Number on the Wall

A submission for The Scheherazade Project

Life happens like that. You close your eyes to blink and in that instant, your world changes forever. I wonder if destiny really exists for all of us or are the events of our life orchestrated by the choices of others? I wonder what would have become of me if I hadn’t made that call. So many questions that can’t be answered in this lifetime, but it doesn’t stop a mind from wonderin’.

I remember the day vividly. My clothes clung to my skinny body in an uncomfortable wet hug. We didn’t have a car, so we walked the four blocks to Chums Diner. I should have been at school, but mom wouldn’t wake up that morning - still doped up on whatever she was able to get her hands on the night before. I waited in the cold apartment listening to my stomach growl, praying that she would open her eyes.

Finally, Mom began to stir. I held out the medicine bottle, the one she always asked for when her head hurt, and hoped she wouldn’t throw it at me. I knew she didn’t want to be mad at me, it was just her headaches that made her angry she would say. But now she smiled and told me to get my coat.

Other mornings I had to run to keep up with her, but this morning, Mom held my hand as we jumped over the puddles on the way to Chums. She slumped into a booth when we got there and I sneaked off to the bathroom. I knew Charlie would have a plate of French toast waiting for me when I came out. Charlie always looked at me with sad eyes -- like he knew something I didn’t.

In the bathroom, I saw a poster that I hadn’t seen before. I couldn’t read very well, not even for an eight year old, but I could tell by the pictures that the people wanted to help out mom’s like mine. I memorized the phone number. I didn’t read so good, but I could remember things.

I was tired of missing school and having no clean underwear. I was sick of always having an empty belly and dirty hair. I hated sitting alone on the playground on the days I did make it to school. I imagined a life like Brittney Brenner, always in pretty dresses with matching tights, her mother, thin and beautiful, volunteering at school. I wanted that life for me too and I wanted my mom to give it to me. I planned to call that number from Charlie’s phone when Mom fell asleep in the booth like she always did.

After I ate and Mom smoked a few cigarettes, her eyes started to blink slowly. I went up to the counter and asked Charlie if I could use the phone. He looked at me the way adults look at kids when they’re up to no good, but he handed me his phone anyway. I talked to a nice lady who said she’d help us out and told me to stay at Chums until someone came for me. I was so excited. Finally, my mom could be the mom I always wanted her to be. I knew she loved me, she just didn’t really know how to take care of me like other moms. Probably cause she didn’t have a mom herself.

It seemed like a long time, but finally an older lady came into the restaurant with a couple of cops and looked at Charlie. Charlie nodded toward the table where we were and they walked over to us. One police man put his hand around Mom’s arm and she jerked so hard that her knees hit the table underneath. She looked around nervously and then got real mad. She started yelling and swearing and when the police man tried to put both arms around her, she started hitting him and yelling even louder. Pretty soon, they were putting her in the cop car and the nice lady was holding my hand telling me everything was going to be okay.

But everything wasn’t okay. I went to live in someone else’s home that night. It wasn’t a home like Brittney’s and it wasn’t a home like I’d dreamed about. I didn’t get to see Mom again, she killed herself with a bed sheet they told me and I grew up a stranger in someone else’s house. I hate my mother. I miss her.

Was this my destiny?