| Reason 5 I like Shaun. I know it must sounds stupid and nieve of me because I don't know him for shit, but I like him. I don't mean that I have a crush on him, even though he *is* pretty cute, I mean, I think I'm really starting to like him as a person. And that's why I don't want him to be turning tricks tonight. The thought of him going through that, of someone forcing themselves on him, hurting him...I just don't want to think about it and as nice as Gimp is and as much as I'd like to spend some time with her, I don't want Shaun to be putting himself in that position and having to go through that experience. I've told him this. A number of times. In the space of ten minutes. And he's listening, of course, but he's not giving me the answers I want to here. I want him to tell me he'll stay with me tonight instead of looking for some fucking sleaze who couldn't get a date on their own, so they prey on people who have no other choice. But he's not going to. He's more fucking stubborn than Elias! He keeps saying he can see where I'm coming from and he understands and he really doesn't want to be turning tricks either, but right now, he's got no choice. I feel guilty because I lost him fifty dollars that night when stick man was after me. If I'd have fucked off when that sleaze told me to, maybe he wouldn't have to be turning tricks tonight. "I've still got about twenty five dollars. You don't need money right now" I argue. We're going to the mall near the McDonalds where I first met Gimp and the others. Shaun reckons Gimp'll be there, and if she's not, someone who knows where she is will be. "Yeh, and you'll need that money. Angel's fast, but he's not a miracle worker. It'll take him a few days. And you'll need your money for food an' shit" Shaun says, looking around absently as though he's looking for someone he recognises, but it's not overly important to him. See what I mean? He's been givin' me these half ass excuses the entire time since I brought this up. He's listening. I know he's listening. And he's understanding. And he's agreeing. But he's not doing anything about it, and that's the part that's annoying me. "Please, Shaun. Please stay with me?" I'm resorting to begging. That's a rare thing from me, so he should take it very seriously. But does he? No. Of course not. He smiles and shakes his head and digs his hands in his pockets without answering because he would just be repeating himself and that would make him look stupid. It only serves to annoy me further. I open my mouth to keep complaining, and he holds up one hand to silence me, "I'm hearin' you Letty. I am. And I do agree wit wot you're sayin'. I just got no choice right now. I'm sorry. You'll be right wit Gimp". That's not what I'm concerned about. I'm not scared for me, because, believe it or not, I'm not that selfish. I'm scared for him. "Shaun!!" He has alot of friends. People are always callin' out to him and shit. But I recognise this voice. It's Gimp. She's standing against the wire fencing around a pay-and-park compound. Boof's with her. He's facing the cars, Gimp's facing the street. I have no idea why they're here, coz it looks like a pretty shitty place to hang out, but we're going over there any way. "Hey gurl" Gimp grins at me, then looks across at Shaun, "Wotchoo's doin' 'en? I'm thinkin' you didn't find 'er cousin, coz she's still stuck witchoo". Shaun feigns being hurt by her teasing, then smiles and shakes his head, before waving a hand at me. "I gotta leave Let wit yous. I gotta work tonight" he tells her, and I'm pleased when Gimp looks as disapproving towards this idea as I am. Boof turns around and winks at me, then tries to catch on to the conversation. "Aww, c'mon, boy. You woz jus' turnin' tricks the other night" Gimp moans, pushing Shaun's arm. "You turnin' tricks?" Boof asks, only just having joined the conversation. Shaun nods. Gimp scowls. I like her. She's so hard ass and I reckon the boys are more scared of her than they are of each other. I reckon she's got Boof wrapped around her little finger, and the other two aren't complaining. I like that. I wish Dom and V and their friends would think of me like that. "I reckon I'll come wit you, ey" Boof says, rubbing a hand back over his shaved head. He reminds me so much of Dom when he does that. As much of an asshole Dom is to me, I really do miss him. I miss the golden honey colour of his skin. I miss the gravely rumble of his voice. I miss the ego and the arrogance. I miss his gorgeous features and his beautiful body and everything about him. "Nooo!" Gimp groans, turning to Boof and putting her hands on his chest, "You said you'd do a car wit me!". Boof makes a face and cocks his head to one side, as though he's trying hard to consider whether to turn tricks with Shaun or do a car with Gimp. Both sound risky and fucking scary to me. "Uuuhhh, nah. I think I'ma go wit Shaun" Boof decides, shaking his head, and motioning towards Shaun. Gimp groans again and folds up against his chest. They don't really seem like an item to me. They'd be like chalk and cheese if they were. Boof wraps his arms around Gimp and gives her a squeeze, then plants a quick kiss on