Hot Chocolate

A brief scene based around my intersex (male identified) character, Uriel experiencing homeless situation during roughly in 1970's America.

Trash.

That is what the shop owner called him, herded him out of the warmth and no one stopped him. Uriel had not done anything, even found a few dollars to pay for a small hot chocolate. If you bought something, they weren't supposed to kick you out.. That was the rule! Uriel remembered them, he remembered the rule... He was n't stupid. Not stupid trash.

Swallowing down tears, the dark-eyed boy chased away the hot stinging tears with his too large coat sleeve. His curly dark hair framing a rather pretty face, the delicate amount of freckles speckled across his nose even as he was deathly pale from the cold, full chapped lips, and delicate body had drawn many towards him. Especially wrapped up in garbs that marked him as homeless, someone no one would miss and no one would help. More so, he trusted real easy and got hurt, bad. When he got hurt, Uriel learned more so why people hated him. He was different between his thighs. And different was bad, but the boy could not know how people knew that just from lookin' at him. But he knew the others, the others who slept on the street weren't -different.

Not there at least.

Or at least if they were, Uriel could not tell that by just lookin' at someone. Maybe that is why people called him stupid. He didn't see what made everyone decide, and just know who to look at with such mean eyes without a word being said.

 

Trash.

In his simple mind, Uriel knew that is all he was ever seen as and all that he would ever be seen as no matter where he went. His mama never called him that, but she never defended him or murmured in hushed whispers like the other grown people would. No, his mama sat in her chair, eyes empty and gone. So far gone, Uriel did not know she was gone when he was very little, until he saw her- well there.

His mama had her long hair drawn back from her face one night, small long fingers wrapped around a pencil and the steady scratching of the lead working on paper. At first, Uriel thought his mama was writing. She did this now and then, but now her hand was moving in different direction and even in the low light of the lamp and the moon shining brightly, not being able to conceal as the wind pushed passed the drapes. Windows left open in an attempt to make the suffocating days a little better inside the house with the slight breeze and even the nights were unbearably hot for all in late July. So much so, that Uriel could never sleep, either did his mama. Then again his mama didn' sleep much at night anyway, usually dozing in her chair or on the couch.

If she ever went to her room to sleep, sometimes Uriel wouldn't see her but a few passing times to the restroom. But on that one night, and some to come he would see her alive. See her hands move and eyes showing the gateway to what his mama looked like in these rare moments. But Uriel barely knew what made her so alive on the papers, she usually tore them up and put them away or hid her them in her coat to deposit whatever her treasures were.

That was another thing he soon realized, treasures. Not like the ones that Mrs. Myrtle read to him about with pirates and such, but things that ones held dear. He never learned any of the treasures, but he knew what people looked like when they handled or hid them. Mrs. Myrtle kept hers in a small wooden chest, the shapes looked like pictures to Uriel though he never snooped, just peeked into the door now and then. And his mama's were in her room. People went through her treasures when she passed, people went through everything then. People in black and with strange eyes. They were not gone like mama's, but not alive with life either. Just hard like the stone, and Uriel knew those looks. He didn't like them, he got them in town or when people came to deliver things to the house.

Well their eyes were kinda like these, but these didn't have any of threat meanness, just blank. And when he heard he was going with these hard eyes people, it had once again been one of those suffocating late July days. He was forced into another stuffy suit- the one he was supposed to wear to his mama's funeral. But he had to stay at the house after Mrs. Myrtle and the tall man who owned their house yelled and carried on. But in the end, Uriel didn't care too much about going out and to the burial. Mama had long been long dead days before when they carried her body out- Uriel had cried then and said goodbye. Mama had called him over and stroked his dark hair, curly much like her own sun-bleached blond and graying stripes, her eyes were awake and she had been to week to really hold the pencil. Usually, he had stayed really quiet even fell asleep watching her at night on the floor. But tonight, she called his name in her soft voice. Soft but not faded from her eyes. And he leaned in her chair as she strokes his hair. And he fell asleep. When the early morning sun hit his eyes, she was gone.

He cried then, he cried when Mrs. Myrtle called for someone, and he had cried all until the morning the suite was set on his bed.

Uriel remembered Mrs. Myrtle crying as she dressed him in that suit again. Her usually strong and loving brown eyes filled with tears and even though she tried to smile and be stern for him to be good, Uriel was not stupid even though he knew others thought he was. He was not stupid, and he knew Mrs. Myrtle did not agree with whatever was happening, and he knew the tall man had something to do with it. So he hugged the older women, tightly and said goodbye softly in that room small room.

