“You work for your ex?”
“Yup.”
“How is that?”
“Awkward,” I said, pulling my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans.
Jamie answered on the second ring with, “How are you, Charlie?”
“I’m alright.”
“How did it go with Dante yesterday?”
I glanced at the cuff on my wrist. “Not quite as expected. But not bad, I suppose. So hey, I’m sorry to be such a total flake, but I’m going to be a little late coming in to work today.”
“That’s fine. Cole can hold down the fort until you get here.”
I left out the part about coming in to work attached to another person. Maybe there was a chance I could get the manacles open between now and the start of my shift, and then I could skip having to explain all of this to Jamie.
Austin and I decided to take public transit, since he said parking was nonexistent both in his neighborhood and at school. When we got off the bus downtown, I was a little surprised. I guess I’d forgotten that parts of San Francisco could be quite this bad.
Litter and graffiti punctuated the landscape. Even this early in the morning, dead-eyed prostitutes clustered in doorways, skimpy outfits doing nothing to protect them from the cold September day. Homeless people stood and sat and laid on the sidewalk. And a couple rough looking men were having a heated argument, which soon erupted into a fight. It didn’t last long though, and after taking a couple brutal hits, one of the men slunk away in defeat.
I took a look at my companion as he led the way into his building. His head was down, shoulders slouched, like he was trying to remain unnoticed. How did a boy like Austin survive in a place like this? It would be so easy for people to hurt him, to rob him, to take advantage of him. Even something as simple as coming and going from his apartment each day must be a lesson in survival.
We entered the lobby of the building. There seemed to be no electricity – the lobby was only lit by the weak sunlight that filtered through a couple filthy windows. A man in a suit was having sex with a woman at the foot of the stairs. She was obviously a prostitute, her short skirt pushed up over her hips as he bent her over. Austin took my hand and led me around the couple and up the steps, and glanced over his shoulder at me as he said, “Sorry about that. The old manager used to keep people from working in the lobby. The new guy doesn’t really seem to give a shit about anything.”
We climbed up four flights of stairs before he led me, still holding my hand, down a long, dark hallway littered with garbage and reeking of urine. Behind one of the doors, a loud argument was taking place. A big guy was weaving down the hall toward us, obviously either drunk or on drugs, muttering incoherently. When the man got close to us, my companion gently pushed me against the wall and put himself between the drunk and me. I realized he was protecting me, trying to keep me safe. The man passed without incident, and Austin picked up my hand again and led me to a doorway almost at the end of the hall.
He pulled a key out of the pocket of his jeans and unlocked the door, and I followed him inside. The room was tiny but clean, the little twin bed neatly made. A clothesline stretched across one end of the space, and a toilet and sink were in the corner. A small bouquet of daisies in a glass soda bottle sat on the sill of the barred window, and struck me as incredibly touching.
The room was fairly dark and cold, and when I flipped the light switch, the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling did nothing. “Power’s been out for a few days,” he said as he checked the clothes on the line, squeezing the fabric to see if it was dry and then pulling down a pair of jeans and some briefs. “The wiring in this place is kind of iffy. But they always get it working again sooner or later.”
I turned away to give him some privacy as he kicked off his sneakers and shimmied out of his tight low-rise jeans, then managed to get his underwear and the new slightly baggy jeans on mostly with one hand. When I turned back around to him, he was slipping his feet into a pair of beat-up Converse.
“Do you go to S.F. State?” I asked as he towed me around the room, gathering a backpack and something that looked like a tackle box.
“No, I go to Sutherlin.”
“That private art college?”
“That’s where all the money goes that I earn by turning tricks. In case you’re wondering why I live in such a shit hole.” Austin fished around in his backpack and took out a little sealed package of square, bright orange crackers sandwiched together with peanut butter. He held the package out to me and offered me some, and when I declined he quickly ate all of them. He was obviously incredibly hungry.