Wonderer

“I’m running away you know… And I’m not coming back, I promise you that,” Mavvy whispered as she stared at her feet. Next to her on the couch sate two bags, and a baby seat. A silent baby slept beneath the thin pile of covers. 1

“Your running away, dressed like that?” Tasha, Mavvy’s mother looked her daughter up and down. She wore cow boy boots, a short mini skirt, a belly button top, and her hair was wrapped in a messy bun. “You look like a hooker, is that what you’re going to be?”2

“Mama, what I wear isn’t the matter right now!” Mavvy stared at her mother as if she had been slapped. 3

“No, you’re right the matter is the boy. You’re just going to run away? You’re not even going to tell Gerald he has a son? He can damn well take care of that boy better than you can!”4

“Mama isn’t you going to try and stop me? Don’t you love me?” Mavvy looked into her mother’s cold eyes. They darted away from her quickly. “You don’t. Do you? You’re ashamed of me! I know it! I knew it since the third grade… You hate me mama, so let me go. This baby is all I got.”5

“Yeah, but he’s got a father to! And he doesn’t need just you! You’re bringing him down with you, before his time even starts! Is that far? Do you think it is?” Mavvy’s mother turned her back to her only child. “Leave, get out! Just go than!” Mavvy’s mother whirled around almost on top of Mavvy. “I said get,” she screamed, gritting her teeth. “You’re disowned! You’re damning your baby!”6

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Taylor stood leaning his forehead on the wall before him, the payphone resting lightly in his hands. Dialing the number slowly he licked his lips, and raised his head. “911 what’s your emergency?”8

“She’s dead. Pepper’s dead,” as Taylor repeated the word’s that had been blocked from his mind, he let his body slide down into the corner of the pay phone. “She’s at 132 Burch Street, apartment five. She’s going to be dead when you get there, nothing can change that. She took too many of those damn pain killers. Fucking pain killers didn’t kill the pain… Not the kind of pain she needed gone.” Taylor let the phone slide from his fingers. It landed on the concrete bottom with a sick crack. “She broke my heart.” But yet she was, or had been twenty five, Taylor was only thirteen and counting. He was too young, just too young. He was just too young for the drugs, too young for the sex, too young for a twenty five year old hooker. Closing his eye’s he pulled his small body from the floor. Popping a cigy in his mouth he shut the broken phone booth door. Walking slowly down the street he knew, it was time, time to go home.9

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“Mama was right,” Mavvy whispered. “I can’t raise you, honey I’m a bad mama.” Mavvy fell onto the couch, tears streaming down her cheeks she couldn’t have cared less to wipe them away. “I guess I just wanted to prove her wrong, just once. She won, and I can’t be using you like this anymore. I’ve abused you. I’ve exposed you to thing’s you should have never been exposed to especially when you were so young.”11

“Mama, I know how to live like this. I don’t need to go. I can stay with you, you need me here, to protect you,” Taylor said quietly.12

“I need to learn to protect myself baby, and if I don’t give you up, social services will come and take you to an orphanage. I’d rather you go, where I can find you,” Mavvy cried, she stood walking over to her baby boy she stroked his cheek. Taylor looked into her deep, glazed over green eyes, just under the shine of lie’s he could see pure fear. 13

“Mama, whatever you do, I will always be here for you,” Taylor whispered.14

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So there he sat in a first class plane seat, with a ticket paid for by his grandmother he had never met. Destination Cumber Michigan. Closing his light blue eye’s he rested his long shaggy black hair on the head rest behind him. Closing his mind he tried to fall asleep.16

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“I know this is all new to you, but it’s new to me to,” Tasha sighed. She sat herself down on her sagging old couch. Flower print fading from wear. Taylor gazed from where he stood in the creaking doorway. She was old, she was tired. She had lived a long life, and now since his dad was in the cane she was all he had. Tasha glanced over at the boy. “I never raised no boy before, couldn’t even raise my own daughter right.” Tasha put her finger sideways, resting bellow her lip, a signature that she was thinking. “The thing I wonder is how she raised such a fine boy as you, when she was all messed up. Can you tell me? Can you tell me Taylor? Sit down, and tell me what happened.”18

“It’s a long story, grandma,” Taylor smiled weakly. Tasha returned the soft smile, it was the first time anybody had ever called her grandma.19

“Thank you Taylor. I think we have time, we have the rest of our lives,” Tasha stated. Taylor walked over and sat beside her, he let her put his hand on his knee as he began to retell the beginning of his life. And lord knows it was a hard one. The only thing Taylor thought about now was what he was going to do with the rest of it.20