Mrs. Myrtle didn't think he was trash, neither did his mama. Maybe a terrible burden, but never trash like everyone else did. And Uriel tried to be friendly n' nice like Mrs. Myrtle had told him to be, smile.

There was another place, where those mean eyes turned into amazement. The carnival Mrs. Myrtle took him to on a very far drive away from the house, they had to stay the night in the hotel after the lights and different things. Uriel never wanted to leave. Feeling the same euphoria many children felt among the sweets, lights, and games... Once more it was one of those late July nights, suffocating and filled with mosquitos, but those two things never even dented the memory even if he was covered in those stupid bites and his clothes stuck to him just a bit. But more so, he saw peoples' eyes towards different people. People who were different than him too, their faces were different or they had strange talents that made them different. And instead of mean eyes, people paid them and applauded... No one looked at them with mean eyes and Uriel didn't want all those people staring at him but... The mean eyes didn't happen and what was even more curious, no one looked at him with mean eyes either! They barely even noticed him, if anything they gave strange glances to him and Mrs. Myrtle, but nothing more.

At some point that night, among the crowds Mrs. Myrtle made him sit in a chair while she went to go get corn dogs, only it had felt so long since she went. He got scared and began to wonder looking for her. Only, he was so small and being in the crowds of people was a very different experience. At some point, his feet started to ache and the crowds began to thin and he just sat between one of the huge tents and a closed food stand and began to cry. That is when a long haired man, well he seemed like a man at the time with his height, came up to him. Only the 'man' was but a teenager, with long dark hair and two different colored eyes. He captivated Uriel even if the stair was something he was not used to, it was not overly worried nor scorned. But as if the other were thinking, like his mama did when she was drawing.

The male asked him his name, and introduced himself as Gavriel.

Uriel treasured that name in his mind even to today, He brought him to one of the 'caravans' (Mrs. Myrtle had told him the name of the mobile homes when he had gasped seeing them line around the camp). It held all sorts of clothing, trunks, paper and ink. For a long a while Gavriel just watched him with those pretty two toned eyes while he gave Uriel yummy cake and a sweet light green drink after wiping his face and hands with a damp rag.

"Uriel,"

The voice drew his attention from his treat.

"Would you like to sta-" the enchanting voice had begun to speak again, but suddenly two loud raps hit the caravan door. The long haired Gavriel stood up at once, almost like a German Shepard, tensed as he went to open the door. Which Uriel curiously peaked from his chair to see a beautiful older woman, older than his mama but younger than Mrs. Myrtle with the same dark hair as Gavriel. The women gave him a slight, softened look before closing the door tightly. Lowered murmurs with angry lower tones that were too low for even Uriel's own ears to hear that is until the shouting started.

Gavriel was yelling at the pretty woman, about him he was pretty sure. About how she couldn't hear the things Gavriel could, how Uriel belonged with them... The women yelled Gavriel's name and even lower whispers started again until finally, the door opened again. It was the woman, she gently took his hand. Her eyes stayed gentle, and now if Uriel thought real hard they seemed 'apologetic' it was a term Mrs. Myrtle explained to him when she was reading him one of the stories out of a book. Mrs. Myrtle had a look like that when he had to go away with the hard-eyed people. Gavriel had his head bowed, and one gloved hand fisted. Without thinking about what he was doing, Uriel grabbed the gloved hand.

"I'll come back! Mrs. Myrtle like the carnival too! I'll come back to see you, Gavriel," he had said it, excited to come back and wanted to sooth the other. That is what Mrs. Myrtle always told her grandson when he came to visit from the big house. When he had to leave, he was sad. Mrs. Myrtle always told him they would see each other real soon again, he would get to come back. And that always seemed to help them.

Uriel didn't know the carnival would probably never stop in the same place, and that it was actually the last stop in America. Where carnivals like Gavriel's were being weeded out, dispersing and unknown Uriel, Gavriel, and his troupe went to Europe. Unknown to Uriel Gavriel had a gift of reading minds. Well, he didn't really chose to read them or not, it just happened to hear them. That Gavriel had read his mind, and instantly wanted to shield Uriel, bring him with him and keep him with him. If he had gone, they would have grown together.

 

But that never happened, he did not stay with Gavriel. The pretty woman took him to Mrs. Myrtle and he went back home the next morning hours away.

