Untitled!

Chelsea Linehan

October 18^th, 2009

Story With Silent Character

August was a particularly hot month, especially in Phoenix. It was 102° that day. The tar on the ground was almost melting it was so hot, and as Ashton Boufford came to a stop on his skateboard, he picked up a water bottle and dumped it over his head. Every drop that hit the ground sizzled and steamed around him. The water was as warm as bath water, after having sat in the sun all day while Ash practiced his tricks, spins and flips. He eyed the sun for a second, before shaking his shaggy black hair around his head. The rest of the water dropped from him to the earth below.

The teenager picked up his board and started out of the park and down the street. It was about four o’clock. He was hungry and tired, and had plans that night. Ash was going to a metal concert with his friends. Turning down Harley Avenue, he dropped his board to the ground and stepped on it, quickening his pace. As the skyscrapers and highways of the city became his backdrop, his surroundings became big brick apartment buildings, with iron rod decks for every unit, and luscious gardens at the steps. Children rode by him on their scooters going a million miles an hour, heading to the moon; parents sat on the steps watching, sipping homemade lemonade and gossiping about their fellow neighbors. A few greeted Ash and offered him a drink, tempting him to ‘come out of the sun and into the shade for a moment’, but he politely declined and took a rain check.

And then Harley Avenue became Scotch Street, and nice apartment buildings became broken down houses, condemned by the town or closed by the landlords. The kids disappeared and in their place were the ragged, strained homeless of Phoenix’s streets, or the hard-as-nails drug dealers. All outcasts of society, all condemned, like their home, to a life of obscurity. It was here that Ash slowed down, and somewhere in the middle of Scotch Street stopped, kicking his board into his hand, and heading up the stairs. The door was open, whether it had been left unlocked, or someone had broken in was irrelevant; there was almost nothing here worth stealing, not to the common thief.

Ash lived on the fourth floor. There were at least eight units on every floor. That meant at least eight families a floor, with five floors. The building itself was decently sized, but after having been split so many times to accommodate as many people as possible, the apartments were cramped and awkwardly arranged. Ash lived with his Mom, and sometimes his Dad, in one of the larger apartments. They had their own kitchen, and their own bathroom; this was a luxury, as both the first and third floors shared a bathroom and kitchen. As he headed up the stairs, he could hear the screaming babies who lived on the second floor, the Italian immigrants on the third floor, and the echoing rap music from the landlord son’s room on the first floor. The fourth floor was quiet, but Ash knew enough not to be fooled. Give it time, he thought, in a few hours this floor will be as loud as the others.

The door to his house was open. In plain view to any passerby was his living room, complete with broken coffee table covered in booze and assorted drugs, and ratty couch. His mother, thirty two year old Anna Sharbreck, was laying unconscious across there, long black brown hair spilled out around her, arm flung over the side, mouth open wide as though she had been mid-speech when sleep took her. “Ma.” Ash croaked out, walking over to her still form. He gave her a good shake. “Ma, wake up. Shit, Ma, not again.” He put a hand over her mouth, and the lines on his face relaxed as he felt her breathing – steady, and strong. She was alive, at least. “Can you wake up, Ma?” he asked again, shaking her again. Her lips moved and she shifted away from him. Satisfied, he backed away and turned to look at the coffee table. This wasn’t an unusual state for her, she’d wake up eventually, probably cranky and looking for a drink, or a hit.

Ash grabbed the empty bottles off the table and walked into his kitchen, dropping them in the garbage bag. It clanged with yesterday’s bottles. He turned, opening the fridge and bent to look at its contents. Ketchup, relish, butter. Not even a bottle of booze, or a water bottle. Ash had taken the last one with him this morning. As if it knew, Ash’s stomach grumbled. He stood in the dirty kitchen for a moment, unsure of what to do.

In a second he had crossed from the kitchen back to his mother’s side at the couch. He shook her roughly this time. “Ma, wake up. Listen to me, Ma. It’s Ash. Where did you hide the money?” Her eyes rolled around in her head as Ash shook her again, raising his voice. “Ma, where’s the money. Where’d you hide the money?” Anna finally opened one green eye, trying to focus on her sixteen-year-old son. She opened her mouth but instead of verbalizing, she pointed across the room. Ash darted to the shelves that stood against the wall and reached up, taking down the whiskey bottle that sat among the few books they had. Taking the bottle by it’s neck he turned around and smashed it against the table. His mother sat up quickly in alarm. “It’s just me, Ma. It’s ok.” They met eyes and he watched as she tried to recognize her son through her drug-induced haze. When it finally went through she flopped back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

Ashton leaned down and picked up the wad of money tangled among the shards of glass. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Ash whipped around and met eyes with a man standing in the hall. He staggered forward and gripped the frame of the door, glaring at him. “Wha’re you doin’ with my money?” Ash’s hand tightened around the money in his hand, and he lifted the broken bottle in the other. He studied the reflection of his face in the man’s.

“Dad, I-I need this…we’re out of food…” his voice wavered as Thomas Luppen crossed the room quickly. He grabbed his son by his hair and yanked him in the downward direction. Ash let out a yelp like a dog and waved the bottle head above him like a weapon. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother sit up, witnessing the scene. Grabbing his dad’s wrist he reached over and dragged the broken glass across his skin. Thomas groaned in pain and let go, smacking Ash in the face.

“BASTARD CHILD!” he dropped to the floor and groaned, feeling blood drip from his nose to the ground. There was a shriek and Ash looked up to see Anna staggering against Thomas in defense of her son. The two drunks struggled with each other for a moment. Ash rolled over onto his hands and knees and started crawling away. After a few feet he rose to his feet and tripped to the door of his bedroom. He shut it, and locked it, wandering to the window on the other side of the room. His hand pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the steady drip of blood.

Ash was knocking his elbow and palm against the window to open it when the door banged once, then broke open and revealed Thomas in the doorway, Anna still grabbing at his shoulders. With a swift motion he knocked the woman into the wall, where she fell and crumbled into a withering ball on the floor. For a moment, Ash and Thomas met hazel eye to hazel eye, and in a split second the elder had crossed the room and knocked his son out the window onto the fire escape. On the ground again, Ash leaned back and kicked up into the face of the man. The heel of his foot made contact with his nose and there was a loud crack, signaling the breaking of his nose. Thomas swore loudly and sat back on the window ledge, hitting his head on the frame. A moment later he dropped to the floor.

Stumbling to his feet, Ash looked down at the drunk, unconscious and left in a pool of his own blood. He looked up and met eyes with his mother. She leaned against the wall for support, a black eye forming, blood dripping from a cut above her right eyebrow. His lips formed a tight line and he shook his head lightly, before pounding down the metal steps and running off into Phoenix’s setting sun.