Page 3 of Babydoll

I speak to the cat as I search cupboards for her food with no luck. “Gage, where’s the cat food?” I call out.

No answer.

Fear churns in my belly, licking up my esophagus like ice or maybe it’s fire, either way it burns. There’s something wrong. Very wrong.

I abandon the cat with a pat and slowly walk to the living area. Gage is on the old sofa, his back to me, but he sits at an awkward angle. My lip trembles. There’s a gaping, puss-filled wound on his toe which explains the rotting flesh smell. Gage is diabetic and obviously not taking care of himself.

Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please…

I shake him, holding my breath while I send up a silent prayer. He tilts, wheezes, and slumps all the way to his side. I’m frozen a second as he slowly slides, at a snail’s pace, off the couch and lands on the floor with a dull thud. I scream, loudly. The smell of both his festering wound and the urine staining the crotch of his pants make my stomach lurch and I clamp my mouth shut.

I move slowly around him so I can see his face, my heart pounding so fast I’m lightheaded.

Gage’s lips are starting to turn a bluish purple and I can no longer find my own breath. My mantra morphs into a fear chant.

Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god, he’s dead….

And for a moment I’m right back in my childhood car seat. A wide-eyed, trembling kindergartener, crying for my parents who were slumped lifeless in the front seat of our mangled car.

Dropping to my knees, I shake him again, yelling his name. But as foamy liquid leaks out of his mouth my instincts kick in. I am no longer that powerless child. I can take action.

I clear his airway by turning him onto his side. His pulse is there but thready, and his color starts to come back as he gurgles in a few ragged breaths.

“What the fuck! I’m trying to fucking sleep!” The voice booms from the hallway but I ignore it as I feel for Gage’s pulse, this time to count it rather than just make sure he has one.

“Tell your fuckin’ whore to shut her goddamn mouth or I’ll shut it for her.” That comes from inside the apartment. Another singe of fear burns in me, but it’s quickly doused by anger.

Anger at Gage, at the drugs all over his coffee table, and at our past. But mostly, however misplaced, at the dickhead behind me. My head whips around, my glare showing no fear.

“You got a fucking phone?” I point at Gage’s lifeless form. “Make yourself useful and call for help.”

He doesn’t say a word, just turns and leaves. I don’t know if that means he’ll call for help or it’s simply a fuck you, but Gage needs an ambulance and now. I fumble for my cell with one hand while clearing Gage’s airway again.

“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance.” I spout the address from memory and don’t wait for her to ask me questions. I hang up, and lean closer to Gage to check for breathing again.

He’s still breathing, although not in a way that’s a comfort. I look at the drugs on the coffee table and notice there’s anawful lot. And there’s a cooler bag, a red one like those food-delivery services use and it’s loaded with pills and powders in little baggies. I look back at my foster brother on the floor, anger taking over again.

“You were supposed to stop!” I yell, shaking the bag at him as I pass his form on the floor. I’m trembling from anger, but then my throat clogs with emotion. “We were both supposed to make it. To show them we were stronger. They weren’t supposed to break us, G. Not. Us.” I feel the sob welling up and shove it down, focusing on my anger.

Grabbing the red bag, I take the drugs to the bathroom, flushing it all. I leave the stuff on the coffee table though. I want the paramedics to see what he’s taken. When I come back, I drop to my knees and refocus my energy on saving Gage. “You saved me once and I’m going to save you now. Call it tough love or whatever, but you’re done with this shit.”

He took a beating for me once. Provoked it, actually. One so brutal it couldn’t be ignored. Not even by our indifferent foster mother. Her words?

“How’ll we explain the dead fuckin’ kid, Carl?” She’d looked at Gage, a bloody pulp on the linoleum where he’d managed to crawl, with disgust. Not disgust at the battered, barely alive child placed in her care, but at the trouble it would cause her. “He’s bleeding all over my fucking floor.”

And then she did something that changed everything for me. She rubbed dish soap in her eyes, hit herself in the face several times with the telephone receiver and called 911.

“Oh god, please hurry… my son… oh, god, my son. My poor child. He’s hurt. He’s so hurt! My poor boy tried to protect me.”

And when she hung up, her expression turning from distraught mother back to cold indifference, she said, “Better take off for a while, Carl. They’ll be here any minute.”

She blubbered and cried to the police holding her bruised face, but only worrying about ‘her poor brave boy.’ And they believed her.

Every. Lying. Word.

Thankfully, the authorities removed us from the home anyway, in case Carl returned, so Gage did save us, but I also learned an invaluable lesson that night from our foster mother.

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