Sweet Dreams…I’ll never have them.

Okay yes that’s one hell of a depressing statement. But it’s true. Hey…My given name’s William Hunter, I get Will or Bill or Billy but the thing is I’m none of those. I don’t have a clue who I really am but tell me one teenager that does.

Monday September 20th, 2010.

I wake up cold. I live out on the outskirts of Detroit. It’s a bad neighborhood full of run down buildings and boarded up stores and just trash and stuff everywhere. There’s no heat in the apartment. The land lord doesn’t turn it on until like late November. There’s no use complaining because my step-dad’ll just tell me to shut the fuck up and put on a sweater. I pick myself up off my mattress on the floor and pad my way through the apartment until I get to the bathroom.

The place is a wreck again with beer cans everywhere (His) and wine bottles (Mom’s) and there cigarette butts on the floor, the coffee table, in a few cups and dishes. It stinks in here that sweet burned sugar stink mixed with menthol and licorice. The smell of Methe and Weed my parents drugs of choice when they can get them.

I check the fridge and there’s three day old cold pizza just starting to curl in on itself.
I’m still trying to see if it’s edible when I try a sip of the milk…yeah…ugh, it’s nearly cheese. I take a cold shower, eat the pizza and make myself an instant coffee with cold water. My stomach’s already screaming in rebellion.

I walk to school.

I hate school, the press of the crowds of kids and nobody really gives a shit that I am here. Well there are a few people. I hang with almost nobody and I’m cool with that. There’s a lot of gangs here, not little ones either. I’m fifteen and in grade nine. I’m skinny because there’s no food in our house like ever. Why buy food when you can smoke it, or inject it or drink it. I should be outta here because I’m “So Smart.” But apparently I’m not that smart because they haven’t pushed me ahead. No the Admin wants me here and a few of the other brains because we bring up the shitty GPA.

I’m cornered by Maxx Logan once I’m in the stairwell where security is laxer. I don’t try to talk him and his buddies out of it. They run their own gang of a sort and have been after me all year last year and this year. I just run, or I try to run. The fucker hasn’t liked me since I won’t pay him his protection money. I don’t have any money, there’s shit for jobs that a fifteen year old can do that aren’t illegal. I’m not running drugs for him. I’m not. Its bad enough I have to live through that shit at home.

Anyway he and his buddies catch me and they start to thump on me. I got a kick to my balls then I’m slammed into the wall by Maxx and I lose count of the times he wails on me. Always to the body. See it looks like abuse right? If I say shit to the cops or the faculty then it gets spread around that I’m in an abusive home (I am). They get charged and both of them have priors so there’s the 3rd strike rule. They go to prison for bull shit and I’ll get thrown into foster care or a group home.

And given the way I look I’d be made someone’s bitch really quick. I’m five foot six, one hundred and nineteen pounds and maybe still growing. My mom’s a short chick and I take after her. A German and Irish mutt I’m as blonde as can be but I‘ve got dad‘s green eyes. I hide it with a goth-punker style. I’ve dyed the last five inches of my hair blood red, I’ve got some ink, nothing real. Three earrings in each ear.

I wear what I can but being completely broke my clothes are shit, threadbare and if I’m lucky from thrift stores. Today it’s a black knit hat, a really old Ramones T-shirt over a girls black skater long sleeve sweater you know with the built in glove thing over the middle two fingers. Black combat fatigues and old red keds and Goth knee high stockings. I’ve got a really old jean jacket that was so threadbare I crazy glued a black hoody into it as a liner.

Twice a year I used to get money from an imaginary grandfather. I had forty bucks each time until the step-shit got a hold of it. He beat the cash out of me for drugs. Instead of defending me Mom stopped him and befriended me and conned me into showing her where everything I’d saved saying that with it we could get out and away from him. Once she got the cash she ranted about that being it. I betrayed them over that.

My real dad was a bartender at a Mick(Irish) bar who got gunned down by a drive-by when I was three. I still remember it, I was there. I’m skinny too that comes from I guess living the way I do. I might be better off elsewhere…Bullshit. I’m literally the fucking definition of white trash. Not worth helping. Mom’s a Nord (An Old White gang German& Polish.),She a wanna-be Aryan really; she's got German cross tattoos and shit. She and Step-shit are Aryan nation hangers on. Still they’ll pin those beliefs on me, I’ll get saddled with the rep.

