Alley Cat

It was so freaking hot, but there I was digging through the garbage in midtown Manhattan.  You’d think I’d be used to this by now, but it still made me sick and New York never stinked more than when you were leaning over an overflowing garbage can digging for aluminum and Styrofoam.  New Yorkers are notoriously wasteful, you wouldn’t believe the type of stuff people throw away.  So far I’d collected seventy five aluminum cans, fifteen Styrofoam containers and what seemed like a mountain of endless newspapers.  I mean why not just bring your food from home, it’s cheaper and the food probably tasted better. I really shouldn’t bitch though, it was money and it’s hard to whine when you’re counting cash at the end of the night.  I’d started late and I would pay the cost with the small find I had, but it was still money though.  By the time I was done skimming, I was in alphabet city.  I always made sure I ended down here, it made getting all this junk over to Richie easier. 

I started walking down the Bowery, this was always the sucky part, finding out where Richie was that day.  He changed his location daily, mostly to avoid the cops, but also because he liked being a total creep and making people like me run all over the place looking for his new hidey hole.  On the up side, looking for Richie was a hell of a lot better than going home.  Anything was better than going home.
People come to New York City to look for their dreams or fulfill them.  You struggle and fight until you make it to wherever it is you want to go, but the one thing you did not do, was move down into Alphabet City.  Once you were down here your dreams have a tendency to turn into nightmares.  Yet this place has its charm somehow.  I love New York, especially downtown, not the Wall Street downtown but the downtown where the tattoo shops and the crappy bars lived.  The place where the regular people knew the junkies, because the junkies were their family members.  It smelled bad and it looked like the underside of a crack head’s ass, but it was home. 

I made a right on East Houston and gave the pile of heaping stinky garbage plenty of space, at the same time some kids gave me plenty of space as well. I watched them go pass me making faces and probably making fun of me too.  I got that familiar twinge in the pit of my stomach, you know the one where you wished you could crawl into the deepest darkest hole and just melt away.  I’m not pretty, I’m not even close to being remotely cute.  I’m half black and half something else.  My skin is a minefield of boils and pimples, with a fine-looking layer oil that would end the Iraq war.  Nothing about me said pretty, in fact it screamed run away as fast as you can.

I turned my attention back to my cart and noticed a couple of Sidhe walking toward me.  I averted my eyes as quickly as I could and became very interested in a one liter Pepsi bottle in my cart.  Why the sudden interest in the welfare of the former container of a wonderfully sweet carbonated beverage?  Easy, Sidhe make me sick.  Not sick as in you suck mooseballs so go away sick, but more like the street is spinning and I think I’m going to yack all over it if it doesn’t stop, sick.  Yes, fairies and elves and other things like that exist and for as long as I can remember I get physically ill when anything faerie like comes into my vicinity.  If a Sidhe actually touches me… helllooo yackcity.

As they walked past me, I also felt my vision do loopity loops.  I was still holding on to my cart with the grip of death while my knees were shaking.  Why were they walking so damn slow?  When they were finally far enough away I felt the pressure in my ears pop and the knot in my throat started to dissolve.  Well my day was obviously going great.  I finally shook off the last of the yuckies, it was getting dark and Richie was no where to be found.  I had to get home before my mother and her boyfriend got back from wherever they went during the day.

I spotted someone that might be able to tell me where that low brow creep of a peddler was today.  She was talking to a guy and looked like she could have made him kneel on a bed of glass, if she wanted to, if only the poor guy knew.  Toya was tall, unbelievably so, especially for a woman.  She had that sway in her in hips that made men stop dead in there tracks whenever she walked by.  She had that model look, she had beautiful high cheekbones and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her anywhere, well actually the fat that she did have was in her breast and her butt. 

Toya had a great ass and she knew it, she would walk by a group of men and have them hypnotized.  But that wasn’t her best feature, at least not as far as I was concerned, I loved Toya’s eyes.  They were a warm hazel, and not that hazel that you see when people put in those fake contacts, Toya’s eyes made her look almost alien, otherworldly.  To bad for a lot of the guys out there that Toya was a guy. “ Hey Toya”, nothing she didn’t even look up.  “YO, TOYA!!” She gave the poor sap her thousand dollar smile, ran her purple nails along his face, whispered something in his ear that clearly made him a VERY happy man and turned and started walking my way.  “You know Cat, you could have totally messed up a good thing just now,” she said. 
“Uh huh, so you seen Richie?”
I knew what was coming, but she knew everything about everyone in Alphabet City and I was desperate.
“What you want with that jerk, Cat?  He’s gross and he’s encouraging your delinquency and why aren’t you in school today, huh?

