Page 27 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

Chapter thirteen

Judas

Past Four year old Lucien

“ G ive me a fucking break, Clara. You’re the one who chose to leave—your drugs and booze was more important than our daughter. Don’t come into my house searching for pity because you’ve not got a pot to piss in.”

“Gene…”

Mommy’s voice is sad. Her’s eyes rain, and it goes into my hair, making it wet like the snow outside when it melts.

She’s holding me at her hip, the best place in the world.

My head rests on her shoulder but she told me to face away when we came into this strange house.

I don’t look at the mad man. He reminds me of Daddy, making a loud voice at Mommy.

She tightens her arms on me when I hear him start to stomp around, and things crash on to the floor—both of us jump like cricket.

“Don’t Gene , me, Clara. You’re not welcome back in this house.

Should have thought about that before you ran off and started whoring yourself out.

Then had another kid when you can’t even find food to eat, had to go and spit out another brat.

Least that one is behaved, looks like you, too.

Hope that’s all he got from you and not your fucked up head. ”

He’s mean. I no like him.

“You leave him out of this. All I’m asking is for a few days. We will stay in the garage if we have to, away from you and Nadia, just don’t put us out. It’s one thing to make me sleep in the cold; please don’t take it out on him.”

Her eyes rain more, makes her breath and words sad and it shakes me but she doesn’t move. Not with the mean man in the room. Him’s yell more and it makes me mad. I can feel my mad face come on

Don’t you yell at my mommy!

About to turn and look at him, to see who this mean man is, the door opens and in steps another kid—like me—but a girl.

An old lady holds her hand, she has a backpack on like mine!

But, her’s purple with kitties, mine’s blue with whales.

She stays close to the old lady when she speaks to the mean man.

“Sorry for the delay, Gene. We hit traffic on my bus route today. Hope you don’t mind I brought her home a little later than normal,” she says.

“Could have kept her if you wanted. Free to another home—doesn’t have to be good.”

“You’re going to get CPS called on you for saying things like that, Gene.”

The lady sounds no happy like me. I would look to her but I watch the little girl instead.

She has dark hair like mine, even her eyes the same color.

She pretty. Well, Daddy says girls that look like me are pretty.

That they will make even better mommies.

I don’t like when he talks to me about girls.

He makes me mad too—always have my mad face with hims.

“Go on, Nadia, go put your backpack in your room and start your color pages,” she tells the girl.

Is her Nadia?

Mean man talk about a Nah… Na… Dee… ah… uh?

Nah-Dee-uh. Nadia. I mouth over and over but never say out loud.

I want to stay in my invisible cape, like Superman.

Him’s the best. I wish I can fly like him.

Soar through air like a bird—oh he nice, too.

Never yell. OH! He has black hair like me.

Sometimes, wish he was my daddy. He could show me how to laser eye bad mens that talk to me about girls.

I watch as she runs away from the lady. Around the side of Mommy and down the dark hallway until she is gone. Mommy feels different, still like my Stretch Armstrong.

“She’s gotten so big,” Mommy says with her inside voice.

“That’s what happens when you feed children, Clara. That leach you have attached to you may not make it that far with the way you’re going. Will die of starvation.”

“I don’t want to talk about Lucien. Can we stay? If not, we will leave.”

“Listen to you—uncomfortable. Did seeing her make you feel something? Regret, maybe? What about foolishness, ignorance, or incompetence? Do you know what it’s like to have to raise a kid on your own? Of course you don’t, not when you’re still living with that pimp of yours.”

Okay, mad face and laser eyes activate!

Turning my head, I finally look at the mean man.

He is taller than Mommy with a bigger belly, dark brown hair and dark eyes.

Like the coal from my Santa sock last year.

He be mean to my mommy again, I’ll find hims Santa sock and knock him with it.

He has coal, coal is for bad people. If I bad, he more bad.

“Fine,” he grunts and waves bye-bye to Mommy and I. “The garage is stacked to the ceiling. There may be room in the shed out back if you move the junk around. It’s yours, after all.”

Mommy doesn’t say anything; she only turns and we go through the food room. It’s much bigger than Daddy’s, and the lady is in here now. She is moving things out of the doors and onto the counter, boxes that have a glove with a smile on it.

I wonder if they have noodles.

Outside, we walk across the yard to the small house at the back.

Hers old and muddy shoes crunching the ground-hair cold with every step.

When we make it, and Mommy opens the heavy door, we step inside and it smells not nice.

My nose scrunches when she pulls me off her hip and sets me down on the wood floor.

It makes a hill in the middle of the room.

Boxes have black fur on them on the far side of the tiny house, and I think one moves when Mommy crouches down to my level.

She gives me a smile when she talks, her fingers pushing some of my Superman hair out of my eyes.

I love Mommy, all mines heart.

“We will only be here for a few days, okay, Lulu? Then we will go to Nana’s house, deal?”

“Kay, Mommy.”

Just like her said, we stayed in the little house for a few days.

When the sun was out, I was in the snow.

Putting together all the snowballs I need to have a fight with Mommy—she said we can before we leave.

I so excited, I even make many little snowman’ that we can use if we run out of our amoonition.