I’m saved from a really severe beating by this burst of yelling just down the hall followed by the very definitive pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop…of gunfire tearing through the place, the walls and one of Maxx’s boy’s takes a stray round.. He goes down and the rest of us split.

I end up taking off out of school in the confusion and hiding out on one of the buses. I don’t know why they’re there but I don’t care. It’s warm in there with the sun coming through the windows and that combined with a crappy breakfast and the beating I drift off into sleep curled up in the backseat of the bus.

I wake up to the sound of voices. I look around and I see a whole bunch of really well off white kids in the jackets of various schools I’ve never heard of. Lots of jocks and lots of varsity and letterman jackets. Great…Fucking jocks and me a prime goon target. I wall of muscle lands on me just throwing himself into the seat.

He’s fucking huge. Six and a half feet maybe more, three hundred pounds of muscle. His arms are huge, like bigger than anything I’ve seen in person. He’s more that able to palm my face through the window or the metal of the bus itself. He’s got long brown hair and brown eyes. He’s one of those magazine cover pretty boys with the world at his feet.

The more I look at him the more pissed I get. Designer jeans, polo shirt, Varsity jacket, expensive aftershave and all that stuff.

“Hey!”
“Whoa, shit!’
He jumps a bit at the shout I made. Then turns and looks at me. “Uhm, yeah sorry I didn’t see you there you’re kinda small.”
“Gee, you mean you just thought you could just throw yourself wherever you wanted.”
“Uhm, yeah.” He ducks his head and blushes..?
WTF?
“I’m sorry did I hurt you.”
Yes, fuck he landed on some of my bruises from earlier today.
“Yeah a little.”
“Oh my god, shit, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m kinda getting that there big guy.”
“Alex.’
“What?’
“My name it’s Alex.”
“Okay…I’m Hunter.” He doesn’t really know me and I’ve always wanted to be called by my last name. He nods. “I like it.”
“Okay, it doesn’t matter what you think about my name, it’s there. I don’t really need you to like it.’
“Hey I said I’m sorry okay?”
“Sorry, I’m not used to your types, being like human to me and stuff.”
“My Types?”
“Jocks’”
“Oh and you think that all us Jocks are all the same?”
“Yeah, and you already proved it, throwing your ass here like you own the fucking place. Your just another fucking over grown, over indulged goon. You’re all the fucking same you know…”

He’s ignoring me as I see a whole flock of super hot super model looking girls in cheerleader uniforms strut onto the bus. I’ve never seen anyone strut on a bus. They give off this air of superiority. The one in the lead is so hot she could melt steel, a literally perfect blonde…blue eyes, big DD firm breasts and narrow waist and everything just perfect. The kind of girl who’s sicced her boys to pound someone like me just because I was there or looking at her or some other fucking whim.

I hear him breathe out a quiet. “Shit…I..really don’t need this…”
She’s almost on top of us when he pulls off my knit cap and pulls me into a kiss so fast it shakes my hair loose.
WTF?
I’m being kissed by a guy.
I’m not gay.
I’m…this…this is my first kiss. His hands slides into my jacket, to my sides and…I’m too numb to feel the pain from my bruises just then and his hands slide down and cup my bottom.
I’m not gay.
Why does this feel like this…?
“Alex? Just who the fuck is she?” The words are filled with venom, and anger and the desire to hurt me or worse. WTF? Waitafuckingminute! Waddashemeanshe?

Alex breaks the kiss but he’s still holding me…“Oh Hi, Jennifer, This is Hunter. Hunter this is my EX Jennifer.” I still kind of stunned, everyone on the bus is watching the show.
Her look get’s even more dark and angry. If she was home she’d have pulled a piece.
“Alex, don’t be stupid. What do you think you’re doing with this thing. I mean just look at her.” She starts to laugh which causes her sheeple to laugh. I really hate people like her. She doesn’t know fuck all about me and she thinks she’s got me pegged. I look street, I could act that way and knock her block off but I really try to never hit women.