I hated school that’s why and if I wanted to fight every day I could just go over to
Crystal’s strip joint.  At least there I could make some money and not get busted in the process.  But I didn’t say that out loud, if I did she would want to come down to school and defend me.  It would make things worse. 
“Aww, come on Toya, don’t give me a hard time today.  I have to find him and then beat my mom home. ‘Sides, Richie always gives me some neat games to solve.  Last week he gave me this anagram thing that I finished in like five hours.  He said that that was the fastest he’d ever seen anyone do one of those things.  Which proves that I don’t need to be in school or nothin.”

“Nice, Or nothin’, she said mocking me. “that’s not even a complete word.”  Toya pushed my greasy crappy hair out of my eyes and gave me that hard, I’m about to lecture a sixteen year old look.  “ I worry about you kid, you’re too smart for this shit hole and I’m afraid of how you might turn out if you stick around here girl.”  I started to squirm, I wasn’t used to people giving a shit about me, and the concern coming from Toya was just too much of what I wished my real mother would have been like.

“Jeez Toya, you’re about to make me cry,” I whined, trying not to meet her wonderfully hazel eyes.  “Anyway, I can take care of myself, no problem.”  There was that smile, the one that could light up the darkest hole in Manhattan.  Man I wish I could turn it on like that.  She sighed and the smile faltered a little, but it was still magnificent.  “Alright chica, he’s down in the projects, between Pedestrian and Kazan.  Be careful, catch ya later.”  She walked away, back toward her quarry.  “Later Toya, thanks.” 

I had about a half hour before I had to get home.  I made my way into the projects, I had to keep my eyes open for Richie, if you weren’t familiar with skimming and peddling you could look all day and never find a peddler to take your junk.  I’d been skimming since I was ten.  I’d started out by finding crack vials, but after a dealer nearly beat me to death for supplying the competition, I quit and took to collecting recyclables.

Richie was in the basement of the last project I checked.  He was sitting there as if this was his regular office and he’d been there for years, but I knew that in a day or two he will have set up shop somewhere else and it will look like he’d been there for years.  Richie had all sorts of junk piled around his makeshift desk.  If you ever needed anything, Richie had it.  It looked like garbage to most people, but to Richie it was money in the bank and he shared that money with anyone that could increase his collection.  Richie always said that people never knew what they needed until they needed it and he wanted to make sure that he was the guy that they came to for it.

I always used to wonder if Richie was Sidhe, with the instantaneous moving and the emerald green eyes.  I know that there are a lot of people that have green eyes, but sometimes it seems that his are actual emeralds, straight out of the Wizard of Oz movie.  I guess he can’t be since I don’t get sick around him.

He was sitting there reading through his books.  Even though he didn’t look up to acknowledge me, I knew that he knew that I was there.  If it was a stranger, he would have had his hand on his Heckler ready to blow away any threat.  Richie was the only guy I knew that could handle a gun like it was meant to be handled.  He wasn’t like the jerks out here that just played with guns and got themselves killed because of carelessness.  “Richie, wanna look up for a bit, so I can get my ass home.”  I sounded grumpy, but I was always that way when I had to get home and he knew it.  “Trying to beat your mother home doesn’t give you the right to be rude Cat.  You have time, I saw Carol over by the park about an hour ago and she didn’t look like she was going anywhere anytime soon.”  I tried pouting, but knowing that I had a little time made me smile, which is what Richie was probably tiring to do anyway. 

“So you got any new puzzles, that last one was way easy, I did it in an hour no problem.”
He looked up from his ledger with what I thought was surprise, but he covered it up and the moment was gone.
“No problem with that last one huh?”
“Nope.”

“Well I have something here that may not be so easy,” he said getting up from his desk.  He walked over to a pile of boxes and pulled out a small white one.  He took it from its place like it was always there and he never moved it from its spot until now.  It was engraved with symbols that I’d never seen before and it looked like it was craved out of ivory or a perfect giant pearl.  I wanted to grab it out of his hand and run my fingers over it like it was a lover that I forgot I had.

