Chapter 10
Phin
After dashing out of the café, I'd followed the mystery woman, because I couldn't stay away from her. I'd kept my distance; she hadn't spotted me pretending to look at the iPads. Watching her try to high five the "genius" made me laugh; talk about socially awkward. I would have been jealous of the guy had it not been so painful to watch the exchange.
This woman had an indefinable quality that called to me. It could be her smile, those iceberg colored eyes, or maybe it was the hope that radiated from her. She beamed happiness even when she was swearing at her phone. As she left the store, she was checking out her new phone box like it was the ring in those movies—the precious.
Right now, I would have loved for her to have my number and to thank me for the coffee. I turned my back as she walked past so she wouldn't spot me. I'd gotten very skilled at being invisible when necessary. As she passed, I followed her back toward the café, being pulled by an intangible force. I tried to tell myself I was just bored, but that was a lie. Watching her look for me in the window of the coffee shop had me smiling and happy for the first time in a very long time. Following her, I did my best not to check out her heart-shaped ass. As she bounced on the balls of her feet, I realized her walk was even cute. A few doors down from the café, she slowed down and entered a modern glass office building.
I stopped in front of her office, realizing she worked for a local homeless and runaway charity. Fate found me today and was making me a true believer. She worked for a homeless charity. This was a sign that it wasn't the last time I'd see this woman, but I had other priorities now. I left to try to get my bed for the night. I was running late, so I had to get moving to help out at the shelter. You'd be surprised how fast your day went when your only job was finding food and shelter. If I weren't careful, I'd find myself out in the cold, and that could mean death on the streets. Helping them at the shelter also made the day pass, but today I wouldn't need the distraction; this woman was keeping me plenty preoccupied.
Smiling to myself, I knew that my plan tomorrow morning would be to hang out at the café and hope to see her again, so I wanted to be clean and rested.
After helping do laundry for a few hours at the shelter, which helped calm my anxiety, I claimed one of the cots and settled in for the night. At bedtime the unspoken rule of the shelter is to keep to yourself, so no one bothers you. Ironically, your best strategy in the shelter, at night, is to be invisible.
Being an only child and sleeping on my own, I never got used to listening to others get settled into their cots for the night. Coughing, burping, farting, and yelling as the workers tried to calm the residents and the voices in their heads. Unable to relax, I rarely went to sleep before everyone else. I'd not had a restful night's sleep since leaving LA.
Thinking about LA reminded me I needed to call Duke and check on him. He seemed to be okay the last time we spoke, and he'd hired another cook to help out. From what he'd said, the guy seemed kind enough, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous that he was living my life. I didn't give a fuck if this was just a cook in a dive bar; it was a job and a life that I'd built myself; it had not been handed down to me by my family with expectations and demands. Lucky bastard!
Thinking about the people who'd crossed my path since I left my parent's house, the mayor came to mind. I wished I'd seen the mayor again before I left for some of his sage advice on life on the streets. Once I settled in at Duke's I'd invited him in for meals, which I would cook for him, and it was fun catching up with him. I missed that old guy, and I often wondered how he was faring now. He'd told me to pay it forward, and I'd done my best to honor that advice.
The thought of helping others made me think of the mystery girl and her job at the charity, helping the homeless of the city. The memory of her warm, tiny hand in mine got me hard for the first time in a long while. The urge to touch myself was hard to resist, but lying on a cot with hundreds of other men kept me from taking my one-on-one romance further.
Could I let this woman in, what if I tried to get off the street? Was it worth possibly getting discovered to have a relationship with this woman? From my work at Duke's I'd left LA with an emergency fund if I needed it, I could use that to find a place to stay. I could always call Duke's friends if I were desperate. I must be horny if she made me consider chucking all this in to see if we had a future. I didn't even know this woman's name! My dick and I were getting ahead of ourselves. Calm down! My dick had gotten me into trouble in the past, and I couldn't let that happen again.
Since I left home, I counted the days until I could get my inheritance and live like a normal person with a clean place to live, a girlfriend, and a real job. It seemed impossible most days, but there would be time for a real life later.
Tonight, before I drifted off to sleep, my thoughts turned to the past. Before the beatings started, my early childhood wasn't a bad one from the outside; growing up in an affluent part of the Bay Area called Atherton. My parents were very wealthy, and so were their parents. I couldn't deny I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and my family had certain expectations of me. Even as a kid, I had to be first and best at everything. As a teenager, the expectations became even harder to live up to, and the beatings became more intense. The pressure to get into the best colleges and get the highest scores on my tests was something my father lectured me about daily in between the beatings. I did well because that's what my parents expected. Failure wasn't tolerated, and with failure there were consequences.
