Hood Rats | Sandy Milkovich

The Cats Are Out of the Bag

The South Side of Chicago beamed with life in the Summer. That life was a little different than what he was used to seeing, but not a single person there seemed to care. A group of dirty looking children pushed past him, screaming after one another as they ran and he watched them race one another down the street. On the way there he passed cluttered tents and makeshift homes on the streets, trash clogging gutters, and people stumbling out of bars even though it was barely noon.

So, this was where his dad lived. It fit his mother's description of him perfectly. Micah's mom had always been supportive of his wanting to know who his dad was, but she never held back about what he was like.

"That man was going nowhere, mijo. He went wherever the wind carried him and didn't care who he left behind," she told him late one night when she had enough wine to lower her inhibitions. He still wasn't sure that she was right about that; clearly his dad cared about someone enough, it just wasn't him.

He glanced back down at the paper clutched in his hands. Just another house up. It was a boxy red brick house, with barely any windows on the front. The grass in the yard was dead and well past ankle length, the paint on the porch peeling, and there was a dent in the front door. Three kids lived here, including Rory. He wondered what that was like, to grow up with both parents. Obviously they didn't have a lot, but surely they were loved enough for that not to matter. 

Slowly, he climbed the stairs to the porch. This was it, he could very well be meeting his dad and his siblings for the first time in a matter of seconds. Micah's hand shook slightly when he raised it to knock on the door. 

From inside he could hear muffled speech and then someone shouting 'door!'. He switched off from one foot to the other, listening as someone approached the other side of the door. His heart was beating in his throat. 

The door creaked open and a dark head of hair was stuck through the side to peer at him. Whoever it was, the man was much too young to be Aaron. "Hello?"

"Hi," his voice sounded small, like he was a little boy shyly introducing himself. "Is Rory here?"

The door opened further and the man standing there turned out to be not much older than Micah. Diego, he thought, that must've been his half brother. He glanced over his shoulder into the house. "RORY! Someone's at the door for you," he called, stretching out his vowels.

Micah watched the other boy turn back to him with a smile as they waited for the pounding footsteps from upstairs to make it down. He was a few inches taller than him, so he could see right over his head and into the Torres's living room, which was messy to say the least. 

"If it's Davey tell him I'm dead!" The shout came from somewhere deep in the house.

"Is your name Davey?"

He shook his head no. Rory pushed the other boy out of the doorframe to see who it was. She was half dressed in what looked like one of those jumpsuit type things that mechanics wear, but the top half of it hung around her waist, revealing the stained tank top she wore underneath.

The second her eyes landed on her half brother, her face fell into a look of complete annoyance. "No, no, no, no, no, shit. What are you doing here?"

"Um," he faltered. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Micah couldn't shake the feeling that he was intruding on a life he didn't belong to, on people who didn't want him there. "I wanted to meet everyone."

She softened, but the annoyance in her expression didn't leave. "Now isn't a good time. You should've called."

"Is dad at work or something?" Micah looked over their heads to see if he could spot anyone else in the house, but all he saw was a little girl sitting at a table in the back, swinging her legs under her.