image [https://i.imgur.com/FIZCCSM.png]

What truly prodded him awake was a sharp stick stabbing him in the side. It belonged to Jack, another of the town's back alley kids. Jack had a wicked grin on his face despite being wholly smudged with dirt beneath his matted hair. He was older than Picaro, and bigger. Another, smaller boy named Russell stood beside Jack, also grinning. Jack and Russell hated Picaro, and Picaro never knew why. But he felt the same toward them.

"What you doing sleeping up there?” Jack prodded him again. “Oi. You awake? You ugly seagull, gonna fly away now? Come on down so I can hit you.”

Picaro turned and scowled at him. "Ew, you stink. Why don't you go jump in the ocean and clean yourself up."

Jack thwacked him hard on the arm with the stick. It stung him deeply. "If you don’t come down, I’m going to push you in.” Jack narrowed his eyes and jumped, trying to scale the pole. He might have been taller than Picaro, but he was a flat footed lug. He barely reached the top of the piling, the cylindrical pole that supported the docks.

Picaro hit him in the arm, and then on the top of his head and laughed at him. "You'll never be able to get up here, you fat slug."

Jack's face reddened and he jumped again, this time to strike Picaro with the flexible, long stick in his hand. Picaro took his hands off the piling and leaned back to avoid the whipping stick. For a moment, he lost his balance. His foot slipped. He wasn't quick enough to recenter himself before Russell jumped up, grabbed hold of his ankle and pulled.

Picaro's left leg slid out from under him. He was only barely able to catch himself on the slick side of the piling. He was half off now, and Jack cackled savagely as he cracked the whipping stick across his legs and back, leaving long red marks that would soon turn to thin welts from the ferocity behind Jack's hateful blows. Picaro cried out, but the other boys only laughed.

Picaro kicked wildly behind him, catching one of them in the chest. He heard a gasp and took comfort in it. He tried to scramble back on top of the piling, but when he kicked his leg out again, he felt one of them grab hold. Then the other one helped yank him down. He felt his hands slipping, and he was falling. His feet hit the deck hard and his ankle rolled.

Then he was being kicked and beaten with the stick repeatedly in the side, shoulder, and head. Picaro held back a whimper as tears welled in his eyes. He tried to roll away from them to shield himself, but he forgot he was so close to the lip of the dock.

He rolled off onto the rocky beach blow. The second sensation of falling took his breath away, and he put his hands out before himself. For all the stroke of luck or fate, they struck the wet sand. His left knee, however, clipped one of the rocks and a shock of pain jolted up his leg. He felt the warm throbbing sensation of blood from a fresh scrape. But he was willing to bear the momentary pain, for the blunder had saved him from a more savage beating.

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Jack and Russell peaked over the lip of the dock. Picaro's heart skipped a beat. For a second he thought they were going to come down after him. "That's where you belong," said Jack, and they both laughed as they walked away, re-enacting the scene, laughing ever harder.

Picaro waited for them to leave, and then scaled the rocks that lined the beach until he was level with the dock. He trudged, sulking, back along the edge of town. He caught some glances from the fisherman along the beach. He thought he could see some pity in their eyes. But they turned back to their morning catch before he was gone.

Up ahead, Oyster was just getting into his boat. “Ah, Picaro. It’s been a while. Want to work today?”

“I don’t wanna work today,” said Picaro and he limped onward.

Then Oyster spied his bloody knee. “What happened to you? Get into a fight?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” Picaro lied.

“Well, ye win some, ye lose some. But look here. I got a late start, and I could use some help today. I can give ye something for that leg. We’ll clean it, and there’s some bandages onboard. What do ye say, let’s bring in a haul today.”

Picaro shook his head. “I said I don’t wanna work.”

Oyster sighed. “Alright then, well I’m here in case you change your mind.” He loosed the boat from the shore and pushed off.

It wasn’t the first time Jack and Russell had caught Picaro unawares somewhere, and it wouldn’t be the last, either. It was just another installment of the war between them. Sometimes Picaro got them back, and he always got them good, too. He preferred to humiliate rather than hurt, especially since there were two of them. One time, he stuck dog shit in Jack’s pants before he sat down and it smeared all over his backside and legs. Another time, Picaro slapped Russell so hard in the back of the head that he nearly gave him whiplash, and then ran off before before they could get him. Still, the war waged on and Picaro was not sure he could actually win, if but merely survive.

These, most of all, were the times he wished he could run home, wherever that was. He wished so desperately there was just one place in town they could never get him. He thought that might be Oyster and his boat, but he didn’t want to bring the old man into it. So he stopped working with the Oyster as much. It meant Picaro would have to avoid the docks and keep a watchful eye about him. Some days, he thought could see Oyster out there on the bay feeding out a line or hauling in a catch. Then his stomach would begin to rumble, and he couldn’t help but go back down to the docks the next day at dawn.

Life went on like this for quite some time. Picaro worked with Oyster on the days his belly truly rumbled and his spare pickings wouldn’t suffice, when the taste of bread was not enough for him, and he needed something more sufficient. In town, he was either actively avoiding Jack & Russell, or scheming up a plot to get them good. And there were times he would somehow get into some sort of other random mischief as was his want. For if Picaro was anything, he was a curious boy.

His most peaceful days, however, were the ones he spent alone, exploring the reaches of the beaches that kissed the waters of the bay. Picaro realized that he loved the sea. He bathed in it, the same as he told Jack to do. Was good advice, he thought. He ate his best meals from it. He often sat on a remote rock and just watched the tide roll in and the birds gull incessantly. There was a rhythm to it, a magic. It felt more like home to him than the town. It was the place he could run to and sit by, where no one would get him. He didn’t need a friend when he had the sea.