I attended an exclusive private prep school and hung out with the popular kids. Of course, no one believed those kids ever got into trouble, but they were the worst offenders. I was never one of the bullies who hung out in those groups. My father was a bully; I knew too well what that was like; I'd never do that to anyone else. Often, I helped the kids who were picked on by deflecting the bullies. I never understood picking on other people, especially now when I see how easy it is for people to be victims to others' need for power. No one knew the anger I held inside of me, the anger at my family, and myself, for not feeling like I could get help. I was never good enough for my parents so they would stop the beatings and love me.
Lying on my cot, thinking about my school days briefly brought a smile to my face, recalling my friends from school that I'd lost touch with when I went to LA.
Our gang had been notorious for playing pranks around the school each time escalating the risk and damage. My wealthy friends and I had laughed, thinking it was hilarious. We'd broken into one of the teacher's email accounts and sent out an email to the entire school of a particular teacher in a compromising position with our school mascot. The mascot was a guy in a giant sheep costume. We had a friend who was good with Photoshop do it. This particular teacher was a hard-ass, and everyone loved the photo, except for the teacher. The headmaster suggested he'd tell the colleges what we had been up to, but our parents' money bought his silence.
My father had been called to the school and this escalated his anger and my beating. He didn't appreciate his son to be a jokester. The headmaster had warned my father he was lucky that they would let me graduate. Again, this was an empty threat as we were graduating in a few months, and because of the money that was donated to the school by my family, I would be taking part in the ceremony. My parent's influence and money stretched far and wide.
As I recalled the drive home from school, my father was quiet, which usually meant the beating would be particularly painful. The tension that radiated through the car was thick, and it scared me. He rarely needed a reason to beat me, but these visits to my school gave him a good excuse.
As we sat in the back of the family limo, the tension made it difficult for me to breathe. My father finally spoke up. "Phin, you realize that my father only had to beat me once before I changed my behavior. You, on the other hand, can't seem to learn your lesson. You take after your mother; you are weak and undisciplined."
I contemplated my father's confession as we finally pulled up to our home. "Go into my study and get ready!" he barked, not giving any other directions. Not surprisingly, the servants and my mother had made themselves scarce.
The thunder from his voice indicated this would be a bad one. We had a ritual of how this happened; I went into his dark mahogany office with wall-to-wall bookshelves and large leather sofa and club chairs. My father often worked in here to steal himself away from the world, including us. Despite the room being cold, I took off my shirt and lay prostrate against my father's desk with both hands stretched out in front of me. I stretched against this cold solid wood desk, that had been in my family for years, imagining my father having to do the same thing and trying to find my sympathy for him but always coming up short. Our family history was now holding me up and steadying me for what was going to come next. Closing my eyes, I took several long deep breaths, trying to comfort myself for the pain that was about to begin.
My father quietly entered the room and walked to the other side of the desk. All I could hear was his breathing, I looked over my shoulder, and his eyes were black and dead, the anger was radiating off him. There would be no sympathy for me today, not that he ever held back. I noticed he was holding a leather belt that was thicker than the one he'd used on me in the past. The buckle was much bigger, and it looked sharper than the others. Trying not to meet his gaze, I looked down and readied myself for the worst beating of my life as I attempted to dig my fingers into the hardwood top of the desk.
I could only hear his urgent footfalls, then he growled as he stood behind me. "You think your prank was funny, Phineas? You and your friends aren't funny. You aren't smart, and I wonder if you are even my child. Your lack of respect for your mother and myself is unbelievable. I am beginning to regret the day we brought you home." He continued to rant and pace the room, as his angry footsteps hit the hardwood floor. "Will you ever learn?"
Knowing that was a rhetorical question, the room went quiet as I waited for the first strike. I continued to control my breathing and think of my happy place. In my mind, I was lying on a beach, enjoying the sunshine and listening to the waves. Finally, the first blow hit my back, then another and another, not leaving any time for recovery. I tried to stay in my beach paradise as I took each strike and held tight to the old mahogany desk. Tears welled up in my eyes as I stifled them back, unable to give him the satisfaction of breaking me.
