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“We are, why do you think I call you princess?” he said with a crooked smile.

“You usually call me that when you’re pissed off.”

“I call you that when I’m pissed you’re off limits.”

It was my turn to look away. I had never blushed so much in my life, but it seemed Shane had that effect on me. It was a little embarrassing.

“So like I said, my pop and I were close. He used to take me everywhere. My dad had a problem though. He was an addict.”

“Is that how you got involved with drugs?”

“Kinda. I was never an addict like my pop. I never used other than smoking some pot once in a blue moon. I saw what it did to people and I didn’t want anything to do with it. But sometimes you just don’t have a choice.”

Ten Years Ago

“Get out!”Joanna screamed. “You lost your job, you spent all of our savings, and now I find out that not only have you been cheating on me, but you’re dealing too? What about Shane? Did you get him involved in your shit? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Just get out, Ryan. I’m done. I’ve had it.”

Joanna stormed out of the room, leaving my father crying with his face in his hands. I was only eight, but I knew a lot more about adult things than my peers. Cautiously, I put my hand on my father’s shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do, Pop?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Shane. I don’t know. I messed up bad, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Joanna wants me gone. You have to make a choice, are you coming with me or staying here?”

I didn’t see it as a choice; my father needed me, Joanna didn’t. I wasn’t her son anyway. I saw how things were when I was around, I was nothing but a thorn in her side.

“Where will we go?” I asked.

“To your grandmother’s in Philly. She’ll take us in. Don’t tell Joanna though.”

“Why not?”

“Because your grandmother and her don’t get along.”

I had only seen my grandmother a handful of times, and most of them were when we picked her up at the train station during a visit. We never went to visit her in Philly and that day I found out why.

Grandma Ventana, or Abuela as she wanted me to call her, lived in the ghetto. The buildings around hers were in disrepair, rotting, and falling apart. Some of them looked condemned with boarded-up windows, but people still lived in them.

Abuela’s home was off an unmaintained street in a forgotten part of the city. The brick tenements were so close to each other that some leaned against the others. The air had a bad combination of filth and decay.

The wide sidewalk in front of her house was busy. Hanging between the buildings over the street were electrical wires and clotheslines with shoes dangling by their laces. I soon learned the hanging shoes was a sign that drugs were sold in that area.

Abuela sat in a rickety lawn chair in front of her building. She stood as we walked up the street from the train station, her head shaking with disappointment.

“Sinvergüenza,” she said, looking at my father. “It’s the drugs, isn’t it? Get inside and I’ll make you something to eat.”

As Abuela fried drumsticks, my dad and I sat at the large dining room table. The room was painted a bright orange and a large crucifix hung on one of the walls.

When they were done, she placed the chicken on the table with a pile of paper plates, then sat down. My father started eating like he had never seen food before in his life. Abuela clucked her tongue as she shook her head.

“So you’re my problem now, huh?” she said.

“I’m sorry, Mami, but I had nowhere else to go,” Pop said.

“This is my fault. I didn’t watch you enough when you were younger. I thought I could trust you with the product, instead you started using.” She clucked her tongue before running it over her teeth. “You’ll have to work for me again, but this time if anything’s missing, you’re paying double for it.”

“Yes, Mami, whatever you want.”

Her eyes turned towards me and she squinted through her glasses.

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