"JJ?" Sheriff Peterkin called into the home, kicking her way past empty beer cans. She grimaced in disgust as her foot slide through the remnants of what looked like spilled beer and discarded piece of pizza. God, this place was a fucking mess.
The living room was filled with empty bottles and bright orange pill bottles. Discarded pieces of machinery and half-finished projects laid haphazardly around the room. She picked her way carefully across the floor, noting the half-finished joints laying out next to what little white lines of powder on a dingy fold-out table in the living room.
"JJ?" Her voice sounded muffled as it disappeared into the cluttered room.
"Here…" A voice called out weakly from upstairs.
Sheriff Peterkin bounded up the stairs, the wooden steps creaking loudly underneath her.
A crunching sound came out from underneath her foot and she looked down to see the remnants of a broken bottle, a sticky red sheen smeared over the label. She kicked it lightly to the side of her path, noting that the chance it may be picked up as evidence later. She entered into a dimly lit room with a mattress laying on the floor, a sheet tangled up into a mess under a yellowing pillow. JJ was sitting on the floor against the wall, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees and his head leaned back against the wall as he closed his eyes. When Sheriff Peterkin entered the room he looked up.
"Fancy seeing you here." He tried to smile but it came out as a grimace. He coughed – a painful, barking sound.
Sheriff Peterkin walked over, kneeling next to JJ. She felt the anger bloom in her chest like heat, making her cheeks flush. The right side of his face was swollen and starting to turn a sickly color of purple. A cut above his right eyebrow was streaming blood down the side of his face and into the swollen mess of his right eye. His breathing was hitched and erratic, his knees drawn up in front of his stomach in a guarded position. A deep cut on his left bicep was dripping blood onto the wooden floor. She moved to lightly turn his face to the left to get a better view of the swelling of his face but stopped as she saw him flinch.
"It's okay…" She murmured quietly. "I'm not going to hurt you, son."
JJ stared at her for a moment and then nodded.
"Can you tell me what hurts the worst?" Sheriff Peterkin asked.
"Back of my head." JJ said quietly. "Mother-fucker got me a couple of good ones with a bottle."
She slowly leaned him forward, seeing his blond hair matted with blood.
"24 to dispatch." She spoke into her radio.
"24." Was returned.
"We're going to need medics enroute to scene."
"Copy."
She clipped the radio back into her belt.
"I'm fine." JJ protested. "You don't need to call anybody else here."
"You and I sure have a different definition of fine." Sheriff Peterkin returned. "From where I'm standing I'd say you're not fine."
"Nothing that hasn't happened before." JJ said, leaning back against the wall. "Don't see why it's any different now."
"Well, I don't know if you've looked in a mirror, but I think you're going to need to go to a hospital. You're also a minor, and if there's the potential of you being seriously injured, the state requires a medical evaluation. For your own good."
JJ snorted. "For my own good…. Yeah, that's what the state wants for me. Sending me back to this hellhole time and time again "for my own good.". The state can go fuck itself for all I care."
Sheriff Peterkin hesitated, then lightly placed a hand on his knee. "I think we might have a good case here if you want to press charges and try and get custody removed."
He stared at her, anger coursing through his blue eyes. "You don't get it, do you? The state is why I'm here. There are no GOOD options for people like me. I either stay here or get thrown into the foster care system with a bunch of lowlives just looking for a check." He sighed, laying his head back against the wall. "Nothing ever changes or gets any better. At least this way, I get to do things on my own most of the time."
"I'm sorry." Sheriff Peterkin said quietly, letting the silence linger for a moment. "But it's got to be better than here, right?"
JJ smirked. "Better than the "Hotel del Maybank"?" He said in an Italian accent. "I don't think so."
Annoyance flickered through Sheriff Peterkin's mind. How could he be so nonchalant? How could he not want better for himself?
She blurted out. "Can't you take something seriously for once? I mean, look where you are!" She gestured to around the room. "Don't you want to get out of here?"
JJ snapped his head towards her angrily, the bruising on the right side of his face covering him like a shadow. "Be serious?" He spit out angrily. "You want me to be fucking serious? Fine. I got put into the foster care system once when I was 12 after Luke broke my arm. Got shipped to the mainland to a couple with 5 other foster kids living in a shitty little apartment complex. They crammed all of us into the back room. Different people, same deal. Same drugs, same beatings, same lowlives. Except for this time, there were two of them. Eventually Luke sobered up enough to try and get custody back and it had been long enough that the court handed me over in a matter of weeks. Said it was "good for kids to be with their parents." and that, "I needed to be supportive of Luke and his sobriety."." JJ snorted again. "Yeah, that lasted about 3 nights and then I was getting my ass handed to me again. Like I said, nothing ever changes or gets any better. Not for people like me. So don't tell me to be fucking serious."
