Dreamland Dimensions

Chapter Ten: On Fire

The television rambled on just below the low playing music, my mother danced in the dining area and sang along. It was the first weekend that Troy wasn't here, the same day as that house party shooting and Dudley's death. Saturday seemed different without my phone ringing off the hook, Dudley would be calling me right around the time of the 7 o'clock news to talk about what's going on in the world and it was nice just to have someone to talk that way. He taught me a lot of things I never heard, he was just intelligent but I guess he used it wrong because instead of pushing himself in school, he dropped out in the 8th grade and started selling drugs.

Dudley couldn't help it though, he always felt lonely and empty. He never knew his mother and always moved home from home.

The news introduction cut through the music, I looked up from my phone and gave the television my attention. The reporters talked amongst each other before addressing their topic of the day, a baby panda was born a the local zoo and the art museum is adding a new display. At the bottom of the screen in small white words, rolling across the bottom was the details of the house party shooting where Dudley was killed. I sat back into the couch, my heart sank into my stomach and I felt nauseous. My mother still sang along to the music, paying me no mind as she continued to cook in the kitchen. The segment began, a reporter standing in front of the house where the party was just last weekend. My stomach turned as I remember walking up to the house seeing all the drunken preteens and teenagers sprawled on the lawn. Dudley's eyes lit up, laughing at the couples in corner making out and grinding on each other. 'Amongst the four preteen victims was former Grady Middle school's MVP pointguard, fourteen Dudley Kerrington'. I could see Dudley laying on the ground with his gun in his right hand, lifeless eyes staring at me as blood dripped from his slightly parted lips and the gaping hole in his back as his inside poured out onto the floor.

I didn't even hear him die, I closed my eyes as the news rambled on and faded into the background as my mother turned the music up.

I hoped Dudley's death wasn't painful, it was stupid to think such things when he lost his life in such a gruesome way but I learned that it was all you could hope for in the manner that he died. Dudley was smart but stubborn, he knew selling dope and running the streets with the lowlifes wasn't good. But he was caught up in his ways. A fly caught in the perfect spider web, trapped and laughed to myself. My eyes stung from the welling up of tears, I thought about the first time I met Dudley in middle school playing basketball but that was the memory that seemed to cross my mind the most ever since he died. I thought about times on the block with him too, the times he stood under the street light rambling about some distant dream with the smile of a dreamer. Dudley always told me dreaming gets you killed but honestly, he dreamed every night like I did and that's what brought us together.

It wasn't fate or the fact that we just so happened to be old teammates slinging dope for the same lowlife but we were dreamers, dreaming a broken dream.

I grabbed the remote, turning the television off as my phone rang and Anastasia's pictured flashed on the screen. I answered without hesitation, "What's up Ana". "Hey Quin, you seen the news?". "Yeah I seen it " I replied, my voice came out drier than I intended. "I'm sorry...I'm know you and Dudley were sort of close". I didn't deserve an apology or condolences, I hadn't been anymore of a friend to him than he was to me. We were familiar with each other, sticking together because we didn't seem to fit in anywhere else. "Can we run away tonight?". It's been a week and two days since we've been to our secret spot. My vision was gone, covered by a strange thick toxic cloud that choked me everytime I breathed and each exhale felt like my last. But it wasn't. A slow and agonizing torture, breathe after breathe. "Yeah...we can" I replied, closing my eyes. This was the life Dudley had chosen but this was the life plenty of little boys just like me ended up choosing. The streets didn't scare me though, I felt like every night I've met death ever since I was 9 years old and dying never seemed to frighten me. Dying sounded like freedom to me, my mother's boyfriend would beat me until I'm barely conscious and my mother never stopped him but I never expected her to.

I'd just close my eyes to see death, spreading my arms wide and welcome him. Because he'd take me away from here, heaven or hell just didn't matter to me. I just want to leave.