“What exactly does that mean?” Kevin asked, looking at his stained and wrinkled CORAL PINES tie-dyed T-shirt and flip-flops like there was nothing wrong with what he was wearing.
“It means no more swim trunks unless you’re going to pick up chicks at the beach. You dress like a college kid on laundry day. Have some pride, kid.”
Kevin huffed. “How am I supposed to dress for the job I want when I don’t know what the job is I have, or even what we’re doing?” Kevin asked, sounding frustrated.
“I told you,” I said as Bear and King pulled up in King’s old truck. “You’re washing dishes.”
King and Bear rounded the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate. Together they each took one end of something about six feet in length, wrapped in garbage bags and rope. They carried him...I mean IT, over to the trailer, setting it on the table with a hard thud. “You want us to stay and help?” King asked, tipping his chin to Jake who was leaning against the table with his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed over his chest.
“Thanks, but we got this, Boss-Man,” I answered.
King and Bear both looked at the two of us skeptically, the same look they’d given me when I told them what my plans were for young Kevin that day. “Good, gotta go help this asshole we know move anyway,” Bear said.
“Yeah, and the guy is skipping out on his own moving day. Can you believe that shit?” King asked. Bear shook his head and I sent them a middle finger salute as they drove away.
“Ummm...what the hell is that?” Kevin asked, looking at the table in the trailer.
“Manure,” I answered.
“Really?”
“No. Not really,” I sighed. “It’s a body-shaped plastic bag, Kevin. What the fuck do you think it is?” I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “Now listen up, Daniel-son.”
“Who is it?” Kevin asked, entirely too focused on what was going on in the trailer. His gaze followed Jake’s every move as he sharpened one of the knives from the wall with a steel sharpener.
“The dead have no names,” I said.
“That’s a line from Game of Thrones,” Kevin pointed out.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
Jake motioned to the door and Kevin and I lifted it together, holding it up until we heard the click from the inside locking it in place.
“Now what happens?” Kevin asked.
I lit a cigarette and passed it to him then lit another for myself. “Now we wait.” We leaned back against the trailer.
“What’s this thing used for anyway?” Kevin asked, looking over his shoulder at the closed door of the trailer.
“Well, when Jake here isn’t using it for more nefarious purposes, it’s usually used as a way for farmers to ‘dispatch’ their livestock without having to pay hauling fees to have the animals shipped to a facility and then shipped back in sellable pieces.”
“Dispatched?” Kevin scratched his clean-shaven chin.
“Yeah, I heard it on the traveling network,” I said. “When the host of this show doesn’t want to say things like ‘brutally slit their throats until all the blood drains out’ he says things like ‘dispatched’. It makes murdering our food sound a lot more pleasant don’t you think?”
“What’s he doing in there?” Kevin asked. I didn’t know all that much about him, we’d only spoken a few brief times. But I knew the kid wasn’t stupid. He might have asked what Jake was about to do but something told me he already knew the answer.
The sound of a buzz saw vibrated within the trailer, followed by a splattering of something against the door. I leaned against it sideways, turning to face Kevin. “Genius isn’t it?” I winked.
Kevin watched the trailer as if the goings on inside were being projected onto the door and he could see it all going down. I realized then that although his eyes were wide, it wasn’t in horror.
It was in fascination.
Score one for baby bro.
“Looks like you passed the first test. For a second there I was worried how you might react,” I said. Just then Jake pounded on the door, three quick raps from within.
We stepped out of the way and let the door fall back down to the ground. Kevin on one side and me on the other.
When Jake appeared again he wasn’t wearing a shirt. A black rubber apron was tied around his neck and waist. It was so long it covered the tops of his boots. You wouldn’t know the shiny liquid splattered on it was blood unless you looked past Jake and into the scene he’d left behind in the trailer. Different shades of red were dripping from every surface and was splattered across every wall and tool.
“You see, civilians have this thing about death. I think it’s all the blood, guts, and gore that bothers them.” I waved my cigarette in the air. “Things that hatred and revenge have a tendency to wash away with time. Things like a sense of right and wrong. Guilt. All that bullshit.”
Kevin squared his shoulders. “I’m not a civilian,” he argued.
“Oh yeah?” I cocked my head to the side. “Then what exactly are you?”
He shrugged then looked as if he was thinking. His eyes met mine. “I’m a Clearwater.”
I couldn’t come up with a response because for some reason his words rendered me stupid. Thankfully Jake interrupted by stomping down the door. Lighting a cigarette, he rolled his shoulders. His neck cracked with an audible pop. He pointed to the cooler at his feet. “All yours,” he said with a faint hint of a smile.
