The day long since faded into history. The sun was at its mid-day apex when he first stepped off the bus, and between then and now, Anthony’s wanderings have taken him up and down the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. His mind swimming through the memories of a tragic and violent youth. Sometimes he’d stop and stare down upon the ground, at places he’d one been lying, bleeding, thinking that time would cease for him at any moment, and then there he was, six years later, staring down at a faint blood stain upon the cement. He had talked by the tattoo parlor, the old bar, the park, and finally, as though he’s no where else to go, his steps brought him to the door of an old friend.
The numbers were dimmed, dirty. Age has tarnished the plastic, stolen its luster. He stared at them for a long moment and couldn’t help but extinguish the next few seconds in thought of his life back in prison. How many sleepless nights had he sat in the dark, staring off into the shadows that hung about the corners of his cell, while his mind obsessed over every detail of this door, and how much he longed to stand behind it. She is on the other side, with him. Their lives have been moving while his remained stationary for six years. Their lives have been spent looking forward, to the future, developing optimistic tendencies, and perhaps dreaming of tomorrow, while his life has consisted of remembering the past. Though his formative years led him to his incarceration, they were all he had left to dream of. Optimism seems so futile when you’re existence has become subject to the mood and temperament of other men. Its hard to look to the future, and see anything other than the present, when you’ve no liberties, no ground to stand on except that ground which your ordered to occupy. For him, there has only been the past.
Without knocking, he turned and left the apartment door. He wouldn’t know what to say to her, and wasn’t sure if she’d allow him to introduce himself to Caleb. He’s a vacant father to the boy. A faceless, nameless entity. Anthony instead dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and pulled out a folded envelope. The letter had long since been taken, but a week in solitary had purchased him the envelope. Perhaps it was time to drop by…
Another hour of idle wandering. Another hour of braving the dangerous streets of Hell’s kitchen brought him to the door of another apartment. The address matched the sender’s, the numbers the same… He hadn’t written to tell her he was getting out. He hadn’t written anything in the last year except that he was still alive. 1 page, 1 line, followed by a scribbled signature; and then nothing. He’d told himself it was because he had things to work out, but the longer he was away, the more his mind toiled over the past, he’s come to realization that he’s simply forgotten how to look at anything but the past. Prison has tempered him… perhaps Hell’s Kitchen can revive him.
The fingers on his left hand curl, and the side of his fist impacts the door in a steady rhythm. 3 loud knocks, and silence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
*She'd drifted off to sleep resting against Randall. But, Jamie was a light sleeper and the first knock at her door was enough to bring her to the edge of consciousness. By the next two knocks, she had eased herself off the couch and wrapped her robe around her, tying the belt loosely. She didn't know who was on the other side of the door. It could be her mom, one of her friends, or the red-faced landlord.
Jamie was a giver, though. She gave to others because she knew how much it hurt to need and not get anything back. But, she gave only to those who proved themselves worthy of her gifts. It was why she had effectively shut herself off from her parents, as much as she could, anyway.
With a soft sigh, she unbolted the door, and slid it open the length of the chain. At first, confusion clouded her features. She knew this person, but from where. It lasted only a few moments before her mouth fell open, and her eyes grew wide. The door closed only briefly to release the chain, and then she threw it open.*
Anthony? *It was Anthony...but a different Anthony. He looked even older than Jamie and Randall. Prison had changed him, made him harder.* Why didn't you call or write me to tell me you were getting out? *Without waiting for a reply, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight.* I'm glad to see you..
---------------------------------------------------------------------
It was yesterday again. Six years had never happened, at least, not to her face. Perhaps it was the scope of the mind, the similarities drowned out the differences made by age, but she looked no different today than she had the day the judge passed down his sentence. The last time they saw one another, she was watching as Anthony was being cuffed, and surrounded by policemen, and guided out of the back of the court room into an awaiting police car. She looks just as she had then, and that touched his lips with a faint smile.
“And miss that surprised look on your face when you opened the door?,” Anthony answers her question as she moves to hug him. Touch triggers an involuntary reaction conditioned by the other inmates of the prison. She hugged him, and almost as if instantly upon touch, every muscle in his body grew tight and taunt, and the air within his lungs was denied exit. He became stiff, like flesh had become stone. Years spent in aggression, where any physical contact between individuals was either violent, or unwanted, has not only made him uncomfortable to touch, but weary of it. And still, Anthony’s trim, sun baked arms surround her as he starts to notice an premature withdraw from the hug. His way of reconfirming the appropriateness of the act, even though is body seemed to reject it.
