We almost never drove the van. We had incredibly little money for gas. Lately we'd started putting it in neutral when going downhill, crossing one more threshold of desperation. But this very second, gas was burning while the engine was idling. We even had the air-conditioner running, and with the driver's side door wide open. These were crimes which would have earned me multiple slaps around the face, had I been driving.
But I wasn't driving, and Mom wasn't bruising my face - she was being noisily sick into a filthy metal bin on the side of the road. Watching someone vomit is a legitimately disturbing sight, the way their back muscles move in such a weird spasmodic sequence. I was sincerely scared for her. I couldn't look away. I got out of the passenger seat and went to her, putting my comforting hand on her heaving back.
"Don't touch me!" she hissed at me, holding up a finger, "Don't you fucking touch me."
The snap of rage was as repelling as the bin's thick smell of stewing garbage and vomit. I blinked back tears and rushed back to the passenger seat. Every second that passed felt like a newly lived crisis. The only option was to let them tick past.
When she finally got back in the van, when the door finally closed and the air conditioner once again had a fighting chance, I could see she had been crying. The van edged forward with a shriek of protest from some long-neglected engine belt. I stared out of the window, concentrating on stopping my anxious knee from jumping up and down like popping corn.
It was just us. We didn't used to be homeless. We used to have a big house on the beach. Us and Dad. He did a bad thing. A lot of bad things. We kept the van, and that's about as much as I feel like saying about it. Every night, we slept on a mattress in the back, surrounded by untidy piles of meager possessions.
We could get most of the bare necessities from a food bank. We managed to accumulate a few dollars here and there through the kindness of strangers and friends, for gas, hygiene products, etc. We tended to park by the beach to make use of the free showers and toilets. Well... unpopular beaches, where parking limits went unmonitored. There was no plan other than survive every day as it came.
But sometimes we needed something. Something none of the support services out there could give us. Or rather, something we couldn't ask them for without inviting questions and judgment. Sometimes, we needed something specific and there was no money.
Sometimes we had to shoplift. And sometimes we were caught.
Today, we were planning to shoplift at a pharmacy.
When we were first learning how to be homeless, Mom had the good sense to try a more distant mall. That way, if we failed whilst we were learning, we'd hopefully not be recognized and become "known" to our local shops (and police). We'd learned a few tricks.
The first rule, be bold. Believe you didn't have a can of deodorant in your jacket sleeve, and when someone looked at you suspiciously, you'd look back with a confused expression because you didn't know why. It worked better if you bought something cheap at the same time. If you went to the counter to pay, you must be honest, right? Mom was way better at it than me. She was smart, bold and charming. I'll be honest here - her impressive cleavage didn't hurt either. Yep I went there, but it's true and she wasn't shy about it either. Given the stakes, it should be her doing the lifting this time, but when she was this angry, there was no predicting her.
I wanted to hug her desperately, so much so that I could almost feel the warmth of her embrace in advance. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, but I simply couldn't handle another blistering tirade. When she wanted to, she could flay my soul with nothing more than words.
Eventually, we pulled over near a mall we'd rarely visited. We didn't park in the car park because it wasn't free. We sat in silence for a minute, a silence I wasn't game to fill.
"Come on then," she finally said, grabbing an old duffel bag from the foot-well on my side. I dutifully opened my creaking door and slid down to the roadside.
She closed her door first and I found the courage to ask: "Do you have the keys?" before closing my own. I had learned that crisis situations could beget more crises all too easily. She ignored me but I heard them clink in her hand as she stomped away. I locked and closed my door, and followed. In this bright sunlight, her stretched nylon leggings were slightly transparent, and the ratty underwear she wore underneath was clearly visible. Any other day, I would have told her so she could change. Today I really didn't need to invite a vitriolic lecture on the depths of perversion my teenage mind had sunk to.
But given these freakish, completely insane circumstances... how could she?
I also didn't say anything to Mom about her smell. By the time we entered the mall, I could smell her pretty keenly. I probably smelled pretty bad myself. It was hot. The kind of hot that made you wish for a shower and a change of clothes. Staying on top of laundry was challenging for us in hot weather, but this wasn't a high priority today.
The blessed mall air conditioning was rejuvenating. And the smell of the food hall mouth-watering. Mom tersely told me to meet her there in an hour, answering my unasked question about who was doing the lifting. When she said to meet back at the food hall, she meant I ought to secure some food for us. We'd done this before. We'd loiter and wait for someone to half-finish their meal and leave without binning it, then we'd swoop in and finish it for them.
