Cabel Evans regained consciousness sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.
When he got the focus back in his eyes, the first thing he saw was his broken model car, smashed into little pieces. It had been a candy-apple red ‘67 GTO, a really old car, almost an antique. Emma had bought it for him at a garage sale several months ago when he first started living with them. He had built and spray-painted it all by himself. It was his first model and he had been proud of how good it came out. Now it looked as though it had been run over by a truck. He felt like he had too.
The whole left-side of Cabel’s face felt numb and on fire. His left eye especially felt like it was burning and expanding rapidly. He gently touched it with the back of his right hand and dabbed some tears. The contact made him flinch with pain. The back of his head rested against the faded, stained and torn Winnie the Pooh wallpaper covering the walls of his bedroom. Wallpaper meant for a baby that was never born. When he tested the spot with his finger, he felt a tender lump blooming to a point.
Cabel heard Dick Jester, his foster care “father,” in the living room breaking things. He yelled curses to emphasize his rage each time he broke something else. “Fuck him,” smash the ashtray, “Fuck her,” smash the lamp, and “Fuck them all,” smash the vase, smash the beer bottle. The breakage seemed to be working its way away from Cabel’s room, which was good because Cabel wasn’t sure he could get up and run if Dick decided to come back for round two. Hopefully he’d be satisfied with a first round knock-out. Cabel figured he’d probably be headed to the fridge for another beer. Dick usually needed almost a whole six-pack to get punchy and a second six-pack to pass out, but today he’d gotten nasty by beer number three. Cabel wasn’t about to stick around for anymore beers or rounds. Dick Jester had hit him for the last time, and that was no joke.
First he tested his legs, nothing seemed broken. He looked at his face in the cloudy dresser mirror and saw his left blue eye swelling closed. His straight blonde hair stuck out in wet clumps from the sweat caused by the Round One activities with Dick. He tried to flatten the spikes with his hand and looked back at his tense face for a moment. Then he heard another crash out in the living room and it snapped him back into reality. Cabel knew he had to work fast and be quiet, or Dick would be back to knock him on his ass again. At least his foster mother Emma wasn’t around to run interference and maybe get caught up in Dick’s festivities herself. She had left her “two men” alone while she visited her ailing mother up north in Fort Lauderdale.
Cabel knew he didn’t have time to pack anything with Dick on his drunken rampage. Cabel’s eyes scanned the room for necessities and he saw only two, his dirty silver high-topped Converse sneakers, and a pair of worn white socks. He had to get them on and get out. With his GTO busted, he didn’t really own anything, and there was nothing else from this house he wanted, other than money. He was only twelve but he knew he wouldn’t get far without money. He’d been around on the foster home circuit over the last seven years, and he had never stolen anything from anybody. But this was survival, and Dick had been a real dick from day one, Cabel would need money, and he decided he had no choice but to take some.
Cabel crept on his hands and knees to his shoes, careful not to make any noise. Dick had quieted down for a moment, and was probably in the kitchen chugging down more beers. That would give Cabel just a few minutes before Dick would be back looking for more trouble. He slipped on his socks and then pulled on and tied his sneakers. He stood up to a crouched stance, and took two cautious steps towards the bedroom door.
Wait! He'd almost forgotten his most precious possession.
Cabel took two slow motion toe-steps back to his bed and squatted down. Near the head of his bed, he lifted the corner of the flimsy twin mattress and reached his arm in, all the way up to his shoulder. His hand felt around and closed upon a hard plastic card which he withdrew. A small one by one-and-a-half inch photo with a hologram seal showed a young woman smiling for the camera in front of a blue background.
Carol Ann Evans had had Florida Driver's license, Class E, number S634-930-92-010-0, and below her picture was her signature in a beautiful, classic script. Part of a shoe box full, it was the only picture of his mother that had survived seven years of moving from house to house, feeling like a human basketball in a half-court press, without a shot ever being put up, and time running out.
Any time her image began to fade or get blurry in his mind, he'd stare into her small one inch face and refresh his memory. He took one last look for the road, and slipped it into the right front pocket of his jeans. He saw forty-eight cents on his dresser top, and backtracked to grab the coins and slip them into his jeans pocket.
He would still have to get into that top drawer of the buffet by the door to see how much “pin money” Emma had hidden in her sewing box.
About a week after he’d been dropped off there by DCF, she had secretly shown Cabel the small stash that she “squirreled away” from leftover shopping money. Emma had been really cool with Cabel, which made him sorry he couldn’t say goodbye, but glad she was safely out of the range of Dick’s fists.
“God Damn it” smash the bottle.
Dick had gulped down another beer and was back on the tear. Cabel could tell by the muffled volume of Dick’s yells, he was in the kitchen, probably towards the back. Now was Cabel’s chance. He had to cross the living room, get the money, and out the front door with only a flimsy swinging door separating he and Dick.
Still crouched, as he Cabel took his first four slow motion tiptoed steps in the living room, his eyes fixed on the yellow glow through the kitchen door’s small window.