I could feel the warm blood streaking down my back as each strike ripped open my skin, but I still didn't make a sound. I bit into my bottom lip so hard that I could taste my blood. The burning pain subsided now because I was in shock and the adrenaline was keeping the pain away. Sheer will and stubbornness kept me conscious as the lashes continued.
Father finally tired out and his rage had dissipated, so he'd stopped. He hadn't said a word; the only sound was of his panting and pacing behind me. "Put your shirt on and stay in your room for the weekend. Louisa will bring your meals to your room. I don't want to see you. You need to think about what you've done. Now go before I get my second wind."
I put my white oxford school shirt on and winced at the pain of it sticking to the open cuts on my back. I couldn't see the blood that I imagined had absorbed into my shirt. I didn't say a word to him or look him in the eye as I left. The one thing I knew was this was the last beating he would give me, and the last time I would see him.
I strode back to my room, determined to make my escape plan. There was no going back now; I would leave this place, these people, and never look back. These people called me their son, but they didn't love or care about me. Why did my father have to hate me so much? I never dared to want to know the answer to that question. I wouldn’t wait to find out; otherwise, he might be dead by my own hands.
My only choice was to start my own life. I'd already planned to leave when I turned eighteen in December, but I had to go now. I just needed to be gone until I turned twenty-one when I could collect my five-million-dollar trust fund. Living in LA would make it easy to stay away from them and make a life of my own.
Fuck them!
Today was the first fucking day of the rest of my life. Once I returned to my room, organized my plan. As it all came together, I paused for just a second, taking in my surroundings.
The contemplation allowed all the emotions to hit me like a freight train. My stomach knotted, feeling like it was about to throw up my lunch, and my head was spinning. The strength of all the emotions hit me and buckled my legs; I made it to my bed and sat down. I sat forward, closing my eyes, leaning my elbows on my thighs as I tried to keep it together. Breathing deeply, I tried to calm my nerves, which allowed the tears to come that I'd been holding back all this time. I couldn't hold back the feral scream that came out of me. My entire body contracted as I cried until my body hurt, and I was finally out of tears. The heartbreak of my father's hatred overwhelmed me.
As I tried to get my breathing under control, the pain in my back became more intense, and it made me realize I needed to clean up. I stood under the hot water in the shower, flinched and almost screamed out in pain once again. I changed the setting to a rain shower to avoid direct contact with my skin. I looked down and saw the light red-colored water as it filled the drain. When the water finally ran clear, I got out and dried off. The cuts on my back needed tending, and I knew my mother wouldn't help, and the staff would get into trouble if they tried. The only thing I could do was lie face down on the bed and let the air dry wounds. Going over my escape plan was the distraction I needed to squash the pain.
The sound of two men fighting brought me out of my trip down nightmare lane, and I remembered where I was: in a homeless shelter. My father was nowhere in sight. Lying here, I rubbed away a tear with the back of my hand, remembering those times, which seemed so long ago now. The memory was still vivid, and I could again feel the phantom pain on my scarred back. Lana had tried to give me a back rub once in some attempt at intimacy, but I ended up distracting her with my tongue. There were always ways to keep her hands away from my back. Several of them had skimmed my back several times but had never mentioned it.
The scars were behind me, so I didn't often think about them. Out of sight, out of mind. I let my hardened skin serve as armor to keep me safe. I was no longer scared of him; I wasn't a victim. Hurting me and even my mother only made him a bigger monster. I thought of my mother and how she would always be in another part of the house during the beatings, drinking until she passed out. She drank most days just enough to function and pretend she was okay. She lived under the delusion that vodka had no smell but most days that was her daily perfume. I am not sure what hurt more, the physical beatings, or her emotional absence from my life. I lay wondering how she might be now and if she missed me. I knew I needed to forgive her for her indifference, but I wasn't ready to do it yet—some day.
The memories were still physically and emotionally fresh, but finding Duke's friendship had changed my life and given me hope. This woman I met today felt like she could be something to me; a friend, or maybe more. The feeling of optimism calmed me down and helped me fall into a peaceful sleep for the first time in a long time.
When I woke up this morning, I sported a semi thinking about seeing those blue eyes again. Getting a semi at the shelter was the worst and stifling it caused a massive case of blue balls. I needed to get up and start thinking about the future, not the past, and take care of the blue balls with a cold shower.
I would be free soon to live my own life. Maybe find this woman? Hope for a future felt good right now, but I wasn't sure how free I'd ever be of the past.