we ate the rest of the food and thought about how this might be the last time we have a meal this big for at least another few months.
i leaned back in my chair, feeling full for the first time since i sat in my uncle's kitchen all those months ago. when the fucker was still alive.
it was on very rare occasions that mr rusty left us alone in the house. he seemed to be glued to the moldy armchair in the tv room most of the time so waking up to nothing but a note stating he'd be gone until tomorrow left me feeling an odd sense of relief.
he wasn't a nice man but he wasn't a bad one either. perhaps he was just a man and that's what men were like.
i hoped i wouldn't grow up to be a man like mr rusty. maybe there was another kind of man i could grow up to be. maybe i would become like fifteen, whose real name i couldn't remember anymore. all i knew was that he wasn't fifteen anymore.
"and for dessert?" fifteen threw the dishes in the sink and i heard at least two plates break. mr rusty would get us for that, and all the food we had eaten. the tall boy didn't seem bothered and slammed a pack of green camel's on the table. "i traded them for some of your comics, georgie." he said as if he had done us a big favor - buying menthol cigarettes for a bunch of ten year olds.
georgie didn't seem thrilled at all to have his comics traded but i didn't waste a second to grab a cigarette, reaching for the lighter that had permanently moved into the pocket of my dirty jeans.
dick head and error followed my lead. fifteen was already smoking his own pack of marlboro because he's too old for camel's.
"only kids smoke that shit," he'd say. "that's not all." he continued.
he tossed a small plastic bag at me and i held it up to the light. "what are these?" i asked and shook the bag.
"i got the pink one for you, viggo. go ahead."
i swallowed the pill without any water. the rest of the boys followed and minutes later we were all laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling and making out shapes from the patches of mold.
the floor felt sweet and solid under my back. i don't remember this being a bad night, although others might call it that. a bunch of ten year olds smoking menthols and getting high on pills from a seventeen year old.
the thing is that most people don't understand what it's like to be a kid with no parents, or parents who simply don't want you anymore - what it's like to live in a foster home with a man who collected boys for the paycheck and made us work at the garbage tip he owned for nothing more than a couple of shitty canned meals per day.
life was pretty fucking shit most of the time, but all i could think about was how i was laying there with my lost brothers and hoped we'd all grow up to be good men one day.
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