Finding Hope Read online

  Hope noticed three men who seemed to be enjoying the music. They stood and listened for a while before walking away. The interesting thing was they always came back for more. They didn’t appear to know each other and stood alone around the women. One had a new leather jacket and a tight fitting black hat – the kind you’d see shore men wear. He looked like he was in his early thirties with dark olive skin. The oldest of the three men was wearing a tweed jacket and scarf. Hope would have sworn he was a professor if it wasn’t for the fact he needed a haircut and shave. He seemed to be well known. People would stop and talk with him for a while before walking away. The last man was portly, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals jacket and baseball cap. He had fair skin speckled with acne scars. She watched them repeatedly stay and listen, only to leave and return a short time later.

  As Hope watched the men, the young guitar player started her next song. She came to the bridge and once again fouled that one chord.

  “Hey Bahina, that A# dominant 7th is a tricky one. What you want to do is leave that third string open and catch it with your bar on the 1st fret,” Hope said meekly. “Make sure you have your ring finger on the 4th string only.”

  Bahina looked at Hope, surprised by the advice. She took guidance and the chord rang true. “Like that?” Bahina asked smiling at the result. Hope nodded her head as she sat back to listen to the next song.

  “Hey… critic, what’s your name?” Meera asked in a sarcastic but friendly tone. “Do you play?”

  Hope shied away unsure of anything anymore. “Yeah, I used to, I guess,” she replied hiding her pain. “Oh, and my name is Hope.”

  “Well… let’s hear what you can do,” Meera said taking the guitar from Bahina and offering it to Hope.

  Although Hope didn’t want to play, something in her made her put her bag down and grab the cheap instrument. Hope held the guitar carefully, directed her ear to its wooden body, and quickly tuned the instrument. She started strumming a simple progression that perfectly rolled out of the worn guitar. As she continued to play, Meera created lyrics that matched perfectly. Her voice harmonized exactly with each chord change. It was like they had played together for most of their life.

  “That sounds fantastic!” Bahina exclaimed while the two women continued to invent on the spot.

  After thirty minutes of playing, Hope lifted the guitar strap from around her neck. “Here ya go. You don’t even know how much I needed that, thank you,” Hope said handing the guitar back to its owner.

  “Wow! That was something else. How long have you been playing Hope?” Meera asked her new friend.

  “All my life… my dad and I used… to… wait! Where’s my bag?” Hope asked seeing her bag was gone. “Did you guys see who took my stuff?” Hope began to franticly look all around where she was sitting. “Everything I owned was in there. My money, my sewing kit and the pictures of my boys. They’re all gone! GREAT, now what am I going to do?” Hope said as tears formed in her eyes. “Someone stole my stuff.” Hope stood up and looked at the surrounding people, searching for any sign of her bag. “I just got off the train. Now what?” she said out loud.

  As Hope searched for her bag, Meera and Bahina whispered back and forth, looking at Hope. Meera walked over to Hope and put her hand on her shoulder saying, “Do you know anyone in St. Louis? We can help you find them.”

  “No, not a soul. This is the last thing I need. My whole life is falling apart,” Hope cried out to the kind strangers. “Now I have nowhere to go.”

  “You can stay with us for a couple days if you need. I’m sure we can make good money playing like we just did,” Bahina offered trying to console the frantic Hope. “We come here every day.”

  Hope looked at the two women who sincerely wanted to help. “I can’t. . .” Hope said. “Would you guys do that for me? I have nothing.”

  “Well we can’t leave you here,” Meera said dryly. “We actually live pretty close. First thing in the morning we can come down and see if somebody turned the bag into the lost and found.”

  Hope agreed not because she trusted the women, though she did, but because she had no other option. Hope was alone with nowhere to go.

  Walking out of the station, Hope noticed a diner on the corner with a big neon sign hanging in the window. She was hungry, but with no money, she had to walk by. Turning the corner, Hope noticed five bicycles neatly lined up. They were connected together with a heavy steel chained carefully locked to a street light.

  “Well, this is us,” Meera said grabbing one of the rusty but well maintained bikes.

  Buhina turned the tiny key in the heavy lock and said, “Jump on… let’s go!” She pulled her bike close to Hope and gestured for her to sit along the handle bars as if they were children.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Hope noticed a few men strolling their way and talking loudly. It was the three men who had been watching the women play in the train station. Hope froze with fear wondering what it all meant.

  “Hope, this is Jacob. He’s mine,” Bahina said smiling and giving the man in the leather jacket a loving kiss.

  “And this is William and David. They’re friends of ours,” Meera added as she greeted the men warmly. “This is Hope. She just arrived from out west. She’s the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. No offense Sis.”

  The men all greeted Hope making her feel welcome and safe. “I believe this is yours,” David said as he pulled Hope’s bag from inside his oversized baseball jacket. “Sorry ‘bout that. I didn’t know you were with the girls.”

  Hope’s eyes lit up with joy. She had found her bag and all the possessions she thought were gone forever. One by one, the members of the musical crew jumped onto their bikes and rode down the street as Hope held on to the bars for dear life.

