Tales From Sin City (Completed)

Story(03): A Stranger's Embrace -Ch 02-

"Roe, roe ..!" he called my name, careless about misspelling it, and I like how it ringed through my ears, Roe was much better than filthy "Rory". I even despised its harshness, that last Y. similar to his father's name, "Bobby "

"Slow it down there champ". Dean, Bobby's son and the only child beside me who's unfortunate destiny has led him to grow up under the mercy of entirely dangerous people. People whose actions are as unexpected and blunt as a desert storm.

We grew up in an environment where night wasn't simply for sleeping, but more of the golden time for smuggling and counting the stinking green pieces of paper called money.

For us, and by us, I mean for Dean and I, police Sirens never signified hope for rescue, but rather for an ending behind bars. And loading the gun became an automated habit more than brushing our teeth was.

Usually, young adults hustle for money. Yet Dean and I, we hustled for books and a poor amount of decent education, whether it's learning the world's history or acting as "How to be a gentleman" guidebook instructions, all the cheap green paper Bobby and the guys threw at us for smuggling white powder under our shirts, we'd spend it right away buying as many books as we could possibly carry.

We used to run from Bobby and the other Mafia guys as soon as they rise another fight like they usually do, we would run down the main street after escaping the building we stayed in, head towards the nearest school or middle school and search the dumpsters crossing our fingers to land on any reusable pens and notebooks.

On rainy days we usually window-shopped. Dean held a fetish for glasswares, therefore, whenever we passed by a glassware store he would refuse to budge an inch until he's completely memorized every single detail about the most decorated ones which were usually at the top of the display cabinet and of course, were the most expensive ones as well.

The look placed on his eyes whenever the beaming light brushed his skin, was worth all the expensive glassware in the world. His dark coffee eyes would glow with both corners of his lips forming a small pre-smile curl. Unquestionably, I stared at him whenever he dived into these sudden aha moments and cautiously observed his fragile body covered in thick layers of wool.

Most of the time I smiled at that sight, not only because of how handsome that little man was but from that sensation of utter gratitude. Simply gratitude for having him by my side. After all, maybe I'm not that alone

Maybe I wasn't that alone.

By the time the several fragments of Dean's face crossed the bridge of my memories, a ghost of a smile brushed its way on my lips, and then hot tears arrived.

I felt them, just like you intensively feel that fresh morning Oxygene after spending a long night within an enclosed room .. the sharpness it follows.

Tears froze at the edge of my lower eyelids, refusing to drop and along with that, refusing to fuel my tired consciousness with the comfort they have always excelled at providing.

I've never owned a watch, one of the educated people once wrote, and by educated I mean real cultivated people whose education allowed them enough to write books and call themselves writers in the first place, that a gentleman must own a watch. He said a decent man truly values time hence, he thinks wisely about how to spend it since reality is basically ... irreversible.

My wrists were as bare as winter tree branches. I often thought maybe time just wasn't made for people like me, people who constantly ignored and abnormally erased its actuality for the sake of decreasing the pain brought along with the mere realization of its existence. Maybe the admiration of time is only meant for a few to utterly sense and enjoy, and for others perhaps just ... a tournament to endure.