her hair, and lets her go, heading towards Shaun. "I'll see you in the morning, a'ight?" Shaun touches my arm. I wrap my arms around myself and nod. I'm not even going to pretend I'm happy about his decision to ignore the dangers and risks and my begging and go turn tricks anyway. Boof gives Shaun a pat of the ass as he passes him, and nods for him to hurry up. Shaun winks at me, then follows. Gimp scowls the entire time, until they reach the corner and turn out of our view. "Damn" she says, under her breath, and scratches absently at her hair, looking at me thoughtfully, "Hey, you want to do a car wit me? Then we'll go back to Shaun's". Do a car? I'm not sure if she means boost it or scrap it or nick the hood badges or what, but any one of those sounds fucking scary. I don't wanna look like a wimp, though. Not in front of Gimp. And hell, how hard could it be, right? I know my way around a car pretty damn well. It should be a piece of piss. "A'ight" I shrug, and Gimp grins at me, grabbing my hand. We go around the back of the fenced in carpark. There's a few scrubby bushes and trees over here, to hide us away from whoever might be watching. Gimp crouches right by the fence, and I follow suit. "A'ight" she says, wringing her hands together. They're shaking. I don't know if she's scared or cold or excited, but I'm all three. I've never broken into a car before. Shit, I've barely even broken the law before. I'm shit scared but I'm also eager to get that massive high that comes from knowing you're doing the wrong thing. "Shit" she curses, shaking her hands like Mia does when she's trying to make her nail polish dry faster, then grinning at me, "That's wot speed does to ya, Let. I don't suggest you try it". Even now that she's stopped flicking her hands around, they're still shaking. Speed, huh? Didn't really pick her for that kind of person. She's always got her hoodie on, so I can't see any tracks on her arms, but she just doesn't really fit the 'profile', y'know? But I suppose drugs like that would be easy as piss to get around here, and hard as shit to resist. Wonder if the others do speed and shit? "Doan worry. I can still do this" Gimp assures me with a winning smile, "A'ight. I'll pick the car, but, jus' incase you need to do one on yer own some day- never go for cars with obvious alarms. Don't go for expensive cars jus' coz you think there's good shit in 'em, coz they're the hardest. Older cars are easier to break into. Go for the front drivers window, grab anything from the front seats, glovebox, back seats, dash board, any money near the gear stick, then pop the trunk and see wot's in there. You need to be in and out really fast. I'm talking seconds. One minute tops. Anything else you wanna know?". "Yeh. Wot if we get caught?" I ask. That's what I'm scared of. Getting caught. It's not the breaking in part. It's not the stealing part. It's the getting sprung that I'm shittin' myself over. What, do we just drop everything and run? And what if we can't? Will we go to prison or something? "Jus' leave that to me, a'ight?" Gimp winks, "Otherwise, a quick blow job usually does the trick". I swallow hard as Gimp stands back up and presses herself against the fence, scanning the carpark. It's getting dark, and we're both wearing relatively dark clothes, so it shouldn't be too easy to spot us. "C'mon" Gimp waves for me to follow, then shoves her shoes into two of the little diamond holes in the fence and starts to climb. Doesn't look that hard, and there's no barbed wire or anything at the top of the fence, so it should be pretty piss easy. Gimp reaches the top of the fence, leans over the other side, holds tight to the wire fence, and flips herself over to the other side. I follow suit, because she's the one who knows what she's doin'. We sneak across the carpark to a '94 Ford Falcon. I know my cars. And this car is a heap of shit. Damn, you should see Marc's Dodge Charger. Him and Dom built it. Y'know what it does? Nine seconds flat. It's a fucking beast. Marc races it on the Pro-Stock Car Circuit. It's the most beautiful car I've ever seen. These cars, here in this car park, they're shit. All of them. All fucking shitboxes. How anyone could take pride in driving something like this is beyond me. "Here we go" Gimp says, opening the drivers door. Shit, I didn't even see how she got it unlocked. She's fucking fast too. Especially with her shaky hands. She pops the trunk for me while she scrounges through the actual car. I almost die of shock when a light turns on in the trunk as I push it open. Someone's bound to see it, right? No one's comin' though. No one's shouting at me to get the fuck away from their car. So I get to work. Not much back here. Some blankets, an empty esky, some golf clubs (which we sure as hell couldn't get back over the fence any way), a dog bed, and not a whole lot else. What a crap score, eh? I shut the trunk and move around to where Gimp's scrounging through the car. "Here" she says, shoving a 6-pack of Corona's at me. Dom and V live off this stuff. Personally, I think it tastes really bitter and disgusting, but I'd rather it over Dos Equis, which is what Chino drinks. Anything to