Page 6 of All the Things We Buried
We passed around a can of beans, already half-warm from sitting near the fire. The guy who brought it said he’d“gotten lucky.”Whether that meant shoplifting or begging, none of us cared. When you’ve got nothing, generosity starts to feel holy. Some shared because they believed it would circle back to them—karma, blessings, a cosmic IOU. Others did it out of guilt. Me? I didn’t know what I believed anymore.
I was raised in a house that played hymns over speakers and locked the liquor cabinet even though the poisoned themselves every damn day. We dressed in our Sunday best, spoke in tongues, and called it salvation. But the hands that folded in prayer were the same ones that scarred my back. The same voices that read the Bible abused my mind behind closed doors.
Maybe that’s why I ended up here. Maybe it’s the family curse no one ever talked about, just passed down in silence, bruises and nightmares.
Sirens in the distance cut through the hiss of the fire. Everyone stiffened. We had heard that sound before. Sometimes it meant trouble, sometimes it meant help. Depends on the cop.
Some of the guys evenwantedto be picked up—three nights in jail meant three hot meals and a mattress that didn’t crawl.
Not me.
I hid in the shadows, clutching the blanket tighter and slipping behind a slab of broken concrete where the bridge had cracked years ago. I crouched low with my heart pounding in my throat.
A cruiser rolled up, headlights slicing through the dark, and the doors opened slowly. Two officers stepped out; one tall and built like a wall, the other older, wiry, mean-eyed.
The wiry one saw me.
I could feel it in the stillness. His flashlight scanned over me but didn’t stop.
He walked the camp first, muttering low and scanning faces. I waited. Tried to be small.
Then his boots turned toward me.
He crouched down, eyes level with mine. The flashlight caught on his badge, then on my face.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“D-D-Dorian.” My voice cracked like glass. Couldn’t control it. My tongue felt like it didn’t belong to me.
He was older—late fifties, maybe. Gray hair tucked under a low-brimmed hat, skin lined with desert years and dried-out patience. His eyes were almost black, empty of warmth. He shifted a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other with a slow, deliberate movement. Like a clock ticking.
“What are you doing out here?”
I opened my mouth, stopped, and tried again. “N-Nowhere to go.”
He didn’t laugh. Just stared at me.
“You should come with me,” he said, stretching out his hand like I was a stray dog. “Can’t sleep out here forever.”
I pulled back, teeth clenched. I’d heard that tone before—something gentle stretched over something cruel.
“I can offer you a job,” he added. “But you gotta get cleaned up first.”
A job. I nearly laughed. I’d never held one, never finished school. I barely knew how to read a clock without picturing the hour hand as a knife.
What kind of job would someone offer to someone like me?
He stepped in closer. Too close. His fingers clamped around my arm and pulled me upright. No struggle.
He leaned in, close enough that I could smell stale coffee and whatever brand of power he thought he owned.
“Take the offer,” he whispered, slipping something into the pocket of my coat. “Or I’ll book you with enough years to rot.”
I didn’t have to look. I knew what it was. The plastic crinkle of a sealed bag. Something white. Something illegal.
I could already see the headlines.Local youth found with controlled substance.Another homeless freak. Another nobody buried by the system.
I nodded. Just once. Slow.
