Keeping the Tarnished Read Free

her extreme waistline. Her dress was atrocious as well. It reminded Johnny of the white and orange curtains his mother once threw in the burn barrel due to their unattractive nature.
    “I need some make-up like ladies use to cover up their spots,” he replied.
    The woman finally seemed to relax and leaned in closer to the boy so the people behind him couldn’t hear what she was saying. “We don’t got that, either. What you need to do is call child protective services, young man.”
    This was probably the kindest tone the woman had ever taken with him, yet he had no idea what this child place was, or why he needed to call. His glance momentarily fell upon his pathetic reflection in the store widow.
    “Well, can I use your phone?”
     
    “Use my phone? Hell no. I’m roaming and this prepaid bullshit don’t come cheap,” said the same elderly black man who was behind him in the line earlier. The cantankerous old man ended up sitting next to Johnny on the bus. “Kids are ungrateful shits these days, think the world owes them something,” the old man crankily continued.
    Johnny turned and looked at the man with his mouth open and eyes widened. He knew he wasn’t in the store near his father’s house, he was on the bus. He was on the moving bus, sitting by the window near the back. He then realized he must have been talking out loud. He did that sometimes, but the teen had been staring out the bus window the entire time.
    After his mother left two years prior, Johnny approached a mental breaking point, as a child’s mentality can only bear so much adversity. Once Johnny’s one source of security was gone, he began to lose his sense of clarity little by little, though it was never depleted to the point of clinical dysfunction. Johnny began to confuse his dreams and memories with present reality, and would often experience painful flashbacks of childhood trauma, as well as vivid nightmares of more recent atrocities.
    When Johnny became lost deep in thought, he often found it difficult to distinguish past from present, and even delusion from reality. He was a prisoner of the chaotic scrambling often associated with people that experience horrific traumatic events. The result was the occasional inability to understand what was really there to hurt him from what was no longer a viable threat. There were even times when he found it difficult to determine if a situation had occurred, if it were occurring, or if it were some wild, anxiety-driven delusion. Maintaining the ability to assure, and reassure, himself was the boy’s saving grace.
    Johnny may have angered the man with his question, but he paid little attention to the man’s harsh comments as they were mild in comparison to the harassments he had frequently endured. He looked at the old man briefly, and then returned his gaze toward the window.
    The bus was filthy, but so were the majority of the passengers, and the old man smelled awfully of body odor and pipe tobacco. The bus window was covered in greasy fingerprints, and what appeared to be smeared, dried ketchup along the bottom of the glass. By this time, Johnny’s excitement had somewhat faded, and he was slightly fearful. The reality of being without a viable plan was finally setting in to the extent that he was now wondering where he was going to go once he got off of the bus in Lake Charles. Perhaps he would simply buy another ticket and ride the bus indefinitely. The idea was, of course, beyond impractical, but it made more sense than anything else at this point.
    He knew something would work out in his favor. With every second, every minute, Johnny was further from his past, and this thought made it all worth it. He could sleep on the streets for years, and it would still be worth it. Leaving it all behind had seemed like a whimsical idea until his mother left. He understood there had to be more out there, and nothing in the world could hurt him anymore than he’d been hurt already. At the same time,