Two stories

He began to notice something was different at an early age. That is the thing about kids, it is tough to keep things out of their reach. They always manage to somehow sense things out. At first he just thought that something awfully bad had happened, and that life would just be so terrible from then on.
That was his earliest memory of what he felt when his mum and dad had a squabble. The squabbles themselves were not due to reasons that were common and prevalent in many households. His father did not drink, and his mum took care of all her duties like any good wife would. The reasons for disagreements were futile, and often not of any consequence at all. But once the disagreement started, Dinu could not stand even the thought of living through the next few hours of the fight, and ofcourse its undeniable aftermath. The voices would go up, and he would run into one of the other rooms. Dinu would always be in hearing range of the disagreement, and he would listen intently. But he’d do that from another room.
Then, like clockwork, abuses would start pouring in. What followed would make him cringe. There would be crashing noises, like an angry sea lashing out and upsetting a small boat with a poor fisherman in it. There would be violence. Some hitting. Some pounding. Invariably, someone would be hitting themselves or hitting the other against the walls. This was the point of climax. He would hear his mum scream, and in her loud voice there would be both fear and pain that would make Dinu want to run away and never ever set foot in that household again.
Of only one thing was he certain. One day, he would.

****
They say that for a kid the streets are extremely unsafe once dusk begins to fall. You had to be a man, and a tough one at that, in order to be able to survive. There were all the classic elements present that would give any neighbourhood a bad name. Drug peddlers, hookers, pimps, people selling guns and various other odds. There were also those haunts, of which some functioned more like secret holes were gangsters and their ilk would meet up, trade stories, share contacts and make lewd jokes. The sole un-chanted mantra of this street was that every kind of need could be taken care of, more so the kinky ones.
Round the corner, where the streetlight was the brightest, there would sometimes be a girl in a red dress. She would have her make up on like many other women of her establishment: loud, and totally jarring. Her blonde hair would reach down to her collar bone and it was very obvious that she was not naturally blessed with such tresses. But that was her spot. You could not miss her presence or the twirls that she liked to do around that lamp post.
Whenever she showed up, she would always be clad that way and her takers would appear out of nowhere like bats in a blue night. On taking a closer look or walking past her a few times, you cannot help notice that there was something about her that made her different in some way. It would make some people think for a while, and the thought would irritate and be there and yet not be there much like what spinach does when lodged between teeth.
What was it about her?
Some thought it was the way she danced: totally carefree, like the skies themselves were the spectators. Or maybe inspite of those curves and the lusciousness and her moves, there was something strangely masculine about her.
Every two or three days she would appear in all her elements, do her song and dance by the pole, get hooked to someone and leave just as soon as the night.
The girl in the red dress.

*******
Dinu could feel it coming. His nerves and the pores of his skin were now used to it. Predictable as all those clichés. His nerves would make him all jumpy. The yelling in the living room began. He shut his door and closed his eyes for a moment. The next moment, his fingers reached for a bundle from under his bed. Dinu slipped into the red dress.


PS: C.L., one of the five. Or is it two?