Page 2 of Ripple Effect: Ep. 1

The nest teeters on the edge of the eave somewhere above me, as if the mother intentionally chose this most dangerous spot to lay her egg then up and abandoned it. Left to the careful watch of carnivores.

Poor little bird.

A tickle hits my arm and I slap a hand to my skin, before scratching at the spot just below a black monarch butterfly tattoo, digging my nails into the place where I’m certain I felt something crawling over me. I hate when my long wisps of hair skim across the surface like a translucent web dancing over my skin. Insects give me the willies. Well, except for butterflies, I don’t mind them so much. My therapist put a name on it once, said I had ento-something-phobia—a fear of bugs. It’s not really the bugs themselves I fear, though. It’s the idea that something could breach the barriers of my skin, and infest, just like the shell that housed that bird. Sometimes I have dreams about them, crawling over me, nesting inside of me.

The very thought casts a shiver down my spine, and I’m grateful for the pane of glass that separates me from the macabre outside my window.

Wind rattles the glass in its frame, the tendrils of late winter snaking their way beneath the thin afghan wrapped around my shoulders. It’s been mild, unseasonably warm enough for bugs and early blooms, but that Chicago wind carries the vestiges of a brutal winter.

The fog of my pills is lifting, making me more aware of the cold, but I’m holding off for something stronger. I’ll need it tonight.

From below, the mumbled shouts of Lady Ortiz, as I call her, push their way through the rotted wood planks that separate our balcony from hers. She and Mr. Ortiz are fighting again, their voices escalating into the crash of broken glass. The Yorkie, three floors below, barks an incessant plea to take a piss outside, and I wonder if his owner, Mrs. Silvia, has finally kicked the bucket. The lady’s pushing ninety, and the pungent reek of ammonia that fills her apartment seeps through the heating ducts of this place sometimes.

Oddly enough, in spite of the noise, the smells, and the crawling bugs, this is my moment of peace. Escape. Freedom.

I must be the only teenage girl on the planet who longs for quiet moments without the gossip, the socializing, and all the damn noise. In a generation of selfies and the desperate need for validation, sometimes I like to slip onto the other side of the mirror and simply watch.

Fringed by the glow of my bedroom light, I study the broken shell, eyeing an ant that marches away with a chunk of something far too big for its size, and I’m reminded that the world takes what it wants even after death.

That’s how I got here, this shithole apartment smack in the middle of Chicago. Just like insects, after my father’s death, the bank took our house, the creditors took our cars, and shame stole our pride as we bounced from shelter to shelter, my mom and me. I was nine years old when he died, and as innocent and vulnerable as a baby bird trapped inside a fragile shell.

Because he committed suicide, my dad’s insurance policy was considered null, and we were left without a pot to piss in. For a while, though, we got by. My mom landed a job dancing, and as a veteran’s widow, qualified for something like Section Eight housing. I was left home alone most nights, but it worked. We survived. Things were okay for a while.

I can’t even remember the moment life changed for us.

Feels like it happened in the span of a year, but I know it only took one fleeting second in time, when she didn’t have to worry about me, when the weight bearing down on her lifted and she felt high as the clouds.

An odd dichotomy, heroin—the way it rolls off the tongue as two completely opposite things—a selfless and courageous woman, and a selfish agent of destruction.

My mom gave up one for the other and that began our descent into some of the darkest days of my life.

My stomach twists, and I curl into myself, bringing my knees tighter to my body.

Almost time.

Two silhouettes hit my periphery, and I turn toward the mouth of the alley, where they move abruptly, limbs flailing, as if they’re in the thick of a fight. I focus on them for a moment, spotting the sag of his slacks just below his un-tucked shirt, and realize they’re not fighting at all. They’re fucking. A prostitute and her John pressed against the dirty bricks of the building, beside the overflowing dumpster. Her dark skin is hard to make out, but his crisp white shirt stands out like a beacon of debauchery.

This alley is a constant stream of slum life stories.

Staring at them drudges a memory of sitting tucked beside a line of garbage cans in the back alley of a bar, watching a rat pick at a maggot-infested chicken leg lying in a toxic pool of wastewater, while the sounds of my mother’s animalistic grunts and moans drifted from the other side. Nothing but meat and the stench of rot taunting my gag reflex. Through a small gap between the wall and garbage, I could just make out a man’s naked ass slamming into her, his dirty fingers curled around her bony thigh. Even then, no more than eleven years old, I knew what she’d become before the word was brutally carved into her skin. Whore. Junkie. A prostitute, always searching for the next high.

The two in the alley stop moving. Only that they’ve begun to pull their clothes back on tells me one of them must’ve climaxed. There is no big finale, or magical moment of ecstasy in the underbelly. It’s all quick and quiet fucks, while breathing in the fog and reek of stale sex and damp garbage. He tugs his slacks over his hips and holds up an object, which I’m guessing is a thin wad of cash. She reaches for it and the guy strikes her with the back of his hand, the echoing smack that kicks her head to the side is the first sound I’ve heard between them.

He’s probably her pimp. If she fights him, she’ll have to drag her ass across the city looking for an unclaimed street corner, and pray some crazy lunatic doesn’t pick her up and turn her into a human skin rug with her head mounted on his wall.

At seventeen, I know more about organizational hierarchy and job security than the average middle-aged CEO, and just like the corporate world, success depends on how many people get fucked.

Wolves and sheep.

For those of us in the flock, survival comes down to how well we manipulate, because a predator’s eyes are naturally drawn to the most innocent. So when my mom’s John started giving me that carnal look, I began carrying a pocketknife, and at thirteen, I once held it to the junkie’s throat, threatening to slice out his voice box if he ever touched me again.

Sometimes the sheep can be cunning, though.

My mom once tried to make me pickpocket—a lesson that landed us in the back of a cop car. Took ten minutes with the cop before we were released with a warning, and it was then I learned a valuable lesson in life: even at a woman’s weakest, sex could be her most powerful weapon.

I glance back at Charlie, my stark white Dogo Argentino, stolen from one of my mother’s back alley conquests. If not for her, I wouldn’t be sitting here, letting the blood-sucking insects feed off of me, after my mother spiraled straight to her grave.

Charlie gives me purpose. If there is a God, I truly believe he put her in my life to keep me from doing stupid shit. That, or to give me a weakness, because Lord knows I’d probably go psycho bitch crazy and end up in a padded cell if anything ever happened to my beloved dog.