“Here try and figure this one out, but wait until you get home and not in front of your mother.”

“I know, yeesh… hey this one looks kinda weird.  How does it work, what’s it made from?  Gosh it looks pretty, Richie you sure you want me to have this one?  I mean I’ll take good care of it and stuff but isn’t it a little valuable?”

“It’s alright. Listen Cat, after tonight I won’t be around much anymore.”  I looked up from the box at Richie and nearly dropped it to the floor.  My gut started to tighten again like when the Sidhe were passing, but this feeling was much much worse.

“ Dammit Cat, be careful!”

“What do you mean, you won’t be around, where are you going?”

“ I have some business to take care out of town and it will take sometime.  I’ll be back eventually, I just have a lot of things I have to prepare for and time is running out.” 

I felt panicked, I didn’t only come to Richie to sell my stuff and to pick up a little money, he was one of the few people I could come to so I could get away from Carol and her wonderful world of happy horny drunks.  Where was I supposed to go, I know that sounds a little selfish, but you learn to become selfish when you live like I do.

“When are you leaving?” 

I didn’t think he heard me, I said it so quietly, almost to myself that I almost didn’t expect an answer.  After what seemed like a forever he finally started to speak.  But even though he was speaking he didn’t seem like he was talking to me.
“I have to go home and get ready for someone.  She’s special and she’s going to change my homeland.  She’s going to bring us back to glory and make us whole again.  All she has to do is pass the last preliminary test, all she has to do is prove her heritage and her birthright.  I have to go home and get ready...” 

While he was talking I suddenly had this urge to get up and run out of the room screaming for the hills.  He sounded like a crazy man, and nothing like the Richie I grew up knowing.  He was still talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore, instead I started playing with the puzzle he had given me.  I needed to do something that didn’t involve listening to my friend go stark raving, crystal meth using mad. 

The pearl box, almost glowed in my hands and I started caressing it, and even though it was a hard white box, it felt soft and alive in my hands, it didn’t feel like that before, but it felt like it was supposed to feel like this.
I looked closer at the symbols and noticed that they were actual buttons.  I brought it closer and saw that you had to do each one in a sequence in order to get it open.  How did I know that?  I’m never sure how I know how the puzzles are supposed to go together, I just know somehow.  Besides looking at them you just knew that the symbols had to be the answer, they had to go together in a way that would open the box, it was an ancient combination lock.  I looked up to see Richie with his back to me.  He was still talking to no one, not paying me any real attention.  With the box glowing slightly in my hands I instantly had this realization that I knew what the sequence was.  It looked vaguely familiar somehow and I all of a sudden wanted and needed to open it.

I started to press the symbols in sequence, with Richie’s weird chatter in the background.  As I pressed each one I heard a click and a slide and then chatter.  And that’s how it went for what seemed like forever.  Click, slide, chatter.  Click, slide chatter.  Click, slide, chatter.  The last one clicked and I heard it slide into place, but I didn’t hear Richie’s chatter.  I looked up and found him staring at the box in awe and wonder.  He looked at me like I was his world, his new hope, his everything.  I glanced down at the box and saw that the soft perceived glow had turned into an actual one and it started to cover me.  I wasn’t afraid though, I felt happy and calm for the first time in my life.  I let that light take me, I felt it changing me, it was making me right I could feel it.

When I turned my eyes to Richie he was on his knees and he was crying.  I didn’t want to see him crying, so I walked over to him so the light could take him to.  As I stood, that warm glow changed to hot searing pain, I tried to scream but the pain took my breath away and the last thing I remember before I collapsed into darkness was hearing, “Finally, she’s here.”


PART 2
I heard talking, and one of the voices sounded like Carol.  I wasn’t in my bed though, this bed was a lot softer and it made me think I was dreaming, but Carol’s screeching, drunken voice made me realize that it wasn’t a dream and I had to open my eyes to see where I was.  Looking around I knew I wasn’t in the projects, or if I was this was a project apartment with a lot of illegal money put into it, which meant that I didn’t need to be there.

I threw back the silk covers and tried to jump out of the bed, and I quickly realized that my body was no longer working under my command.  As I stood up, my legs turned to rubber and I was getting acquainted with the highly polished wood floors and even though they were nice floors they still hurt when you hit them with your ass. 