“You want to take a ride with us man?” I asked, Kevin picked up one side of the cooler and set it right back down when he realized how heavy it was.
Jake’s eyes lit up with amusement. He shook his head. “Can’t. My kids got a ballet recital at four.”
“Got ya. Mine wants to sign up for MMA,” I told Jake. I couldn’t help but to smile as I remembered how Bo had pointed from the fight on the TV and then to himself about a thousand times while jumping up and down. Jake looked at me as if I’d sprouted a dick on the middle of my forehead. “Long story. I’ll tell you all about it over a body sometime.”
I used to not get how Jake could go from virtual serial-killer type by day to doting family man at night. That was until I had a family of my own and now I respected the hell out of him for it.
Growing up Grace had always told me that you can be a bad boy and still be a good man. I think I was finally understanding what that meant.
Jake turned on a hose and started to wash out the interior of the trailer. Red tinged water sloshed into the drain and over the back of the truck in a mini bloody waterfall. He whistled-as-he-worked like a fucked up eighth dwarf.
Kevin’s cheeks turned pink and then red, straining under the weight of the cooler as I helped take it over to the van and set it inside on garbage bags I’d already had laid out.
I slid the door shut. “Now what?” Kevin asked.
I smiled. “Now? Now we have some fucking fun.”
Twenty minutes later we were on Billy’s old airboat, flying through the swamp. I switched my theme song from “Leave the Pieces” to “Piece of Me” by Britney Spears.
I had a little bit of a theme going on that day.
We stopped at my favorite spot. Well, my favorite spot for the kind of activity we were doing. It was a clearing next to a sand bar behind a wall of trees where the swamp met the river. Right behind an island King and I had dubbed Motherfucker Island back when we were kids.
Kevin was helping me feed pieces of whoever had been in the bag (The MC’s deal, not mine) to the alligators surrounding the boat. “Well, kid. You wanted in,” I said. “Now you’re in.”
Kevin sent a chunk of what I think was a knee sailing into the brush. A splash of commotion erupted as the gators fought over their dinner of human flesh and cartilage. Kevin laughed and set his feet on the edge of the airboat. The sun began to set. “Thanks, Preppy,” he said, wiping his hands on his shorts.
I nodded and tipped over the cooler, letting any excess blood d
rip into the water. I set it back down and clapped a hand over Kevin’s shoulder. I smiled brightly. “Welcome to the motherfucking family business, kid.”
“Speaking of family,” I said. “We haven’t exactly got around to talking about that. You ever gonna tell me how exactly you think I’m your brother?”
“Not much to tell,” Kevin said, sitting on the edge of the boat with his back to the gator infested waters. “I was born up North. A little town outside Daytona to the same woman who pushed you out.”
“So she told you about me?” I asked. “‘Cause I find it hard to believe that the woman who left me behind like a couch she didn’t want to bother moving actually spoke my name after she bolted.”
Kevin shook his head. “Nah, never uttered a word about you. I actually don’t remember her speaking at all. A cop found me wandering around the highway in my diaper when I was just a toddler. They handed me over to social services. I grew up in the system.”
“Believe it or not that makes you the luckier one of the two of us,” I said.
Kevin blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. He paused his beer inches from his lips. “Sure, if you call getting beat by your foster parents lucky. Or not getting fed because I wasn’t one of their ‘real kids’ or maybe lucky was that time I was so desperate I let a trucker jack me off outside of a diner in exchange for a hot meal.”
I felt for the kid. I really did but I couldn’t help the way my thoughts worked or the burst of laughter that bubbled up and erupted from my mouth.
“You think that’s fucking funny?” Kevin said, standing up and rocking the boat from one side to the other.
“Yeah, actually I do.”
“Why?” Kevin asked, looking horrified and extremely pissed off. His fists balled at his sides.
“Sit down,” I ordered. Kevin huffed as he took a seat, his arms crossed protectively over his chest.
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “You want to know why I think it’s funny?” I asked, no trace of jokes for this conversation.
“Enlighten me,” Kevin snapped.
“Because I would have killed to trade places with you. You think getting a handy from a trucker is a bad deal? Please, I’d trade a dozen fucking truckers jerking my dick.” I leaned in closer. “Anything would have been better than getting raped by your stepdad. Better than being left behind like unwanted furniture when your mom moves and leaves you alone with a fucking pedophile.”
Kevin’s mouth opened and then shut. He scratched at his unruly head of hair. “So what happened to the stepdad.”
“He died in a tragic on-purpose accident.”
“You killed him?”
