Hunger

Austin: Five Fingers

I don't know what to think as I dart out of that little grocery store with my stolen goods in hand. I've never come so close to getting caught, and the terror of that possibility drives me on. I'm not really worried about me, but if I get caught so does Pixie... and I'm not letting her go back to that hell.

Just as I feared, the day went steadily downhill. I panhandled around the parking lot for a few hours and made a hundred bucks. Pixie was in the van coloring with the back doors open to let in the early fall breeze. It was afternoon when I noticed she was acting funny, sleeping in the middle of the day. Then she wouldn't eat lunch. Then she started saying her throat hurt. By the time I went into the store to stock up on supplies, she was burning up.

She's still asleep by the time I get back to the van with our stuff, but I need to drive us the hell away from here before I can give her the meds. Where to park and sleep? Tomorrow's Sunday. I hate Sundays. No one's gonna be hiring, a lot of stores are closed, and it's harder to make money panhandling because everyone panhandles on Sunday, hoping to woo the church crowd. Every now and then I can hit up a small church and get stuff from their food bank, but that's risky because sometimes they ask questions, and there's always the chance they've seen my face on missing-persons boards.

I park the van on the outskirts of a big Wal-Mart parking lot and then crawl into the back to wake Pixie. She whimpers when I touch her.

"Pixie, it's Austin. I want you to take this medicine to make you feel better," I say gently.

"No," she whines, "I don't like medsen."

"It tastes good! Come on, just one swallow. That's it," I say, holding the little cup to her mouth.

I get her to drink it down, and then I take her temperature. 100.8. Okay, it's fever territory but not horrible. Hopefully the meds will take care of whatever she's got.

"Go to sleep, okay?" I gently smooth her hair off her face. "You'll feel better in the morning. Guess how much I love you."

"To the moon and back," she mumbles sleepily.

I kiss her cheek and then climb back up into the passenger's seat to keep watch and do a little writing. I pull my crumpled notebook out of my bag and open to where I left off last night.

"Today was bad," I write, "Pixie had epasode and freaked out. I wish I could fix her memories or somehow take away her nightmires. Got supplys. Met a girl today she was kind of hot but then caght me stealing. Not so hot then. Pixie is sick now and has a fever. I keep thinking about that girl not sure why. She had red hair. She was nice to pixie to."

I stop there and fold the journal up. I'm exhausted tonight and plan on sleeping deeply. I keep watch for about an hour before I drift off. It would be better if I stayed awake though because I dream about Ray as soon as I close my eyes.

In the dream I have that night, which is really just a memory, I'm Pixie's age. I have this dream a lot and revisit this memory often. It's one of my recurring nightmares.

"Hey, Austin? You want to help me make some money? I'll give you ten bucks," Ray asked me that day.

I knew even then not to cross Ray or say no to him when he wanted something from me, which was a very rare occurrence until that day.

"What do I have to do?" I asked curiously.

"I have a friend who wants to hang out with you. You just have to go hang out with him and be his friend for one hour. That's all," Ray said.

I shrugged my small shoulders. "Okay. That doesn't sound bad."

"But you have to stay the whole hour. That's the deal. If you don't, or if  you're bad when you're there, you don't get the ten bucks and I'll be mad at you. You'll be punished. Understand?"