“No?”
“More like a peeping tom.”
I laughed and stepped toward him again, I could feel the argument on his lips, but before he could speak I sat down just outside of the dark space, only a foot or so away with my back against the tower next to a white tarp that was littered with buckets and brushes, smelling like fresh paint. “Why did you come to see me?”
“Why did you come to see me?” was his immediate reply. We were both quiet, probably because neither one of us could answer that question simply. “It’s quiet here,” he added.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Since I’ve been home everything seems so fucking loud,” he lamented.
“Preppy, what happened to y...”
He cut me off before I could finish. “No, Doc. Not now. Not today. Probably not fucking ever.” I looked over and saw the burning red glow of the cherry burn brighter as he inhaled, wishing it was just a bit brighter so I could catch a glimpse of the lips attached to end of that cigarette.
He must have been looking at me too. “I like your glasses,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, pushing them up on my nose. “My vision had been a little blurry for years. I always thought it was because of the heroin, or maybe that’s just why I didn’t care. It wasn’t until after I got clean and it didn’t get any better that I went and got my eyes checked. I was still in shock when they told me it wasn’t the heroin after all. It was just me.” I laughed nervously. “Guess you’re probably surprised I managed to stay clean after all this time.”
“No, I always knew you’d kick that shit,” Preppy said, the confidence in his voice taking me by surprise. He took a deep breath. “Doc, I have to say this. Four years ago...”
“Preppy, no. You don’t have to,” I interrupted. “You’re not obligated to say anything about what happened back then. It was so long ago. It’s all been long forgotten,” I lied.
“Fours years ago,” he started again, with more determination. “I was a complete shit to you. Thought about it a lot since then. Thought I could just push you away instead of dealing with how mixed up I was feeling. I just wanted to send it all to the back of my brain and keep it there.” He laughed like he couldn’t believe his own words. “For years I thought I was such a badass because you leaving didn’t affect me like it ought to of. Truth is that it did. A fucking lot. I just didn’t let it show, and for some stupid reason in my mind I thought that it was the same as not affecting me. It only took being mostly alone in the dark for months on end to realize how fucking ridiculous that really was.”
What the fuck happened to you, Preppy?
“I thought that way for a long time too,” I admitted. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. In town. For closure. I’ve made so many mistakes. So freaking many.”
“Did you find it?” Preppy asked. “Your closure?
I looked over to the dark corner and felt his eyes on me when I whispered, “Not even close.” I pressed my teeth against my lower lip. I sighed and let my head fall back against the water tower.
“Why not?” Preppy asked.
I looked up at the perfect cloudless night sky and the thousands of twinkling stars overhead. I closed my eyes tightly. “Because I found you instead.”
A pair of squawking black birds chose that moment to practically fall from the night sky, tangled up with one another. My eyes shot open to the scene playing out in front of us. The birds would separate briefly, only to fly another few feet before colliding together again, talons extended, beaks pecking away at the other. The occasional feather floated down onto the platform. The pair traded blow for blow as they rose and fell in the air like a carnival ride. “You think they’re fighting or fucking?” I asked, not realizing I’d spoken the words out loud until it was too late.
The mood between us turned more serious. Even the crickets must have realized the shift in energy because it was as if they’d sensed it and stopped chirping so they could listen in. “I think you and I both know you can be doing both at the same time.” His words took me right back to when Bear became a tool in our battle of ‘who could make each other feel worse’.
If there was a winner, it sure as shit hadn’t been me.
“Who knew that sex could be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction?” I asked, followed by a nervous laugh. I reached for the ends of the sleeves I wasn’t wearing so I could pull them down over my hands. I could feel his eyes on me, watching my every move. I shifted left and right, already feeling the indentations of the diamond plated metal platform taking shape on my butt cheeks. “So... more weather then?” I asked, needing to break the tension that was winding tighter and tighter in the space between us before it broke.
“More anything else,” Preppy replied, sounding both relieved and saddened.
“Learn anything new since you’ve been...” I hesitated, not knowing what word to use. “Back?”
“Well,” Preppy started. “King and his girl got a bunch of kids now. They rebuilt the garage because there was some sort of catastrophic event that they won’t tell me about. But then again they aren’t really telling me shit these days. Bear is hiding from me for some reason. My room is now bubblegum pink and is being occupied by a six year old who likes to come in my room and stare at me while I sleep.” He paused. “And Grace died.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching my hand out to comfort him only to be met with the cold metal of the tower when he skidded back out of reach. I retracted my hand and pulled my knees into my chest.