While I was learning that I had millions of nerves in my ass, I realized that some things had changed.  I was not just sitting on my ass I was sitting on a lot of hair.  The nice thing was that the hair was attached to my head, what worried me was that I never ever had this much hair in my life.  I rose up and took some of it in my hand.  It wasn’t the same gross greasy mass of brown shit that used to crown my head, it was instead this beautiful, silky deep dark brown color that I’d only ever seen on a bar of really expensive chocolate.  I pulled it to make sure it was attached to my head.  What in the hell was going on, what happened to me while I was knocked out in some strange bed, what happened after I opened that box?  Oh shit, the box!  That wasn’t a dream I guess.  But how could anything like that be real?

Even though my ass had stopped hurting, my oh shit meter was quickly going up.  My legs started working in my panic and I stood up to find the closest mirror.  The room was huge and I finally saw that I had been sleeping on a King sized plush bed.  The room had antique furniture, beautiful mahogany dressers, and armoires.  A super large ornate oval mirror was at the end of the bed.  When I stood in front of it I had to turn around to see if someone was behind me.  The reflection in the mirror was not mine. 

The person in the mirror was 2 or 3 inches taller than I was about five foot seven or eight and she was thinner and not to mention, absolutely drop dead, take your breath away gorgeous.  I stepped closer to the image and looked into her eyes, they weren’t normal eyes.  They were brown, but around that brown was a thin circle of yellow and no iris, but the weirdest thing was that they were shining.  My face was no longer round and pimply and chubby, it was thin and chiseled and smooth and it looked like it belonged on the cover of Cosmo.  My face looked like how I’d imagined myself to look like when I turned 25 and got a genie for a birthday gift. 

The skin on my face wasn’t just smoothed, I looked like someone took me and dipped me in milk chocolate and then they dropped me in crushed diamonds.  That’s when it hit me, I looked like the people that made me sick at a glance.  I looked Sidhe.  Ok now my oh shit meter went from panic mode to what the fuck mode.

Okay, time to find out what in the fuck was going on.  I still heard Carol screaming outside the big oak looking door, but I also heard Richie, which was a huge relief.
“RICHIE!!!!, I screamed”
The arguing instantly stopped and he was at the door standing there with Carol, her sister Carline and four really big Sidhe men.  I’m not one that wastes time when it comes to my survival.  I’m a New Yorker dammit.  “What the fuck dude!  Why do I look like those guys standing there?  And where am I and what in the hell is going on? And why is Carol crying? And what the fuck was in that goddamn puzzle you gave me?

“Mom, I’m your mother, stop using my first name,” she screamed.  That stopped me in my tracks.  From the time I could talk, I’d called my mother, Carol.  She was never my mother and I suddenly had the urge, and the balls somehow to tell her.

“You’re joking right,  I’ve called you Carol my whole life.  Something must be fucked up if you want me to call you Mom.” 

“I am your mother,” she screamed back, “and you won’t be disrespectin me like that.

“Disrespect?  Give me a break you drunk bitch.  You can’t even respect yourself much less your own fucking daughter.  You’re a goddamn joke and a two cent whore that can’t keep a man to save her life.  How could anyone respect that.”  This was an argument we had had a million times while I was growing up.  I knew Carol loved me, I just was so mad that she never showed it like a real mom.  Apparently she forgot about the fact that she was an alcoholic mother and never paid me much mind because she spun around to face Richie, she looked absolutely murderous and about ready to pop.

“You did this, you changed her and now she’s not my daughter anymore.”  He turned to her a little and said, “She never was.”  Richie walked toward me with the giant Sidhe and they all got down on one knee.

“Welcome my queen.”

Ok, he must have lost his mind when that box opened.  “Get up man, what the fuck is wrong with you?  And who are these jokers?”  Why was I asking questions and not getting any answers.  I wish someone would answer one question.
“Sadir, are you sure she is the rightful heir?  She seems a little tactless to be Queen.”

I looked down at the most beautiful man I had ever seen.  I’ve never been able to see the Sidhe close up, so I never knew that they were so freaking hoooot.  But hotness aside, he was being a jerk, I’m not tactless I’m straightforward.  I ignored him since I had no idea who he was.  I needed answers and Richie was the only one I could trust.  That’s when it hit me, Richie didn’t look like Richie anymore.  I mean he did but not in the same way.  He was shimmering and glowing like the other Sidhe in the room, like me.

