Children of Dawn

Jinxx’s POV
February 5th, 2003
Shivers ran down my spine as my worn shoes slapped on the pavement. My fist clenched around the cold coins in my pocket. The day’s earnings, it was a meager four dollars, but with the right sales and some careful counting I could feed both Sammi and I tonight. She was more important though, her and the baby. At least I hoped that the baby was still alive. With Sammi being so ill, I honestly didn’t know anymore. I put her health before my own anyway.
Being seventeen years old and homeless is rough. I know what you’re thinking. How in the world is a seventeen year old homeless? Most places that would be illegal. It was technically illegal where I lived, but in a tiny rural town in Iowa a lot of rules were overlooked. There was also this crazy hierarchy of the rich and the poor in that town. There was no in between, either you were so poor that you barely made ends meet or you were so rich that you had golden toilet seats. Sammi came from a rich family, I came from the kind that was dirt poor. Usually the two classes didn’t get along at all, but when we met in high school we didn’t care, it was love at first sight. Her parents didn’t know about me until I got her pregnant.
When they finally met me they decided that their daughter must have been the same street trash that I was if she was going to decide to have my child. So they shunned her. They sent her away and entirely disowned her. So I took her to meet my family. They handled it better to say the least. They welcomed her in and gave her a meal and a place to stay, but only for the night. With five children already including myself my family simply could not handle having her, especially with another one on the way. My father told me that if I was man enough to create a child I had to be man enough to care of the child and it’s mother by myself, and that was that. The next morning we were set loose. With some blankets, changes of clothes, my guitatr and a few dollars we left to take on the world. We went to the next town over. Maybe it was to avoid shame, or maybe it was because the next town was bigger and there would be more chances to find jobs.
We set up ourselves in an alleyway and at first it wasn’t bad at all. It was summer time and although she was pregnant she wasn’t so pregnant that she couldn’t work. We found odd jobs together, paid by the hour working in people’s yards and farms, even taking care of their pets and sometimes the parents would grow to trust Sammi enough to let her watch their kids. I could say that we were genuinely happy. We made enough money to eat every day, sometimes more than once and it was beautiful. We were free. Then winter came, and that’s when it got bad. Not only did the weather turn cold, so we had to spend all of our extra money on warmer clothes, but she got sick. Not just a little sick either, really, really sick. Deathly sick, and I couldn’t do anything about it. With her being ill and the weather turning I missed a lot of jobs. She got most of our jobs to be honest, people liked her.
People didn’t tend to like me as much. They said that I had a look in my eye like I was going to hurt someone. My quiet, shaky voice didn’t do anything to help me, neither did the tattoos or the black hair down past my shoulders. So the parents that let Sammi take care of their kids while they were out wouldn’t have anything to do with me. It was always a pleasant, oh we’ll just wait until Sammi gets better. They didn’t realize that she’d never get better if I didn’t have money to take care of her. I never said that though, I just understood and left. I also lost a lot of jobs tending yards. Yards didn’t need much tending during the winter time. So I was reduced to begging. I sat on the road with a sign that read My wife is pregnant, sick, and starving. Please help. She wasn’t my wife, but it sounded better than girlfriend. I sat on street corners and played my guitar, on particularly dark days sometimes I would sing a bit. Maybe it was to raise my own hopes, maybe it was to raise the hopes of others.
So on that night I made four dollars. I pushed through the doors of the nearest, cheapest gas station. The warm air rushed around me and I was able to stand up a bit straighter as I entered the warmth. The girl at the register said some sort of greeting and I muttered some form of a hello back.There was no one else in the store but a large man in a trench coat. I was more focused on the signs for deals scattered around though. They advertised sale after sale. That was a good thing for me. My four dollars could give us a lot more than just one more with prices this low. One of the sales was two hot dogs for a dollar, and another was a big carton of strawberries for two dollars. That was great, and I still had a dollar for a treat. First I thought it through though. We had enough supplies to make a fire, and our clothes were warm enough. I couldn’t think of anything else we needed. So I took a good look around the store and saw that I could get a few donuts for a dollar.
My heart was soaring as I approached the counter. This could feed us tonight and in the morning. Even though she was sick Sammi still had quite an appetite, which I considered to be a good sign.
“That’s four dollars,” The cashier said, I looked up and she seemed a bit familiar. I put my money down on the counter, she counted up and put it in the register. I was getting ready to get my stuff and leave when she stopped me.
“Wait, you’re that guy who used to work on my yard while your girlfriend or whatever watched my sister, right?” She said. I knew her then, she always came home from school after I’d been working for a while and sometimes she’d give Sammi and I some food before we left.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.
“My sister really misses your girl, is she okay?”
“No, she’s really sick. I don’t know what to do,” I said helplessly. The girl didn’t say anything. She left the counter and walked over to the coolers she pulled out two sodas and on her way back to the counter she picked up a big bag of beef jerky. She put the extra food in my bag.
“I can’t pay for that,” I stammered. She hushed me and put her own money in the cash register.
“Thank you,” I said.
“When your girl’s better she should come back and work for us again,” The girl said. All I could do was nod. I turned and left the store. As I left I took note of the fact that the trench coat man left right behind me. I was not ten feet out the door when he grabbed me and threw me up against the wall. My food bag hit the floor. I started to fight back. It’s amazing that some people will simply attack homeless people for the fun of it. This guy was much bigger than me though, and I couldn’t put up much of a fight.
“Stop fighting I don’t want to hurt you,” He growled.
“What do you want?” I shot back.
“You’re the homeless boy with the sick girl?” He demanded.
“Yeah,” I gasped, he was pushing so hard on me that he was making it hard for me to breathe. What could he want with me?
“My boss can save her. He just needs you to do a job,” The man said.
“What do you mean? What kind of job?”
“Come to this address and you’ll learn. You have my word that we won’t kill you,” He slipped a piece of paper into my hand and he was gone. By the time I picked myself up off the ground after he dropped me he was nowhere to be seen. I looked at the paper. I knew addresses well because I spent so much time walking around and looking for jobs. This was an old warehouse outside of town. It was abandoned. I would have to think. I knew Sammi would die if I didn’t find her help. If this man could really save her then I had nothing to lose. I just had to wonder what sort of job he wanted from me.

Notes

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