“Forget the weather. Maybe tell me something funny. Tell me a joke, Doc,” his voice was fading as if he were growing tired. “I haven’t heard one of those in a long while.”
I sat for a second, breathing in the smell of cigarette smoke and his soap, thinking I was in some sort of dream that was about to end. All of my dreams about Preppy ended abruptly so if it was a dream, time wasn’t on my side. “Knock knock,” I started.
“Who’s there?”
I hesitated and almost changing my mind about what I was going to say next, but I needed to rescue the words dangling from my lips before I woke up from this weird dream and it was too late.
“Who’s there, Doc?” Preppy asked in a whisper.
I took a deep breath. “Me.”
“Me who?” He asked, playing along.
“Apparently...your wife.”
Silence.
I cleared my throat. “Those papers I left for you?” I started, “The documents you wanted to use to get guardianship of King’s daughter? Those were just meant for show for the lawyers and the judge, but very recently, like VERY recently, I learned that you filed the marriage license. So in the eyes of the county clerk’s office...well, in the eyes of the State of Florida as a whole...”
“We’re married,” Preppy finished, not sounding the least bit surprised.
“Yeah,” I replied. “We’re married.”
“Guess I just got confused,” he said, shifting his position although I couldn’t see exactly how I heard the scraping of metal against the platform which I assumed must have been a button on his pants. “All that shit with Max was over my head. Probably thought I was supposed to file them.” He explained in a manner that had me thinking there was more to what he was saying that he wasn’t letting on.
He loves you, you fucking idiot. He sent you that letter. He told you he loved you. He filed them because HE LOVES YOU.
“Why are you back, Doc? Here? In Logan’s Beach?”
“When I went home my dad sent me to rehab. The best in New York. My dad’s business had always done alright so I didn’t question him when I asked where the money was coming from to pay for it and he lied to me and told me his insurance was paying for it.” I took a deep breath and remembered the reassuring look on his face when he tried to convince me it would all be okay.
“But it wasn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t insurance. There was no insurance. It was all him. He took out all these loans. First to send me to reha
b and then back to school,” I cringed because I hated the fact that my father sacrificed so much because of all my mistakes. “Long story short, his business is failing. Or, according to the past due notices and demands for payment I’ve found, it’s already failed.”
“And?”
“And he’s losing his house,” I replied. “Because of me.”
“That’s not your fault,” Preppy said, sounding a lot like Brandon.
“I know,” I agreed, although it was a lie. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try and do my damnedest to help him.”
“You’re selling the house?” Preppy guessed.
“Yeah, I’m selling the house. How did you know?”
“Either I could see where your story was going... or maybe it was that big ass for sale sign in Mirna’s front yard might have tipped me off,” he said. “I mean; the stalker might have seen it when he stalked by.”
“I see,” I said, my lips turning up into a smile.
“You know those letters I told you I wrote in case of my untimely death?” Preppy asked.
“Yeah?” I froze.
“Well I kept them up and I left instructions for Doe...I mean Ray, King’s girl, to send them out for me after...” I heard him shift and he stretched out his legs, his black boots were now visible in the light.
“Ray came to see me today. I like her,” I admitted.
“She did?” Preppy asked.
“Yeah, just wanted to say hi,” I said, “So what happened, with the letters?”
“Well...I wrote you one,” Preppy said, lighting another cigarette. “But I guess I only wrote DRE on the outside of the envelope,” he chuckled. “No address.”
“Why is that funny?” I asked.
“It’s funny because Doe didn’t want to open it and invade my privacy. When she cleaned out my music collection, like my old CD’s and shit, she noticed I had a lot of NWA stuff and old school Dre and Snoop.”
“Okay?” I asked, confused as to where he was going and how on earth west coast rappers played a part in the story.
“She told me she held my letter up to the light to see if it had an address inside, but all she could make out was the first line, which said Doc.”
Suddenly, I understood where he was going. “No, she didn’t,” I exclaimed with a squeal, covering my mouth with my hand.
“Oh yes she did. She sent my letter to Dr. Dre, the rapper, via the Dr. Dre fan club.”
“Holy shit!” I bent over, holding my stomach so the laughter wouldn’t split me in two.
“No, Doc, wait. That’s not the holy shit part. The holy shit part...is what they sent back.”
“Do I want to know?” I asked, leaning in toward him.
“They send back an autographed headshot of Dr. Dre and...”
“And?” I egged him on, eager to hear the rest.
“And...a restraining order,” he finished.