“But you are a sight right out of yesterday,” he spoke in a quiet, somber tone, after the embrace. Hazel eyes drank in her features as though he were looking onto celestial lights, and though he tried not to notice, his hands fidgeted against the black denim of his jeans, wiping anxious dampness from his palms.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*When she went to hug Anthony, she felt him tense, his body tight as a bowstring. She hadn't even thought about the fact that prison changes a -lot- of things. She worried her lower lip with her teeth and started to pull away. But then, he returned the embrace, and she let out her breath with a relieved sigh. She remembered the day he was sentenced, she'd sat in the courtroom crying after he left. But now, he was back, and she was relieved.
When she pulled back, finally, her lips were curled into a smile. She looked him over, no obvious injuries, well, no new ones anyway. He was just as strong as ever, probably more so. She was glad he'd came back to Hell's Kitchen, to the gang. But, things had changed to the point where he was nervous around her. He shouldn't be. She still thought the same of him as the day he'd left.*
You look pretty good yourself. *She crossed the threshhold back into the apartment, urging him to follow her.* Come on in, Randy's sleeping on the couch. Just another day in Hell's Kitchen. Can I get you something? Water, tea, soda? I could make some coffee if you want...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Just another day in Hell’s Kitchen…
There it was, summed up in a nutshell. His every fear and waking taunt, voiced and handed to him as thought the silver lighting to the entire situation. When she said it, the moment scripted her words to speak of his absence. Come on in Anthony. We haven’t changed a thing while you’ve been away. Nothing’s different. Assume your usual spot and lets continue. It is so innocent an injury, and one he prays she never learns she’s committed against him, but it does sting. It does serve to remind him how much has changed.
“No. I can’t stay long,” he spoke, running his left hand through the mop of black strands that cover his head, pushing his hair out of his face. Dark eyes push through the black of a darkened living room in an attempt to spy Randy, if for nothing else than to take visual stock of the man’s existence, and quick measure of his condition. The shadows are too thick, the distance is too great and he doesn’t want to stare in fear that a heavier gaze will be felt by his slumbering friend, so after a second his eyes refocus on Jamie’s face.
There it was again. That uneasiness that fell into silence as he wondered exactly what to say. Six years, and he’s thought of nothing worth while to say other than the fact that she doesn’t seem to have changed. Six years of division, of lost time… She and Randall have served as a crutch. A pair of names connected to ideas that had proven to be the difference between life and death. They were the reason he didn’t give up when the fight was against him and he could feel the life being crushed out of him by mammothian arms. They’d be here, and he wanted to escape that hell of iron and concrete in order to see them again. So the problem is, what do you say to your personal saviors? To your best friends…
In an attempt to break the tension, to shift the focus of his mind from its magnifying-glass view of the changes time has made in him, his eyes scan the immediate area. Most everything is bathed in darkness, and what all he can see holds no real meaning to Anthony. A plant, table, the onlines of furniture, walls… its not until his eyes come upon a framed picture of children before an old building that his mind finds relief. Children who had long since grown up… yet he can still hear their voices as clearly as he can hear his own thoughts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
*Something's wrong again. Years of experience have taught Jamie to tell when people are off. The best way to protect yourself was to know when the mood changed, so you could react accordingly. Inwardly, she cursed, as her eyes watched Anthony. Just when he'd started to calm down, something set him off again. Did he think that..* Anthony, you weren't interrupting anything. Randy and I aren't together. He just wanted to talk, and I couldn't sleep.
*She watched him search the apartment as though he thought a boogeyman lurked in the shadows until he found the picture. Back when they were all young, and relatively innocent. Before juvie, drugs, and the weight of the world had came crashing down on their young inexperienced shoulders. Another smile touched her lips as she moved silently across the room to stand beside him.*
I thought you'd recognize it. It seems like ages ago that picture was taken. *She actually laughed, soft laughter bubbling out for the space of a few seconds.* I know it sounds cliche, but those were the days..We had a lot of fun, didn't we, Tony?
*As she spoke, she put her arm around him, resting her head against his muscular shoulder. Her voice was soft and calm.* You don't have to go if you don't want to. I want you to stay, Tony, and I'm sure Randy'd say the same thing if he was awake. But....*She paused* if you need to go, we understand. Come back anytime, I mean it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, he tensed, but he didn’t seem to notice it. Again she had broken his customary bubble, and again his body responded by making a statue out of his flesh, but he didn’t move away. His just bore into the faces of children, while his mind echoed with laughter, and the shouts of youth. He’d been protective of them, even back then, when the innocence of youth still shone brilliantly in their eyes and the true nature of Hell’s Kitchen was only a misconstrued thought in the back of their minds. How many boys had Anthony beaten in his youth for trying to pick a fight with Jamie or Randy? How much further would it go now, if the situation were to rise again? He’d kill if it meant protecting them, even if it meant he’d end up back in that cell for the rest of his life. He knew he would… its there, in that picture, hidden in the smile on that young boy’s lips.