Instead I go for that bitchy, real goth chick cool and blink at her slowly after they’re done laughing. Like she’s nothing, like they’re nothing. “Whatever.” and I turn from looking at her and kiss Alex. I’m kissing a guy of my own choice, of my own free will. It’s out of spite for her and everything she represents. Jennifer boils with fury at me dismissing her. “You’re dead you here me, nobody messes with Jennifer Morrison.”

I ignore her again and keep kissing Alex. A teacher or a coach or something comes onto the bus and the others take their seats. Alex slides in behind me putting his back to the windows and the lounges with his legs up on the seat. I was going to protest but he pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me. I’m getting tons of stares and a lot of them jealous ones from the girls. Alex tilts my head back again and kisses me.

There’s a part of me inside screaming. I should be freaking out at this. I should be feeling revolted. This is gay, I’m being such a fag.

Then there’s something just enjoying it? I don’t understand. I’m smart like I said really smart. Not understanding doesn’t sit well with my brain.

Alex wraps his arms around me and puts his chin on my shoulder. It feels good, really…good, too good…No one has held me since my dad was gunned down. Then I’m hurting…that buried down pain comes bubbling up and I’m drowning in unshed tears. I don’t cry. I nearly cry…I get so close I get a headache from it. The parents taught me not to cry. You can’t pound on a little kid, Mom would try to slap me to be quiet, sometimes when she was high or drunk she didn’t need a reason. The step-shit would hold me still and put stick pins in me…deep, and they look like bug bites. In my neighborhood nobody gives a fuck.

My head’s throbbing when one of the cheer whores passes me a tissue. “Hunter, right? You’ve got a nose bleed.” Jennifer turns and with a bitchy look. “Oh looks like someone had too much coke this morning.” I dab away at the familiar trickle of blood. Some of them look freaked, Jennifer and her sheeple are laughing.

I’m myself in this at least and pull in further and deeper into myself.

We leave of the bus and head back from the place they were at. It turns out the bus company moves around buses when they’re not going back and forth from their usual routes. The one I hid in and fell asleep in was sent to pick up a bunch of kids from a field trip. At least after this I can get off at the city depot.

My nose under control I lean my head back and kiss Alex. “You owe me big time.”
“Yeah I know, I’m kinda sorry about this, the hitting on you and stuff.”
“Kinda sorry?”
“Yeah, I really like holding you. Kissing you, I can get used to this you know.”
It hurts, I feel angry that this isn’t…I don’t know why I’m so hurt and pissed.
I reach up run my fingers through that hair…pull his head down closer.
“Alex, are you a fag?” like I said, I’m hurt and I want to hurt someone else.
He stiffens like I hit him. His voice is a very quiet angry hiss. “No, I’m not why?”
His hands dig into my sides as he’s holding me, right over my bruises.
“Because Alex, I’m not a girl.”
He’s quiet, I’m waiting for the explosion. The self justified anger, the beatings from him and the others…
He’s quiet dead quiet the rest of the ride back to his school. I feel his chest heave twice, like he might cry? He breathes it out through his nose.
“You kissed me you know.”
Nothing.
“You didn’t even ask me to help.”
Nothing.
“So are you just waiting to freak on me without witnesses.”
Nothing.
“This is you fucking fault, I didn’t trick you.”
Nothing.
I’m running out of steam without him saying shit that I can use against him. He’s still holding me and I swear I can feel something wrong, there’s something hurting in him.
Hurting I know.
You know you’d never think Mr. Alpha male, Mr. perfect would know that life could be shitty.
I go quiet myself.
We pull into their school.
Ooh, it’s all pretty and shiny.
Fuckers.
The campus is clean. They’ve got grass and trees and picnic tables and everyone’s got nice cars, clothes, lives…I feel like the dirty little thing that I am. Kids start getting up to leave. Jennifer and her crew cutting us off.
Alex was the last to get up.
Jennifer give me a shove back into Alex. “Oh no, you don’t get out this that easy you little cunt. I’m going to teach your little coked up ass a lesson.”
“I don’t do drugs.’
“Bullshit.”
“No, I don’t, my Mom’s a fucking Methe head I’ve seen how fucked up you really get on it Jennifer. And this is what happens when you don’t deal with the dealers.”
I lift my shirts a bit and show some of my bruises.
It got quiet again.
I stare at Jennifer, she stares at me, then my bruises and then me. “I don’t give a shit what you do to me Jennifer, there’s nothing you can dream up that isn’t my everyday.”
I feel the headache again and feel a little warm trickle.
I dab some more blood away from my nose.
Alex opens the doors at the back of the bus setting off the alarms and he pulls me off the bus after he jumps down.
“Alex?, Alex!” Jennifer calls after/at him.
He spins on his heel and punches his fist into the door so hard it dents and slams shut and the safety glass windows shatter… “Jennifer!, Fuck off!”
He turns on his heels again and walks away normally he’s really…he puts his hand to the small of my back and guides me away from them all the teacher’s having a freak but other football players are talking bullshit to him covering for their boy.
Alex’s hand is really fucked up…no…it isn’t?
Martial arts?, he’s a really big guy and they usually don’t study that stuff. It happened so fast I didn’t really see what he did. He leads me over to a car. It’s a bright shiny new dodge charger. He is fucking rich. He…he opens the door for me. I get in and he closes the door. He starts to drive. I look it over, leather everything, he’s from a whole other world.

