Reaper's Lullaby

Gus: Invited

"Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of little children."
-William Makepeace Thackeray

Over the next few days, Gus laid low, borrowed food and pain killers from Ida, healed up and waited for Strawberry to come home. He was usually up all night anyway. They said a few words to each other every now and then in the dusky early morning light.

Gus asked Ida if she knew her.

"Strawberry? Yeah, sweet girl. She whores around here. Got a pimp who's crazy so you best keep your dick in your pants," Ida warned him.

"I was just curious," Gus said.

Ida smirked. "Yeah. Right. I know exactly where your teenage mind was."

When he had healed enough to leave his tent, Gus went back to work: stealing, begging and selling himself for cash, which he kept in his sock, and drugs, which he consumed in binges. He didn't want to risk a cent of his money being lost or stolen. This was his drug and food money, not to mention his savings to get back to Chicago.

One night before leaving to work the streets, Strawberry poked her head into his tent.

"I'll take you up on that tweak now. Daddy ain't around," she said with a grin.

Gus smiled. "Come on."

She crouched down to crawl into the tent, and Gus caught a glimpse of her pink thong in the process. He was instantly hard. With the Ice, it was always like that. Nothing made him horny like that Crystal high. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to think of something else as Strawberry heated up the crystalline shards in the pipe and inhaled a few puffs.

"Is he really your dad?" Gus asked quietly after a few minutes of awkward silence.

Strawberry handed him the pipe, and he inhaled the white smoke deep into his lungs.

"Daddy? No. That's what he wanna be called. I never had no dad," Strawberry said.

"Me too. I didn't have nobody."

"So we got somethin' in common besides this pipe," Strawberry smiled, and she kissed him on the cheek before leaving.

That kiss lingered on his skin for a long time, a temptation... an invitation.

————————

Gus had lice... again.

It was his sixth time battling the evil little blood suckers. In the past someone had always helped him get rid of them; a foster mom, the school, the cops. But he had no idea how to get rid of them on his own. It had started a few weeks into living on Skid Row. Now it was a full infestation that itched constantly and tormented him while he slept. Desperate, he asked Ida what to do.

"There's shampoos and stuff. You can't come into my tent 'till you get rid of the bugs. Sorry, kid," Ida had said, making a face.

"But how do I use the shampoos?" Gus had asked, scratching his head.

"No idea. I've never gotten lice. They like some people more than others. Maybe it's 'cause you're sweet," she'd joked.

Strawberry, too, had never had lice.

"It's my hair. Black people don't get lice," she'd explained.

"I wish I was black then. These assholes have been eatin' at me for years on and off. I'm sick of it. Maybe I should just shave my head," Gus had said.

Strawberry had laughed at him. "Gus, if you shave yo head you go'n look like dem concentration camp people! You so skinny a'ready! Keep all dat white boy hair. They just like you 'cause you cute."