 

A few short year later.

Those hard eyes and silence was usually what he was met with. They talked about him as if he weren't that. And it only got worse from there, those hard eyes were constantly replaced with more, and then mean eyes. Mean hands and terrible words. He was put into a boys' home, into other people's homes. It never lasted, considering Uriel always was somehow 'bad'. So one day, in a bus station he sat on one of the hard benches and saw snow. He had only seen it briefly in some of the homes he had been placed in, but he was far from home or anywhere he had been. And usually the usually excitable boy would have been enjoying it. Probably playing and rushing, when he had looked it through the window he wanted to look over and point to tell Mrs. Myrtle. But then he remembered Mrs. Myrtle wasn't there. She had not been there in a few years roughly... And he had been sad for a bit, a long bit getting off of the train. Waiting for yet another set of mean eyes, who he was supposed to be thankful for even considering taking him in because he was different. Get to hurt him and it somehow was Uriel's fault.

Always his fault.

So he stood up off of the cold bench and began to walk away from the station. Several times his heart began to flutter and he went between high anxiety and elation! And he saw people, people that looked like his mama, with empty eyes. Not hard eyes when he passed them. Others looked at them with mean eyes too. So now and then, he would sit down with these people. They never spoke, and always had a fire.

But that was at the beginning, he had long since lived on the street. Learned how to somewhat live, or at least how to not die. He learned to do things for money, like his cartwheels and flips. They would laugh and sometimes give him money. Sometimes they would seem nice, but Uriel learned the hard way that sometimes the ones who acted nice were worse than the ones who spit and kicked cans at him.

Sometimes he thought he would die, and he knew what happened to people who died. People like him, people would really just walk over a dead body of people. People who slept in the alley like him, sometimes even women in pretty makeup and clothes or large men who fell from the alleyway. It felt like madness, Uriel would always sit them up or move them to not get stepped on. But he knew no one would probably move him when he died.

So now, when he sat in the snow, he made sure to be leaned up against one of the empty dumpsters, too wet to make a fire and a lot of the people he used to sit with were dead. He didn't know how they started those fires that kept the cold away, he didn't learn that trick yet... But people wouldn't step on him or over him, not when he died. No. He would die leaning so that no one would step on him.

Trash.

 

Looking upwards, he looked for the stars, the ally way at least kept the wind from blinding him, and muted the smell of the trash to not be so bad, but there were no stars. Not a single one. He kinda hoped, slightly at least when he passed he would see the same ones his mama did. Or maybe that if he didn't see him when he felt himself starting to slip that it wasn't his time to die yet, no matter how much everything hurt. But he knew he was going to die, he was already starting to not feel the cold anymore. That was another trick, to be able to tell when it was coming.

 

Uriel wouldn't see the sun again even if he had bought that stupid hot chocolate to get to stay in the warm store or all those years ago had set off in the morning with the carnival rather than with Mrs. Myrtle.

Author's Note

I do not have a beta sadly or any type of editor other than a program so I apologize. Also, the story is wrote for teens but that simply means teens and up can read. Not that this is only written towards teen readers.

Reviews

[Bushra Naqshbandi]

Wow! I mean literally wow! The story is so heart touching and beautifully written. One actually feels the pain of Uriel. Amazing job! Hats off!

[Rhiuna_Rya]

T.T thank you so so very much!!!! This broke my heart to write because I am very attached to Uriel and this is actually a 'what if 'writing. Originally, after his mother died Uriel had been tricked by a boy and a group of them hurt him- saved by Gavriel who took him and let him live in the carnival as an assistant/ tranee acrobat.... uriel is just so sweet and kind so this was a little hard to write but the painful truth of what would have probably happened... thank you so so much for your words and for taking your time to read my work.

[Bushra Naqshbandi]

You're most welcome. Uriel is a really lovable character. Do keep posting such stories. They're a pleasure to read :)

[Rhiuna_Rya]

I have a few more posted with other character, but more about Uriel will probably be coming some time! I read one of your ten word stories and kinda inspired me to attempt one. (Uriel's hand shot up to be my guini pig because of you- he loves attention).

[Bushra Naqshbandi]

I'm glad I inspired somebody :) And believe me, Uriel deserves all the attention (and you deserve so much praise). Your work really moved me. I don't remember having read such a touching story for a long, long time. Yours was absolutely amazing. :)