I watched her leave the food hall, eyes on her instead of the tables. To say my feelings were complicated right now would be a poleaxing understatement. Her underwear was much less noticeable in the artificial light of the mall. The deep, dark part of me was well aware I wasn't simply staring out of concern for her dignity. I was appreciating the ample roundness of her backside. It was large, but in a way which the nylon pants seemed very willing to advertise as incredibly gropable. After thirty seconds, she and her angry, hot ass were out of view. No, I didn't feel ashamed. Not anymore. I was getting used to the idea that rules were for the comfortable, to protect their comfort and let them indulge in judgment. To let them feel good about themselves. A sneering, bitter side of me took actual pleasure in rebelling against the culture of the "homeful" - in whatever way I could. A hardness in my pants was proof enough of that. It was helped along by some intrusive thoughts that were really just a natural progression. But now was not the time.
Taking a deep breath and shaking my mind free, I stood by a broad column near some large indoor plants, trying to look as bored and casual as possible. I stared at the blank screen of my phone that hadn't turned on in six months, glancing up now and then. I was somewhat grateful that mine was the low-risk heist. A genuine victimless crime.
Seeing groups of teens and families having meals they took for granted always put a lump in my throat. They all had their bags full of newly purchased cheap crap they'd throw out soon enough due to "clutter". Somehow my mind leaped from envy and bitterness to the idea that I should get a present for Mom. I should get her something to add a bright moment to the awful day she was having. And maybe she'd be a bit warmer toward me afterwards. I had some time to spare. Not much, but some.
I began to meander around the mall, glancing casually into shop-fronts for things I might be able to lift at low risk. Getting caught would be the worst kind of backfiring. If she got dragged into the security office to deal with me... shit, she might get caught too. Then there would be questions about why she'd stolen what she had...
Wouldn't that be perfect for today?
Finding the perfect gift proved to be a trickier puzzle than I'd anticipated. A bottle of vodka and something nice to mix it with would be sure to get me hugs and kisses, but the security measures around those products were more than I was willing to risk.
I took a break to go to the toilet and give my genitals a scratching. That's not a euphemism. I'd been living with some sort of sexually transmitted ailment for a few months, and sometimes the itching just got too maddening to leave unaddressed. I was still in a mildly amorous state and did consider jerking off, but I was wasting time. Not now.
As I came out of the toilets I was staring straight at a store that sold greeting cards. That seemed like a good start.
At first I found it overwhelming. There were so many categories and most of them were just garbage. I walked past birthday cards of every specified age you could name and pondered over the remaining categories.
There was a get well card with a hand-drawn can of chicken soup on the front. That was just a bit odd. Besides a "get well" card seemed to focus on a barely relevant facet of what was going on for her. It smacked of inattentiveness and laziness. I needed a genuine act of empathy.
There was a card that said in scrappy letters across the front "When the going gets tough, the tough cry in the car". That hit very close to home, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might suit her wicked sense of humor, should it ever shine once more through the clouds. We could laugh in the face of the bleak desperation together. Damn, but how I wanted to make her laugh again.
My eyes ran along the rows upon rows of cards and hit a section heavy with storks and cutsy animal couples with a little one between them. I'd hit the "congratulations on your new baby" section. And that was when I suddenly began to sweat and the world started to spin without warning. There was nowhere to sit, so I stood with my eyes closed for a moment and breathed until my heart rate slowed and my stomach stopped churning.
I opened my eyes, and when they were finally able to focus and connect to my brain again, they were fixed on a card that boldly declared the recipient to be "World's Greatest Grandma". I clenched my teeth to avoid laughing (or crying) out loud and slipped the car-crying one under my shirt. Now I had to find a bank for the free use of a pen.
I had become lost in looking at cards, and now I was out of time for another gift and in danger of being late to meet Mom. Instead of a bank I found an office supply store - one which let you scribble with multi-colour pens before buying. I scrawled down a message inside the card, fast and with far too little thought. Panic's a bitch. Then I hustled to the food hall, very out of breath. I was quite overweight - my ass was even fatter than Mom's - and it took a minute for me to recover and safely settle back into the feeling that things were back on track.
I picked my targets, a girl about my age eating with her mom. I confess my eyes lingered on her ass in that rickety chair. She was a little slim for my taste, but a killer body nonetheless. My brain wasn't done with intrusive thoughts, and handed me an image of the three of us naked on that table with the girl sitting on my face and her mom bouncing up and down on my cock as the two of them ate tacos messily. I figured younger pussy would taste better but what would I know? I can't deny I was curious.
Bringing myself back to reality, they certainly had more tacos than I would expect they could handle. So long as they weren't going to be joined by anyone else, it seemed perfect. They started to get up, and I started to casually wander into the center of the tables.
Despite all my guile, as I approached, the girl looked me straight in the eyes. And her eyes widened in recognition.
"Jake? Jakey, is that you?"