“That boy there,” he spoke, reaching forward and tapping with his right pointer finger on the glass directly over the image of himself as a boy. His hair was longer then, and the goatee that adorned his face, hadn’t even begun to grow, but the same somberness seemed about the child, as though he’s always felt the weight of the world about him. It makes Anthony wonder exactly what that boy is thinking in that moment. “That boy is trouble,” Anthony finishes, smirking, before he exhales and puts his hand back down to his side.
“Is Father Carmallie still down around the corner, or did they move him out of Hell?”
He felt the need to talk, to ask questions he didn’t know how to ask Jamie. There are something’s he still needs to sift though, some new complications that he’d have to force himself to work out. Its overwhelming. Everything is so tangible, so real that it summons conflicting emotions to the surface: hate, joy, love, desire, rage, and tranquility. He’s afraid and at the same time subdued by her presence. Torn between the need to flee, to be alone, and the need to remain and try to mend. To begin with, Anthony has never been one to speak of emotions easily. They show on him boldly, as though he wears them all out on his sleeve, but he’d lie to God himself if he were called on possessing them. They’ve always been his to deal with his own way.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*She watched as he pointed to the picture, the picture of himself as a boy. She could only make a tsk-tsk sound as he called himself 'trouble' at such a young age. Her hand squeezed his side softly and briefly before it resumed sitting lightly against him, the barest of contact. She had felt him tense again, recognizing the stance and guarded posture of one who'd been beaten so long. She'd seen it in Randy too, and to a lesser degree, herself. But, she wasn't content to leave him that way. Tony had helped her more times than she could count. Now it was her turn to try to help him heal, bring him back to humanity.*
Look at me...what was I thinking with those pigtails? *Another pause, as she tried to fit words to the situation.* We were all trouble, Tony...just another gang of hoodlums roaming the streets of Hell's Kitchen, getting in trouble.
*When he spoke of the priest, she nodded.* Yeah, the Father's still around. They tried to move him, but he actually refused. Said that Hell's Kitchen was where God wanted him to be...that they needed him here. He's a good man, Tony. Every now and then I go by the church and visit him. Maybe you can come with me sometime.
*Going to juvie had been bad enough for Jamie, she couldn't imagine what prison had been like. Every time she caught a glance of iron bars on TV, or heard about someone going 'up the river', she always thought of Tony. Always hoped that he was all right, and that he'd make it. She knew he'd never be the same, though, and that made her sad. But he was here now, and that's what was important.*
---------------------------------------------------------------------
“I think I’ll go see him.”
Anthony’s eyes didn’t touch her as she spoke, nor did they look towards the door. Back into the shadows that filled the living room area, that hid Randall from view as though he was sorry he hadn’t gotten a chance to talk with him, but it was good to know nothing much had changed with them, even though he wasn’t who he used to be. Its good to know that they’d been able to lean on one another through the last six years, and avoid any rifts or wedging forces that often tore friendships asunder. Of the few prayers ever muttered by Anthony while his time was being served, that one had at least came true.
And that would be all. No goodbyes. No promises of when, or even if he’d be back. The idea didn’t cross his mind to reassure her that he would be coming back around from time to time. He just gave the shadows a huff, stole another glance from the picture, brushed his eyes over Jamie’s face once more, and pulled the door open. He had a few things still to do tonight. Talk to the priest about Caleb. If anyone in town would know how his son was doing, even what the boy looked like, the good Father would be the man to ask, and Anthony could trust him to keep his inquiries private. He may not have any grounds to claim fathership over the son… having been jailed before the child was born, and having no contact with his mother… but he would claim interest, the right to know at least the minimum. To watch from the shadows as his boy grows up a bastard, and pray that somehow he finds his way out of Hell’s Kitchen in a manner different of his old man.
Then he’d go to Anthony Lessing Senior’s… gather what little he’d left behind there that his father wouldn’t have pawned off already, mainly his guns, and a few changes of clothing, and then life can begin once more. What they say is true. Hell’s Kitchen is a trap designed to accept people in, but not to let them escape. There are too many binding ties, too many possible instances where the few people in the world whom he does give a damn about may need him. He has to stay to watch over them.
Once he’s alone, in the safety of solitude, from the past comes a gleam: a touch of mischievousness to the lips, and a dangerous edge to his eyes, a gift from the little boy in the photograph. Prison has taken many pieces of the puzzle known as life, but maybe, just maybe, he’s just reclaimed one.