Hello, Mom. I Need Help

^{He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster, when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
-Nietzsche}

"Hello, Mom. I'm calling because I need some help getting home."

Roseline had known that her son needed help since the sharp knife of untimely death severed the life of his older brother and deprived them both of their source of pride and happiness. She had stretched out her hand to help her only surviving son, but he would not take it. Instead, he withdrew himself from everything he loved: soccer, video games, friends and food.

He scarcely touched his food in the weeks leading to that day. So in spite of the fear that she felt in her stomach, she was happy that her son had finally extended his hand for her to help him and she was willing to do whatever it took to get him back to his happy, jovial self. The edge in his voice told her she had reasons to worry.

"Mikky, where are you?" Roseline asked.

"Mom, I am... wait, I am.. sorry I do not know where I am. I think I am.." the phone suddenly went dead.

^{Photo Credits: Pixabay}

Roseline was in full panic mode now. She frantically re-dialled the number.

"You've reached the voicemail of Mikky, at the tone you know what to do."

Repeated calls returned the same response.

Did his battery die? What did he mean that he needed help?
Where could he be that he wouldn't know where he was? The questions rapidly came. It scattered through her mind and made it impossible for her to concentrate on a single idea for very long. The recurring thought was that she could not lose her second child that way. She must find him.

Michael and Ralph were two brothers that were best friends. Wherever you saw Michael, you could bet your money that Ralph was around the corner and you would win that bet every time. Michael was a bit socially awkward even though he was brilliant. So he relied on his older brother to navigate the social circles, and Ralph just happened to fit the bill perfectly because he was street smart and a hopeless extrovert.

The police investigated the events that led to Ralph's death, which was ruled as a suicide, and the case was closed. But Michael knew his brother better than anyone, and there was no way his brother would take his own life. But the world did not care.

They were over him and had moved on to other things.

But Michael did not move on; he couldn't. Not until he found out what had happened to his brother. But he was only twelve years old. When he heard that his brother had overdosed on some illegal drugs, he knew that Sammy and his gang of corner boys must be involved somehow even though he could just not put his finger on it.

---

Roseline waited, hoping that Michael would walk through the door. Six hours later it was 7 PM and still no sign of Michael. She dialled his number over and over against while she silently uttered a prayer that he would pick up but each time got transferred to his voicemail. Then she remembered Maggie, her only sister, that lived three hours away. She hoped against reason that Michael had run away from home and gone to her sister's.

"Hello Maggie, how are the kids? Have you seen Mikky today?"

"No, did he say he was coming over?"

"You know Mike; he hasn't been saying much after Ralph's.." Her voice trailed off as she couldn't bring herself to admit that her son was dead. It was like a bad nightmare that had refused to stop long after she woke.

"Rosy, I know. Maybe he is at his friend's house. You know teenagers, they always have a mind of their own."

"I hope so; it could be nothing. You know I'm not usually worried about these things. But Mikky called and said he needed help to come home. It's now seven hours, and he's not yet home. I just can't reach him on the phone. Maybe I'm making too much of a big deal over nothing."

Then there was a loud knock on her door.

"Gotta go, someone's at the door. It could be him."

"Bye Rosy." She ended the call and hurried downstairs.

The knock sounded again.

"Who is it?"

A masculine voice replied, "Hello Mrs Price, it's your neighbour, Joseph."

She immediately recognised the voice and opened the door.

He held Tag on a short leash.

"I saw your dog some four blocks away and decided it must have strayed on its own, so I thought I'd return her."

"Thank you, Joe; you're too kind. She went out with Michael this morning. You haven't seen him by any chance?"

"No, Mrs Price. Sorry," he replied as he searched her face to figure out what was the matter. Then, as soon as Joseph let go of the dog, it ran straight into the house.

The return of the dog made her premonition stronger. She notified the police. They assured her that it was too early to be worried, and she expected they would tell her to wait 24 hours or 48 hours before they filed a missing person's report but they filed it immediately. Michael's pictures were sent to all stations and police patrol units. She kept hoping to run into him on the road.
Four days passed and there was no word from Michael.

---

Michael left home early on the day his mother declared him missing. He remembered what his brother had told him about delivering a package to Sammy's boss at the Upper East Side. He went over to the street corner where he and Ralph usually saw Sammy, but he was not there. In his place was another boy who was only slightly older than Michael.

^{Photo Credits: Pixabay}

"Please, I am looking for Sammy. Do you know where I can find him?

The boy looked Michael over, and disgust was written all over his face. "Get out of here before you get hurt," the boy said and lost all interest in Michael. But Michael was not discouraged. He walked a couple of blocks and stopped at another street corner where he made similar enquiries. It did not take long for news to get out that someone was looking for Sammy.

Michael stood at the street corner when someone put a bag over his head and hustled him into an alley.

"What do you want with Sammy? Who sent you?" one of the voices asked.

"My name is Michael, Ralph's brother and I am looking for a job," he answered evenly. He surprised himself when he realized that he was not scared. The bag was removed from over his head, and he could see his assailants. One of them was Sammy, "The hell do you know 'bout working, little man?"

"I want to take my brother's place," Michael said.

This reply seemed to amuse Sammy because he laughed heartily. "We'll see," he said and walked away. Michael followed him. Later that morning Sammy gave him a couple of tests which he passed and got a job of delivering packages for a start.

"Just one problem. I ran away from home, so I do not have a place to sleep," Michael said.

"I got you."

Throughout that day Michael looked for clues and asked questions about his brother, but he got nowhere close to the truth than he was in the beginning.

That night, Sammy took him to a party to celebrate his promotion as the head of the local gang, and that was when he had his big break. But this break came at a cost. He felt compelled to join the other members of the gang in snorting some unknown drug.

Before the end of the night, Sammy's girlfriend let it slip that Ralph was at the wrong place, at the wrong time and the boss had to get rid of him. Michael was disoriented and his resolve shaken. Suddenly he did not think he could go through with his plans, so he called his mother but did not know what to say. Luckily, his battery went dead, and he did not have to figure out lies to tell his mother.

Michael would often see his pictures posted on trees and poles along the road. He would feel sad for the mom and other times he felt nothing. After eight days of being reported missing, Michael showed up on the front porch of their house as if he never left. All attempts by the mother to pry out the details of what had happened to him during the time he was away proved abortive. He continued keeping to himself, but there was a new light in his eyes: he seemed to have found another reason to live.

In the weeks that followed, the news on every channel was all about how the cartel drug lords of Upper East Side were at war with each other. When the spokesman for the precinct was asked, he responded, "These killings are sad, but they are all drug-related. The justice system could not have cleaned up the street better than these killings."

^{Photo Credits: Pixabay}

Michael shook his head and flipped the channel. Then he brought out his old school notebook and started drawing a map of the distribution network of the Kantos brothers. He would add the delivery timelines to the diagram and post it anonymously to a rival gang and wait for the results in the news. Each death announced made him feel less regret for the things he had to do to gain the information he needed to bring down the whole drug cartel in the city from the comfort of his home. He wished he could tell his mother what he was doing, but he knew she would never understand.

Authored by @greenrun

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