“You’re such a brute,” I said, placing the joint between my lips and held my hand out for Bear’s lighter.
Bear shook his head. “No fucking way, man. You’re gonna have to go to the garage and hide in a fucking corner like the rest of us have to. Dead or not, Ray will toss you off the fucking balcony if you smoke weed by the house.”
“Since fucking when?”
“Since we got Sammy, Max, and Nicole running around here and are about to add to the litter with my kid. No smoking that shit until the kids are either asleep or at school, and even then it’s still only in the fucking garage.”
“Sammy?”
“You don’t know the kids’ names?”
I leaned over the railing, grateful that the sun was setting because it meant the pressure behind my eyes would ease up once it was tucked into the horizon for the night. “I mean, Doe gave me the Cliff’s Notes about the kids and I’ve heard them yelling at them. I knew the girl was Max and the boy was Doe’s…I mean, Ray’s, kid, but I never really thought about his name before.”
“Yeah, turns out she named her kid Samuel years before she met you, how ironic is that? Now we got two of you running around. He’s a good kid. Funny as shit too. One week he’s trying to copy me by wearing his own little cut and wanting to ride a bike and the next week he’s got belts around his arms ‘cause he wants to be like King. Get to know him. And the girls.” Bear turned sideways to face me, leaning his elbow against the rail. He pointed his smoke at me as he spoke. “Those kids are the best things that have happened to this place in a long fucking time.”
I absentmindedly went to light the joint again and Bear raised his eyebrows. I pulled it from my lips. “I can’t smoke a fucking joint in my own house? How do you people live like this?” I asked, appalled.
It’s not your house anymore.
He slapped me on the back. “One fucking breath at a time, brother.”
“I don’t think I was just gone for a while,” I said, tossing the joint back into the bag. “I think I fucking upset the space time continuum. You’ve got a girl, and I can’t freely engage in my love of illegal narcotics. What the fuck?” I realized I sounded like a whiny kid, well, a whiny kid who wants to smoke a joint on his porch, but I was unable to stop the very real confusion that I was feeling.
A part of me, a VERY selfish part of me, always hoped that while I was gone the world was somehow on pause. But it wasn’t. The world moved on.
They all moved on.
“This bullshit, Prep, is called being an adult,” Bear said, slapping me on the back. “Fucking sucks, don’t it?” He laughed but his expression told me he thought it anything BUT fucking sucked.
“I can’t believe you’ve got a girl,” I said. “If I had to bet between you settling down and the zombie apocalypse, my money would’ve been on the zombies. So much has happened while I was…gone.”
Bear flashed me a sad smile. The kind of smile everyone was giving me since I’d woken up. The kind of smile that was making me both furious and sick to my fucking stomach. “So does your girl know you’re in love with me?” I asked, looking at his neck again before tucking the joint behind my ear.
“Prep,” Bear warned. “Later.”
“Buzzkill,” I muttered.
“And yeah I got a girl. Good one too. Knocked her up and everything,” Bear said proudly. He lit his cigarette and tossed me his lighter.
“Wow, you waited until I was gone to become the grand marshal of white trash?” I tapped the bottom of the fresh pack against my hand a few times before pulling one out and lighting my own. The first inhale of smoke filling my lungs felt fucking GLORIOUS and gave me an instant high I hadn’t had from a cigarette since I was a kid toking on my first smoke behind the portables at school.
“Nah, ‘cause I put a ring on her finger, too.”
“There goes the parade I was gonna throw you.”
“Prep, Ti and I have been staying in the garage apartment while the club is undergoing a little bit of a makeover,” Bear said.
“What kind of makeover? Like a renovation?”
“It’s a little more involved.”
I shrugged and took another drag. “Well, that place was always a shit hole. It could use some paint or getting rid of the swamp you guys call a pool in the middle of that damn thing. What did you start with?”
“Hazmat suits and blood removal.”
“Good call.”
“I thought so.” Bear leaned forward on the railing, looking out onto the ground below. “But since Grace…”
“Yeah…” I interrupted, letting him know there was no need to finish his sentence in order to site the grim obvious.
“Ti and I are gonna move over to Grace’s house real soon. I’m thinking ‘bout eventually buying some property on the other side of the bay and building something over there. Word is old man Jenson’s looking to sell, but I figured for now we’ll post up over at Grace’s house so we have some room after the baby’s born.”
“Grace’s house?” I asked. “You bought Grace’s house?”
Bear smirked. “Nope. Didn’t buy it.” He glanced over at me. “They didn’t tell you did they?”
I shook my head. “What, motherfucker? Tell me!” I demanded, stubbing out my cigarette on the bottom of my shoe.
Bear’s smile grew brighter. Shit, when did he get so many fucking teeth? “Prep, as it turns out, Grace was my Grandma.”
“Holy fucking shit.” The first thought that hit me was pure fucking joy. “Man, I’m jealous as fuck, but that just might be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen or heard. Like ever.”
“Yeah, just might be,” Bear agreed.
“Well,” I pointed at his neck. “Maybe next to that fucking tattoo.”
