Chapter 1

Beggar

“When I was younger, I was a beggar by circumstance,

When I got older, I remained a beggar by choice.”

The wind is colder today, makes me wish I had something warmer than the thin hoody I nipped off some kid two years back. I shiver in the small space between the bins hearing the raucous coming from the building I'm leaning on.

A year ago, it was just a rundown 3-storey dump. From today, it'll be known as a club called, Lazers.

The people scream and cheer. Their loud laughs echo in my dead soul.

I've never known a day of being normal or having a hot plate of food to eat. I don’t even know what it feels like to have a bath. The streets of Washington have been my home since the day I was born.

I think I stayed in the hospital a few times but I'm not sure, I was too young to remember.

It's safe to say my mother loved me a little too much, because she wouldn't give me up. She rather I be born without a blanket to keep me warm than abort me or give me up for adoption.

Many times, she explained things to me, she’d say that I was a love child, and my daddy would one day find us and take us to his home. But he never came, and my mother didn't seem too beat up about it either. As the years went on by, I learnt to survive on these streets, I even learnt to smile.

Somehow by sheer luck my mother managed to get me in a school when I turned seven.

I was the dirty kid.

The one with lice in her hair.

The pity child who was always taking the lunch or scraps other kids left on the back wall during break.

By the end of the first year they called me Street girl. No one played with me, but I never let their words or actions bother me.

I kept my eyes on my school work.

My mother told me that if I focused on my grades and finished school, I'd be able to get a job when I got older. I remember just thinking that, we wouldn't have to stay on these streets.

Shelters weren't an option; they were the worst place we could go. We once ended up in the one on 16th Street.

We both had nothing to eat for two days. We were starving and I was getting weak. There was no other choice.

My mother tried everything to get a buck but no one was feeling generous,

not even for some scraps to eat. It was during my summer break.

While most kids ate their bellies full in those weeks, I was lucky if I got one meal a day. I never had a full belly then, didn't even imagine what it could feel like, but I didn't complain. I was alive, had all my fingers and toes.

Whenever I did complain about hunger pangs or frozen fingers my mother said I could've been unluckier. I could've been born without my arms or legs.

My mother's sanity had been questionable from time to time but she never let me beg, even when I asked. She always stashed me in some corner behind a bin or in an alley. Sometimes on weekends I'd sit on the pavement watching the cars go by.

But the day we went to the shelter was a bad day. I’ll never forget that day. The nip in the air sent chills in my body. My small feet tripping over itself trying to keep up with my mother's hurried steps.

Her grip on my hand was so tight, it pained.

We got there just as they were finishing up, and she rushed us straight to the queue for the free sandwiches. I think I was around eight.

A group of the people who ran the shelter saw me that day. They tried taking me away from my mother by locking me in some storage room. I was screaming and crying.

I remember how I bit the lady that pulled me away. I think I scratched her too, I'm not sure, it was a while ago.

Somehow my mother managed to get me out of there and we kicked down, and didn't stop until we were at the river. We sat in silence and ate a slice of the tuna sandwich she had with her.

She stole three sandwiches that day. I was old enough to know they always gave one per person. I wasn't sure how she managed that, but grateful, it kept us fed for three days.

It was the first and last time we ever sort out a shelter.

That was also the first time she warned me about the system. I remember her words,

“You listen to me kid. Those houses they’ll put you in are far worse than living on the street. You can never get caught; you hear me.”

I stared at her crazy green eyes, and knotted black hair, then I nodded. My mother’s face was hollow, and her wrist so fragile, sometimes I feared she might just break and shatter into thousands of pieces. But she was tough and kept me safe.

She said bad things happened to the kids in the system. Many people thought she was crazy. Mad. But I believed her.