Alphabetic Karma

Over the Next Few Weeks, we're going to serialize Alphabetic Karma, a short story originally published by Hawkshaw Press. Sign in every Sunday to get the next paragraphs.

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The second time my parents threw me out, I already knew the streets couldnʼt work for me. Iʼd learned enough the first time. I needed to stay with a relative somewhere.

My moments of revelation in my first journey into the badlands still burned. My father went so far as to drive me downtown to a park and force me out of the car. I cried and screamed, but he had locked the doors, and my jerking on the door handle did nothing except make him smile. If he could be that cold, so could I. I wiped my tears and snot into my sleeve and stared back at him. He eased away from the curb, in no hurry at all to leave his only child on the pavement. Little Kimmie, fifteen years old, cut off and dumped. Heʼd said, “When they call us to report youʼre in the morgue, weʼll claim you ran away.”

I didn't have a coin in my pocket. That night I slept on the ground inside a clump of bushes gone gray from city pollution. No way would I want to lay out there on a park bench in full view while I closed my eyes. But Zoe found me on a bench the next day, around noon. I picked her up on my threat radar, a hundred feet away staring at me. When she caught my gaze, she clumped over — clumped because her trainers swallowed her feet, maybe three sizes two big. She slumped on the other end of the bench, stared out over the park, and asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”