Siren's Call

A Story by bobric

Is love an empty promise?

I was staring at a stone wall. There was one little chink that had fallen to the side.

“You are here, why?”

One of two burly guards shot out a reply. “She’s the only one can control the ...er.. Young lady.”

I looked down at the chained cuff on her ankle bolted to her heavy wooden chair. “She bites… sir.” Added the other stalwart ex marine. “She’s just a smaller version of this one.”

“I take it they wanted to leave at some point.”

“No sir.” Started the first example of male macho. The small chink blurted out. “We done ast for you. We gots pride. You got the rep.” She finished under the glare of the guard.

“Precaution sir. For your own safety.” The second, two-hundred pound pile of muscle added.

I studied their nervous respect for each other for a moment. “An even match.”

“We are held accountable to rules.” the taller specimen apologised, rubbing an obvious scratch on his face.

“Best get that attended to. Don’t want it infected.” A startled look followed my remark. “You want us to leave? Sir?” I nodded compliance. They did an about face and left these feral children in my care.

“It true? What they say?” Little chink studied me like I was her.

“What’s that?” I bent down to take another look at both their charts. The older one was fifteen going on one hundred. She had an austere beauty she carried carelessly about her. She didn’t flaunt or use it as some would in her situation. “Ten foster homes in five years. Going for a record?”

“She don’t talk much unless she got something to say.”

Uh. Huh. You wanted to know something?”

“What they say. You take the worst of the worst. You not fearful.”

“Nope. You heard wrong.”

“Say, what?”

“I choose the one’s that interest me. Just so happens, they are often like you two.”

I looked down chink’s book of therapist notes to give me her name. “You called Jenny?” It brought a ripple of disgust from her. “Only born to that. I got my rep now. Call me Spider.”

“And the queen?” I nodded towards her companion.

“I ain’t no queen. I’m my own self.” She tried stretching into a comfortable position but only found another less uncomfortable.

“You want me to undo that?’ My pencil pointed to her straitjacket.

“I show you something, boss.” She dislocated her joints, snapping them back into place. The device was laying at her feet. She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to call the men back in.

“Comfortable?” I leaned back, waiting to see what she was trying to prove. A hairpin flashed from her luxuriant mass of rust colored hair. A few deft flicks of her wrist at Spider and the younger girl kicked her foot free from the leg iron.

“You not like the others.” Spider rubbed her raw ankle. “They all the same, just different degrees.” Honey replied.

“You’re different?” I asked.

“Far as I know. No-one like us. Especially me.” The hairpin sunk back into place. Both girls stretched a little, their bodies enjoying increased freedom.

“Want coffee, water, soda?” They closed up instantly. It meant someone else coming into the room. Everything was a trap for them. “I’ll get it, if you want.”

“Coffee be good.” Honey waited. Watching. Spider looked sideways knowing her friend had something up. They both wanted to see how far I would go. I might get careless.

I leaned into the phone, flipped the call switch. “Two coffee’s, no sugar or cream.” I looked first at one then the other, getting nods and the first broken half of a smile from Spider. “I’ll pick them up at the door.”

“You not having any? It that bad?’ They took the paper cups, dancing the heat in their palms, waiting for it to cool enough to sip. I swiveled behind me to a small fridge. “Special brew. Too spirited for you.”

They watched me pour my carrot juice into a cup that said “best dad in the world. “Cheers”. I toasted my new guests and we drank.

“What makes you different?” I asked again.

“We just is. Honey so smart she can do anything. See how she get free like that?”

“She so smart, how come she brought here?” I wondered aloud.

“She don’t know how to stop once she get going. She all steam.” Spider tried her coffee again, set it down and leaned forward. “That and we hear about you. You don’t system.”

“System?”

“You make your own rules, like us.”

“Uh huh.”

“How you do that? How you get away with it so long.” Spider was asking but I saw the question in Honey’s eyes as well.

"I learned to control the fire in me. I was like Honey, there. Never stopping once I got started. Lot of drive, lot of street smarts. Lot of jail time.”

“We know that.” Spider again. “What’s the rest?”

“Love found me.”

“She your woman? You saying that’s it? That gave you the grease to have your own way?” Honey spat on the floor. “That’s no answer I can use.”

“You know what love is? I looked out my barred window to where a pigeon was eating the bread I’d slid out earlier.

“Nope. Don’t want to. Women use it to trade for favors. Men use it to own. That’s how I see that word.” Spider looked depressed. “Nothing here we ain’t heard before. He wants to give us religion, maybe.”

“You’re halfway there on your own. It’s going to be hard on you getting the rest of the way.”

“Make sense, man. Coffee’s done and so are we.” Honey looked ready to spit again.

"You two holding something. I’ll show you what, if you want. It’ll give Honey what she came here to get.”

“We ain’t holding nothing. They tooks everything.” Spider shouted.

“Ssh, Spider. He got a curve he throwing. Watch out.”

I felt the sadness well up in me. It must have shown in my face. I turned away from the photo of my dead wife. “Why you two stick together?”

“We proven. That’s all. We just fine.” Honey talked like she was walking on thin ice.

“You don’t know what love is until it's taken away.” I motioned to the guard staring through the tiny window in the door. The door handle broke plaster in the wall, banging open. “Problem, sir?”

“You see?” The two girls were back to back, ready.

“That’s all. Thank you, sir.” I motioned for him to go back outside the room.

“You hassling us. You playing us.” A shaky Spider eased back into her chair. Honey, less trusting, stood.

“Nope. See how you waited for the next move? That’s love.”

Tears were in my eyes. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “You learn to listen to love and you’re home free. Not easy, but a sure thing. Love talks to you like that when you learn to listen.”

There was a long silence while they looked at each other, reading the message in each other’s eyes. “How that buy you freedom?”

“How long it take you to learn to get out of that jacket?”

“Not long. I motivated, you might say.”

“Shouldn’t take you long to learn how to buy freedom then. Words don’t mean much. It’s the doing that puts meaning into them. You ready to buy that?”

Two uncertain nods agreed with me. “You’re crying. That ain’t manly.”

“No. It’s freedom.”