Hope and Red by Jon Skovron Read Free Book Online Page B

He wasn’t going to let Sadie down. He had to do this. So he bent his knees even lower, his stomach and the insides of his thighs pressed against the gritty wall.
    “You’re not going to—” began Filler.
    Before he could finish, Red launched himself up into the air, his arms stretched as high as they would go, fingers straining toward the windowsill. And he caught it.
    “Piss’ell,” Filler said, his voice somewhere near awe.
    Red hung from the sill by his fingers, his boots scratching at the wall as he tried to find even a momentary purchase so he could get a better grip. His fingers were already burning with fatigue and he didn’t think he could hold on much longer. Doubt and fear began to creep up his spine. But then he remembered the day he first started painting for his mother. He’d looked up at her pleadingly through snot and tears of frustration. “I can’t draw like you!” She’d looked down at him with that knowing smirk of hers and said, “If you believe you will succeed, there is always a chance you might. But if you believe that you will fail, then you will always fail. Never allow yourself to lose before you begin.”
    Red hadn’t fallen yet. He hadn’t failed yet. But the specter of doubt continued to press down on him. He needed to think about something else. His fingers were on fire, throbbing with so much pain he was near tears. Then a new image came to his mind. Sadie grinning at him, her face streaked with the blood of dead sailors. I knew there was something under all that artsy softness. Artsy softness like hells. He’d watched one parent die, then the other. He’d survived on the streets of Silverback, then New Laven. He would show her there was not an inch of softness in him. He clenched his teeth and pulled himself up slowly to the window ledge.
    “You did it, Rix—I mean Red!” said Filler.
    “Shut it or you’ll give me away,” hissed Red, covering his own shaky exuberance with a confidence he didn’t feel. Then he looked through the window and saw a new problem. When the window had gone dark, he’d assumed the captain had gone to sleep. But now that he was able to see into the room by the faint rays of moonlight, he realized that the captain was in bed, but still awake. There was also a woman with him, and the two were bouncing against each other.
    Red knew about sex, of course. The son of a whore doesn’t go long in life before learning that bit of truth. He’d asked why the neighborhood alley cat had gotten so fat, and his father had casually explained that she was pregnant. Red was an inquisitive child, firing a battery of questions at his father until they arrived at the human act of sex. The way his father had explained it led Red to believe it was a quiet, gentle act that involved a great deal of affectionately whispered words. But that wasn’t at all what Red was seeing through the window now.
    The captain held himself up by his arms, his bald head gleaming with sweat and the skin of his hairy shoulders leached of color in the moonlight. He was facing the window, but his eyes were squeezed shut, like he was in pain. He rocked his lower body against the woman beneath him. Because of the angle, Red could only see the back of her head, one large, pillowy breast, and her arm, which dangled listlessly at the side of the bed. For a moment, he wondered if she was even conscious. But when he pressed his ear to the window, he could hear, along with the harsh grunts of the captain, a thin, screechy female voice saying, “Oh yeah, tommy, gimme that big, fat cock!”
    All in all, Red decided that sex was pretty gross. Still, with all the noise and commotion, there was a good chance he could get in and out of there without being noticed.
    He turned his head back. “Get ready to help me down in a minute.”
    “How?” asked Filler.
    “Just…be ready to do what I tell you,” said Red, because he had no idea yet how he would get down. Then he carefully eased open the