Their love was strong but short lived. I mean I guess with their self-sacrificial nature it was only natural. They passed away from a disease I never got to learn the name of when I was 15 with not a single penny to my name. Their memory however would forever live on.
Survival was hard, especially in a neighborhood where every man was out for himself. No one truly wanted to help you, just use you. I’d find small ways to earn from working part time in construction sites, to serving as a drug runner, and everything else in between. The labor itself was hard, but dealing with adults who constantly wanted to swindle you of the majority of your cut, or just kill you outright and take the whole thing made it worse.
It was a lifetime’s worth of luck and a half that I survived that shithole. That and the sheer will to survive and find someone like my family. Someone who would have my back like my parents did during those years of my childhood.
I promised myself back then on my parent's grave that if given the opportunity to have that sort of person in my life again, I’d never turn back. I’d protect them with my life, fight the world for them, and become a monster if need be.
“Keep moving, keep struggling, keep surviving and you’ll eventually meet them.”
That's the line I recited like a madman, again and again and again.
Eventually, I scrounged enough funds and skills to start up a small automobile repair shop and brought myself out of the slums. It was really hard at first but I used everything at my disposal to ensure its success. From sleepless nights of constant reading and practice about not only the mechanics of vehicles but on the economics of business, to using more unscrupulous means to lower the reputation of my competitors.
Before I knew it, I was 65 years old and my small auto shop had become a household name.
Through it all though, I never achieved what I truly wanted in life. Surviving and succeeding was a means to an end, a means to achieve my main goal. What use is a life after all if it's lived in cold solitude?
It's not like I never gave people a chance, in fact I suffered an uncountable number of losses because of it, but I never did find that person I so desperately wished to find. It was a cruel loop of Ietting someone into my life, giving them my trust as I so desperately wished them to be deserving of it, and then them jumping ship when better things were in sight.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I still remember them all so vividly in my mind.
Jackson, I took a beating in his place and shared my rations with him during my years in the slums, only for him to cut all contact with him the moment some high ranking member of the mafia took interest in his skills.
Amelia, I took her in from the slums during a pretty significant growth period of my business. Gave her a position as manager of one of my branches only for her to sell out some dirty laundry I had to a rival.
Olivia, Sophia, Noah, James, Alex, Liam, Daniel, Sophia, Charlie, Evan, Clark and so many others throughout those long long years
Eventually I got sick of it and gave up. I got sick of it all. I sold the business to the highest bidder. Walked into the first nursing home I saw, and paid all the money I got from the sale to the front desk.
Looking back, I had a decent amount of life to live left back then. These 15 years spent just brooding, maybe I could’ve spent them struggling a bit more.
Shit I’m pretty pathetic aren’t I. So many in my position would have dreamed of getting dealt the hand I got dealt later in life, yet I wasted it. Well I guess there’s little I can do at this point. I can feel it, I don’t have much time left. Probably a day, or maybe a week at most.
—--
—--
“I’m done cleaning now Mr. Perez, Mark will probably replace me for your usual cleaning next week”
The girl’s voice snapped me out of my little daydream.
“Well I’ll be off now Mr. Perez”
I couldn’t do anything now that it's too late but not so much for that young lady. Maybe it was this regret that drove me to speak, for the first time in a long time.
“Hey kid, don’t be like me, don’t give up just yet”
Just those few words caused my vocal cords to hurt like hell, but it lightened up my chest if only a little bit.
Honestly I wasn’t expecting much. I mean why take advice from a creepy decrepit old man who you met for the first time?
Still I wanted to tell her the things I desperately wanted to tell my past self. Even if there's no one to support you, no one to cheer you on, struggle, struggle till the pathetic end until you maybe get lucky and achieve your goals. That's what us humans do best after all.
"Huh? What do you mean sir?"
"I think you know."
"Uhm, well thanks sir, I'll keep that in mind"
With that, the young girl left me back to my thoughts. I sincerely hope she lives a life with no regrets.
—--
—--
Now all that reminscing left me a bit sleepy, but a quick nap will probably fix me right up.
Seriously though, I know I said I could have struggled a bit more but damn it all to hell. Was it all really too much to ask? Just one person who would care, who I could trust my back with.
It seems that whatever powers that be deemed that too much.
Damn it, just what were all these 85 years of life for?