Guardian Angel, Chapter Three

Chapter Three

    It was already past noon when Cash and I finished. My case was pretty full by then, and it was an amazing sensation to have the people look at me like they did now. A street rat with talent - I guess they never saw that one coming. At the thought, I laughed aloud, and made Cash look up at me in surprise from where he was sitting. “So, lunch?” He asked, the puzzled look fading from his face as quickly as it had come. “Totally,” I said, closing my guitar into it’s case and pocketing the money. “You’ll get the share,” I said, when I saw his eyes follow the money.

     “No, I don’t want it,” his voice cut through the air, as his eyes locked with mine. “It’s yours, really.” His brown eyes were stern, so I didn’t argue, even though I was completely confused by his reaction. “You sing beautifully – besides, I’ve got enough from other things.” Cash took my hand, and then pulled me down the park path. It wasn’t until I saw the huge China Town arch that I realized that he was taking me on yet another adventure. “Well, this is a surprise.” My voice was tired from all the walking, and I had to admit that after this many blocks, the guitar case and it’s contents had grown heavy. “I felt like furthering the change of pace, seeing as we’d already started one today.”

    Cash had let go of my hand a while ago, but we’d walked fairly quickly to get here. Inside the exotic neighborhoods, little shops and cramped alleyways made the place shrink and gave me a minor claustrophobic reaction. It faded as we kept walking, and then was gone as we stepped into a restaurant, and then were seated.

    “Have you come here before?” I asked, as we both looked at the menus. “Nope,” his voice was light but his eyes focused on me. “I’ve been on this side of town, but I’ve never really stopped in anywhere. I just thought it would be cool to try.” He pointed to something on the menu. “I did hear that the eel is good, though. Tastes like chicken!”

    I laughed, then. “Most things taste like chicken, if you cook it too long. As far as I know, though, the only Asian ‘delicacy’ that is best to avoid is Sea Urchin.” I shuddered. “I know from experience. It’s pretty gross,” I smiled at him, and then saw his expression change to something like sadness - but as soon as I acknowledged it, it was gone. “What’s up with you? You’re acting really weird,” I locked eyes with him then, looked away. I peeled my gloves off, and then took my jacket, and other items off. My jeans and tee shirt stood out in modern contrast to the antiquated interior of the area, then again, so did Cash’s clothes. The difference between him and I was that he seemed to stand out more all by himself. He was beautiful, and though for a girl I was pretty well off, I didn’t shine as well as he did. My voice did it for me. “Nothing is wrong,” He said, and ran a hand through his hair. “A thought just crossed my mind – it’s nothing, really.”

      I looked at him for a second, then decided that I had no reason to doubt him. “So, what do you want to eat, Angel?” He asked, after that moments pause. Angel? I paused, again, then looked at my menu. “Don’t really know. They’re Pork Fried Rice sounds like I won’t be hungry for days.” Cash nodded. “Chinese dumplings, depending on how they’re made, are pretty damned good too. They’ll keep you full, for sure.” Cash eyed me again from across the table. “Sounds like a plan to me,” I smiled, and then set down my menu. “And Mountain Dew. I can’t believe that they have it, but I’m so in.”

    Cash and I sat for a few minutes, then gave our requests to a young waitress. When the food arrived, we both ate in silence before the question finally popped out of my mouth. “So where did you get all the money, anyways?” I asked. He shrugged. “I won some in a game. Nothing to worry about, or to really think about at all, if you know what’s good.” Cash winked to make it a joke, but something like a ‘just don’t go there’ hung in his tone. “Whatever,” I sighed, and then ate. Cash’s posture slumped for a moment, like I’d overreacted to something simple. I didn’t care – there was a lot that I didn’t know about this guy, even though I’d lived with him now for almost a year, it seemed. I’d opted for him over the other ‘girls’ who looked like they would kill me for two cents. “I’m impressed with your voice, Krista,” he said, after he had shoveled a fair bit of food into his mouth.

    I ignored his question, and asked my own. “If you’re capable of making good money, why are you still at the halfway?” I asked, arching an eyebrow, irritation filling me. “Why the sudden interest?” He asked, not reacting as I blushed. “I just -,” I started, before he shook his head. “I haven’t left yet because I knew you didn’t have anybody else. I liked you.” The brown eyes in his face had grown dark, and deep. “I’m planning on leaving soon, though. I’m tired of dealing with the constant fighting.” I nodded. Finally, an answer. “Okay, Cash.” I said, and then payed attention to my food once more.