do with him is vile and disgusting to me. It's been infected by him. Everything he touches turns to shit. "Damn, this is shit!" Gimp curses, sitting in the passenger seat and scrabbling around in the glove box. She glances at me, then out the windscreen. I guess she thinks we're just about out of time here, coz she crawls across the seats to the open door I'm standing at, and climbs out. She shuts the door so loudly that I think someone's gonna hear us and come kick our asses. "C'mon. We'll get goin'. This's shit" Gimp says, waving for me to follow. She heads back over to the fence and climbs, leaving me on the other side with the Coronas. I almost panic, thinking she's gonna leave me here with a stolen six pack of beers, when she tells me to chuck them over. I reckon they'll probably break or something, but I do as she says, and she catches them like a footballer would, holding them against her chest. She starts laughing for some reason, but it's contagious, and I can't help but laugh with her as I climb the fence. * * * * * Gimp laughs, almost spraying beer all over me. We used some of my money and got some hot chips from a fish and chips joint and now we're back at the place I stayed at with Shaun last night, sitting on the mattress, drinking the Coronas we stole and eating chips. She's laughing coz I was just tellin' her about V's thing for Mia. It's kinda sad, really. He's so into her. Not just coz she's a figure of beauty or because he wants to nail her, but because he really, really likes her. But Mia's just not hearing it. She's not mean about it or anything. She just turns him down as gently as she can and V just doesn't get the point and keeps trying anyway. "He's sounds like a cutie. Get him up here!" Gimp chokes out, still laughing, "I want him!". I grin. V would probably like Gimp. She's got Mia's characteristics mixed in with some of mine and some of Dom's and some of Elias's and Hector's and Marc's and, well, everyone. She's got pieces of everyone in her. "Aren't you an' Boof..y'know?" I ask, brows raised. Gimp laughs even harder, choking on the chip she just put in her gob. OK then, I guess not, huh? I just thought coz he hugged her and kissed her good-bye and stuff. They just seemed close, y'know? But they all seem close, I suppose. Both the guys and the girls are both as close to each other as V is with Dom. "No. No. I ain't goin' wit anyone" she gets out after a moment, "Boof's jus' like that". I'm a little confused now. Why? How come he's like that? I want to know everything about him. Everything about everyone. Even though I'm not planning on staying here for the rest of my life, I want to remember these people and I don't want half assed memories. I want good memories of them, because they've done so much for me already. "How come he's like that?" I ask. Well, if you don't ask, you don't get to know do you? Gimp swallows the mouthful of beer and chips she's got, holding up a hand to tell me to wait a second. I just nod and wait. "He's got some dependency issues, y'know?" she's turned serious now, so I'm following suit and not having a laughing fit or anything, "His parents got killed in a car accident an' he woz put in a foster home. He got some real sick-fuck parents an' they wouldn't move him in another home so he woz stuck wit them for a real long time. That's why he clings to people now. Coz for a long time he didn't have anyone treat him like a real *person* instead of a fucking dog that they can starve and lock up and kick all to hell". I feel so bad. I've got this twisting feeling in my stomach. I can't imagine people being cruel like that to anyone, especially someone like Boof. He's so dopey and lovable and to think that someone would do something like that to him makes me sick. Just like I felt when Shaun told me he was turning tricks tonight. I don't want my new friends being hurt, and to think that someone would even want to do that to one of them is sickening. "So, um, how come you aren't living at home any more?" I ask after a long moment of silence. I sip at my beer. It still tastes pretty foul, but the more you drink, the less you can taste it. Gimp's already polished off two bottles. She drinks more than V does! It's amazing. Doesn't quite top Chino though. He could drink anyone under the table. "My Dad left when I was, like, two" Gimp says with a shrug, running her finger round the rim of her Corona, "So, I lived with my Moms for, like, thirteen years. She was skankin' around. She was a pro. An' she didn't mind makin' it obvious. There woz drugs all over the house an' shit. Then she got killed by some sleaze and I got sent to live wit my aunt. Didn't last long there. She woz accusin' me of stealin' from her and shit, so I left. Ended up here. Met Angel. You seen him today, right?". "Yeh" I nod, popping some chips in my mouth and talking through them, "He seems cool. An' he's gonna find Pedro, so that makes him pretty fucking tight in my books". Gimp nods and smiles, "He's a cool guy. Got more connections than the Russian mafia. I like him. Everyone does. Too bad you ain't stickin' around to get to know him, ay?". I nod slowly, picking up another chip, "Yeah." |