Running Away
The fire reflected in their dirty faces, drawn in faces and they looked at him with those eyes, large, miserable. Craig looked down, scared of these street kids standing by the fires that flickered in the cans, and he could see the flames through the holes that had been worn in those cans. He glanced over at them quick, felt them staring at him, like they wanted to eat him.
The cemetery was cold, it had been warm during the day but all the heat had drifted away into the sky. He still wore the thin button up shirt he had run away in, and he felt chilled. He reached out one hand to touch his mother's name chiseled into the stone, and it felt cold.
He didn't care about the cold, didn't care that the wind whipped through the thin material of his shirt. He felt the gravestone sucking the warmth from his fingertips, felt the wind across his face.
Older
His father had left him all that money and he had stared at the check. Was it possible he hadn't thought of his father since shortly after his death? It felt that way. He'd moved on. He'd put it behind him, all the conflict, the beatings, but more than that. He'd put it behind him, the way he just couldn't seem to get along with his father. He'd always been ready to attack him with some sarcastic response, some look that Craig would feel leveled by. It was easier to start to relate to Joey. Joey was fun and funny and understanding and easygoing, all things his father had not been.
This check, this bribe of money beyond the grave. Craig closed his eyes and remembered all the times his father had given him money and gifts and stuff because of how he had hurt him. He thought of the fight outside the restaurant, the cut and black eye, the fear and paranoia the next day that his father was coming to Joey's to get him. The funereal. And now here was the gift to make up for it. He shook his head, eyes closed. Damn him.
"Craig?" Joey said, "you okay?"
He had wanted to rip up the check but Ashley convinced him not to. Ashley, so beautiful, and so intune with him still. Maybe they could at least be friends this year. Maybe.
Playing the expensive guitar, knowing his father would have hated it, feeling that sick happiness. Joey comes up to the garage, his face impassive, a veiled anger. Craig hardly notices.
He'd had to take off, after Joey asked for rent. Rent? He wouldn't have asked Angie for rent, and Craig walked fast, head down, shoulders up. He slipped his sliver of a cell phone from his pocket and dialed Sean's number. Funny that he knew it, he hardly ever talked to Sean anymore.
It was damp, spitting rain, the buildings and sidewalks and roads slick and wet and shiny. Craig could see the reflections of cars in the street, against the walls of the buildings. Things were becoming more run down in increments, soggy cardboard houses no longer keeping their inhabitants warm and dry.
Sean's apartment was in a building near a green neon sign, take-out places and bars crowding his building. Craig pushed on the door that was little more than a board of cheap pine with a doorknob. He looked up the dark flight of stairs that curved into total darkness.
Sean opened his door, still on the phone with him, and Craig smiled ruefully. Of course it would be Sean he went to when he had to run away for real again. Of course.