Asylum

Chapter 4-2

The cold, wet, deserted streets of Roxbury made the memory of their gloomy apartment seem like an inviting Christmas bonanza in comparison. Everyone else was either warm inside with their families or nursing a beer or ten at Clerys. Gabriel and Justin huddled together in the darkened entryway of a closed shoe store, using the roof over the depressed doorway to keep as dry as possible. Rain poured down relentlessly, as if giving them the middle finger for being out and about on Christmas Eve.

Gabriel kicked a random cigarette butt and dug his hands into his coat pockets.

“This f*****g sucks.”

Justin agreed. “Yeah, it’d be better if it was snowing.” At least they wouldn’t be soaked to the bone. The temperature was bordering on freezing anyway.

They had already been asked to “move along” by the local cops when they had been loitering inside one of the nearby convenience stores. Now, without heat and without any money, they were stuck wandering the streets with no place to go and were getting wetter by the minute.

“If the temperature keeps dropping, we’re going to have to find some place to go, Justin, or we’re gonna get hypothermia.”

“Like where? It’s not like we have a lotta options.”

“You got any T tokens or money?”

“Why?”

“We could go to Barry’s.”

“No,” Justin said firmly. “No f*****g way.”

“Why not?” This wasn’t the time to let family squabbles get in the way of survival. Well, at least squabbles that didn’t involve their mother.

Blue and red lights suddenly flashed over Justin’s face, and Gabriel turned around to see one of the cops from earlier, now in his police car rolling to a stop in front of the store. He lowered his window and shouted at them.

“Hey, I already told you boys, no loitering!”

“Come on, Gabby,” Justin muttered softly and tugged on his brother’s jacket sleeve. But Gabriel didn’t budge. He was so done with asshole adults without souls. He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.

“And where the hell are we supposed to go?”

The cop frowned, put on his hat, and started to get out of the car.

Justin began slinking away.

“Gabby, come on!”

But Gabriel didn’t follow. He’d had enough of being told what to do.

“Does sending a couple of thirteen-year-olds out into the freezing rain on Christmas Eve make you feel good?” Spitting his words at the cop, he hoped that the warm tears he felt sliding down his face were camouflaged by remnants of the rain. “Is being a total douchebag a prerequisite for your next promotion?”

“Turn around and face the wall,” the cop ordered, but didn’t even wait for Gabriel to comply before he grabbed his shoulder painfully, spun him around, and pushed him up against the door of the darkened store.

Gabriel imagined Justin down the road, staring at the scene in horror, silently begging him to shut up. Still, he couldn’t make his mouth stop.

“Oh, you must feel like such a big man, bringing down the criminal element.” He winced at the feel of the cold hard cuffs tightening around his wrists. “I bet your wife will put out tonight when you tell her how you brought down the badass teenagers that were threatening the threshold of the Payless Shoe store with their muddy sneakers.” The cop smacked the side of his head.

“Shut the f**k up, kid.”

After being searched, and the cop discovering nothing but an old gum wrapper in his pocket, he was spun back around. Gabriel could only make out a few things through his watery gaze. He could see the outline of Justin slowly backing away down the street with his arms wrapped around his stomach. He could see “McBride” stitched on the left chest of the cop’s Boston Police Department jacket. And he could also see the fog created by his own breath.

As he was strong-armed into the back of the heated police car, Gabriel couldn’t help but think that between him and Justin, Gabriel had gotten the better end of the deal. He hoped his brother would find some place safe to spend the night, some place he wouldn’t freeze to death or get mugged.

Merry f*****g Christmas to them.