Always Alone

Felipe, Goiania, day 0

She keeps talking as if subjects and predicates were the most amazing thing in the world. I can only wonder why I can't send the damn hardflip right. Finally the signal rings.

"Felipe, I need to talk to you."

Holy shit, what does the teacher want with me? I changed the words before copying the essay that Vitor did for me. He did it half an hour before it was due, and it turned out pretty average, it doesn't even sound like Vitor. The crowd gives a visshhh as they get up from the half-destroyed and completely scribbled desks of the classroom with dirty and peeling walls. Vitor is the last to leave, he looks at me apprehensively and indicates with his eyes that he will wait for me outside. I also reply with my eyes that I might be in trouble. Yes, this dialogue happened without a word being said. It is our special power. It is not really a power, in fact it is years of living together and I am not the talkative type. I approach the teacher's desk, stop in front of her desk, and look at her in silence.

"You know you can trust me. Don't you know, Felipe?"

One thing I do know is that whenever someone says you can trust them, you really can't. I nod my head positively.

" I notice the marks Felipe. "

I raise my shoulders and palms playing dumb. I forgot about these marks as soon as they stopped hurting.

"On your back."

The teacher looks at me from behind the round glasses matching the tacky dress that makes her look much older than she is. She could just leave me alone, ignore me like all the other teachers do. I am an expert at being unnoticed. Not for her, she pretends to care, she shouldn't, it's not her problem. I need to say something.

"It was a skateboarding cow."

"What do you mean a cow on a skateboard, Felipe?"

"I fell off a skateboard."

"You don't look bruised from a fall."

"Are you a doctor?"

"I'm just trying to help."

She places her hand over mine, thin, icy fingers, it's been a long time since anyone has touched me with affection, I remove my hand and place it in my pocket.

" Can I go?"

"You may Felipe, you may."

I leave that room as fast as I can without running, I can feel her eyes on the back of my neck, probably looking at the bruises on the back of my neck. At the door of the school a skinny boy with black skin and dark vivid eyes and not too big black hair looks at me, his look asks me what happened in there.

"She saw my back, Victor."

"It's not even that ugly anymore, I mean it's ugly, but it was creepy before, purple, kind of yellowish and the red welts and kind of inflamed, pretty disgusting and you were walking around looking like an old woman."

The skinny guy keeps talking, he is very good at this, at talking.

"Like, now that you're almost healed that she notices, I told you, she's very slow and she's a human being, she definitely smokes pot."

I look seriously at his face.

"I'm lecturing again, right?"

I nod my head yes.

"Sorry, but did you tell her?"

I nod my head no.

"Maybe if you did, she could help you."

"She can't, no one can."

"True, they would send you to a shelter as soon as they saw your house, if the guys at school are already assholes imagine the guys at these shelters. The guys there must have had a really bad life, so the guys must be like the Joker from the last movie."

"I don't even know what you're talking about anymore."

"Neither do I."

We laughed together.

"Do you want to eat at home, Lipe?"

"Won't your mom get mad?"

"She is not at home, she got some daily at the house of one of the neighbors of her boss. To pay for the pre-college course she wants me to take in the afternoon."

"But there are still two years to go."

"The rich kids are already getting ready, her boss's son is also in first grade, he studies all day and it is with these Playboys that we will compete for a place at UFG."

"When do you start the course?"

"Next week."

I concentrate on the skateboard and try unsuccessfully to send a hardflip. Vitor steps in front of me and does a perfect hardflip.

"The back foot, you have to put it from the middle of the tail to the outside, and when it's at an angle you kick the flip straight forward."

I tend again and fall apart on the floor.

"Shit, crappy dumb maneuver."

" Lipe, even if I'm not home, you can spend the afternoon there. Now get up and let's go soon, I'm starving."

After we eat the wonderful lunch that Auntie made yesterday almost at dawn, my favorite, rice, beans and a meat and potato broth, we rest a bit. Then Vitor makes me do the housework, I help him clean the house and we spread out on the couch while he talks about I don't even know what else. As I said, he is very good at talking, if there was a talking competition he would surely be a medalist.

"Are you going to say that you don't remember, bro?"

"What, Victor?"

"The soap party your mother threw, I think it was on your eleventh birthday."

"We spent weeks trying to get all that soap out of the house. "

" No one would throw a party like your mother."

I try to disguise my sadness, Vitor knows me too well for the disguise to work.

"I'm sorry, man, me and my big mouth."

"It's not your fault."

"Did you talk to her after what happened?"