“I need to sit down, I think I’m going to puke.”  They all rushed to get me a seat and lowered me down to it like I was a china doll and the most precious thing in the world.

“Okay dude, start explaining because I’m only holding here by a thread.  What the hell is going on?  And Carol, for creepssake stop crying.”

“I’m not sure were to start.  But here goes, you are the rightful heir to the Sidhe crown.  You are faerie returned to us by prophecy and I have been your keeper since the time of your birth.”
He was so serious and sincere and poetic.  “Okay who the fuck are you and where is Richie, cause you ain’t him.”

He started to laugh and I knew it was him, but I was still scared. 

“The outer shell has changed but you are still that foul mouthed Cat that I know.  Okay here’s the deal, when you were a baby, were changed into a human child and hidden with this woman so that your life could be protected.  The prophecy states that when you were of the right age, you would open the key and return to us to claim your kingdom and save your people.”
Riiigggghhhtttt.  “ You sound like a crazy person, you know.”

He smiled at me and said, “I know what it sounds like, but it’s the truth.  Look at Carol, you have never felt any closeness with her and her drinking started after we took her child and replaced her with you.”

I looked over at the woman that I had known as my mother and she was inconsolable.  Then I realized what Richie just said, she wasn’t my mother and I was a substitute.  Yeesh, they treated this woman like a grocery store.  They did a one for one exchange and deep down in her heart she knew she was cheated.

“Christ Richie!! Do you know what that sounds like?  You ruined her life and took away her child.  Where’s the kid?
“She is safe within the sithen.  She is only five months old, still a baby.  Carol will get her life back and more for her sacrifice.  She kept you safe until it was time and that deserves a recompense.”

Carol looked up from her hysterics and looked at him as if he had three heads and they were all spinning at once.  I really couldn’t blame the woman for her reaction.  I mean someone admits they’ve taken your kid and your life with it and then says oops, sorry but you’ll get a nice reward for your trouble.  I think I would be homicidal at this point.
I looked at here hard and wondered what she was thinking, and instantly Carol’s voice came into my head loudly.
“You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you.”
Oh shit.  Did I just hear what I thought I heard.  No one else in the room seemed to hear what I heard they were all focused on me.  Carol started to move toward Richie and I knew that she was going to try and do something.  I didn’t think she was capable of murder, but it sure looked like she could maim that crap out of him.

“You son of a bitch, where is my baby, give me my goddamn child before I call the fucking cops.”  Carol charged him and started wailing on him.  It wasn’t making a dent though, I mean he’s Sidhe and super strong. I felt like I was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I wanted to add dialogue like, “I spit in your general direction.”  It was actually pretty funny and I started to giggle.  That stopped everyone in their tracks.

“What?  You look like a comedy special on cable.”  The cute one that had called me tactless was grinning from ear to ear.  He was also looking at me as if I was the biggest candy bar in the world.  Guys never gave me a glance, actually they had a tendency to want to make fun of me or run in the opposite direction.  So you could imagine how uncomfortable I felt.  I needed a distraction from his freaking super cute emerald eyes and Carol got to be it.          

“Hey Carol,”  she stopped and looked at me.  Her eyes softened and she smiled.  I think that was the first smile I had ever seen on her face that was real.  “I uh, wanted to say thanks. I mean you didn’t know you were doing it, but thanks anyway.”  She came to me and put her hand on my face.  This was the most she had ever touched me in my entire life and I suddenly wanted to throw myself into her arms.  Even though she was a major bitch most of the time, she still made sure I had a place to stay and stuff.  She echoed my thoughts, which creeped me out a little.

“ You’re a good kid.  I wasn’t always the best to you but I always thought you were a good kid. You look amazing. You were always an amazing kid.”
I wanted to cry and I didn’t know what to do, so I hugged her.  She didn’t do anything for a second or two but she hugged me back after that.  “If what these guys are saying is for real then I’ll make sure your baby is given back.  I mean she’s kind of my little sister in a way.”  She stepped back from me and looked at me, she let go and turned around to leave.  “I’m going to leave you to talk with this major asshole here.

You know that saying if looks could kill, well Carol could have exploded Richie’s head off of his shoulders.  She pushed past him and walked out and I turned to Richie with my own look.
“Okay, you need to start explaining, and not in that poetry type shit you’ve been spewing.  Explain in normal everyday English, and it had better make sense because nothing is so far.  Start with who are you really.”