fortunate. I thought that was just a load of shit, but after meeting Jessie I figured it were true and a bitter fact of life.

   “Everyone has a choice,” Alice said as she unwrapped her straw and pushed in under the ice.

    “Not in Jessie’s household,” I stated flatly and tapped my straw against the glass as carbonated bubbles rose to the surface and popped.

    “He is abusive, isn’t he?”

     The question threw me off guard. I never knew one man could be so cruel. I had seen movies where there is always an abusive step-father and junk, but it no way compared to the shit I was living through. Sure he rarely laid a hand on me, but emotional and mental abuse leaves just as many bruises and scars. I stared into the dark depths of my glass and nodded. But he was more than abusive. He was a sexual predator, child molesting fucker.

    I cleared my throat and lowered my voice. I didn’t know if I could at all tell anyone about this, but sitting there under those lights with her eyes on me I felt as though the world had melted away and it was just me and her.

     “I use to have a little sister,” I began; the straw in my fingers shook as I tried to focus on its paper wrapping. “She was about ten years old.” I shuddered. “Jessie paid her with cigarettes and beer to perform certain sexual things on him.” I heard her gasp, felt her hands cover mine and I knew if I gazed up into her eyes I would lose control and let the tears flow. I must not let that happen. I blinked hard and focused on the sparkling gems of her rings as I resumed, “Well, social services, they found out and um, gave my Mom a choice. If my Mom didn’t leave Jessie she would lose her daughter forever.”

    “What happened?”

    “Well,” I said, “she accused my little sister of wanting her man. She said that she was just a little lying bitch who wanted to steal her happiness. So she chose Jessie. My little sister went to a foster home and I never saw her again. When his trail came up, somehow they got to my little sister and…if she didn’t lie and said she made the whole thing up something would happen to make her disappear. I was there when the whole thing was being said. I didn’t know how far they would take it, but apparently they were in it for the long haul.”

    Her fingers tightened around mine. “And then what happened?”

   “She told the social worker she made the whole thing up. She was scared and…it didn’t make any difference. She was only ten,” I said, my voice now on the verge of breaking. “She was only ten.”

   “Is she all right though?”

    I shook my head. The tears were really close to spilling now as they welled up in my eyes. “She, um…slit her wrists with a pair of scissors not long after. Her childhood had been robbed by some bastard and her Mother was not there to protect her. It isn’t fair,” I said, not clenching my teeth. “I wanted to kill them both every night from then on. The system had failed her. In a way, I failed her too.”

   Alice shook her head and when I looked up finally I saw the streaks of tears racing down her cheeks. “There is nothing you could have done.”

     And there was some truth in that. In a town as corrupt as this, help was a fairytale. There might have been a chance she survived if we lived in a different county and…I don’t know. We stared into one another’s eyes for a moment and then a smile touched the corners of my lips. She was like a light at the end of my bleak and worthless tunnel. Then I knew just how lucky I was to have been there in that hallway on that first day of school. Had it been anyone else standing there who knows where I would be now.

    When food came I hesitated. When I saw her withdraw the toothpick from her sandwich and laid it aside her fork I did the same and sighed. I wondered how I let this happen. How did I manage to let her sweet-talk me into this state of…? I do not know what to call it, but I supposed the only way out of it was to disassociate myself from her.

     My stomach clenched at the thought. I don’t think I could do that. I took a bite and chewed slowly. I had to savor it since I doubted very much I would get dinner tonight.

    “It is so nice they serve lunch this early,” Alice said between bites.

     Well, maybe it was a bit nice, but this town was a shithole not worth much. I often wondered what it would be like outside the county, but it was pretty much not a fantasy. Neighboring towns were just as, though not worse, than this one. Still, the better living was North and South, way North and South from here.

     “I have a question,” I said and slurped down a bit of Coke before I continued. “Why do you want to hang out with me? I mean, there are a lot more people here in this town than me.”

     Alice sat her sandwich down and folded her arms on the table. “I liked how you helped me out and how you talk to people. You speak your mind and even if it sounds a bit rude, a lot of times people deserve to hear it.”

    I laughed softly. That was the reason? I thought I was a charity case or something.

    “Don’t you like it?” She asked.

    “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quickly. “I just don’t understand why me out of anyone in the school, that is all.”

    “You really underestimate yourself,” she said and smiled. “You spend your life with people telling you are no good and now you believe it. I think it is time to break that.”

    I looked at my pickles slipping out from under the bun and slab of grilled meat. Perhaps she was right. It was a shit life so far. I know I could make it better. I looked into her eyes and smiled as the twinkle there carried me away. It was as though I had seen into the heart of a saint, but then again I knew most saints were as holy as bird’s shit. But Alice wasn’t shit. She was the sweetest person I had met and someone I never quite thought existed.

    “Yeah,” I said, “I would like to break some old chains.”

     She popped a pickle in her mouth and said, “Then let us get started!”