Ravaged Jungle
Velvet Cage
Chapter 6: Velvet Cage
Teak’s new apartment resided in Brown Deer, since he had sworn to never live in ‘The Blackhole’ known as Milwaukee again.
Milwaukee seemed an unchanging town; aside from the crime rate, which continued to escalate in an upward stroke.
Downtown still sported the same battered Sears it had in the 1950's and North Bridge Mall was still there, despite it being closed since the late 90's, for an extreme amount of murders in the parking lots.
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I pulled in front of the charcoal remains of my old childhood haunt. Ana had told me of the fire, it had been a few years back. No-one knew how it was started.
But since nobody expressed interest in it, the destroyed home wasn’t too big a loss. I stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind me. The choking sensation I had when I first drove up Fairmont still had me in it’s firm clutches.
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10 years earlier
Her black pumps were as pointy as the tips of knives, she gestured enthusiastically as she spoke to Charlene. Charlene was one of the caretakers at the Children’s foster home. They said the pointy lady was my Social worker, I remembered her from THAT day. The day they came swarming out of the van and police cars, arresting him and taking me from Ana.
I would have lived with him despite his cruelty, as long as I could have stayed by Ana.
A boy my own age sat in front of me, his skin like the deepest mud: the stuff that was actually red clay. His long straight hair hanging against his back; eyes that were almost black and a solemn expression with a face that was almost feminine.
It made him more than attractive, verging on beautiful. His arm wrapped protectively around his younger sister.
If I were him would I have been able to protect my own sister? Would I have had the courage to stop HIM from killing Rachel? The face of a sister I once knew was always swarming in my head, I wanted to forget.
His name was Angel. And he slept in the same room as me, with a couple other boys, who taunted and teased him. Beating at him because of their own sorrows and fears.
He was an easy choice; with his woman’s face.
I had once asked him why he kept his hair so long, they would probably stop hurting him if he cut it.
He had said that on the reservation almost everyone kept their hair long, and he liked to remember that.
Before I left the Home; Angel cut his hair, he never told me why; but I knew anyway.
A week before my departure I had woken up to the sound of boys grunting and shuffling. I looked over the side of my top bunk and I saw two boys holding Angel’s hands behind his back, one of the older boys had his pants pushed around his ankles. “Suck it, you little shit. That’s how you like it, ain’t it.”
He shoved his cock inside Angel’s mouth, gripping the back of his head sharply. The boy pulled out a small knife, holding it to Angel’s neck. “Suck it.” He growled, Angel closed his eyes and sucked, the boy buried his hands in Angels hair, groaning and thrusting lightly.
The boys holding Angel down snickered; asking. “We get to go next, right?”
Angel shaved his head bald.
Very soon his sister was adopted by a family in California. Then I was adopted by a family who eventually moved me to England, but Angel and I still kept in touch. Before I left I told the caretakers that the older kids in our room were severely abusing the smaller boys, it was small; but it was all I could do.
When I was sixteen The Foster home sent my most recent letter to Angel back to me, inside was a piece of paper saying that Angel had run away, apparently to find his sister.
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My hands tightened on the car door, pushing those thoughts into the back of my mind.
I took in the changed surroundings, the Oak tree Ana and I used to hang in had been cut to the stump; a leafy bush sprouting from the circles on its face.
The initials we had scratched into the side now decorating someone’s table or chairs.
Her home looked the same.
Splinters on the door, lawn mowed, hedges trimmed, gutters cleaned, drapes closed, front stoop swept. The only relatively nice house in the area.
Her dad had always been a stickler for image.
Harper looked around, “This where yer girl lives?” I pointed to the house, ‘6022'. “Over there.” Harper shivered, “This place gives me the heebee jeebees.”
He always was slightly unorthodox.
The choking in my throat was still there, now joined by a balloon filling up with helium inside my stomach.
I knocked hard on the door, it jerked open. My eyes widened in surprise, Harper, mockingly, hummed a haunting tune beside me. I pushed the door open further and looked inside.
Mayhem.
Pictures ripped and torn on the ground, hammer thru the T.V. couch pushed over, end tables broken and on the ground lay a man, a hole thru his head; thick blood oozing around him. Harper acted quickly and kneeled beside him, “ I don’t think I need to check his pulse, no one could lose so much blood and live.”
I stood, frozen for a moment, recognizing his face. ‘Ana’s dad.’ Then recovering from my shock, I began frantically searching the house. ‘Something could have happened to her, oh godohgodohgod.’, “ANA! ANA!!!” I barged into a room, she lay on a mattress, huddling around her mother’s body. Ana still breathed, relief flushed over me.
Her mother however did not. But for once she looked peaceful, as if nothing could hurt her, maybe there she and her husband would love each other as they first did. I crawled up on the mattress, she looked at me, her eyes dark and for a second joy-filled, than blank.
I took up her hand, warming it in my own, than pulled her against me. It wasn’t hard, she was so small. She huddled against me, her arms wrapping around my body; her face tucked under my ear, breathing lightly, softly whispering, “Teak..... Oh Teak.”
Her voice was forlorn, lost.
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The police thanked me for calling and shook my hand before we left, leaving the key with them. Ana sat in my car, curling around a small shoe box. She had clung to it since we left the house and I hadn’t the heart to take it from her.
On the drive to Brown Deer she slept curled up in the front seat.
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Her parents bodies lay in the morgue, Ana didn’t know what to do about them, so I had decided to have a funeral, put an obituary in the paper. Anyone who wanted to show up could.
She was looking out the window of the flat at a car driving up, I was holding her tiny hand in my much larger hand. Her thin fingers stroking the hardened calluses from my guitar strings, her face partially shaded by her red hair. I looked at her jerking my head toward the small red car, “Is that them.” She didn’t even look up as she nodded, watching a young brown girl and a boy stepping from the car.
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A/N: I know this is a short chapter, but I am kinda of tired, there have been a lot of essay’s needing my creative juices so I am kind of sucked dry right now. I know this isn’t what any one would think Ana and Teaks meeting would go, but I didn’t want it to be a happy/squealing event, I wanted it to be more... melancholy I suppose.