SEVENS

THE WHARF

The eviction notice left a hole through my door like a team swat with their battering ram. It was unignorable, and while I had in fact tried to ignore it by tearing it down and stuffing between the mattress and the floor, there was no ignoring it.
I slouched outside my bedroom door like the cheap knob would be enough to lock the notice away from reality.
The apartment complex had a strict late rent code, you could miss one rent with the intent of paying it the month along with that rent, and a late fee of an extra fifty dollars. Rent had been two weeks after I had been fired which meant I was two weeks low on pay. I now had a month to find a job with enough available hours and a high enough pay to catch up on two payments. It was impossible. Even if I did manage to get a job today interviews and training alone took close to two weeks, leaving only two weeks for working. I'd already placed applications into several places but without a phone to be contacted on I relied on the library computer for email.
I didn't want to walk to the library though. It was another three miles of walking and contemplating added to my day. It didn't feel proactive enough, even if I had a response email for an interview it was too late. I needed money like the Israelites needed manna from heaven. Maybe I didn't have a prophet to plead on my behalf to a God who didn't listen but I did have— at one point— a mother who preached quick cash. And once upon a time I had listened.
I didn't spend much more time thinking on it. I needed money. I knew how to get it. Was it legal? No. Did I care? I wished I didn't, would have made things easier. In the end I knew one thing: I had to keep the apartment. Mom said she'd be back and this was the last place she'd left me. If I had any chance of finding her again it would be by standing strong and waiting for her return. Here. This shitty, two room apartment. Which made my opposition to law breaking irrelevant.
I stood from the floor and opened my bedroom door. I thought I could feel the heat coming from my mattress, the glare of the eviction notice suffocating under it. There was no furniture in my room, all my clothes were in a duffle in the corner and my mattress was small in its own right, but the little piece of paper filled all the empty space like a rain cloud. I took the paper from under the mattress. I held it with gentle fingers then quickly folded it. I creased the neon pink edges between my fingernails and stuffed it in my back pocket. It felt nice, surprisingly. But I had left the St. Joseph's brochure with the councilor and found its absence to be heavy. With the eviction notice tucked in my back pocket I had that weight lifted, I had a new pocket bible to carry.
So I kept it in my back pants pocket like I would have with the pamphlet. And it felt like an iron to the skin forcing me to The Wharf. It wasn't an actual wharf. But that's what I called it and as far as I knew what everyone else called it too. Hell if anyone who came here regularly knew what a wharf actually was. In reality it was an old storage lot. Eight acres housed the dented metal containers stacked three high and in rows and clumps that turned the space into a maze—or rather—an amazing racetrack.
I'd admittedly loved the racing since I was young despite my new dislike for illegal affairs. There was a nistolgia to being back there, waiting for your eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. When they finally adjusted the life became visible. People grouping and chatting animatedly, some dancing to music from phone speakers, the car engines shit talking with low growls.
I didn't used to hate it, It used to be just a part of life, one of the good parts. And while I had fought to forget it I could feel my excitement inflating.
The cars, the neon green on the left and the navy with the red racing stripe on the left, were lined up in the widest part of the street. I'd put my money down when I had first got to the Wharf and so now it was just a matter of watching and waiting. I was trying to avoid being seen. There wasn't any guarantee someone wouldn't recognise me and anyone here who could recognise me by face--despite the hair dye and puberty--was not someone I had any desire to see.

"Awe Mal dont take it to heart. You still have a very doting partner to suck you off and raise your ego. You don't need my opinion anyway."

"Yet you give it to me"