“Fine,” I sighed. “But you’re wasting your time. Hudson is the perfect gentleman.”
Quinn scoffed. “And that naivety, right there, is why you need to skip out on this date, Grace. Everybody but you knows that Hudson’s a shithead.”
“I’m sure he’s said the same about you.”
“No doubt, but the difference is you know me. Do you really know Hudson?”
No. I didn’t know him at all because he’d never talked to me until last week when the ticket feeding frenzy was in full swing. I wasn’t dumb. I knew Hudson was using me for a ticket, but I was using him too—for the exposure. For a chance to finally matter at school. So we were even.
Of course, I couldn’t admit that to Quinn.
“Isn’t that what a first date is for? To get to know him? Look,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket and holding it up to prove my tracking was on. “All prepped for stalking. Are we good?”
He stood there, deciding, before finally stepping aside. I didn’t give him the chance to change his mind—or mine—before blowing past him and out the front door.
5
RORY: THE STREETS HAVE NO WALLS
They knew me now. The kid with cash. That was what they called me the last time they chased me through the alleyway and beat me to the ground. After that, I was the kid withnocash and a possible concussion. My new handle might’ve been flattering had it not been the furthest thing from the truth. I lived on the streets, same as them. But unlike my strung out tormentors, I had a paying gig, one that didn’t require me to shake others down, drop my jeans, or eat three meals a day out of the trash bin.
Too bad integrity meant nothing out here. Neither did possessions. They were here one day and gone the next. I wore what was left of my measly clothing selection either on my person, in bulky layers, or tied around my waist. Not that clothing mattered all that much to me. The only thing I really, truly cared to hold on to was my collection of five-gallon paint buckets, which served as a makeshift drum set. They went everywhere with me, threaded through a bungee cord and slung over my shoulders like a cape.
Fitting, I’d say, considering drumming was my superpower and the only thing I’d ever been good at. When I played, I was special. Talented. Going somewhere. Little did they know I was going back to nothing. I had no family. No friends. No roof over my head. But I had my buckets and a dream. One day, I’d have the best drum kit money could buy—even better than the one I learned to play on when I was a kid. Someday I’d be sitting on my throne at center stage, throwing it down like a pro, and the crowd, yeah, they’d be on their feet screaming my name.
Until then, I honed my drumming skills on the buckets or just any surface that could handle the beat. It was a double-edged sword, though. To make the money for the junkies to steal, I had to pound on my bucket drums for hours on end, and that, in turn, put a huge target on my back. The vultures could hear me playing from blocks away. They’d just wait in the wings, salivating as passersby dropped dollars into my tip bucket, and then, once my set concluded, me, my buckets, and my cash were on the run. Sometimes I made it to safety with the money still in my pocket and sometimes I didn’t. It was the price I paid for existing.
Going it alone was a dangerous risk. Last time I was out here, I’d run with a pack. We were the leftovers, the kids thrown out with the trash. Our numbers ebbed and flowed, but at one point we were a baker’s dozen. It wasn’t like we sought each other out. We sort of just found one another, slipping into the group unannounced and then effectively being absorbed like amoebas. The misfortune that brought us together—abuse, neglect, drug addiction, foster care—also bonded us. We all understood the life-and-death stakes and that joining forces greatly improved our chances of surviving the turbulent nights.
While some of the kids bonded like blood, I stayed along the perimeter—partaking in the comradery but prepared to run if things went wrong. I knew better than to get attached. Nothing had ever been permanent in my life, and our ragtag unit was never meant to last. One by one, we got picked off. Some by drugs. Some by arrests. Some by injury or death. And some, myself included, finally just gave up. I turned myself back into the Department of Children and Family Services, naively believing that as bad as life often was inside the system, the streets were worse.
But it wasn’t true. Sometimes running away was my only option—a decision forced on me by caretakers like Lucinda and her adult son, Brawley, predators who saw opportunity in my misfortune. I’d rather take my chances on the streets than try to keep those sick fucks out of my room at night. The first time Brawley tried making it past my bucket barricade was the last night I had a roof over my head.
