Living For The Fog

A Difference in Fortunes

We walk down the path to Sam's front door and I look around at the unkept garden. Weeds sprout between the pavement slabs, the hedge grows madly out of control and the fence could do with a couple of coats of paint. The garden may be shabby but the house isn't so bad, the paint is peeling a bit but at least all the windows are intact. I never knew that Sam lived in the shabby part of town. I know I sound mean, but it's true. There's a good area with big houses and rich middle class people with their middle class jobs and middle class lives and there's a bad area consisting of small council houses and rows of small, dirty looking shops which (like Sam's house, I can see) could do with being painted and having the windows cleaned.

Luckily for me, I live in the good part of town. My thoroughly middle class household is owned by my (doctor by trade) middle class parents and is situated in the middle of our middle class street. As of now, middle class me is in the least middle class street in the whole of the universe: Exactly where my parents would not like me to be. All my life I have been repeatedly warned about these places, these neighborhoods where '100% of the young people are drug dealers or gang members, and the parents are murderers or theives' -Casey Miron Senior. So I shouldn't be here right now.

It's amazing.

Sam ignores the doorbell (let's assume it's broken, it's that or he doesn't want to wake his murderous drug dealing parents who want to kill me) and taps twice on the window. He stands back and puts his hands in his pockets. He doesn't acknowledge my presence in any way. He doesn't smile at me, or make small talk, or sell me drugs, or declare his undying love for me, or kiss me, or ask me to be his boyfriend, or, or.

A woman who looks about 25 opens the door bottlefeeding a baby and smiles at us. She's pretty, as women go.

"Hi you two." she says, as if she were talking to a pair of puppies, or perhaps slightly stupid children. "Who's this you've brought Sam?"

"Friend." Sam says in a way that would get me beaten if it were me at home, before walking off up the stairs. I look at the smiling women before hurrying up the stairs after Sam, trying not to be so slow that I seem incapable of walking up stairs but not so fast that I start panting. I'm looking around the inside of his house wondering what my parents would say if they knew I was here. I run my hand along the peeling wallpaper and follow Sam into his messy-as-hell, claustraphobically packed with stuff room.

"Right," he says simply, as if the one word is enough to convey to me what he's thinking. It's probably something along the lines of: 'How do I live with a mess like this?'. He pulls some paper out of a drawer hidden by a stack of three used plates and retrieves a pen from his desk, sits down in a gap in the mess and does what can only be described scooching a pile of junk to one side. I slowly park my behind on the floor next to him, careful not to sit on anything toxic or sharp. In the middle of the paper he writes "Suspects", circles the word and looks at me. "So - start with our form?"

I nod and say "Yeah, sure," and he begins to write out the names of everybody in our form. When he finishes, we begin the slow process of eliminating each and every member, other than us of course.

We narrow it down to two boys, Kyle and Archie, who are the most likely to have been involved. They're supposed to be Sam's friends but that doesn't seem to make doubtful. "Right, I'll talk to them tomorrow. You steer clear of them though, they might get suspicious otherwise. I need to make them think I don't suspect them. Wait for me outside the office after school and I'll come tell you how it went. Get your parents to let you come here again tomorrow though, you'll probably need to." I nod. I've been nodding a lot now I think about it. I clear my throat.

"Okay, will do. I'll see you tomorrow then." I stand up but he stays seated, looking at the names. I pause for a second before getting the idea and walking out and down the stairs. I don't see the pretty woman again.