“King did,” I said. I stood and pointed to the gators encircling the boat. “First notch on his gun belt. That’s how we first found out about this spot.”
“Shit, man,” Kevin said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t think...”
“So my childhood was a little more rapey than yours. I’m over it, let’s move on.” I waved him off. “So how the hell did you end up in Logan’s Beach?” I asked, reaching into the cooler, the one not designated for body parts. I pulled out two beers and tossed him one.
“I came to find you,” Kevin said.
“And?”
“And you were dead,” Kevin said. His eyes looking everywhere but mine as he took a long pull of his beer. I did the same. We finished at the same time, crashed the cans against our thighs and wiped our mouths with the back of our hands.
We both laughed when we caught each other going through the same motions and that’s when I started to notice the similarities between us. His hair was the only major difference. It was a few shades darker than my sandy blond. A thick mess on top of his head, several weeks over needing a haircut, but he had the same shape face I did although mine was covered with an exceptionally sculpted beard. We had the same hazel colored eyes although mine were set apart wider. He was even about the same height as I was except my build was much bulkier after having started working out with King several months earlier.
King had called it my, ‘gonna get my bitch back’ workout routine. Now it was kind of our daily thing.
Kevin popped another beer and tossed me one. “I’d actually only found out about you because when I turned eighteen, foster care was kicking me out. I didn’t have nowhere to go. My social worker did some digging, told me I might have a brother. Got your name and possible location. Nothing else.” He looked up at me. “Did you know that you’re kind of famous around here?”
“Infamous is more like it,” I offered.
“Whatever you want to call it. Alls I know is that every single person I talked to knew you or knew of you. I even looked up your mug shot so I could see what you looked like. I drove by your house a time or two to see where you lived, before I heard you kicked it. Visited your grave once. Brought you a beer.” He chewed on his lip. “Well, I brought you a beer. I might have drank it for you.”
I smiled. “How fucking thoughtful of you.”
“I met Meryl and Fred when I was selling weed by the bus station. Nice guys. Let me crash with them a few times but they’re not around much. I tell you what though, when you showed up at their house that day, running from that cop I nearly pissed myself when I realized it was you.”
I held up my index and thumb and looked at him through the small space between. “It was a bit shocking for me as well. Never expected to have anyone call me their brother,” I said. “Is your last name really Clearwater?” I asked, remembering what he’d said earlier.
Kevin shook his head. “No,” he said like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “It’s Schmooter.”
I laughed and toasted Kevin and his ridiculous last name, clinking my beer to his. “You need a nickname or something,” I said.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” he agreed.
“I’ll come up with one for you...Schmooty?”
Kevin shook his head.
I started up the boat. “The Kev-ster? It’s very Home Alone. Very 1990.”
He rolled his eyes.
I threw down the throttle and shouted over the wind. “Handy-Kevin?”
Kevin flicked me off.
“What? Too soon?” I asked.
“Fuck off,” Kevin said, trying to hide his smile with his hand.
“I hate to bring this up when we’re having such a swell time and all,” I started, raising my voice above the sound of the engine and the wind as I sped us up faster and faster. Kevin gripped the metal bar attached to the seat between his legs. “But you know if I find out you had anything to do with what happened with Dre last night, or if you fuck with her or my kid in any way that makes me twitchy, you’ll be the one getting fed to the those fucking gators on the next go-round.”
I don’t know how I expected him to react after I threatened him, but I didn’t expect him to smile, which was exactly what he did. “I didn’t doubt that for a second, Prep,” he shouted back.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
I pushed down the throttle, zooming over the shallow water and tall grass. I made a few sharp turns and a few one-eighties for shits and giggles along the way. Kevin even sang along with me for a very off pitch rendition of “Piece by Piece” by Kelly Clarkson. Well, it was more ‘screaming into the wind’ than actual singing.
In my gut, I didn’t feel like Kevin had anything to do with trying to take Dre, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. At least not yet. And family to me was everything, but the saying that blood was thicker than water didn’t mean jack shit to me because I knew who my family was and blood was something we spilled for one another, not shared.
“Maybe next time we come out here we’ll run the gators. See how big your balls are,” I said.
“What the hell is run the gators?” Kevin asked.
“I’ll show you next time,” I said.
After I few minutes of silence I looked over to Kevin and burst out laughing. His mouth was wide op
en, his cheeks puffed out by the wind, exposing all this teeth and gums. He gave me a thumbs up.
Silly little fucker.
I kind of like my brother. I thought to myself.
It would really suck to have to kill him.
CHAPTER FIVE
PREPPY
Sixteen years old