  As they moved silently among the streets of St. Louis, Hope watched the city sprawl out before her. Most of the buildings appeared to be maintained, but the further they rode from the train station, the worse the city became. By the time they reached the Interstate, Hope was happy there were men in her group riding alongside them. People who wandered about the street looked to be up to no good, and the buildings were burned and gutted, full of graffiti. The mighty city was crumbling before her eyes. They followed Interstate 65 across the river and then headed north along the abandoned rails.

  When they reached their destination, Hope was numb from the waist down. She slid off the handle bars and read the official sign in front of her – Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park. David, the heavy set man in his early forties, continued to ride across the grass as the others joined Hope on foot.

  “Some call it a shit-hole… but we just call it home,” David said making the entire group snicker.

  They walked their bicycles the remaining three hundred yards to the center of this once green and lush park. In the distance Hope saw several RVs in the moonlight. They appeared to be arranged in a circle like an old wagon train. From within the center circle, flickers of orange and yellow danced among the shadows.

  Reaching the make-shift compound, Jacob raised his voice saying, “Honey, I’m home.”

  With a clank and clunk the improvised steel door that guarded the narrow gap between two of the RVs slid open. Hope was the last one to enter the inner circle as she saw barbed wire and welded steel protecting the exterior perimeter.

  “Well, you in or you out?” the older woman asked Hope.

  Hope walked into the compound and softly said, “I’m in.”

  There were six trailers in total carefully positioned end to end forming a hexagon. Each corner was heavily fortified with steel and razor wire leaving them impenetrable. The exterior windows were all welded shut with heavy gauge steel, and the top of each trailer had razor-wire making them impossible to scale.

  The construction reminded Hope of some Hollywood apocalyptic movie. She thought to herself how fitting it all was. Inside the compound was quite different than the harsh and angry exterior. A large fire pit sat in the center with several chairs and log
benches circling it. Off to one side of the courtyard, there must have been fifty small homemade cages housing a community of rabbits. If Hope hadn’t seen the animals for herself, she would’ve never guessed they were there. The cages were clean and well maintained with zero odors normally associated with raising animals. At the other end of the courtyard stood several rain catches and a vertical garden, its plants dead and brown from the October chill.

  “Are you hungry Hope?” Meera asked holding out a couple thin strips of jerky. “This is what we have tonight, but tomorrow we’ll be making griddle cakes.”

  Hope devoured the rabbit jerky which tasted like chicken peppered with exotic spices she’d never tasted before.

  “Yes… Ahh yes. How rude of me. Hope, this is Sara. She’s kind of our mom around here. Her husband Anthony is inside trying to get over the flu,” Meera said pointing at the camper on the far end. “He’s had a rough time the last couple weeks. He was up and around yesterday so we think he’s finally getting over it.”

  Hope sat down on one of the log benches to warm her cold hands. Sara came and sat down beside her. “So Hope, where you from?” the older women asked in a timid quiet tone. “What brings you to St. Louis?”

  “Well, I spent the last couple years in New Providence, but I’m originally from the East Coast,” Hope replied.

  “New Providence. I heard things are back to normal there. Everyone’s heard about KLXB New Providence,” Sara said in a theatrical low voice. Hope smiled and nodded, deciding not to share the details of her time there.

  “Yeah, life is good in New Providence,” Hope said trying to hide her shame.

  “So why did you leave and come here of all places?” Sara asked innocently.

  “Well, I just needed a change. Looking for work too. I was also toying with the idea of heading back home to Ocean City someday,” Hope replied.

  “So what kind of work do you do? Jobs can be hard to come by unless you’re a grave digger or a politician – both excellent vocations when times get bad by the way,” Sara said laughing quietly.

  “I mend things I guess. I’m a seamstress of sorts,” Hope replied not wanting to give too much information.

  As Hope talked to Sara, she noticed Buhina and Meera had huddled together at the other end of the courtyard. They sat side by side with William and David. Hope then saw Jacob separate himself from the others and sit alone by the fire sharpening his pocket knife. Over by her new friends, Hope watched thin wisps of gray smoke cling to their circle. She watched as David, William, and the girls carefully passed something back and forth in the cold dark night. Then it all became clear. Hope recognized the reason for their huddle. Their actions, the faint scent of sweet plastic drifting in the night air, and the strange familiarity of the situation took her back instantly to darker times – methamphetamine.

  When Hope was a young girl in her late teens, she never quite fit in. While most girls her age spent time at malls and thinking about guys, she struggled at home. The death of her father when she was thirteen, left a chasm in her life that was never fully repaired. She’d isolate herself and would bang on her father’s guitar oblivious to the world around her. Her mother did her best, but she too was destroyed by the loss of her husband. Both she and her mom went through the motions drifting further and further apart. As Hope fell through the cracks, her mother moved on finding a new boyfriend and spending much of her time away from home. At a time when Hope needed guidance in her life, all she had were her friends. She started staying out late and experimenting with drugs. Then when her grades suffered, no one was there to give her direction. She floated around her wonderful hometown, locked in a cycle of drinking and disconnecting.

