“Betty’s a lost cause,” Lucinda muttered as she applied decorative to Fiona’s freshly done acrylics. “As if that woman hasn’t stuck her tongue in another man’s throat! The day she’s faithful will be the day I join a nunnery.”

Other things were said. Apparently a Mr Hatchet borrowed money from a Mr Gregory and never repaid him, so Mr Gregory, in a fit of rage, kicked down Mr Hatchet’s two thousand dollar custom made mailbox from Peru.

“As if I’d get a mailbox that cost that much!” Fiona roared in laughter.

Then a Gina Harding was pregnant again with baby number four to baby daddy number three but was still sleeping with baby daddy number two.

“What a cum bucket!” Fiona said. I idly wondered what that was.

Then a Jimmy Dunlop was sent back to prison for attempting to rob the convenience store on Albany road and accidentally locked himself inside.

“Double crossed the Black-backed Jackal bikie gang, that idiot. They caught it on the surveillance camera too. Dumbass crawled under the security window someone accidentally left unlocked and closed it up once he got in! He had to wait on the ground beside the register until morning. Hahahaha…”

They weren’t mindful of my presence and many graphic stories followed. I learned about the birds and the bees prematurely in Lucinda’s make shift beauty room. With an orange woman. I went to sleep that night with strange images in my mind, wondering how on earth that could fit in there…

Lucinda gave me reason, Jaxon gave me friendship, and my life became even more extraordinary when my father left the house in a fit of rage one night and didn’t come back. I was twelve, and his departure was the best thing that ever happened to me. Mom, on the other hand, begged to differ. She was in ruins; like a sunken vessel at the bottom of the ocean, she laid in her bed for days, soaking the pillows with drool and tears. Then she went back to alcohol and drank herself to sleep.

At twelve, things were a bit different between Jaxon and me. He had begun high school and I was still in the seventh grade. Though we hung out with his friends often, he was preoccupied with girls and other…not so good activities.

I’d like to think it was boredom that turned him to crime, but justifying his level of stupidity was stupid in itself. He liked the adrenaline and the risk and participated in many illegal doings around town; from stealing a purse on the bus one day, to breaking into a house on the same street as us another day, he was always gloating about having a pocket full of cash. He’d sworn me to secrecy, and I agreed to be loyal to my word, though I knew what he did was downright wrong and my chest felt tight when I thought about it.

“But it’s wrong,” I’d tell him repeatedly. It was the same old conversation. “If you get caught, you’ll be in serious trouble!”

“I’m not going to get caught,” he retorted. “I’ve never been caught yet! Besides, I don’t steal from anybody too bad like the bikies.”

“Well, when you do get caught, I’m going to laugh at you and tell you how much I told you so!”

“Good, I hope you do.” I hated that he was so nonchalant about it, like he didn’t care at all about getting caught.

“You’re so stupid!” and that was usually the last words I’d say before the matter was dropped.

He didn’t get caught, and after a few years of getting better and better at what he was doing, I stopped that conversation with him altogether. He had gotten so good at thieving, he even invested in high quality lock picks he bought from a shady man I suspected worked for the bikies and carried them wherever he went.

It was interesting watching him grow up. I’d always been a watcher of everything around me. Quiet and timid as I was, I still saw things others didn’t, and it became my personal enjoyment logging frivolous information away and later reflecting on them.

Jaxon was a confident kid with a good sense of humour. He was handsome, bigger than boys his age, and he drove the girls wild. He was like his mother when it came to relationships. In and out, the glow of the start of a relationship ended faster than a speeding bullet hitting its target.

Lucinda had many men in her life, and Jaxon hated every one of them. For a kid who I learned never knew his father, he carried that chip on his shoulder and aimed his anger at almost every older man he came across.

“I’m never going to work in some stupid job for ten hours a day and earn pennies when I can just find enough money for a week in one day somewhere on this street, Sara.” He motioned to the street we were on that was bustling with shoppers.

“You know you’re going to be old too one day,” I said to him once, catching his glare at a man in a suit that we walked past.

“So what?” he rebutted.

“So you can’t be staring daggers at every older guy. You’re going to be seeing them everywhere, and you’ll be working for one too.”

He laughed loudly at this. “I’m not working for anyone. I work for myself.”

“You mean you steal for yourself.”

I was never afraid of telling Jaxon my thoughts. He was the only person I was ever entirely open to, and it was pretty much because of the level of comfort we shared with each other. It helped I was his closest friend and he was mine too. I knew him well enough to know there was no talking sense into him, so I just shrugged and let it go.

Though we saw each other every single day, we probably hung out about three nights of the week. Other nights he was out and about and stressing Lucinda over the edge. I was with her almost every day after school. Sometimes I’d spend the night there on the couch to comfort her until Jaxon came through the door. I told her time and time again that the town was only small and there was nowhere he could really go that was dangerous. I knew I was telling her a lie, but it comforted her.

And troubled me.

Some nights I wondered if a police officer would show up at the door and let us know that Jaxon had been arrested for breaking and entering. For a reason I tried to suppress, that made me feel like my world would collapse.

I’ll never forget one night in particular. It was quarter to eleven and Lucinda had long passed out on the couch. My fourteen year old self waited outside in the dark streets for any sight of Jaxon.

The projects were dead quiet on this particular Wednesday night. I walked down the sidewalk until I made it to the small kid’s park at the end of the street. It was run-down; the slides had lost its shine, and the paint all around the monkey bars and jungle gym had long chipped and rusted from disregard.