     “I’m leaving tomorrow.” My head snapped up. “What?” I asked, shocked. This conversation was so up and down it was giving me whiplash, but I had caused the majority of it. “I wanted to tell you today. That’s why I brought you.” Cash looked me square in the eyes, but then looked away as the sadness returned. “I can’t tell you exactly why – I know that you won’t except that I just left because of the fighting. I never get that hurt.” He sighed, and then took a sip of his soda. “I want you to visit me, okay?”

    I nodded, but the hollow sensation didn’t ebb as we continued eating. When he payed, I saw that it was all in fresh and clean bills. No bank robberies, clearly. Then where had he gotten all the cash? I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen now, but what, I couldn’t guess.

    The walk back was long, but relatively quiet, unless Cash and I started were laughing at some wanna-be gangster pumping his rap up so loud in his beaten up car, acting like everybody wanted to know how big he thought he was. There were other homeless on the streets, and people watching from corners. There was also the real gangsters, and the pimps waiting for their prostitutes. Cash took my hand during these parts, while I kept my other hand gripped on the end of my knife in my pocket.  It was an even darker city at night.
    Cash opted for me to clean up after we got back, seeing as our towels had been cleaned and my pajamas were freshly folded out on my bed. Normally, it would have been an insult, but to me, it meant that he had phone business to take care of. He was one of the few people in the house who had a cell phone, though most of the other peoples were either being payed by families, or where the five-dollar pay-as-you-go plans that you could buy at the local drug shop. I didn’t say anything when I left, as he was dialing, but the freshening sense of foreboding drove nausea straight into my stomach.

    The shower made me feel no better, even though I was happy to be clean. The hallway was silent, but it meant that I could hear the conversation on Cash’s phone. He’d never yelled in the past, but this time he was, and it was loud. I was silent as the grave as I crept back towards the door, and pressed myself against the wall. “I can’t believe you still want me to do this. You’re just going to make me stand by and do nothing? Do you understand what you’re asking me to do her?” He yelled into the tiny cell phone receiver, inside the room. I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but then Cash was quieter, as if he’d been reprimanded, or even threatened. “I know my job. Yes.” He took a deep breath. “But this is against everything I’ve been taught to do – do you understand that?”

    Then there was the click of the phone being closed. And the door opened, before I could move from where I was, leaning on the wall only inches away from the crappy wooden trip of the door. “Krista?” He asked, unsurprised but probing. I couldn’t respond to his question. Fear gripped me, but before I could move, he pulled me against his chest in a bear hug. His shirt wasn’t there, and through my pajamas I felt the warmth of him. “I’m sorry.” He said, but didn’t say anything when I tore away, and walked to my bed. I felt shaky, and I knew something was horribly wrong, but I couldn’t say without a doubt that I was the ‘her’ he’d been talking about. My teddy bear was askew on my pillow, but on Cash’s bed, lay the cell phone where he’d thrown it. There was nothing beyond friendship between us, or so I reminded myself every so often.

    My warm covers didn’t make the chill go away as I lay there, facing the wall – away from where Cash sat on his bed, staring at the wall in front of the two beds, at the closet. My teddy didn’t make me feel safer, nothing did. Not the knife under my pillow. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I couldn’t even conjure memories to drag me to sleep, as none came. I could swear I hear the hours tick by on the digital clock, though it was impossible to. They dragged on slowly, until my world eventually faded to a light sleep – and it was dawn.

Guardian Angel, Chapter Three

Chapter Two:

    The red LED clock read one o’clock in the morning when I awoke to the sounds of somebody creeping in my room. “Cash?” I asked, taking the knife from my pillow and opening it with a faint snapping sound. “Yea, Krist. It’s me,” his voice was calm, but tired. “You can put that away. It’s okay.”

    I set it down on my lap as I sat up, and picked out his silhouette from the faint light in the room. “Where were you?” I asked. “What was that fight about?” With a yawn, I heard Cash’s covers being pulled back. “Just another petty one. Nothing big – but the cops had to be called in when they started involving some other people. Minor cuts and bruises, no one’s dead.” Cash sounded more tired then I’d originally thought. “Okay, I guess,” I sighed, then closed the knife carefully before sticking it back under my pillow. “Good night, Krista,” he said, and then lay down, turning towards his wall. I took my turn to be quiet, and then returned to my dreams.

    Then the light hit my face. “Wha-?” I said, covering my eyes as I realized it was daytime already. “Wake up you two, it’s already eight,” the female voice belonged to the harsher of the four supervisors, and she was snapping at us already. I shoved the covers away from myself and hopped out of the bed as rapidly as I could. Cash had already done the same, and when Mrs. Hicks had left the room with a couple final warning glares at the two of us, we both sagged back onto our mattresses. “Where are you going today?” He asked.

