Chapter Fourteen: Rebekkah on My Mind:

Lately, Becky’s been on my mind. I don’t understand why. I’m not truly attracted to her. She’s just a child. I don’t do kids. Becky is rather pretty for a teenage stripper, though. Maybe that’s why I keep thinking about her. However, this isn’t a good thing for me. I’m not trying to register as a sex offender. I can’t be having any of that. So what’s the devil to do? Sleeping with her is not an option. Maybe I should get her a gift. Just an innocent gift. It has to be something simple too. I’m not spending that much money on a kid. I know, flowers will work.

I made a quick trip to the flower shop. I bought some pansies in a little bouquet. The flower girl at the counter smiled at me.

“Ooo, is this for a date?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Just something nice for a friend.” The girl is trying not to laugh at me now.

“Would you like a card with those friends?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Just give me the flowers.”

“Alright, five dollars please,” the girl said. I paid her the money and left. Geez she was annoying. Man, I don’t like the perky ones. I just want to slap them at least once. Becca’s not like that. She’s more mature and calm for her age. Given her situation, it cannot be helped. She has to herself down to just being a hot piece of ass that the guys want to grab. Only I can see the real her.

I managed to track down where Becca lived. She lives on the other side New Orleans. Almost to the exit of the city to be exact. That area is a ghost town out there. When you drive to leave New Orleans, you come out to an empty road for thirty minutes. Most people would turn back and find another route out of the city, but keep going.

After that thirty minutes of nothing, people will hit a small housing complex. A mini-slum, if you will. This place too looks abandoned, but that’s not the truth. The dim lights in the windows prove otherwise. This is the place Becca calls home. It kind of breaks my heart in a way. I keep envisioning her living in a nicer place than this. An actual neighborhood with a nicer setting. I guess the life of a stripper isn’t as glamorous as the clubs make it out to be.

I pulled out my phone and looked through my address book. The second time Becca called me, I saved her number. From there, I added on bits of information about her every time we met. I almost have a complete profile on her.

“Let’s see,” I said to myself as I looked in my phone in the back of the taxi cab. “117 Mud Worm. Last yellow house next to the road.” That should be easy to spot.

“You say something?” someone asked. I looked up to the front. The cab driver looked at me in his rear view mirror. I shook my head at him.

“No, just talking to myself,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. We never really talk, the cab driver and I. He just drives and I sit there in my sleeplessness and enjoy the view as I go back and forth to New Orleans’ Underworld. He pulled up to the mouth of the neighborhood and stopped. I looked around as if I missed something.

“Why did you stop?” I asked.

“This is as far as the taxi is allowed to go to this slum,” he said.

“Really now?” I asked.

“Yeah man,” the driver said. “You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.” I clutched the flowers in my hand.

“Whatever,” I mumbled. I got out of the cab and walked into the slum. The taxi sped away back into the city with the sound of my footsteps. The houses look all the same in the dark to me. The lights on either side of the street guided me along my way. The quiet all around me gives me the creeps. There isn’t even a car running along this highway. I reach into my pockets and pulled out a cigarette. After a few lights, my nerves began to settle down. The only thing that keeps me moving is the sound my Cuban heels leaving imprints in the dirt. My eyes scanned the dim lights for Becca’s house.

I’m just a few feet from the woods when I hear a crash to my right. I turn my head and spot my final destination. The lights are so bright that the house can be seen from airplanes high above. I can hear screaming as well.

“You damn bitch!” a young man barked. “Get back here!” The door blows open and out comes Rebekkah running out of the house in nothing but panties and an oversized t-shirt. That same guy I saw when I first met her coming after her with eyes of devil. He shook his fist at her.

“Get your pathetic ass back here!” the jerkass yelled. Becca kept running when she looked up and saw me.

“Mr. Michael!” she cried. “HIDE ME!!!” She raced behind me before I could even say a word. I looked up and saw that asshole walking towards me. He reached out to try and grab Becca. I grabbed him by his skinny wrist. He snarled at me with red eyes of bloodlust.

“Get out of the way, old man!” the idiot barked. I smiled and shook my head. I guess this dumbass hasn’t learned from last time.

“Why?” I asked. The kid tried to sucker punch me, but I kneed him right in the stomach before he could touch me. I did it so quickly that I knocked the breath out of him. I twisted his arm and turned his back to me. His ear came within inches of my mouth.

“If I find a single bruise on this young lady, I’ll see to that you can’t make babies, you son of a bitch,” I hissed. Suddenly, his body went stiff as he nodded. He dropped to the ground after I released him.

“Now get your ass back in that house, shithead!” I barked. I kicked him right in the ass as he crawled away like I was chasing him. It took my all to hold back my laughter at such a pansy. I can’t stand his kind. They act all tough and beat on women, but they are too scared to handle a real man like myself. Next time, I’ll rather enjoy skinning him alive. But right…

I turned my attention to Rebekkah.

“He didn’t hurt you too bad, did he?” I asked. She shook her head.

“Want to get out of here?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered in a yelped.

“Okay,” I said. I put my arm around her and walked her out of this dead-end neighborhood. Who knew parks at night could do a soul good? I’m not much into the Bible and all that religious shit, but still that park near her place calmed me right down. We sat back to back on the merry-go-round, slightly turning in turning in the dark, heated silence. Heh, almost December and it still feels hot. That’s New Orleans weather for ya! I can’t even remember that last time it snowed here.

“So stupid,” I heard Becca say. I lifted my head from my thoughts at that statement.

“Say what?” I asked.

“I can’t understand why I just don’t get up and leave,” she said. “It’s so dumb of me.”

“Does he always do this to you?”

“Yeah. That what you just saw was rather tame compared to the other nights we’ve fought like this.” She breathed aloud. “It would so easy to walk away from him.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I tired of this city. I want to go far, far away.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her. “And go where?”

“Don’t know.” She lied down next to me on the merry-go-round. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed of going to New York or Chicago. Or maybe even the French countryside. Just anywhere away from this place.”

I couldn’t help but to smile. Oh to be young and idealistic at that age. “Say Rebekkah, where are your parents?”

“The Pearly White Gates in the sky.”

“Huh?”

“Katrina took them away.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Are you?”

“Do you want me to be?”

She shrugged at my question. “We really didn’t have it all together in the first place. I mean, we tried, but it just wasn’t good enough. We were one notch below poor white trash. At least we rented a house and tried to find work to keep up with normal living standards. When I was twelve, my parents realized that I wasn’t growing up in a stable environment. So, I ended with the son of dad’s old college friend due to the state of our home life and he was better off compared to us. What a trade that turned out to be. I’m just glad they don’t have to endure more attempts to stay afloat nowadays.”

“Ah.” I handed her the flowers. She looked at me with a surprised face.

“Are those for me? What for?”

I shrugged at her. “Just because.”

“Thank you, Michael.” She took the flowers set them down by her side. “Come and watch the stars with me.”

I looked at her in a funny way. “Why?”

“Just because. We don’t even have to talk; we could just look at the sky until morning.”

That’s so easy it’s foreign to me. I dropped my shoulders as I let the cigarette butt I was chewing on drop out of my mouth. “Alright.”

I laid down next to her on the merry-go-round. My left ear touched her right one. “Now what?”

“Just lie here and be quiet.”

Works for me. Be just spent the rest of the night watching the stars and staying quiet. Heh, not a bad night if I can say so myself.