9
DRE
“I wish you weren’t leaving tomorrow,” I said to Brandon as we waited for the realtor to arrive. The house still needed some work. I hadn’t yet started on either the gutters or the painting but Brandon suggested we talk to a professional to see what they thought about listing price and sale time. Especially since I hadn’t gotten so much as a single call from my FOR SALE BY OWNER ads.
“I wish I could stay longer too. But Ralph called this morning and it seems that the entire world is going to crumble if I don’t return by the weekend. At least, you know Ralph, that’s how he makes it sound. It’s only been a few weeks but alas, I am missed.”
Just then a newer model Honda pulled up and a tall man in his early to mid-thirties stepped out. He had a lean build and wore jeans with a white button-down and a blue blazer. His hair was slicked back and he wore thick black framed-glasses that reminded me of my own. His boots were bright red and pointed at the toe.
“Hi, you must be…Andrea, is it?” he asked with a big smile, shaking my hand. “I’m Easton Feather, but you can just call me East because that’s what all my friends call me and I can tell from the second that we spoke on the phone that we are going to be great friends.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm. “Yes, I’m Andrea, but you can just call me Dre. This is my friend Brandon,” I said, and the two men shook hands.
“Do I know you? You look familiar?” East said to me, pulling his glasses down the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t think so, but I used to come here every summer so you might have seen me around.”
East snapped his fingers. “That must be it. It’s a small town and feels even smaller when you overhear how some of the women gossip around here.” He fanned himself with his clipboard. “So Dre,” East started, “as I told you on the phone, I recommend we tour the property first so I can see what we’re working with and then I’ll pull up some comparable homes that have sold in the area recently so we can get a better idea of price. Then I’ll go over my listing plan with you and let you know what I’m going to be doing in terms of marketing like hosting an open house, posting on the latest real estate apps, and so on.” He looked up at the house and made a few scribbles on his clipboard. “So
und good? Shall we?” he asked, ascending the porch steps and letting himself in the front door without waiting for an answer.
“I guess we shall,” Brandon said with a laugh as we followed East into the house.
Over the next two hours East did exactly what he’d promised and made a full evaluation of the house as well as a plan to sell and market with a full list of comps. After taking pictures for the listing he shook our hands and said good-bye, promising to email me the link to the listing in the morning before it went live.
“He’s an…odd one,” Brandon whispered without moving his lips as we waved back to East who had just pulled out of the driveway and taken off down the road.
“I like him,” I said. “He’s nice. And honestly as long as he can do what he says he can with the house he can be as different as he wants to be.”
“True story,” Brandon said, holding open the front door for me while I passed through under his arm. “Wanna help me pack?”
“But you aren’t leaving until tomorrow,” I started to whine. But then I saw something in the corner of my eye, something in the backyard. When I went to the window and spied out the back I could have sworn what I saw hopping over the fence was a little kid. He disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.
“What?” Brandon asked, standing beside me at the window. “What did you see?”
“I think there was a kid in the backyard,” I said, opening the back sliding door and shuffling over to the back gate with Brandon on my heels.
“A kid? Like small and scraggly looking?”
“Yeah? I thought you said you didn’t see anything.”
“I didn’t. Not right now anyway. But the other day I was pulling out when I saw him standing behind me in the rearview mirror. By the time I turned around he was running away. Must just be a kid from around here, curious as to who his new neighbor lady is.”
“Yeah, must be…” I said walking back to the house with Brandon. My phone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“So we’re having a party tonight,” Ray practically shouted in my ear. “Come to the house around nine. One of the GG’s is watching the kids at her house so we’re going to have a big bonfire. Lot’s of booze. Be here or I’m coming to get you myself!” Ray didn’t give me a chance to answer. The line went dead.
“Party?” Brandon questioned. “I mean, I could go for a party.” He paused. “Or would it be too weird for you to be there?”
The sound of a branch snapping caught my attention and I turned back to the woods. There was a slight rustling of the brush. I waited and listened.
Nothing.
“Dre, did you hear me?” Brandon asked. “Would it be too strange for you to be there? You know, since HE is going to be there.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I said, still looking out into the woods.
“Huh? No offense, but…what the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. “I’m talking about a party and you’re looking out into space like you just saw the ghost of Christmas future or some crap.”
“Party. Me. You. Got ya. I’m in,” I said, heading back into the house with an eerie sense of dread looming over me. I didn’t know if it was because of the party and the thought of seeing him again, or because when all the hairs on my arm stood on end I couldn’t shake a certain feeling.
A feeling like I was being watched.
10
PREPPY
“Hey! Get your ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you,” King boomed from the bottom of the porch. I sat on the front steps of fucking around with my new laptop. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Looking up nude pics of your mom.”
“Turn off the porn and come with me,” he demanded.
“I’m not even looking at porn. Just checking to see what the fuck’s been going on in the world since I dropped off the face of it,” I admitted.
“Anything interesting?” King asked, putting a cigarette between his lips but not lighting it.
“Well, it seems I missed the election,” I said.
“For what?” King asked.
“President.”
“Of what?”
“Of the United States.”
“Of what?” King asked, again.