    “Dunno. Maybe the park?” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “How about you? Where are you working this week?” I asked, and looked at him. His blond hair was disheveled, and his dark eyes were bleary. He looked a little grungy, like he’d allowed himself to hit the ground when helping the staff deal with the fight. Even though Cash looked light and agile, he was fast, and as far as I could tell from the wiry muscles that occasionally showed under his barely olive skin. What kids like him were doing here, I didn’t know; he refused to tell me anything about how he got here. He refused to tell me anything about his past, not in a rude way – he just always avoided the questions. “I’m not,” he sighed. “So do you mind if I come with you?”

    I shrugged. “No problem, I guess.” I said, and then stood up and went to get a fresh set of clothes. Jeans, socks, a long sleeve tee, and my sweatshirt. My fingerless gloves and a scarf that someone much have returned during the night sat on my small dresser. “I’ll buy lunch, too.” He said, and then stepped out of the room for a moment while I changed. When I opened the door and allowed him back in, I was fully dressed. He already had his shirt off, but clearly had no intention on taking his pants off. His muscular shoulders flexed while he reached for a fresh shirt, and I had to watch him for a second to remember that it was actually a human in front of me.

    “Ready to go?” He asked, tossing me a granola bar from his stash when I’d slung my guitar over my shoulder. “Yep,” I said with a sigh, and then made my way with him out the door.
The building was most of the way vacated by now, but a few stragglers seemed to have been awakened in the same manner that Cash and I had. We didn’t linger for much longer than we had to, but as we left the door, something made me check my pocket for my knife. I’d remembered to put it there, and so with a sigh, I left the halfway home.
    “So, Krista,” Cash asked after a little while of walking towards the park. “What’s bugging you?” He asked. “You seem to be bothered by something.” His dark eyes were concerned, but playful as he poked me. “I don’t know, to be honest. Just something gnawing at my mind,” I sighed. “Maybe I’m just hungry?” I asked, and pulled out two dollars and trotted over to a street vendor. “Churro, I guess?” I asked, before Cash reappeared over my shoulder. When I got it, and payed, we started walking again.

    “I hate this city,” I said, after a while. Cash eyed me like I’d said something really strange. “Then why are you even here?” He asked. “You came here by yourself, no one made you.” His point stung briefly, but I knew my own reasoning.  “It’s easy to disappear here, though. It’s one of my biggest irritants, but I needed it for a while. I didn’t want my family to find me, once they regretted their decision.” I stopped walking, and played with a loose strap on my guitar case. “It’s just that, you could disappear against your own will here, and not many people would care. There are too many people, and it’s a claustrophobic environment,” I said. “The violence, too, is just ridiculous.” I looked up at the sky, but even here it seemed blocked out by tall buildings.

    “I understand how you feel, then.” Cash said, but then grabbed my hand. “Come on, it’s going to be a good day. Don’t think about negative stuff, okay?” He said. Something about his words seemed falsely optimistic, like he was hiding something. “Okay,” I said, swallowing my fears, and walking on with him. The park was occupied by the city mothers and their kids, but a few people stood outside that group: the jobless, and wanderers, but others seemed shady and on the outskirts, but with Cash’s encouragements only a few seconds before, I chose to put my better judgements aside.

    I began playing my normal routine of songs, before deciding to work on some of my own songs. While Cash had once been able to weave his melodies in and out of my songs, he seemed now to have paused, then he continued, weaving his own song in.
                       

















So just when I found myself again,
I lost the dirty ground.                   

Sing your beautiful requiem,
I’ll shelter you from all of them.

Searching for the ones that aren’t lost
But won’t soon be found

In my arms, please rest your head,
And if you want, I’ll sing with you,

 Your requiem.

Drifting in a frigid sea
That people say once was part of me

A world of vacant promises,
And biased unbalanced hypothesis.

Can’t say that I can disagree
But ‘perfect’ is something we’ll never be.

True freedom lost to the tyranny.
It’s here that we see the true bigotry.

Sweet requiem - here we go again
To sing when the faith descends.
Like a figure in the opera house,
Disfigured and hidden - though known about.
I’ll sing to you when I need you most,
For you are my words - and I your host.

 
    When the song ended, I realized that many people had stopped to listen to the two of us, and that my open guitar case had a fair amount of coins and more than a couple dollar bills in it. Cash lounged against me, and sighed. “You didn’t tell me you were that good, angel,” his voice was slick, and amused. People applauded for a little while as Cash stood and gave small bows to amuse them further. I simply smiled and shook my head at him, until he finally sat down again. “Do you know how to play this song?” He asked, and then whispered the name in my ear. Slowly, I picked out the riff.

“Falling slowly, eyes that know me, and I can’t go back.”