Not even if I wanted to, and I don't think I want to, she keeps avoiding me, if I walk in one door she walks out the other. Even when she was taking care of me, she avoided my eyes. I nod my head no. I can do something very rare. I leave Vitor speechless, but he doesn't surrender so quickly.

"It's fucked up, Lipe."

" No way, if you do it's half a glass."

I force a smile. Vitor smiles back."

"The rest is foam."

"I'm on it, Vitor. Auntie should be here soon."

"See you tomorrow."

"Can I leave my backpack here? I don't want some crazy guy disappearing with my homework like last time."

"No problem."

I get on my skateboard, we live two blocks away. I always take the path along the avenue, always the long way, I pass by the alley of the meat packing plant, actually the ruins of an old meat packing plant that closed about five years ago. I insist on sending a hardflip, no matter how hard I try, it doesn't come out. The back foot from the middle to the outside of the tail, kicking straight and it just doesn't work. I keep trying until I get in front of the bakery, two houses away from mine, one last try and again the ground. Laura comes to where I am and helps me up.

"Still trying Hard anything?"

I nod my head yes.

" No talk, I remember it's a hard,, hardflip."

I smile and nod yes.

" You will make it. I believe in you."

She reaches out her hand and helps me up, I better describe it to you, so you can get at least a vague idea of the effect these encounters have on me. She is tall and slim with firm breasts and strong athletic arms and legs. She uses the gym equipment in the plaza at dawn, I can see it from my window. This is not a quiet neighborhood and yet almost every morning I see her working out and smoking pot alone in the square and no one dares to get close. What else can I say about her, she is a redhead, but not a real redhead and has a little red devil with little horns and wings drawn on the back of her head. And she is always kind to me, as few people in this neighborhood are. She lives in a one-room apartment on the same street as me. I'm not sure how she makes her living, something illegal, trafficking, stealing, I don't know, and honestly I don't care. I know little about her, she has a São Paulo accent that she forgets to disguise when she feels like it and doesn't talk much about herself.

" I better go for it, see you later Lipe."

"See you."

I sit on the curb in front of my house and wait for the cold and tiredness to force me inside. I enter the house in complete darkness, I walk silently across the living room, there is nothing I can bump into, the furniture was gone a few weeks after grandma died, I feel my feet slipping on the dust, the house has the same smell as the abandoned fridge where Vitor and I like to skateboard, the smell of abandonment and ruin. I stop in front of her room, the same noises as always. Knocking, scraping, vacuuming, the annoying scratching of lighters and that damned whispered conversation. I go to my room, close the door and turn on the flashlight on my cell phone, an old lg that I got from a lady at the market for helping her with her shopping. I open my trunk and check my stash: three bananas and half a can of powdered milk. I go to the kitchen to get some water to make milk, in the kitchen I open the cabinets, there is nothing, not a bran and by the noises in the room no one will feel hungry so early. I look at the kitchen door and get a big shock, a guy watches me silently, his name is Jorge, one of my mother's friends. He's the one who brings the crap they use, he also arranges the clients for her.

"Are you drunk, kid?"

He takes his cell phone out of his pocket, turns on his flashlight and points it at me.

"I just came to get some water."

I hate the way this guy looks at me. It gives me a weird feeling, a mixture of disgust and fear. Last night I woke up with him kicking a guy out of the house, I didn't have the courage to leave the room, but from what I heard he beat the guy up a lot. The bastard keeps looking at me and points the flashlight at my feet and slowly moves up to my face.

"You look just like your mother, the same white skin, the same blond hair, and the same green eyes, you must be a heartbreaker at school."

I deflect my eyes to the floor.

"Sunday I saw you at the fair, carrying a bag for your aunt."

I nod my head affirmatively.

"But a good-looking guy like you could be making a lot more than pocket change."

I just look at him.

"I know some guys who would pay top dollar to spend time with you. The advantage is that you don't have to do anything, just be very quiet, you're good at that, quiet as a cat, a beautiful Siamese kitten."

I head toward the door and the son of a bitch walks in the front.

"What's the hurry? Is the kitten a stray? I don't know your room, why don't you show me?

My heart is pounding in my throat and no matter how hard I try to hide it, I'm trembling. He looks like a closet, his hand the size of my head. I'm not proud to say that I've never been so scared in my life and I'm holding myself back from crying, the only way out is through the door that he's blocking with his body, he walks slowly towards me. Before I can say anything I hear my mother's voice echoing from behind the asshole.

"What's going on here?"

He steps out of the way of the door and my mother enters the kitchen and comes towards me, for the first time in a long time she looks me deeply in the eyes without looking away.

