The trouble with getting to a better part of town, thought Sylvie, was that she had no idea which way to go or what bus to take. She decided to pick a direction and start walking. Looking around, she spotted a tall building off to her left. “I’ll go that way,” she said to herself. “Big buildings mean money, right?”

She set off at a jaunty pace. There was so much to see! Much of it was horrible, but she tried not to notice. A woman scuttled past her, hunched over, sobbing her head off, just wailing like a baby. Sylvie pitied her but was frightened as well. She was probably a crazy person. There were lots of crazy-looking people in that neighbourhood, which seemed to be nothing but triple-x video stores, pawnshops and cheque-cashing dives, with occasionally a tiny Korean grocery or grungy-looking 7-Eleven.

After a while her conscience began to prick her. Mom must be frantic by now. On sudden impulse she stopped at a pay phone meaning to call home, but someone had torn the receiver right off the telephone. The remains of a bicycle was chained to a bus stop sign a few feet away. Tires, seat and handlebars had all been removed, leaving only the frame, still chained to the sign. She sighed. What a place.

“Hey, little girl!” The voice came from frighteningly close, right behind her head. Sylvie jerked around to see a middle-aged woman with greasy blondish hair, smeared magenta lipstick and dark-shadowed, empty eyes plucking intently at the strap of her backpack.

“Let go!” she shouted. “That’s mine!” Without thinking, she yanked herself away and ran, still in the direction of the tall building.

“Hey, no, I’m not gonna hurtcha, come back…” the raspy voice faded behind her as she ran. Her breath shortened to panting gasps. Her heart pounding, she stopped to rest in the recessed doorway of an empty storefront that had once housed a music store. With a swift glance up and down the sidewalk, she ascertained that she hadn’t been followed and that no one was near enough to be a threat. She shrank into the shadows and sobbed helplessly into her sleeve.

I’ll just stay here, she thought in despair. I have noplace to go anyways. She huddled deeper into the corner and wrapped her arms protectively around her backpack, which had become infinitely precious. It occurred to her that the backpack and its contents, her address book, her wallet with her student credit card and learner’s permit, the little cash she had, her extra clothes and toiletries were all the possessions she had in the world, now. The reality of her situation descended on her with crushing weight.

“Carl,” she sobbed quietly. “Damn it, Carl, where are you?”

Carl was her favourite. Five years older than Sylvie, he was a gentle and loving big brother who told her stories and cuddled her affectionately. Her other brother Scotty, two years older and the one you would think she ought to be closer to, was horrible to her. Scotty teased mercilessly, pinched, punched and hurt her whenever he could. Carl had protected her from Scotty but after Carl was gone, Scotty’s behavior became intolerable. He had an out of control nasty streak and her parents refused to see it, or to care, Sylvie thought bitterly. She couldn’t stand to be home anymore without Carl. She wavered between hating him for abandoning her and wanting him more than anything in the world.

She had to find him. His departure had opened a hole below the waterline of her formerly loving family, and though the others pretended everything was okay, she saw that they were slowly sinking. Of course, they didn’t really act like things were okay, they just acted. Pretended. Nothing and nobody was real anymore. Dad’s smile was forced and hollow-hearty, while Mom just looked broken. As for Scotty, he was just evil, possessed by a demon maybe. Sometimes lying in bed at night she was convinced that she had fallen into a horror movie and the awful climax was approaching.

It all started when Carl left, two years ago when Sylvie was thirteen. Nobody would tell her why, or talk about it at all, which infuriated her no end. She had slept through the noise, and only heard about it from Scotty the next morning. She would never forgive herself for that. She should have been awake. She should have listened. She should have known.

“Boy, you missed some fun last night,” Scotty had laughed. “Slept like a rock, hey, rockhead?”

“What are you talking about?” Sylvie snapped. She was never at her best in the mornings, and something about this one made her feel on edge.

“Your precious big baby of a brother is gone, and good fucking riddance, too. Dad turfed him out on his pansy ass.”

“What? Carl? Scotty, don’t be a creep, please? Tell me what happened!”

“If you missed the fight, then you missed it. But he’s gone and he’s not coming back. You’re mine now, kid sister! No more knight in shining armour to protect you from my evil attacks! Mwah-hah-hah!” He laughed, pretending to be teasing but the nasty tone in his voice gave her the horrors.

“Mom, where’s Carl?” she had asked first chance she had. Her mother averted her eyes. Right away she knew something was deeply wrong. That was when the ground fell out from under her life. She hadn’t really believed Scotty. He would say anything to hurt her. But this was real.

“Carl has gone to Vancouver, and your father is very disappointed in him,” her mother said, too carefully.

“What? The city? Carl hates the city! Why would he go there?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Sylvie. Eat your cereal like a good girl.”

“Mom! Why didn’t he say goodbye to me? Why would he do that?” She was very close to tears.

“Sylvie, please, eat your breakfast. You’ll be late for school.”

Her mother didn’t look at her once. And her father was worse. When she ran crying to him, sobbing for her brother, he slapped her hard across the face, shocking her utterly.

“Daddy! Nooo!!” She ran to her room and locked herself in for the day. She refused to go to school or to come out for dinner, and the following morning nothing was said. After the slap, there was no way she could ask her father about Carl, while her mother simply ignored her questions with tightened lips, no matter how hard she begged for information.

Scotty acted like he knew everything and was choosing not to tell her out of meanness, but she suspected he didn’t really know much more than she did. That would be just like him. It was a way of holding power over her but she didn’t buy it. She withdrew from her family, turning to her friends for support and information.

Carl’s former friends wouldn’t talk to her either. They acted like he hadn’t existed. It was the weirdest thing. Her first real clue was from her best friend Tracy.

“Syl, I think I know what it was,” Tracy said hesitantly, with the reluctant air of one sharing truly dreadful news. “I heard my cousin talking with his friends. It’s… they say Carl is gay, and that’s why your Dad threw him out.”

“That’s crazy!” she said automatically, but she didn’t really know if it was. What was gay, anyhow? It was just a word, a nasty thing to call boys who nobody liked. It rang true, somehow, but it didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t mean anything real.

Scotty, of course, soon picked up on this bit of news and lost no time in calling Carl a faggot, a pansy, every nasty word he could come up with that stood for homosexual. He hinted that Carl did horrible things to little boys. But Sylvie didn’t care. Carl was Carl. He was her brother, he was good, and she needed him. All the heart and life had vanished with him.

Then, two nights ago, something snapped at that party. Suddenly it seemed clear and obvious what she must do. Carl would have called it an epiphany. She recognized with absolute certainty that life with her family was more death than life. She had to leave, and it had to be right then, that minute, with no time taken to plan or prepare. She told Tracy where she was going, and Tracy tried to talk her out of it. Of course she would; it was her duty as her best friend. But Sylvie had gone, propelled by a force beyond her capacity to resist, and Tracy had then covered for her. That was also her duty as best friend.

And now she was here.

Beyond Hope 3 

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