He drives me back to my neighborhood. I just quietly give him directions. He still hasn’t said anything. I tell him to stop at a mini-mall a couple of blocks from home. He comes around to open my door and I get out on my own.
“Jesus Alex I told you I’m not a fucking girl!, I’m not a fa…”
He kisses me, like the guy does to the girl in the movies. My head tilted back, him kissing me so sweetly…I want to pull away, I want to push him away, I want to scream faggot at him/me? I can’t, I’m totally swept away by the kiss.

I’m still in shock when he pulls away from kissing me. He takes out his wallet with a card in it. Of course all of them carry cards. He also takes all of the cash out of his wallet and stuffs in into my front pocket.

He looks at me and I hurt him. I really fucking hurt him, and I can see it in his eyes.
I broke something in there, or rebroke it.

He walks away and just before he gets in his car he pulls my black knit cap onto his head. It looks good on him.

I just watch him pull away and take off down the streets out of sight. I’m hugging myself and my fingers are touching my lips. I’m stunned, in shock and freaking out inside. I walk to the local Taco bell. I live on it sometimes. You can get a decent amount of food for cheap. I pull out his money. He had $117 dollars…a whole other fucking world…of difference.

I eat, I eat slowly and take my time. I’m…I’m more lost and messed up then when I started today. I hurt inside and out. I buy some junk food at the Circle K, candy and Tang two cans of chili that I dent. To look cheaper. I treat myself to a chocolate bar, I like 5th avenue bars and a chocolate milk. I head to my security box place. I stole money from the Step-shit to first get it. $23.50 per month I hide all my money I can scrimp and save together there. It’s private and I have the only keys besides the people that run the place. I keep one really hidden in my building. The other is duct taped under the sole liner in my sneaker. I’ve put eighty in there.

It’s well after dark when I get home. I toss the bag of stuff on the couch and sit in one of the chairs. Step-shits drinking some rot-gut gin. “Where’d you git the stuff.” I reach over and take mom’s pack of smokes off of the coffee table. I take one out and light it. It burns a little too hot, they’ve been sitting out and have dried out. I exhale, I needed this. “I stole a twenty from a teacher’s wallet.”
“Where’s the fucking change.”
“Spent it, mostly.”
“On what?”
“Taco-bell.”
“Got any change left?”
“Couple of bucks.”
“Git the fuck outta here.”

I lucked out tonight he’s drinking gin. Slow gin and he’s been smoking pot. It makes him shit worthless but at least he’s more zoned out of it. He could be drinking rum, or whiskey, or tweaking. He’d have most likely have kicked the shit out of me for something to do.

Mom’s dancing in her bedroom tripping out on something. I smell weed, good weed she must have turned a couple of tricks for that. I open the padlock on my room door and take the lock and lock myself into my room.

I undress wincing and hurting and crawl/fall into bed. I start to break into tears off and on as I try to choke it back. Over and over and over…a few hours later I hear them screaming at each other and smacking each other around and I fall asleep to that curled around my pillow and listening to the distant pops of gunfire.