Sheriff Peterkin sat there, crouched next to him, her hand resting on his knee, struggling to find the words to say. There wasn't anything to say. He reminded her of a friend that she'd used to have back in grade school. He used to spend the night at her house when his parents got into fights or the police showed up at his house for a drug raid. They had drifted apart by the time that they reached middle school, he'd started to pick up his father's drug habit while she'd immersed herself in sports. He'd been arrested at the age of 17 for involuntary manslaughter after hitting someone with his car while he'd been high on heroin. He'd only gotten out of prison in the past couple of years. Twenty years – gone. The world was not kind to kids like JJ.
They sat in silence for a moment, the loud music still thumping loudly downstairs.
"Have you considered getting emancipated?" Sheriff Peterkin asked quietly.
"3 months and 29 days." JJ rattled off. "That's how long it is before I can get emancipated. North Carolina requires you to be the age of 17 before you can file for emancipation. Until then, I have to stay in this shithole."
"That's not too long then…" Sheriff Peterkin stated. "Can you stay with one of your friends until then?"
"No. Big John already has enough on his plate with John B around. And I couldn't stay with Kie or Pope – their families wouldn't let in a piece of white trash like me. Honestly, can't say I blame them." JJ sighed. "Until then, it's stay here or crash on the beach." He looked up at her, seeing her look of surprise and added quickly, "It's not that bad. I have a little tent that I can rig up at this spot underneath the bridge. No one bothers me. Then I shower at John B's and I'm fine." He shrugged. "Better than being here."
Christ. Sheriff Peterkin wondered how many nights this 16-year-old boy had been forced to sleep outside like a homeless person. Even if he was a pain in the ass, no one deserved to have to live like that. Like this. She looked around the room, the stains on the old mattress illuminated by a single fluorescent light shining through a cracked lamp. The only other furniture in the room was a shoddy little dresser, which looked like two of the drawers had been ripped out of and been thrown across the room, leaving chips and indents in the cheap walls. The walls were covered in surfing photos and yellowing band posters and she could see the shiny heads of surfing trophies laying in the corner of the room underneath a pile of wrinkled clothes. Sheriff Peterkin felt herself being a little impressed – the kid had to be pretty talented to still make trophies with all of this going on. She knew full-blown kooks who have been in surfing lessons since they were knee-high and didn't have near as many trophies.
"So what happened this evening?" Sheriff Peterkin asked.
"Got home from my job at the marina and needed to swing by and grab something before heading to John B's. Thought Luke was out – I haven't seen him in a couple days. My mistake I guess, came in and must have looked at him wrong or breathed wrong or something – Christ, I don't know. Son of a bitch got me over the head a couple of times with a glass bottle and kicked the shit out of my ribs. Think one of the glass pieces must've cut me too." He indicated his left arm, which was dripping blood rhythmically onto the floor. "Then you came and here we are."
Sheriff Peterkin heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. "Looks like the medics are here." They sat in silence for a moment, Sheriff Peterkin holding her breath, grasping find words for what she wanted to say. "Listen…JJ. You know that it's going to get better, right? None of this is your fault. What he does... " She pointed downstairs. "…has nothing to do with you."
JJ looked away. "Yeah, the world's my fucking oyster, isn't it?"
No one deserved this.
Without thinking, she heard herself say, "You said you only have 3 months left to being emancipated, right? Well…" She hesitated. Too late now. "Why don't you stay with me?"
What was she doing?
JJ looked at her, confused. "You're joking." He said flatly.
Sheriff Peterkin cleared her throat, then said it with more confidence. "I mean…yeah. Yes. I've got an extra room that I use as an office, but it's got a pull-out couch. I can't promise that it's the ritz, but at least it's not here or sleeping outside."
She didn't know where this was coming from, but it felt right and she continued. It was only a couple months, right?
"We can talk to social services if you want and I can see what we can get set up. That is…" She hesitated. "If you want me to."
The wrinkle of confusion in JJ's eyebrows deepened as he looked her over, considering the offer. Finally, he asked simply, "Why?"
He wasn't used to people doing him favors. She couldn't blame him for questioning her motive. "Because you remind me of a friend I used to have." And maybe this time things would be different. She added in a joking tone, "And because I'm wasting way too much gas having to drive out here all the time."
When he didn't respond, she said "Why don't you just think about it, alright?" She heard the sound of the medics downstairs and called over her shoulder, "Upstairs!" She patted his knee, "We can talk more at the hospital, okay?"
"I don't have insurance." JJ said plainly.
"Emergency medical services are provided to everyone in the state, regardless of if they have insurance or not. There shouldn't be a bill for you being a minor, but if there was, it would fall back on your father, not you." She explained.
"Better hope not." JJ said.
They remained in silence until the medics entered the room, where they slowly stood him up and helped him walk downstairs to the stretcher.
She wished that she had been able to say something different, something better. Something to let him know that this world had not forgotten about him, that he was worth something.
But there was nothing she could say. She went downstairs to provide an updated report to her partner, who was escorting Luke into the squad car, shouting and cursing.
No one deserved to put up with this piece of trash.
She hopped in her cruiser, taking a moment to stare at herself in the rearview mirror. What was she doing?She had no idea how to look after a teenager. Especially a teenager like JJ.
What had she gotten herself into?