Page 11 of Black
CHAPTER 3
Home
Darcia
I didn’t know what time it was but I was tired and grumpy from this hellish day. I didn’t sleep last night because of my failed after-dark field trip to Costco, where I barely escaped that damn dog, and I was in no mood to go to work.
Work, to me, means painting portraits and doing street art, but it requires a bit more energy than I had when I left Starbucks. Not even the heavy intake of calories from the hot cocoa, the muffin, and the banana helped. I just wanted to sleep.
The only good thing was that I had my bus card. With that I took the bus back to Kirkland and walked to The Inn, a motel in Kirkland that has been my sanctuary for the last seven years. Years ago, on my fifth night as one of the homeless, the owner, Lee, who is a Chinese immigrant, found me curled up in the supply room where I had sneaked in to avoid the heavy rain. I begged him not to call the cops, and that night we came to an agreement. I would help clean the motel rooms after school, and in return he would allow me to stay overnight.
For a homeless person it’s actually not a bad deal; I have access to a shower and a meal a day.
When the motel is fully booked I sleep on the floor in the supply room. It’s not very comfortable, but it’s much safer and cleaner than being out on the streets.
“Where you been?” Lee asked when I walked into the reception.
“I slept at a friend’s house,” I lied.
“You no clean rooms. Lee not happy,” the old man said in his funny Chinese accent, using third person to talk about himself, which never ceased to amuse me.
“I’m sorry… did you get Mona to do it?”
He nodded.
“I’m really tired, Lee, where can I crash?”
“All rooms full.” He lifted a hand and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. What can I say? Lee doesn’t use a lot of words, but I understood him perfectly well and trudged down the hall to the small room full of toilet paper, cleaning products, and clean towels. The room isn’t big enough for a mattress. In fact, I can’t even stretch my legs out, but at least I had a pillow, a blanket, and privacy.
Unfortunately, those things didn’t do it for me tonight and I was tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep.
Judge Kent’s words from earlier weighed me down; three hundred and sixty-four days is a long time to spend in jail for a failed crime. I was bummed that I didn’t even get as much as a single pill and wondered how I was going to cope without them. It’s not that I was a hard-core addict, but now that I had more to worry about, I could really use a pill to escape the craziness in my life and find a minute of peace.
But instead of pills, all I had was a court date and lame advice from the judge and the lawyer to get some counseling. As if my life wasn’t complicated enough.
I was lying on my back with my legs bent, trying to think of a plan to contact the therapy place and offer them some sort of barter. Maybe I could make some art for them, or clean… or something. If they asked me to pay cash, I couldn’t
When I heard loud voices from the foyer, I craned my neck, and listened in the darkness. Lee was shouting, which isn’t a rare thing as he’s a temperamental old man and often shouts at the Weather Channel when they promise more rain. Yet, this time, someone was yelling back and it made me raise myself up on my elbows wondering if I should go and see if old Lee was okay. Before I got a chance to, the door was flung open.
It was dark in the supply room, and the bright light from the hallway blinded me like a beam putting me in the spotlight.
“What the fuck,” a deep voice said.
I blinked a few times to focus and saw Gabriel stare at me with anger on his face.
“Get up,” he barked as if I was one of his goddamn soldiers to command.
“I try stop him, he not listen,” Lee apologized to me while I got up from the floor and faced Gabriel, who was looking down on me with intense determination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. But he was too angry to answer so I asked him my next question: “What are you doing here?”
“Just get your things and come with me.”
I didn’t want to make a scene, especially not in front of Lee, who hates drama and has kicked guests out of the motel without blinking.
“It’s okay, Lee, this man is my uncle. I’ll just go talk to him for a second,” I explained and pushed past the mountain of a soldier in front of me.
Gabriel let me pass before he bowed down to pick up my backpack. “Take your things with you,” he said. “We’re going to my place.”
