Reintegration program - Elmax

Chapter 19 : The dinner

It was the day. Max was walking with Dan, in the district of the South. She was sure every people she saw were wearing a tattoo on their wrists. They all looked at them like if they knew they weren't living here, like if it was written on their foreheads that they were totally uncomfortable here.

They arrived at the corner of a street, entering in the dark and foggy alley. The walls were decorated with nasty tags with overwhelming dumpsters. Next to them were, sometime, one or a group of hobo, trying to warm their cold bodies. Max was feeling sorry for them, she would love doing something for them but what? She didn't know. Instead she just weakly smiled to those who dared looking up. She felt stupid, they needed a home, not a smile. She really thought she was lucky, she couldn't stay in a street like that, smelling the trash and urine and certainly more, in the cold, not knowing if you would survive the night, and being absolutely no one for the walkers. Just a sad pair of eyes.

Dan wrapped his arm around her with a smile in her direction. It cut her in her dark thoughts, the place was sad enough. They arrived in front a door sunk in the ground with four steps to reach it, with a flashy purple neon indicating "The Dirty Men" proudly. Max had a long and shacking sigh with her mouth. Dan was going in direction of the door but the redhead grabbed his sleeve.

- Just before we enter—

- I smile to him, I laugh at his jokes, I agree with everything he says, I don't look at your mother too much, I don't look at Billy at all and I talk only when someone is talking to me, I know, smiled Dan.

- Yeah...sighed Max.

- It's gonna be ok, reassured the young boy.

- I would like to be this sure!

Dan had a small chuckle before giving a comforting kiss to his girlfriend and taking her hand. The two teens took a deep breath before walking to the door. A tall and strong black man stopped them.

- Wrists, said the security man.

Max and Dan looked at each other with a confused expression before raising their sleeves and showing him.

- Why are you here? frowned the man.

- Family dinner, answered Max.

The black man had a confused face this time.

- Yeah, we don't know neither why it's there, but it's there!

The man scoffed before smirking, shaking his head and letting the two teens entering the place. The first thing that Max noticed was the smell. Apparently it was allowed to smoke in there, it was stifling and her eyes were stinging, making her cry.

Once downstairs, the music assaulted her ears and she couldn't see just in front of her. It was dark with lights on the scene at the opposite where some girls were moving sensually against a pole while a group of men were drinking and laughing around the scene, all with a cigarette in their mouth. The bar was on the right with more men, all looking at the girls too and on the left were tables with chairs or leather sofas.

It was Dan who saw her family, her too blinded by the smoke and the lack of lights. He directed her to a round table with a white tablecloth and a red sofa in half-circle. Max sat next to her father who was next to Susan, then Neil and then Billy. She didn't know how it was possible but the music seemed less loud now. Sam, her father, smiled to her which reassured her a bit, but Neil seemed tensed, his arm around his wife like to show it was him, her man now.

- How was school this week? asked her father.

- It was ok, answered Max.

- So, cut Neil, it's you, Dan.