What Now?

I wasn't what you'd call a golden child. Let's just say that my single mom had her hands full. One of my earliest memories happened the summer before I turned five. My mom took me to the park. I was curious how far I could fly if I jumped out of the swing. When I landed, my squall may have awakened the dead. My mom came running and yelled, "What now, Lucy?"

I started kindergarten with a cast on my arm. When kids asked what happened, I tried to make each story more exciting than the last. "A shark bit my arm." "I jumped off the moon." "I fell out of a helicopter." "I lost a sword fight with a monkey."

That last one gave me my first trip to the principal's office because I had mentioned a weapon. Mom came in, exclaiming, "What now?"

Things went downhill from there. In fourth grade, I got my first suspension for ditching. I had simply walked away after the bus dropped me off at the front of the school. Four days in a row. "What now?"

In sixth grade, it was bad language and talking back.

My freshman year, I was expelled for fighting. I'd do it again. That Fucking cunt had it coming for calling me a whore. This time, Mom's "What now?" was a declaration that she had given up on me. I could hear it in her voice.

I was put in a special school for troubled teens. That's where I met my boyfriend, Blade. I'd do anything for him. I learned very quickly about his sexual desires. I was happy to fulfill them because it gave me purpose. When he said, "You've gotta try this weed," I did. Sex was trippy that way, and I liked it.

Next, he got us hooked on crack. That shit is expensive.

Mom finally kicked me out when she caught me stealing from her purse. Blade and I got minimum wage jobs and the cheapest apartment we could find. We went to food banks and charitable organizations as often as we could to scrape by.

Blade decided he was going to invent the next, big video game, but he needed money to buy a good computer with all the bells and whistles. He found some guy named "Money Mike" to loan him a butt-load of start-up cash.

To his credit, Blade did buy a decent computer and worked hard for a few days. I don't think he missed a swear word in his vocabulary, but he tried. Ultimately, he gave up and spent what was left on crack.

The loan shark goonies busted in our door one night and said Money Mike had graciously given us one more week to pay him off. They grabbed me and made me watch them rough Blade up a bit. I patched him up and we went back to work.

A few days later, I started getting sick. I laid off the crack, but things weren't improving. Blade laughed and said, "Maybe you're pregnant." As soon as he said it, it was like we both knew it to be true. A pregnancy test confirmed it.

Now, we had a firm reason to clean up. I was determined to do right by my child. It brought my mom back to mind. I had to patch things up and see if she'd take us in for a bit. If we didn't have to pay rent, we could pay off the loan in a month.

When I got to Mom's house a few days later, the door was wide open. I yelled, "Mom, it's me, Lucy. You left the door open."

I went through the house calling. Finally, I found her in her bed in a pool of blood. Her eyes were open and glazed over. A note was pinned to her shirt, "Blade's family next. One more week. MM."

The only thing that came to mind was, "What now?"