  One summer day, Hope’s mom announced they were going to move across town. The house had become too expensive, and her mom saw this as an opportunity to move in with her new boyfriend, Carl. Life drifted along without much change since Hope spent most of her time with her friends anyway. Carl was a kind man, completely in love with Hope’s mother. The problem with the arrangement was that Hope needed a mom and not a “Carl”. She spent more and more time with her friends and started dabbling in harder drugs. She was just sixteen years old, barely a woman, when she first tried methamphetamine.

  From that moment on, her family no longer mattered as she stole from them, lied to them, and blamed them for her life. She became more despondent, spending every waking moment with her tight, dependent group of friends. Then, when Hope dropped out of high school when only a sophomore, she was completely surprised that nobody cared. She faded away as if she never existed – just a picture in the yearbook that nobody knew. She took a job at a craft store and disappeared from the community. Once she left it all behind her, she was warmly welcomed into the community of the night. During this time in her life, she had never felt so accepted and loved.

  These strung out strangers gave her something she hadn’t felt in years, understanding. She was one of them, and they loved her just the way she was. This was also the time when she honed her craft and became amazing with the tread and needle. There was always plenty to mend, and she had hours to kill. When Hope was high on speed, she’d spend hours upon hours obsessed with the perfection of her stitching. Much of her young life consisted of meth, music, and thread.

  There were short periods of time when things would brighten for Hope. When she was eighteen, she became pregnant. Barely an adult herself, she relied heavily on her mother. The strained relationship became even more difficult with the addition of new responsibility. She loved her baby so much in fact, that she mended the relationship with her mother. Sober and in control, she was able to push her reckless lifestyle aside to be everything her child needed. Her endeavors were commendable and lasted for almost five years. Never the less, her life as a young mother ended in bitterness and relapse. The county social services stepped in, and Hope lost her boy sliding back into her life of addiction and despair. Blaming her mother, Hope severed all ties and returned to what filled her void, methamphetamine.

  Hope settled right in among the RVs, doing what she always did – mending the tattered. Although she had spent all the silver she had brought, she could still make a living sewing. She quickly repaired the clothing of those in her new community. Within two weeks she became a trusted member of the crew. She also shared in the work around the compound, feeding the animals and gathering goods for barter. This is where her value became evident. She offered her sewing abilities to travelers around St. Louis in trade for valuable items. She’d acquired two new bicycles and several propane fuel tanks for her new friends. She even spent time with Anthony, Sara’s husband, who still struggled with illness, but continued to get stronger every day. Her life found a sense of strange normalcy living as an outcast in the decaying city.

  Hope stayed focused on her duties avoiding the familiar demons that once haunted her in the past. She’d become very close with Jacob as he didn’t use the foul drug. When the others indulged in their synthetic god, Jacob and Hope would sit together apart from the group.

  “Does it bother you that your wife uses? Don’t get me wrong, I love Buhina, but I notice that you never smoke, why is that?” Hope asked cautiously.

  Jacob’s eyes filled with emotion as he replied, “Well everyone has their thing. You love music, Meera loves singing, I love Buhina, and she loves meth. I know she loves me too, but meth gives her something I can’t. Now-a-days we all are just trying to survive, you know?”

  Feeling embarrassed by her question, Hope pushed a little deeper. “Of course she loves you. I’m just wondering if you’ve ever tried it.”

  “Years ago I did a couple times, but never liked the rush. It made me feel out of control, and that’s the last thing I need right now,” Jacob replied. “I just don’t want to serve anyone or anything. It’s all about finding freedom of the individual self. I see how Buhina struggles when it’s not around, and I don’t need that in my life.”

  Hope sat quietly letting Jacobs words sink in. �
��But isn’t it important to have self-confidence? That starts with seeing yourself as an individual,” Hope responded.

  Jacob sat back and continued to explain. “I hear what you’re saying, but what’s missing is the fact that everything is connected. It’s not about individuality, but instead about knowing we’re all connected. Since there’s only the spirit, and we’re all part of the spirit, we’re all divine. Until we figure that out, we all just continue in the same old patterns, forever.”

  Hope and Jacob were suddenly interrupted by the others now finished with their ritual of addiction.

  “We need to do something, something fun. All we ever do is work,” Meera said clearly high.

  “Yeah, let’s go burn something. All this shit around here. Nobody would even care,” David insisted trying to hide his ticks and random spastic movements.

  “Burn something. That’s all you ever come up with. Let’s do something that will be remembered. Something epic! Something that’s never been done before. Let’s float down the river to the ocean bare ass naked. Something crazy to show ‘em America’s still got it.” William said with sweat dripping off his face.

  “Fuck that. I remember seeing this nature show one time that tracked sharks all the way up into Indiana. I think it was a Bull Shark. Now a Bull Shark, a Bull Shark would tear you up. They grow big, like thirty feet long and shit,” David replied trying to appear educated. “Anyway, I can’t swim, so definitely no water for me.”

  Feeling inspired by the sky full of clouds silhouetted black with silver edges in the November moon, Hope grabbed Buhina’s guitar which was resting close by. She began to quietly strum while conversation pushed on.