Preacher: The East End Boys

by Christopher Harlan

  I’m waiting to hear that awful bitter voice tell us to be quiet, but instead I hear the principal’s voice over the loud speaker, paging the Science Bitch to his office. Ms. Janice gets up to leave, threatening us like teachers do when they don’t know what else to do to control a situation. “All of you stay put. Anyone who isn’t here when I get back has detention for the entire week.”

  As soon as she’s out of sight Preacher stands up.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m leaving. And you’re coming with me.”

  “What? Didn’t you hear what she said?”

  He smiles at me and I completely lose my train of thought. “Don’t worry about what she said, worry about what I’m saying. Come on.” He puts his hand out. At first, I just look at it as the good kid in me fights an internal battle between what I want to do and what I know I should do. When I reach out and feel his big strong hand cupping mine, the internal battle is over—I know exactly what I’m going to do.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  Five minutes later we’re walking in the direction of my house and I’m feeling like a real criminal, walking with a kid who might actually be one. “What did you slap the kid for?”

  This is the part where I’m hoping he didn’t hear anything about me—that he doesn’t have any social media and no one spoke to him all day. Totally realistic, right? “I had this little drama at the end of last year,” I confess.

  “Oh yeah? What kind?”

  “The ‘I made a mistake and did something stupid and it ended up on everyone’s phone’ kind. The boy-girl kind, you know?” I hold my breath after giving him that very vague explanation, like he’s going to stop in the middle of the street, call me a whore, and never talk to me again. I don’t know why I’d ever care what he thought about the whole thing, but I do care. I care a lot.

  “What you do is no one else’s business. Fuck anyone who doesn’t understand that. You were right to slap that kid if he said shit to you. He won’t be doing that again, right?”

  “I hope not.”

  “If he does just tell me and I’ll do more than slap him. Understand?”

  I’m understating a lot of things right now. That he’s a different kind of boy, that there’s zero judgment in him, and that I feel safe and unsafe around him at the same time. There’s just something about him that doesn’t make sense. He feels. . . different than your run of the mill East End kid.

  After a few blocks I stop in my tracks and he follows. “What is it? You alright?”

  “I don’t have the energy to explain what I’m about to say, but I really don’t feel like going home right now.”

  “I know the feeling. Where do you want to go?”

  Anywhere, Lucien. I’ll go anywhere with you.

  “How does coffee sound?”

  He smiles. “Like the best thing I’ve heard all day. Let’s go, I’m buying.”

  We were back at the diner—only this time I wasn’t hungover and I already had an advantage over last time by knowing his real name.

  “I’m dying for caffeine.”

  “I’m dying for a blunt but unfortunately my drug is socially and legally unacceptable—those are the dues, right?”

  I flag the waitress and make the little fake drink motion to tell her I need a Friends sized cup of coffee. “I didn’t peg you as a stoner.”

  “I’m not. Weed helps me concentrate, helps me sleep at night, helps me with the pain.”

  There was a contradiction in the way he spoke to me. In one sense he was guarded, short in his sentences and never giving more than you ask of him in conversation. At the same time, when he did speak in more than a few words it was with a complete naked honesty that said things as they were, like he had no fear of embarrassment or judgment.

  “Pain?”

  “Remember when I told you that I used to wrestle?” I nod. “I didn’t just wrestle, I was one of the best in the country as far as high school wrestling goes. Right about now I was supposed to be wrestling for a national championship and getting a full ride to a prestigious college program. After that, who knows? Nationals, worlds, Olympics.” As he speaks he looks off at the widow, like he’s speaking to me and speaking to himself at the same time. “That was the plan.”

  The waitress leaves my steaming cup of black goodness on the table. I reach for the cream and sugar as I think about what he just told me. “I’m guessing since you’re not doing any of those things that the plan didn’t work out?”

  “You got that right.”

  “So what happened?” I ask, not knowing whether it’s the right thing to do. I’m willing to take my chances.

  He looks back at me. “My father,” he tells me flatly. “My father happened. That’s the kind of guy he is, Lyric. He’s not a man, he’s a thing that happens to you.”

  I stop stirring my coffee. I don’t know what to say, but I need to say something.

  “Not just my dad, huh? That’s oddly comforting.”

  A grin—just a little something, but enough to know I said the right thing. “Card carrying members of the shitty dad’s club, I guess.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “So where did yours go?”

  Oh boy. “My dad was having an affair with another woman in the neighborhood — Mrs. Meyers. Used to be my babysitter when I was a kid.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “That’s probably what my mom said when she found out. Twenty years of marriage down the drain because my dad couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Mom lost it after that. She’s there—but that’s it. She’s just kind of there. Therapy twice a week, more medication than she needs, angry all the time. Just not Mom anymore.”