We both burst out into a fit of laughter. After calming down I remembered that when I received the letter from Preppy it was delivered by a courier service out of L.A. I thought it was odd at the time, but had more pressing matters at hand. Like a letter from PREPPY. I could recite every word from that letter. I could describe how he slants his letters to the left and how his y’s dip so low below the line they run into the sentence below. So of course I remembered that my address WAS on the inside. Whoever must have opened it at the fan club must have had it forwarded it to me.
He thinks I never received it.
“What did the letter say?” I asked tentatively after our laughter had died down. I immediately regretted it. It wasn’t like he was really going to tell me.
I was right.
Preppy paused. “Nothing important. You know. This and that. Probably just some stuff about the weather.”
After a comfortable beat of silence Preppy was the one who spoke first, “Did you see what they did to this thing?” he asked, followed by a rap of his knuckles against the side of the metal tower.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The paint? I guess they finally splurged on something that was able to cover the big black dick I spray painted way back when. They killed my fucking masterpiece.” He said, and with the new shift in topic I immediately felt lighter. “Bastards.”
“The shame,” I said, feigning shock. “Although they only covered it in the last week or two, because I saw it from the plane when I landed.”
“You saw it from the plane?” He asked with amazement in his voice. “And they had to go and cover it up. It was like a fucking landmark. Greatest thing to happen to this town since the tourists realized our little slum had a white sandy beach attached to it.” He laughed softly. “It was always good for a chuckle or two when I could see the faint outline of it on the postcards they sell at those little tourist trap shops.”
“Well,” I smacked my hands against my knees and stood up. I rummaged through the paint buckets, feeling Preppy’s eyes on me as I bent over to survey the tools at hand. “We’ll just need to fix that then won’t we?” When I turned back around I was holding a can of black spray paint, presumably what they’d used to darken the LOGAN’S BEACH lettering. “So what do you say?” I shook the can and it made that clacking sound that only spray paint cans made. “Shall we?”
“Another time, Doc. Come sit back down,” Preppy yawned and I reluctantly set down the paint and did as he asked, taking a seat in my spot just outside his shadowland.
“Did I do that?” he suddenly asked. Realizing I couldn’t see him he added, “Your neck, that was me wasn’t it.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean yes, you freaked out and went for my throat, but that just left some red marks. That was weeks ago. Those are all gone.” I covered the cut on my neck with my hand. “But this was from a fight with a weed-whacker. In case you didn’t already know...I didn’t win.”
“Fuck,” he groaned, sounding like he was in pain. He reared up on his feet in a crouched position, like he was either afraid to step into the light, or debating on staying or leaving.
“You don’t have to go,” I said, my voice a whisper.
A few seconds passed. A horn honked in the distance. “Will you lay with me?” he asked, sounding tired. “Just for a while? I haven’t been sleeping for shit.”
“Here?” I asked.
“Here. Turn around. On your side.”
I did as he asked and laid down on the cold platform onto my side facing away from him. He slowly moved up behind me, and then I felt him. The second his skin connected to mine it was like changing a lightbulb that had been burnt out for a long time. Bright and electric and warm was what I felt as he draped his arm over mine. His thumb brushed over my hand and I shivered. He exhaled in a deep sigh as if he could feel the new light between us. “We’re still the same you know,” he whispered.
I turned my head to ask him what he meant, but he stopped me with his hand, gently turning my face away from him. “Don’t look.”
“You don’t have to hide from me, Preppy. I’ve already seen you.”
“I know,” he replied, holding me tighter, and just like that I felt it. The light grew to a full electrical storm. There was a charge in the air, energy all around us. He laced his fingers with mine and I swear my heart stopped beating. “I know,” he repeated. He exhaled, his breath skating across the back of my neck, his lips against my skin. “But maybe I’m the one hiding from me.”
It was the last thing Preppy said before his breathing evened out. With Preppy wrapped around me I drifted off shortly after.
When I woke up the next day the sun was high in the sky, it’s hot rays burning holes in my retinas.
I was alone.
For a brief moment I thought it was all a dream until my eyes adjusted to the harsh light and landed on the newly spray-painted big black cock scrawled on the side of the tower.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PREPPY
I was beyond restless.
I’d decided that the reason I coul
dn’t sleep was because the mattress was too soft. I slid down to the floor, but I couldn’t turn off my mind. I only fell asleep for a short time on the tower with Dre, but it was the deepest sleep I’d gotten besides being in a fucking coma. When I woke up I spent a long time smelling her hair like the creep I was before deciding that the big black cock needed to make a comeback.
I was happy for her. For getting clean. For going to school. For wanting to help out her dad. No, I wasn’t happy, that wasn’t the right word.
I was PROUD.