Phil seemed to take a deep breath. “Paul was five years older than me. He kind of took care of me, especially because half the time, my parents were in no fit state to look after anyone. My father was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and my mother… She was always sad. I say always sad because that was how I got used to describing her as a child. But now I realize she was probably clinically depressed.
“She suffered with my father and had very little joy in her life. Some women might have found comfort in their children, but I don’t think my mother had it in her to be a mother in the first place. My parents only got married because she got pregnant with Paul. They tried their hand at domesticity, but neither one was prepared for it. My mother was only eighteen when she had Paul and my father was not much older…around twenty I think.
“I don’t think I have one clear memory of my father when he wasn’t completely inebriated. He was always high on something and if he wasn’t high, then he was most likely drunk. He’d stumble home late at night and scream for my mother. She would go down quietly and tend to him. She’d make him dinner or hand him a cigarette or just sit opposite him and listen to him talk.
“I would watch from the staircase. When I was younger, I assumed that they had this strange bond that worked for them. Why else would Mom go down whenever Dad came stumbling home? Why else would she look after him the way she did when he was in that state? Why else would she sit there and listen to him talk?
“It was only as I got older that I realized he wasn’t talking to her—he was blaming her. He’d demand that she came down, order her to make him something to eat, and then he would make her sit in front of him while he insulted her and blamed her for the shitty life she had trapped him into.
“Even at that time, though, it always looked to me like Mom was the one who was trapped. Sometimes Paul would join me on the staircase, but more often than not, he would try and get me back to bed so that I couldn’t listen to Mom and Dad.
“And then one day, everything changed. Dad came stumbling home drunk and started shouting for Mom…but she didn’t come. We checked the whole house, but I knew we wouldn’t find her. She had left, and I knew even at that age that she was never coming back.”
“Oh my God,” I said, feeling awful for Phil and his brother. “Phil…”
His eyes were distant with memory, but he returned the pressure on my hand.
“You never heard from her again?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did she… Did she say goodbye…leave a letter…anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. I felt an ache in my heart for everything he had endured. “And to be honest, I would have been very surprised if she had left a letter. It was just not in her to do something like that. She was my mother, but I can’t remember her ever mothering me. She was so distant, so removed from Paul and me. Sometimes I wonder why she didn’t leave sooner.”
“She loved you,” I said, hoping against hope that I was right.
Phil smiled, and I could see that he knew what I was trying to do, and he was grateful for it, but it didn’t change what he knew. “After we realized that my mother had gone for good, Dad disappeared for three days. He had the foresight to tell the neighbor to come and look after us. I think she only came over because we had a fridge stocked with beer.
“When Dad came back, he stunk of booze, there was vomit clinging to the front of his shirt, and he looked like someone had beaten the crap out of him. He told the neighbor to get out, and when she asked for her pay, he almost took a swing at her. She ran out of the house and never looked at us again. Then my father proceeded to drink himself to death. It took him eight years to do it.
“After that, it was just Paul and me. We were independent by the time Dad died, and we did what we could to make ends meet. At the time, we thought that meant dropping out of high school and getting involved with all the wrong people.”
“What people?” I asked.
“There was this group that dealt drugs back where we used to live,” Phil explained. “They were looking to recruit young boys to sell the goods. Paul and I were perfect targets, and there was a sense of brotherhood about the gang that we had missed all our lives. I suppose we were looking for a surrogate family and clung to the first one we came across. Except they weren’t really a family—they were a business, and we were just their mules.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
“I was fifteen,” Phil replied. “Paul was twenty.”
“Fifteen,” I repeated. It felt so young to have had so many awful things have happened already.
“The guy who handled the business was named Jonas, and he found this old abandoned storehouse to use as our headquarters. There were back rooms for us to sleep in since most of the boys who worked for him didn’t have homes or families. Some were foster kids who’d never been placed, and others were just teenagers making bad decisions.
“I drank, but I kept away from the drugs. I’ve done pot but nothing harder. I remembered how my father behave
d when he was high, and I didn’t want to be like him. Paul, however…he started using. And when he used, he changed. Our relationship grew strained for a time, and then there was a drug bust in the area. Everyone was on high alert, and we knew we were being watched.
“One day the storehouse was raided,” Phil continued. “Paul was out at the time doing a delivery run with Mackey and Fitz. I was in the back with another guy called Hans. Jonas and a few other guys were in the business end of the storeroom. They were armed, and when the cops busted in, they opened fire.”
“What?” I asked, in shock.
“Hans and I managed to get out through a back window. We took cover and watched as the cops overpowered everyone in the storehouse. If those idiots had just left their guns alone, they might have lived, but as it happens, no one survived.”
“No one?”
“Five of our guys died that day and one cop,” I replied. “After that, the gang basically disintegrated. Jonas was the brain behind the operation, and he died in the storehouse shooting. Paul and I got a tiny place in a rundown neighborhood to put that part of our life behind us.