"I asked you a question Philip."

Jorge looks at me, with an icy, threatening look.

"Nothing mom, nothing is happening."

I can't remember the last time I was happy to see her.

"I was just here having a chat with your little boy, trying to get him to barely open his mouth."

She looks at me.

"Lipe?"

"Hi."

"Go make yourself a snack."

She takes some money out of her pocket and hands it to me. I take the money and as I'm leaving, my mother takes me by the arm, brings me close and hugs me, while staring at Jorge. At first I am startled by the sudden and unexpected gesture, she smells my hair and kisses my forehead, instinctively I hug her back and feel the comfort of her embrace. She loosens her embrace and messes up my hair, as she did before.

" You need to wash this hair Lipe."

I leave the kitchen, turn off the flashlight on my cell phone and hide in the hallway. I hear them talking in the kitchen.

"Jorge, what the fuck was that?"

"What are you talking about, Marta?"

"What were you doing with my boy? He was terrified, I'm not a fool, I may be crazy, but I'm not a fool, I'm not a fool."

"You're traveling Marta, your kid is a little scared."

"Man, I'm not a good person, not really. You of all people know that."

"I don't understand this conversation Marta."

"I only did one good thing in this life, I don't even know how someone like me could be the mother of a boy like him. I hear my mother walking towards Jorge."

"If anyone tries to hurt my boy..."

"Easy there mink."

I hear the sound of something metal scraping against the sink.

"God damn it Jorge, don't trip on my boy ever again."

"Get real, Marta. We're partners, you're my best girl, I didn't ride your brat, now put the fuck down."

I hear the sound of something metallic being thrown into the sink and footsteps moving away. I hear Jorge's voice.

"I got you a great job, great stuff in Brasilia."

"Brasília Jorge? Don't you have anything here in Goiânia?"

"Three times the normal price."

"At least the dust in that shitty city is better than here, the only thing that is good in that hole.

I leave at this point, I had never seen Mom talk like that. I can't even remember the last time she kissed me. I get on my skateboard and all I can think about is last Friday, when I hear Mom yelling at me to give back some money that I didn't take. She was very stoned, she couldn't even speak properly. Trembling, drooling, looking like an animal. Throwing my things on the floor, tearing my room apart. She screamed and screamed, cursing me, I shouldn't have screamed back, she would have given up and calmed down like the other times, but I screamed, I told her to leave me alone. She hit me hard in the face, I wasn't expecting it, when I fell I screamed again, I screamed that I hated her, I said she should have died, not Granny, I don't know where she got that coat hanger, I can still hear the whirring sound it made as she lifted it up and down on me again, I protected my face and head with my arms as she hit me in the back. She screamed, that's what I remember most, more than the pain, more than the shame, I remember her screaming. She hit until she lost her strength or until I blacked out, I don't know what happened first. When I woke up I was in my bed, my room was clean, I was showered, and the bruises on my back were clean and medicated. My back was as Vitor described, for two days I barely got out of bed. She brought me food and medicine, she took care of me, in her own way, but she did, you might think I was very angry with her and I was, but for two days there were no drugs and it was just the two of us, for two days there was peace. It didn't last and as my back healed she got sick again. But now after whatever happened in that kitchen, I know that she loves me. That she would kill to protect me. I don't feel anger anymore, I feel something that I thought had died in me, hope, that things can be better, that she can change, that our life can be different. Only when I arrive in front of the bakery do I remember where I am going, I order a sandwich and a soda and sit on my skateboard on the sidewalk. I see Vitor passing on his skateboard across the street and whistle to him, he turns around and sits on his skateboard next to me.

"I was coming to your house."

"To?"

"My mom couldn't make it back home and is sleeping at work, I was going to call you to sleep over. It sucks that you don't have internet on this bomb of yours."

"I'll put in some credit later."

"He stares at my sandwich. I take a note out of my pocket and hand it to him, order one for yourself."

He looks at me suspiciously.

"Where did you get this money?"

I look at his weasel face seriously.

"Calm down. No offense to asking."

"My mother."

"Really? What's gotten into her?"

Vitor gets up and goes to the counter to get a sandwich and sits down next to me again.

"You didn't tell me what got into her."

"There was some weird stuff going on in the kitchen, that weird guy I told you about."

"Did he do something to you?"

"Get out of here, are you taking me away?"

Vitor keeps looking at me, I lower my head.

"He was going to try, she arrived just in time, she gave me the money to get out of there."

"It's becoming impossible for you to continue living in that place."

"That place is my home. There's nowhere else for me to go."