Each day, I see that little girl—Nadia—come home and run to her room. One day, I was in the food room with Mommy while the mean man was gone. She was looking for snacks but I wasn’t good that day because I walked down the hall looking for the little girl.

I found a potty room but she wasn’t there.

Then a big room that smell like smoke—do not like that room.

At the very end of the hall, I push up on my toes to reach the door ball.

With all my might, I turn it. When it opens, I see all things girl.

Dollys, flowers, stuffies that look like the kitties on her backpack.

Daddy says I nosy, I don’t know what that means. But I is curious-cat and she like kitties. Maybe her will like me too.

Easing into her room, I run over to her desk where there are colors and pages with princesses. I know that because they wear big dresses with crowns, but… they have rain on their face, like Mommy. The princess sad, but why?

Climbing onto the chair next to her colors, I pick up a yellow one and draw a sun over the princess with lots of lines to give her happy and warm.

Mommy says the sun makes big people happy, so this will work.

It will make the rain go away. With a different color, put a flower next to the princess, take my time making sure is perfect.

Nadia deserves flowers, just like Mommy.

“Lucien Charles!” I hear Mommy shout and jump ‘cause it scare me.

I let go of the color and it falls to the desk.

Fast as Flash, I scramble off the chair and run out of her room.

The mean man must be back and we have to run away.

As I fast-run down the hallway, my shoes make light-up colors on the wall like police cars—red and blue.

Wee-woo, wee-woo, what you do, Lucien come to you.

They’re my favorite kind. We went to the store one day, and in the back where they keep all them, Daddy handed this pair to Mommy and she put them on my feets.

Said we had to make sure they had growing room because I sprout like a weed, not a flower, and won’t be able to come back for a new pair for a long time.

After that, we went to the door and then I raced Mommy and Daddy to the car.

It was lots fun. When we drove away, a man with a shiny badge was chasing us—I think he wanted to race too.

I make it back to the food room and go to Mommy. She stands at the door with her arms crossed over her chest and I walk up to her, lifting my arms so she can pick me up from the floor.

“Up, Mommy.” I ask.

She's never upset to me long, and I know she is. In a few seconds, she shakes her head and pulls me up, squeezing me tight.

“Where were you?”

“In the little girl’s room. She has color pictures. The lady said her to color when she comes home. Mommy, her princesses are sad. I had to give them sun.”

She looks at me quietly, her head tilting to the side so I mimic her, not sure what it means. Is there water in her ear and she need to get it out? That happens to me in the bathtub when I dive for treasure.

“That was nice of you, Lulu. Do you know who that girl is?”

“Nadia,” I answer.

“Yes, that’s her name but she is important. You know that?”

“N… no. Is she special like me?”

“In a way, yes. Nadia is your sister, sweet boy. You share Mommy with her.”

“No, I don’t share Mommy. Mine.”

She laughs but I scowl. I’ll not share her with another. I already have to share her with Daddy and him’s asshole.

That’s a bad word, Lucien.

I know is bad but I means it!

That was my friend, he talks to me sometimes. Especially when I do bad things, reminds me to be a good boy or else coal in my Santa sock again.

“Come on, we are going back to the shed. I found you some noodles and warmed them up. You can have a full tummy tonight and we can look outside the window and look for shooting stars before sleep time.”

“Okay!”

That night we didn’t see shooting stars, just a lot of big bright ones, and the moon. It was so jynormuss, like I can touch it, is so huge. I wonder if Nadia counts shooting stars, too.

The next day I sit on the back porch of the big house and make mad face at the ground-hair.

Mommy says I share her with Nadia but I don’t like that.

Why do I have to share her? Do other boys share their mommy too?

I don’t share Daddy. Mean man don’t be shared.

Why I have to share Mommy then? Pushing away from the hard porch, I run over to the edge of the grass and stomp on it.

Makes me so angry. I keep pounding my wee-woo shoes on the ground and smoosh the grass.

In the middle of my tirade, I hear someone sniffle like they have a cold nose, and freeze like policemen say.

Turning around to see where it is coming from and who is making it.

Looking left, then right, I hear it again and follow it down the back of the big house.

It is wood all the way into the dirt, grey like the sky with vines climbing the side. Like a jungle, I think.

Hearing it again, louder this time, I finally come up to a window that’s open some and see the little girl sitting at her desk. She is crying. Not a cold nose, but rain from her eyes.

Holding on to the edge of her window, I push up on my toes to get a better look at what she is doing and there on her color pages is the sun I made for her. But…she has a dark crayon in her hand and scribbling over the sun. The princess face too, then the dress, and the flower I colored for her.

What is happen, Nadia? You not like my picture?

Part of me wants to rain, too, but other side, the voice side, wants to be mean. To tell her she no good for make my picture a mess. I was nice to her; some sister she is.

I watch her for a while longer, until her rain dries and she puts her colors away.

She has a red nose now, and big eyes that are so sad.

I don’t understand why she’s like that but seeing her rain, it makes her more pretty.

Daddy is right; girl versions of me are pretty but I don’t like them like he does.

I just want to look at her, and make her smile.

If she’s my sister, then she can come with Mommy and me, and I can teach her how to draw suns and not scribbles.

I can teach her how to be happy, just like me.