Reaper's Lullaby

Gus: All the Living and the Dead

  "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."
- James Joyce, The Dead

Today was Gus's eighteenth birthday, and no one had remembered. In the past he'd never bothered getting his hopes up, but now that he had people who cared about him, he'd expected something.

Lucas didn't even wish him a happy birthday when he woke up, which would have been a sufficient gift for Gus. He didn't expect much, just greetings and maybe a bag of candy or chips from Jeff. Jeff always gave those to residents on their birthdays. But no. Nothing.

It put him in a horrible mood all day, and he isolated himself with Moon in the common area or his room, only moving when they told him to.

"I'm clean. I'm ready to go. I don't need to be here anymore," he grumbled to Lucas during chores.

They were on their way to the barn.

"If they let you out today, what's the first thing you would do?" Lucas asked, thought he most likely already knew the answer.

"Get high as fuck and find somebody hot and go on a week long bender," Gus said.

"That's why they don't want you to leave. They want you to get to a place where that isn't your first thought."

"Man, that's always been my first thought. Almost all my life. You have Nora. I don't have anything but drugs to make me feel somethin'."

"You'll meet the right person someday," Lucas said encouragingly.

"Who would wanna be with tweaked-out, stunted, special-ed kid who's crazy with meth psychosis and PTSD?" Gus said with a laugh. "Nah, I live for the high, and I'll die by it too."

"Don't say that," Lucas said.

"It's okay. It's meant to be. My life don't matter."

"It matters to me."

Gus laughed again. "Really? No, you'll go back to your nice house and nice mom and forget I ever existed. We won't ever be friends again. People come and go. I'm used to it. Ain't nobody gonna miss my scrawny ass when I die. I wonder what they do with homeless dead people who don't have nobody. You think they just cremate 'em and dump the ashes in the trash or maybe sell 'em as cat litter? They probably do."

"I don't know... I think they do something nice with them. Like dump the ashes in a city garden or something."

"I guess no one knows but the dead people."

"I'll make sure your ashes aren't cat litter," Lucas said with a smile. "But I can't guarantee people won't put out their cigarettes on you."

Gus chuckled. "Hell, I'm used to that shit. Happened to me all the time growing up. Still got scars."

"Me too," Lucas said quietly.

"Your stepfather?"

Lucas nodded. "You?"

"Foster people. I don't call 'em foster families. They were just people who put up with me 'cause they got paid. That's the only time people actually like me, when they can get somethin' off me."

"That's not why I like you," Lucas said.

"I probably make you feel better about yourself."

"That's bullshit, Gus."

Gus only shrugged. He had been stupid to hope.

He took his usual three hour crash nap around two, and when he woke up Lucas insisted they go for a walk in the pastures.