Stacia Kane - Wrong Ways Down

Guessed he’d find out what she were wanting. “Hey. You right?”

“Do you have a minute?” She sounded annoyed. Not good.

“Be a problem?”

“Katie keeps asking when she can go sleep at your house. Why haven’t you told her she can’t?”

Fuck. He didn’t reply. This again, and it all being shoved on him again, too, when it were harder and harder to think of ways to say no. Especially when he ain’t wanted to say no, not really; well, coursen he did, it weren’t right bringing her to Downside, but the thought of getting to spend a whole night with her, putting her to bed and all … like being her dad for real instead of just by blood, and he’d never gotten to do that.

“Terrible? Are you there?”

“Aye.”

“Well? Do you have anything to say about this?”

“What you wanting me to say?” He tried to keep the annoyance from his voice, but didn’t think he succeeded. Tension crept up his back, into his muscles. “Told her I work nights an she gave me the ask take a night off. Told her my neighborhood ain’t safe for a little girl, she say she certain I can keep her safe. Told her I ain’t got a place for her, she ask why don’t I love her enough to let her sleep my bed. You wanting her stay off my place, you give her a fuckin no, aye? Quit makin me lie like I ain’t wanting her here.”

“You want her there?” Felice sounded even more annoyed. “Are you actually saying you want to take my daughter into that part of town?”

“My daughter, too.” The second the words left his mouth he regretted them, knowing what would come next, knowing he’d just turned a disagreement into a fight.

“Not legally. Not according to her birth certificate, she’s not. Don’t forget, you see her because we let you see her. And you just try going to court and proving paternity. You don’t even fucking exist as far as the Church is concerned, do you? And I somehow doubt you want them getting your fingerprints and DNA on file.”

He tried not to think of Felice as a bitch. She weren’t a bitch. She were just tryna do her best, and keep Katie safe, which he could get behind all the way. And sometimes—most of the time—they could still smile and have a chatter and get along fine.

But other times … other times he just wanted to start breaking shit. “Happy taking my money, aye? Ain’t see you complain on what you getting, or on she college account, or—”

“So you help support the child you made and that means I should let you take her into drug dens, or to hang out with thieves and prostitutes or that sleazy pimp you work for?”

“ What ? You thinking I—” He took a deep breath, tried to stay calm. Which weren’t easy. Felice thought he’d take Katie to the fucking piperooms or some shit? That he’d take Katie there? What the fuck? “Quit with that shit, aye? You know I ain’t do that. Never saying I think she oughta be down here, neither. Only sayin I ain’t should be the only one giving her the no. Quit fuckin leaving it all on me, dig? Makin me the bad guy.”

Silence. He was glad of it, too; gave him a chance to get heself calmed down a minute. Hard enough figuring what to say when he weren’t pissed off.

Finally Felice spoke. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be the only one.”

Felt like she were waiting for him to answer, but he was still too mad, and figured anything he might say could start another fight, too.

She sighed, loud and heavy through the phone. “Look, I didn’t call to argue. I guess we need to figure out something to tell her together. And I know you wouldn’t take her to hang out with prostitutes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Ain’t should have got mad myself,” he said. It still stung; it stung because he knew, deep down, that Felice did think he might take Katie to the piperooms or to hang out at Bump’s place with porn on the walls. That she thought he were so dumb he ain’t knew what was right for a little girl to see.

But then, it weren’t really right for a little girl to be spending time with somebody like him, was it? Even if she was his, the only one he’d ever have, and she were tall like him and smiled when she saw him. Even if she were the only totally clean, totally pure thing in he entire life. Closest other thing he had to it was Chess, how she made him feel, cepting of course most of the thoughts he had about Chess—the things he wanted to do to Chess—weren’t clean or pure at all.

“Okay, well, look,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow you can stop by while she’s at school. And you can go pick her up, if you want. And we’ll figure out a way to explain to her that she is not going to be spending any nights with you. Because you know that’s not going to happen. Not as long as you live where you live, and do for a living what you do.”

“Aye,” he said. “Aye, I know.”

Nobody on the streets, least not anybody with owes. Which fucking sucked, because after he finally got off the phone with Felice—after she got pissed he couldn’t be at hers the next day, after she got pissed he weren’t certain when he could be at hers, after she got pissed in general—he could have done with some collecting. He was tense and annoyed and anxious, felt stuck in place and wanted to move. Wanted to get rid of it, that tension that almost hurt—that did hurt, like a burning in his gut that radiated out to his whole body.

Fighting weren’t the only way to do it, but Amy and Sela weren’t around neither.

And he ain’t could call Chess. Not til he’d finished finding Gav, causen he didn’t want to have to take off fast again. Aye, being with her wouldn’t let him work off all that the way he usually did, but … it still calmed him. He just wanted to see her smile, hear her voice. Chess ain’t thought he were just some thug not good enough to be seen at her place. Chess ain’t thought he were so dumb he’d take a little girl into a piperoom or to hang out with whores—not that Felice would even get that most of em were whores, iffen she met em. They were nice dames, most were. Just tryna make their livings, put food on them tables like anybody else. They had themselves something worth selling and they sold it, just business. Just like Felice’s fucking husband with he bank job. Only difference between he and Bump was his kind of stealing and lying were legal.

Thinking on it made it worse. He lit a smoke, turned up the Lazy Cowgirls on the stereo. It ain’t helped. This was bullshit, driving around. Too cold for the streets to be real busy; he passed flickering candles in windows, shadows moving behind em, small crowds of three or four huddled together on steps for warmth. Firecans lined the road at intervals, flames bright orange lighting up the faces of them standing around with hands out to catch the heat. A few people had blankets and patchworks of cheap furs thrown over em, too. The lucky ones.

He parked a block over from the squat, ducking the Chevelle into an alley where it wouldn’t be so visible, and started walking. Even the little groups he’d been passing were absent up there, the street just a long stretch of empty broken cement with silent buildings looming over it.

But the street-man were on the corner like he should be—he’d talk to him first—and even besides him, Terrible had been spotted, and he knew it. Could feel eyes on him, more with every step he took.

And just like always he felt something … switch inside him. Like he had feelers coming from every inch of skin and could cast them out into all the empty windows and blank spaces, almost like he could feel the air move. Hyperaware, he’d read somewhere. That were what it felt like. And he had to be that way, causen every time he stepped on the street somebody might could be aiming a gun at he head, planning to jump out at him. Aye, chances were they wasn’t—most were smart enough to know it’d be a big fucking mistake—but crazy fucks existed everywhere, and crazy fucks ain’t used common sense. He were always, always careful.