I glanced up to see him smiling. He’d been fucking with me. “You’re such a fucker. I was starting to think all that tattoo ink seeped into your brain,” I said. “I thought I was the one who is supposed to have all the jokes.”
Bear appeared next to King. “We’re just filling in for you until after the surgery,” he said, firing a text on his phone and shoving it back into his pocket.
“What surgery? What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, wondering if I’d missed something.
“You know, the one to remove your head out of your ass,” Bear said with a booming laugh.
I flipped him off. “I hope your kid doesn’t inherit your dick-headedness, in fact, you better hope it doesn’t get your looks either because you got nothing to offer in that department.”
“I actually agree with you there. The more the kid gets from Ti the better,” he said, looking less like the grumpy-as-fuck Bear I remembered and more like this weird happy guy who invaded his body. It was like watching one of those alien invasion shows and Bear was the product of some happy-as-fuck alien who decided to take up residence in his shirtless-as-fuck body. “But right now,” Bear continued. “I need you to get your fucking ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
“Why? Because I fucking said so. Get up. Come on. Don’t be a bitch,” King said.
“I’ll be there, give me one second.” I pulled up the social networking site I’d been on when they’d interrupted me.
I’d told the truth when I told King I wasn’t looking at porn. My dick hadn’t exactly gotten the memo that I was alive just yet, but I had hopes for the fucker or else it was just a huge useless dead thing hanging between my legs about sixty years too fucking soon.
Glaring back at me from the computer screen was shiny black hair and dark almost black eyes. In her profile picture she was standing on dark sand behind grassy dunes, nothing like the beaches in the Logan’s Beach area. It was a candid shot. She wasn’t looking at the camera, instead she was looking off in the distance, the shadow of whoever took the picture was overlapping part of her face and immediately I hated whoever that motherfucker was who took the picture. Guy or girl. Maybe because it was obstructing me of a full view of her face or maybe it was because she looked so unguarded and I hated anyone who wasn’t me who’d gotten to see her that way.
She didn’t post that often. The sporadic pictures that were on her timeline were all dated several months apart.
I clicked on the ABOUT info section of her page.
“Come the fuck on!” King yelled out and thank God he was at the garage or my head would be swimming with the sound of his deep bellowing voice.
“Jesus fucking Christ you two!” I shouted back. Before I shutdown the computer I might have made Bear and King wait forty seconds more so I could hack into Dre’s Facebook account and update her relationship status.
To married.
I wasn’t sure why the fuck I did it, but I was happy as fuck that I did. And when I walked out the front door and headed toward the garage to meet Bear and King it was with a big genuine smile plastered all over my fucking face.
“God, I’ve fucking missed you, you’re so fucking beautiful,” I cooed, like I was talking to an infant. I lifted the triangle of broken mirror to eye level so I could get a more up close and personal look at the perfect lines of white powder separated in picturesque rows on top of the glass. “Fuck, I think I’m tearing up… it’s been too fucking long, but that’s all right, we’re gonna fix that, right now. We’re gonna fix it so fucking good, baby.”
“You gonna snort that shit or fuck it?” Bear asked and both he and King laughed reminding me that there were two others in King’
s studio besides me and the blow.
Bear was sitting on the floor with one leg pulled up so he could rest his elbow across it, his back against a bank of drawers that opened to one of King’s many toolboxes. King sat on a rolling stool with his elbow propped up against a built in counter space set back in the wall, a beer to his lips. My blow and I were taking up space on the middle cushion of the black leather couch meant to be a waiting area for King’s tattoo clients.
The studio was all brand new. Something King had put in when he rebuilt the garage and the garage apartment. It was small, but it was clean, and all the equipment was state of the art. A custom neon sign hung over the door on the inside. It was a skull wearing a crown and a bow tie. KING’S TATTOO that blinked from green to blue to red. With all the lights off inside the wall color change, reflecting a slightly different hue with every switch of the sign.
King had never needed to keep up the tattoo business, the money he made permanently marking the skin of bikers and Spring breakers was only a fraction of what we made with the Granny Growhouses plus the other shit we always had our hands in. But as I looked around at the framed pictures of the work that King had recently done, I knew that he kept it up because it was a part of him.
The same way I was gonna fuck up some blow. Because it was a part of me. Or at least, it was gonna be.
“Come to Daddy,” I said. I held the rolled up bill to my nose and closed one nostril, leaning over I snorted up every last bit of the cocaine goodness. I sat back up, sniffling to make sure every last bit of white powdered goodness was as far up in my fucking brain as possible. I wiped my nose and it hit me harder than I ever remember it hitting.
The high was fucking incredible.
I felt invincible as Bear took the bill from my hand and snorted his own line. He passed it to King who shook his head and held up the joint he was smoking.
“Don’t tell me you don’t party anymore,” I said. “You that pussy whipped where you can’t do a little fucking blow with your long lost dead fucking friend? I mean, we’re following all the rules right? It’s after dark, the kids aren’t home, and we’re in your shop in the garage. Article FIFTEEN, LINE TWENTY-SEVEN of all your new fucking rules clearly states that this is an acceptable time to get seriously fucked up.”
Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater: A King Series Trilogy Page 29