This time around, I walked alone, preferring solitude over losing my pack all over again. Watching us go down the drain, one jaded duckling at a time, fucking sucked. I couldn’t do it again. Sometimes I ran into one of them in a group home or out on the streets. We were older now. Harder. Less trusting. Less willing to give each other the shirt off our backs or to split the profits from our peddling. Even back in the system, finding each other was near impossible considering none of us used our real names on the streets. It was an unwritten rule. Nicknames were not only useful in protecting our identities but also excellent masks for those who just wanted to forget.
I did miss the others. I missed not having people to watch my back out here, but then I’d remind myself that I couldn’t lose what I didn’t have. What I’d never really had. Growing up in foster care, I’d been forced onto the defensive line before I’d even finished teething. Innocence was for kids with families, those whose survival didn’t depend on how well they behaved, how fast they could run, or how skilled they were with their fists when their backs were up against the wall.
Today I’d gotten lucky, having made it through the night totally unscathed, but I knew not to get cocky. Lasting from dusk to dawn was only the beginning of a long and treacherous day. Take my daily commute, for example. I had to dodge the mentally insane, the meth heads, the dealers, and the sex traders just to make it to the business or tourist areas of the city where people still had jobs and homes and beating hearts. I would have been happy to stay where I played, too, but people like me weren’t welcome in the general population. We could wander the streets. We could perform for the public. But when it came time to lay our heads on the pressure-washed asphalt, we were shooed away like mangy strays.
“Hey, kid.”
Shit. I lowered my head and picked up the speed. I had no friends out here. Only enemies with bloodsucking souls.
“Hey, you wanna make some money?”
I didn’t even afford the dude a sideways glance, having no interest in becoming his drug mule or whatever other nefarious thing he had to offer. I broke into a jog and crossed the road. It wasn’t until I was safely on the other side that I glanced over my shoulder to check his position. He’d stayed put. I let out a breath and moved on. Downtown was full of these opportunistic predators. These were the real hunters—cruel and ruthless, they prowled the street for the weak, the innocent, the defenseless. I wasn’t any of those things. Not anymore.
I winced, shaking those thoughts right out of my head.
With my eye on today’s prize, I followed the sidewalk toward the towering bowl-shaped building up ahead. Because predictability was the kiss of death out here, I alternated where and at what time I set up my bucket drums. Sometimes I played during the day and other times at night. Sometimes I took the bus to perform on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and other times I set my buckets up in the shopping districts or outside of trendy bars. Only one thing remained a constant, one event I never missed: concert nights at the downtown amphitheater. Me and every other musician within a twenty-mile radius. We all showed up, vying for a few prime spots. For me, it was doubly important that I staked my claim early because my musically inclined competition had a tendency to band together and try to run me out of town.
They assured me it was nothing personal. And really, I wouldn’t want to be playing next to me either. My drums drowned everyone else out. Not by sheer volume, either. When I played, I was in my element, my head held high. I knew how to draw a crowd. How to keep them riveted. People gravitated toward me. They saw me. They respected my talent. They wished they were me. For a small period of time every day, we were equals. But when the show ended, they went back to their comfortable lives, and I went back to the giant game of whack-a-mole on the other side of the tracks… where I was the mole.
Blazing down the street with my trench coat billowing behind me, I could always tell the moment my competition saw me coming. Not that I was hard to spot with all my accessories. Add to that my very long six-foot-three-inch body that no amount of food could ever hope to fill, and I probably looked like an underweight circus performer.
Activity doubled as two talentless singer-songwriters jumped into action upon my approach, trying to make themselves look bigger and more spread out. “Uh-uh, Beats. Not here. Move on.”
I contemplated whether the spot was worth a fight. It might be, if I was forced to circle back around, but at this point I still had other options to check out first. That said, I wasn’t one to leave without a parting gift. I lifted my fist in the air and flipped them the bird.
