Where The Children Hide

It Came From The Shadows

It's cold, too cold. The wind wraps around me like a frosty blanket raising goosebumps out of my flesh. It's dark. Stetson Road glaring under streetlights. Slowly descending into darkness as I cross Stetson Bridge over the Kenduskeag.

I'd been kept at the old church late tonight. It was the school for the kids not able or bothered to afford a boarding school. I lost a friend at one of those schools. She was pure, free and kind. When she came back she had a stick up her butt, her lips puckered like she'd been sucking a lemon and every inch of her face was layered in make-up.

The river below laughs, no it cackles at me. There is no light on this bridge only the ghost of the street lamps on Broadway. The old road running through our country settlement is dark. I watch cautiously as men wobble away from Stan's Groceries and Bar. They would have wanted to be drunk by the time they saw the bill.

These men, drunk as the firework Cole and I had been playing with the last weekend in the old train wreck before he went to school. It was a lazy piece of junk. With a bark larger than it's bite. We tied the firework to a stick, lit it's fuze and ran for cover behind a large tin sheet. When the devil tongue reached the explosive the little fucker hissed fell over and spun around on the ground letting out sparks. Then charged at an old train engine setting it a light and making a huge bang. We wasted two real American dollars on him and he hadn't even flown.

I was shocked that just the smell of the alcohol wasn't getting the men so drunk they passed out. I was across the road and it was killing me as it wafted across the dark road. Did the bar have any liquor left?

I walked along Broadway. The house wasn't far. I lived on my own in a white shed behind the house on 3951 Broadway. The lady there had adopted me. I was in charge of taking care of the owner's horses. She supplied my housing, food, clothes and paid me 5 whole dollars for spending money every week. I spent weeks on the road going to Texas to do the rodeos during the year. Otherwise, we worked breeding horses and selling them. I woke at five in the morning to get horses fed and brushed. I rode my own horse Puer Umbra. He was a midnight black horse. He was going to be killed because he was too small but he grew up quite strong. I owned my own puppy as well. I rescued from a cardboard box in the middle of the road. He is a little Border Collie cross as mad as a hen.

I saw it under the old streetlight. It ran. Death grabbed my throat, cold and cruel. Death screamed and pulled me under into a sleep. Deep like the ocean.