FicWad

And another one 

Gerard took another long drag from his cigarette. The fourteenth today and it was only eight in the morning. His life was desperate. Not that that was an excuse. Everyone's life was ruthless. 
He wondered what the life's of all those people in the textbook's were like. To be able to have money that one didn't know what to do with. It must be made up. There was simply no way it could be more than plain fiction. A nice dream obviously. 
He took another drag after flicking the cigarette serval times. No, he barely had any money to his name. But he always made sure to have enough to cover his nasty addiction. He would pool it all together and do whatever it took to cover himself. 
He looked around, something everyone did as little as needed. It wasn't a pleasing sight to anyone. The sky the color of dirt spit. Probably filled with air as bad for your lungs as Gerard's favorite poison.
He thought about all the people that counted on him. The twenty people packed so tightly into the house behind his back. They had jobs, but they were the bottom of the food chain jobs, saddly though that was what the majority of the jobs were. Hardly anyone had any ecucation, and few had barely any money to their name. Let alone money to just give away as a payment. Most would die before paying a debt.
Gerard had a favorite of his group, Frankie. He was a boy hardly over sixteen, and dying. No one knew of what, but Gerard was certain in the textbook's time they would have know. They probably could have even cured Frankie, easy peasy. Which sickened Gerard. But much had been destroyed back when people had started to think everything was against them. That the world was filled with one big conspiracy. 
He began a fit of coughing. He was coughing so hard he thought his lungs would explode. And then, Gerard spat out into his hand. Horrified he looked down and and found, dark, red, sticky, blood.
Gerard shakingly drawled himself up, knowing what he had to do. 
He was the only semi-healthy one but most importantly he was the only educated one. When he had been a child, he had done what he had to to be able to get an education. If that had meant being the teacher's play thing, so be it. 
Gerard wasn't proud of what he had done in his past and he definitely wasn't proud of his living. But as the title suggested,  it kept not only him but so many others alive. And that's what kept him going through and through. 
All it took was Rosie's dimpled cheeks, her mama's warm, happy yet vacant face, Old Man Tom's (who was a touch over 40) absurd stories that always made a laugh, Andy's hopeful eyes, the tears Bridget flashed from all that she had experienced, his sweet Frankie's hallowing voice, and everything about everyone, keep him going. He couldn't give up on them. 
Another day on the job. Gerard weaved through the ruins. All it took was finding the worst looking, decrepit, twisted form of a once building to know he was at his employer's office. He plucked aside the stained blanket that stood in-place of a door.
The Rainmaker, as his boss liked to call himself sat at a mound of cardboard that served as a makeshift desk. He flung a report at Gerard. 
A file, picture attached. Pictures were hard to come by but people where impossible to find without them. Gerard always received a case with a photo though.
Cindy Baker. Her photo ripped, and blotched. Even still, one could make out her caved in cheeks, a lovely benefit of crack abuse.  She might had even been pretty before the crack, but he would never know. 
He thumbed her information. This one would be easy. He tucked the file in his breast pocket and went off in search of the crackhead. A crackhead like most, after all he was avenging a debt that was in one way or another a drug debt. They always were, too. 
Calling them names made it easier. Pretending they were screw ups made it easiest. Deep down though he knew they were no different than him, purely just people trying to get by. And Gerard made off on those people.
He found her sprawled out in a piping tube, higher than the moon. As soon as he entered gun pointed, she knew she was done. She wasn't going to fight, she was too strung out to make it out alive. 
"You owe a debt." He said in a commanding condescending voice. 
"I know, and I can't repay it." she told him in an ugly man voice. 
He didn't even reply to her, his answer was clear through a cocked gun. Her fate sealed. 
Her blood sliming the circular walls, sliding down it, to be forever tainted. Eyes rolled to the back of her greased head, mouth still agape from her last shuttering breath. 
Gerard quickly searched her, confiscating all she was ever worth. A topaz necklace, one studded earring, a navel piercing, an old cell phone with a cracked screen, and a small teddy bear. Shoving the bear awkwardly into his leather jacket. 
He dropped off his day's work at the office. Keeping the bear. Just because he was payed as well as he knew it was possible for him to be payed, that didn't mean there was room for anything more than the bare necessities. The kids need something every once in a while. 
Gerard found the house covered in his murals, his marking of making it his own. As he went up the caving walk he saw one lonesome dandelion, standing tall and well, left Gerard knowing somehow everything would be okay.
He gathered the eight children who desperately depended on him up, and handed them the bear. Each drew in into a deep, content hug, before passing it to the next.
One girl, Annetta, drew him into a deep, thankful hug. For the first time in days he felt fulfilled with his mess of life. 
As his arms wrapped around the girl, his eyes linked with Frankie's. Frankie smiled at him happily, but still with much weakness. He gave Gerard the thumbs up, before closing his eyes. And then, he stopped breathing.

I still don't know. 
So review? 
Please.
Xo,
Becca.