𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬: 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐊𝐇𝐈

30. | W R E C K L E S S L O V E

C H A P T E R | THIRTY
WRECKLESS LOVE

June 8, 19xx.

***

"Do you think someone's gonna adopt us today?" Carter heard those words that he always heard, ten years old with bright green eyes from God knows where he'd inherited them from and chest filled with the hot Brownsville air. "There's a lot of people here."

The group home was allowing them to have recess, which usually went all day in the summer months when school was let out. He and a handful of the boys he roomed with at the city orphanage were busy spending their recess time playing football. Carter was what the ladies at the orphanage called 'unusually fit' for his age so they just knew that he'd be on one of the football teams that the kids had formed there in the summer.

The various teams fought over Carter and who's team he would play on simply because of his physical appearance - - he was very sought over and it would amuse the administration how serious they were over these summer leagues. They understood it though - - children who were wards of the state like Carter - - no family, no nothing but the group home itself took great value in little things they enjoyed.

"Why do you always ask that," said ten year old Carter, flushed face and rosy cheeks from jogging up and down the court, "Man can't you just focus on the game," Carter said to his roommate Kareem. They shared a bunk together - - Carter got the top bunk because he was much bigger and Kareem got the bottom because he wouldn't challenge Carter for it and had no desire to.

"I don't know," said Kareem, "Sometimes I just wonder."

"People want babies," Carter had accepted that after the first three years of being there, "They don't want grown kids like us," he shrugged and panted, catching his breath, "Don't worry about it Reem," Carter put his hand on Kareem's shoulder, "One of these days me and you we'll get out of here," Kareem and Carter were very different in the regard that Carter chose not to deal with his feelings about the group home but Kareem was much more sensitive and he'd known what life was like to have somebody out there before child protective services took him from his mother.

"You don't ever wonder though? Like, maybe there could be hope even though we ain't babies?"

"I can't miss what I ain't never had," said Carter, "You had your moms and dad but not me. I came from nobody," he shrugged, "So 'ion miss no body like how you miss your motha'."

"She might come back," Kareem said lowly, "That's what this lady at church told me," Carter sighed and looked out at the stripped jungle gym and cracked pavement and tried for a moment to be optimistic but it didn't last. He didn't want to say to Kareem that she was gone for good, but he knew that he and Kareem had come from two different sensibilities. He supposed having that someone lingering on the outside made Kareem honestly hold out hope that some day his mother would return. That and the fucked up things that Kareem had seen in his life, "Carti, you think?"

"Yeah," Carter lied in order to spare Kareem's feelings, "Yeah I think it could happen," he sighed, "Hey where's our ball? Let's play again," he said in order to lighten the mood.

"It went over there," Kareem pointed across the concrete, and there laid their ball at the feet of some woman standing there holding herself, running her hands up and down her arms as the wind blew. They weren't surprised to see strange people around - - in fact they always saw them - - families that came in and watch them and were thinking of adoption but Carter and Kareem never got picked.