  He’s a good listener. Even when I look away he keeps looking right at me, like I’m the only thing in his world. He doesn’t react at all—he just listens. When I’m done he finally speaks.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. My sister took it pretty hard but she hides her feelings by burying her head in books to forget the real world. I guess there are worse ways to forget your problems, but sometimes I feel like she’s a robot.”

  “Everyone deals in different ways,” he says. “I wish my dad would have left us. He did eventually. My brother took it differently than I did. Siblings, right?” This is it, I think—he’s finally going to tell me about his past. But then he doesn’t. He just stops talking, and I’m more confused than ever. I can list the things I know about him on one hand. Let’s review:

  1.) His name is Lucien, but he goes by Preacher because. . .

  2.) He was in juvie for reasons unknown

  3.) His dad is a dick, and that has something to do with #’s 1 and 2, and. . .

  Actually, that’s about all I know.

  The normal segue would be to ask him more questions about what he just said, but there’s nothing normal when I’m around Lucien Carter. Instead, I ask him about his name one more time.

  “So if you’re not going to tell me what you did to get locked up, can you at least tell me the story of your name?”

  He smiles an evil smile. I love it. “I’m not sure,” he tells me. “That’s intimate stuff.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Your fake name? How is that intimate?”

  “That’s girlfriend level knowledge. Just saying.”

  Holy shit. He just said the G word—and he said it casually. All the times I’ve seen him I could never tell if he was into me like I was into him. But he must be, because he’s looking at me like he wants to eat me, and he just basically asked if I want to be with him.

  “Well then,” I say coyly. “I guess I’m your girlfriend then.” We look at each other intensely, both with huge smiles on our faces. “So spill it. I want the story.”

  “Sure,” he says. “That I can do.”

  Twenty-Eight—Preacher

  The Past

  Harmony Hills Detention Center

  The m
orning started with a threat. Nothing new.

  “Yo,” I hear as his fat little body runs up to me out of nowhere. “You need to watch your back, bro. Julian and his boys look like they want your head on a platter. They might come for you.”

  They will. Don’t worry, I’m well aware.

  “Thanks, Jorge,” is all I say back to him. I keep my feelings close to the vest in this place. It’s the best way to survive.

  From the first day I arrived in this hell hole of a kiddie prison, the younger kids gravitated towards me like I was their fucked up older brother. And when I say ‘younger’ I’m talking thirteen-year-olds. I guess I earned some kind of middle school street cred with what I did.

  See, the kid Jorge mentioned, the one who’s looking for trouble, gets off by bullying and extorting the young kids, and even some of the ones my age who are obviously afraid of him. He’s like a seventeen-year-old mob boss, with plenty of derelicts who serve as his muscle if things get physical—and things always get physical in here.

  I didn’t know any of that on my first day, but I found out quickly when Julian decided to approach me on the yard in front of everyone.

  I was sitting and reading my favorite comic—the one thing they let us do in here is read—when he stepped up to me with three of his boys who looked like they were out of central casting for a gang movie. Their eyes had bad intentions. Their posture was meant to intimidate me like it probably had for countless amounts of kids.

  They had no idea who they were about to fuck with.

  “I just want to let you know how things work around here,” Julian said. Bad start to our little meeting. I’d been sitting on the ground when they walked over. As I stood up it became clear that I was a head taller than him, but he outweighed me by at least twenty-five pounds. I’d been used to sizing people up and using their weight against them. His weight didn’t matter—the high ground is the high ground, and when you have to look up at someone you’re trying to intimidate the whole facade falls apart.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. “Is this the part where I ask you how?”

  He stepped closer. Too close. “No, motherfucker, you don’t ask me shit. This is the part where I tell you how things work.”

  I didn’t even let him finish. If he thought he was a monster, then he didn’t have any idea who I was or what I’d done to get locked up. So I introduced myself properly. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Julian,” he said.

  This time I took a step forward and closed the small amount of space that had existed between us. With that kind of posture between two guys, a crowd obviously gathered. He’d wanted an audience for what he thought was going to be an intimidation—now he had one.

  I decided to say some crazy shit just to mess with his mind. Something that will leave an impact.

  “Well listen here, Julian—I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but let’s be crystal clear on one thing—you try to take anything from me and I’m going to bend you over and fuck you like the little bitch you are, right in front of all your boys here. Understand me?”

  There’s something profound about telling another guy you’ll fuck him when: a.) neither you nor he is gay, and b.) he’s used to being threatened with a beating and isn’t scared by it anymore, as this kid clearly wouldn’t be. I can see that he’s pretending to laugh off what I said, but deep down—no pun—he’s thinking about whether or not I’d actually do it. That’s the kind of mental torture I was going for, because I know he’s picturing me making him my literal bitch.

  “Yo, this bitch is crazy, man.” One if his boys pulled him back, but I could tell I’d made an impression.

  “This ain’t over man,” he said as he backed up away from me with fear in his eyes.

  The eyes never lie. The body never lies. Only words lie.

  Later that day Jorge and some of his little middle school delinquents approached me. I was reading, like always.

