Free From – Chapter 10 – July 10th

I hope you will join me this month as we JOURNEY each day through our short story. It is about finding FREEDOM in the midst of all the captivating pieces in life that steal our peace which we need FREE FROM!

FREE FROM
July 10, 2021

Chapter 10

The blare of a honking horn and the honky-tonk bar interrupted his reverie, and he grabbed Trace’s little hand in his own, tugging the kid toward the diner. De ja vu is a powerful motivator for memories long since buried in deep caverns inside. It seemed every moment that he had stuffed into forgotten crevices was suddenly spilling out of their hiding places. He felt raw and numb all at the same time, his emotions an oxymoron. It didn’t help matters that Trace was dawdling like he never before had seen a city street at nighttime. Duh! Legend took his free hand and smacked himself up side the head. It’s because he hadn’t; he was just a kid, a small one at that! He shouldn’t be out on city streets at nighttime!
Loud music rocked a doorway he and the boy walked past and he felt the thump in his own chest. Trace’s eyes grew huge, and he put a small hand over his chest and patted it. Suddenly a crowd of partiers spilled out of the recesses of the darkened dive, loud and raucous and drunk. Trace sped up and gripped Legend’s hand even tighter, a horrified expression on his lips.
“It’s okay, little man.” Legend pulled him along, shielding him from what must have looked like monsters and giants back there. “We’re almost there; get us some food. You hungry?” Legend asked; not quite sure how he was going to pull off the art of obtaining a couple meals as he only had a buck-sixty to his name. But he’d think of something; he always did. He had never starved yet. ‘Course, he had never had an extra mouth to feed; he smiled to himself. He felt useful again.
Just then, he realized Trace was pulling at his hand. “Mommy,” he cried. “Mommy, Mommy!” he murmured, his eyes trained on the doorway where another handful of people had fallen from, some literally, laying on the sidewalks. They were partied out. Legend remembered from long ago what that was like. He scanned the crowd; what had caught the boy’s attention? Surely, his mommy wasn’t wrapped up in that lifestyle, but of course Legend had no idea what this child came from and the life his family lived. He had already been haunted by the sad fact that no one had shown up for Trace yet. Wasn’t he missed? Wasn’t someone looking for him somewhere?
Trace tore loose from Legend’s hand in as long as it took to ponder the nightclub scene and its inhabitants. He ran at breakneck speed, dodging between the gaggle of people gathered outside the entrance to the dive. Spirals of smoke left a mark on the night air and a giggle sounded abruptly and a curse word over there, and on the heels of Legend and Trace, a man face-planted, a loud harumph. Trace jumped a portion of a yard and then turned and kept running backwards. “Mommy!” he hollered, and with every footfall, another piece of Legend fell and broke. This was chaos, Legend thought, and he internally lectured himself about how he should have just stayed put. No food was better than this heap, he chastised.
But from a random corner, he pulled her. All thirty-soaking-wet-pounds of this kid drug her skinny emaciated cracked out self to standing, and as he wrapped his skinny arms around her legs, she buckled, folding right back into a pile. “Mommy!” he screamed, and the hair on Legend’s neck stood at attention.
“Come on, little man. Right here, right here the diner is. Let’s get some Mickey Mouse pancakes.” But the kid swung and kicked, coiling himself around the woman who had crumpled in a heap. Grasping her face in two tiny hands, Trace tugged her face toward his and with tiny hands slapped a cheek and at once her eyes, perfect piercing blue eyes, flew open.
Legend choked, the cry sputtering on his lips, “Breize? Oh my god, Breize!” Her name landed, lingering on his lips; somehow he had already known but hadn’t wanted to admit it; the kid had felt like family and staring in those eyes had landed him way too close to home.

To Be Continued…