Slam, “Fuckin’ whore!”
He was louder now. Cabel could tell Dick was moving from the refrigerator in the back towards the front of the kitchen. He’d gotten another beer, and would probably be coming through that swinging door in about five seconds.
Still stooped, Cabel did four more giant crane steps, and then froze.
Cabel saw Dick through the small smudged window of the free-swinging kitchen door. He had his head tilted back as he took a long swig from his beer bottle. When Dick brought his head back forward, his greasy black hair splayed down on his forehead, eyes looking at nothing.
Then, suddenly through the small rectangular window, Cabel saw those hateful brown eyes focus on him and he found himself making eye contact with the meanest bastard he had ever met in his life.
“Where in the fuck do you think you’re going?” Dick yelled, smash the bottle!
Cabel was frozen with fear, and it was Dick who made the first move. He came crashing through the swinging door like a blitzing linebacker. The door swung open with such force the small window broke into bits when it hit the wall. Cabel leaned in the direction of the front door, and bolted just as Dick got within reach. Dick was close on his tail, and was only slightly impeded when he had to side-step the beat-up green-brocade ottoman. The blitzed linebacker had changed into a drunken halfback.
Cabel knew he had to get that money or he’d be screwed. He would surely get picked up and probably be returned to this nightmare existence. He slid to a stop at the buffet, yanked open the drawer and that’s when Dick hit him like a blindside sack. They went slamming into the front door. Cabel heard the dull clunk of skin-covered-bone giving way to wood, and they slid to the floor.
Cabel smelled the beer on Dick’s stale breath as the devil himself let out a long stinking moan. He saw the hate in Dick’s eyes suddenly flicker out and then fade. Dick’s grip on Cabel relaxed, and all two hundred pounds of Dick seemed to double as it turned to dead weight pinning Cabel to the floor.
Dick was out cold.
Cabel strained to get out from beneath him, and finally squeezed free. He stood up on wobbly legs, and looking down at Dick in his stained, yellowish undershirt, could see that he was still knocked-out. Cabel looked at the broken drawer, and saw that the small purple plastic sewing box had flown out into the corner right by Dick’s head. As Cabel turned and reached for it, Dick’s eyes flew open wide with instant premeditated hate. Cabel managed to get his fingers around the box, but just as he turned to get out of there, he felt a firm grip clamped around his ankle. He tried to release his foot, but it wouldn’t budge. He could feel Dick’s grip tighten and pull, and that’s when all of Cabel’s anger over the last seven years since his mother had died, built up, burst out and overcame the fear.
He was tired of being shuffled from shithole to shithole and asshole to asshole, and that was gonna end right now. He would gain his freedom, take care of himself, never come back, and never again depend on anyone else but himself.
Cabel turned to look down at Dick’s face, it was all screwed-up in anger, loathing and pain. It was the first time in his life
Cabel felt real hate, and he didn’t like it, not one bit. He had to get it out.
With his free foot, he began kicking and kicking that face he hated so much. On the fifth kick, he hit Dick right between the eyes, and Cabel felt his ankle being released. His hate still boiling over, he gave Dick three more well-placed kicks in the gut and chest. Breathing hard he looked down through tear-filled eyes at the bloody man he hated so much. He had won Round Two in a knock-out. He was finally free.
He opened the sewing box and found fifty-two dollars hidden under a small pocket sewing kit. He took the kit, two tens, six fives, and a one dollar bill, stuffing them all in his empty pants pockets. He took the remaining single, crumbled it in his hand, and tossed it on the passed-out Dick Jester, landing on his chest. Cabel saw the bill moving up and down from Dick’s breathing, and was relieved to know that at least he hadn’t killed the mean bastard.
He threw open the door, and ran out into the hot, humid, air of the Florida night and real freedom. The crickets and frogs were singing a loud chorus of encouragement for him, and he somehow gained strength and confidence from their familiar song. From now on he would make decisions for himself, if only he could keep from getting picked up by the cops over the next six years.
He had failed before and knew it was a tall order but he had to try. He was more mature now and knew that it would take every ounce of his strength and every bit of his brain, but he felt determined like never before in his life. Cabel also knew that he had no other options. He knew in his heart he could never return to Dick Jester’s house, or any other foster home for that matter. He was done.
There was no place else for him to go, but out into the world alone. Despite the heat of the night, Cabel felt the cold shudder of reality surge through his spine. There was no turning back now.
He saw his day-glow orange hand-me-down DCF-provided bike lying in the front yard, and ran to pick it up. Cabel Evans jumped on the bike, and without looking back, pedaled away, hopefully, never to see Dick Jester again. He would use every bit of his brain and strength to make sure of it.
Photo notes:
The black eye original by Dion Gillard was adjusted for high contrast and brightness in Corel Paintshop Pro
GTO original from Wikimedia Commons was color adjusted with pasteup
Broken beer bottle original with paste-up
Orange Bicycle original from Pixbay with color mix and paste-up