  “What’s that?”

  I looked up. “What?” I asked.

  “What are you reading?”

  “It’s my favorite comic series. About this guy who gets possessed by a demon baby who’s a hybrid of an angel and a demon.”

  The kids laughed. “Yo, that sounds sick.”

  “It is. You can borrow it when I’m done as long as you promise to get it back to me in the same shape.”

  “Yeah, man. And I like the idea—good and evil all mixed together—just like you, huh?”

  “Kind of,” I tell him. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “That’s your name, right there bro,” he says, pointing at the title.

  “What are you talking about Jorge?” I asked him. “I’ve got a name.”

  “Nah, man,” he told me. “I don’t mean your real name. In here we ain’t really who we are out there—you need a nickname. And that one right there fits you perfect—evil and good mixed together, possessed by a demon. That’s badass, bro, just like what you said to Julian before. No one stands up to that dude.”

  “Thanks, kid, I’ll think about it. I’m fine with my real name.”

  He left me and went back to his little friends. I went back to reading the comics my mom brought me, and when I was finished I thought about what he told me. You need a name. . .

  Good and evil—emphasis on the evil. I looked down at the cover.

  Preacher. I liked the sound of that.

  Twenty-Nine—Preacher

  The Present

  I couldn’t sleep at all thinking about her last night.

  I deserve some man prize for not accepting Lyric’s invitation upstairs to fuck her into complete unconsciousness. I considered coming home and just taking care of myself, but that would have been a gigantic disappointment.

  But, right now, compartmentalization is my middle name—I have something special planned for the next one with Lyric, but my mind is all about my business right now. A battle is brewing, and Pope is my right-hand man, my lead attorney, and my brother. All of those categories make him a soldier in whatever battle I’m fighting, and this is apparently going to be more of a fight than I realized. It doesn’t matter. I’ll win. I’ll get my building. I’ll do something good in this world for once.

  I work out hard in our corporate gym—hard enough that I’m sore when I’m done and then I take a hot shower. I’m still getting dressed when Pope comes into the locker room.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he says.

  “Wow,” I say, standing up and buttoning my shirt. “You’re full of piss and sarcasm this morning, huh? Now what was that shit you texted me about bad news?”

  “These guys have the potential to stop us dead in our tracks for a very long time.”

  “You sound like we’ve already lost.”

  “We haven’t lost anything,” he says. “Yet. But these are some major power-brokers in this city—they have their hands in the financial system at every level—mortgages, investments, real estate. It’s not just some little bank.” The bigger they are. . . “And now we know who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes.”

  The card Pope handed me the other night had a last name on it—one that I hadn’t see in a very long time. Ten years to be precise. I’d done a massive amount of research on all the potential roadblocks I’d face when trying to get the building put up and running. But I’d missed one crucial name—Griffin.

  The investment firm putting up the biggest resistance to my building is named New Edge Holdings. I’d done my research - I knew most of their attorneys, CEO’s, and, most importantly, their board members—the ones who really call the shots.

  I haven’t thought about Draven or his family in a very long time. I’d moved on. I’d come out of the other end of my Arkham drama as the CEO of a successful company. But now the past is fucking up my future, and I can’t allow that. I beat his ass in the street once a long time ago, and now it looks like I’m going to have to beat his ass in the boardroom as well.

  “Is he going to be there?” Pope knows who I me
an.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  I didn’t pay attention to stuff like this in high school, but back in Arkham everyone—and I mean everyone—knew that Draven’s family owned an investment firm named Assurance Trust. What I didn’t realize until much later, basically when I put myself into this position on Dad’s company, is that guys like Mr. Griffin don’t just have one business—they have their tentacles in a million different ones, and they sit on all sorts of boards where they can wield power from behind the scenes.

  I finish tying my tie and slip my jacket over my shirt. “Only one way to find out.”

  I walk past Pope, expecting to hear his footsteps behind me. Instead I hear his voice. “Preach?”

  I stop and turn around. “What is it?”

  “They’ve filed an injunction to force us to stop construction. Shots fired.”

  Fuckers. “Get your team together. I don’t care who fired the first shot—there’s only one thing shots mean.”

  “War,” Pope says. That’s my baby bro.

  “Exactly. And there’s only one thing you do in war—win at all costs. And I think I know just the guy to be my general.”

  Thirty—Preacher

  The Present

  Not sure I’ll ever get used to flying on my own private plane.

  The perks of being a rich kid’s son I guess.

  Ironically, I’m flying out to California to see an old friend who was more of a father figure than my actual father—and twice the businessman.

  Pope is king for the day, which is fine with me. I need time to think about how to handle everything that’s going on with the Carter Organization, and there’s no one’s opinion I trust more than Sam’s.

  The plane lands and a driver takes me to a house out in the Hollywood Hills.

  “You ugly son of a bitch!” he yells as he wraps his arms around me.