Preacher: The East End Boys

by Christopher Harlan

  “I will.”

  When he told me about the opposition he’s facing with this building for troubled kids he’s trying to open, I had two thoughts:

  1.) How scummy Draven and his whole family are to try and stop something that’s meant to do good in the world. And...

  2.) I never thought so many of us from back home would end up here in the same city.

  It makes sense, and kids used to talk about it all the time—especially the West Enders. They were all expected to be successful from the time they were in preschool, and for most of the fields they chose that meant migrating to The Big Apple. But a lot of that was just high school talk—I never thought so many of us would actually take the plunge and live in tiny cramped apartments, all in the name of our future success.

  And speaking of the cast of characters from high school, I’m just about dressed for my birthday celebration. I went shopping with Jessalyn, which is an experience in and of itself—I swear you’ve never seen such a beautiful girl who cares less about how she looks. My mom’s also passed on her infamous frugality to my twinsie because she looked at me like I had antennas sprouting out of my head when she saw how much I was paying for a dress.

  Excuse me, how much Preacher was paying for my dress.

  He gave me his AMEX black card in a full out Pretty Woman moment—minus the prostitution part.

  “Zip me up, Jess.”

  As the zipper runs up my back, I think about how much he’s spoiling me, and how much I’m loving being around him.

  “I can’t believe how much this dress was, Lyric. When did you become bougie?”

  “When did you become Mom?”

  “Watch your mouth,” she jokes. “I can still kill you on our birthday.”

  “Seriously, though, I’m waiting for you to use one of her patented expressions like ‘we could buy a month’s worth of groceries for that much’ in her judgmental voice. As if having nice things was a crime.”

  “I’m not gonna lie, I was thinking that.” I smile at her in the mirror as she finishes zipping me. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been living with her too long.”

  “Uh, yeah you have. Come on, it’s time to get out of that house already.”

  “Someday.” I turn around and give Jessalyn a hug. I usually make it a point not to psycho analyze the people I’m close to—definitely not my sister—but I’ve always had my theories about why Jessalyn—with an IQ that would put most scholars to shame and looks like she could be on a magazine cover—is still living in a small shitty town with our mom. I think my dad leaving effected her way more than it did me. But she’s a grown up, I can’t force her to do anything—all I can do is encourage her. “Your phone just went off.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  It’s a text from Lucien. He’s outside with a stretched limo. I had him and Pope pick up Kennedy and then swing by here.

  Me: We’ll be right down. Is Kennedy giving stink eye?

  Lucien: No :-) - but her pupils are too busy eye-fucking my brother. I feel like I should step out and give them a few minutes to work out their sexual frustration.

  “You ready?” I ask my sister. She looks beautiful, as always.

  “Ready. Let’s go eat some fancy stuff.”

  The ride to the restaurant only takes ten minutes. I was worried it would be weird with everyone together. I know Kennedy is still mad at Lucien for disappearing on me, but she’s not being weird about it for my benefit, which I really appreciate. She’s stayed mad at him for all these years, which is what best friends are supposed to do, but she really doesn’t need to hold a grudge anymore.

  All that aside, it’s making me really happy to have everyone I love surrounding me at the same time—that hasn’t happened in forever, and it’s the best way I can think of to celebrate this special day. We order appetizers and drinks. After a a round or two everyone loosens up and starts talking, and before I know it the table is full of laughter and memories of the old days.

  When we finish our main course, I notice Lucien holding his cell.

  He’s not a guy who’s attached to his phone, at least not when we’ve been together, so when he grabs it from his pocket and answers right at the table I’m a little surprised. I don’t care if he needs to take a call for business, I know he’s got a lot going on with his building, but it’s still odd to see.

  The table is loud with the sound of everyone talking, but I try to be a snoop and listen to what he’s saying. Even though I can’t hear the words, I can see the expression on his face change with each second he’s on the phone. He jumps up, literally, and Kennedy, Jessalyn and I look at each other as Lucien storms off towards the front.

  I watch him walk right out of the front doors and after he’s gone for five minutes I look at Pope, worried. “Is there something going on with the business?” I ask.

  “Not that I know of. Not tonight.” Now Pope looks concerned. “Excuse me a minute, I need to go see what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Pope leaves the table, and after another two minutes pass without either of them coming back, I decide to go meet them. I need to know what’s wrong. Just as I’m about to get up and follow them out I see him coming back to his seat. Pope isn’t with him.

  “What going on?”

  “Nothing.” He fakes a smile and sits back down next to me.

  “You’re lying. You and your brother didn’t just get up for no reason. Tell me.”

  “Not right now,” he answers. “It’s almost time for. . .”

  Before he finishes that sentence, I see our waiter coming out of the kitchen followed by three others. He has the biggest white cake I’ve ever seen in my life, decorated with sparkling candles and the most beautiful decorations that I can see even from where I’m sitting. A chorus of Happy Birthday follows predictably. Everyone at the table starts singing along, and just as the last line is being sung the cake is placed right down in front of me. I look over at Lucien.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Not as beautiful as you. Now blow the candles out.”

  I get them all in one giant breath, and everyone in the restaurant starts applauding so loudly I feel like I just finished a Broadway performance. This whole thing is amazing. The waiters slice the cake right at our table and give slices out to everyone, and we eat. All of us except Lucien, who’s pushing his cake around with his fork.

  I lean into him. “You need to tell me what’s wrong. Tell me.”

  “Our mom died,” he says flatly. “Pope and I are flying out to Arkham tomorrow morning.”

  Oh my God. I can’t believe the words I’m hearing. My heart breaks for him right there at the table, and tears fill my eyes. I don’t know what to say or do, so I grab onto his hand and say the only thing that makes sense.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Forty—Lyric

  The Present (Four Days Later)

  The funeral was yesterday.

  My heart broke into a thousand pieces seeing Lucien and his brother cry over their mother’s casket. It was a small ceremony—just her two boys and their aunt from Colorado who they haven’t spoken to in years.

  I loved his mom. I don’t know if Lucien knows this, but after he was gone I visited her from time to time. I saw her around town until I left for college, and even though I was destroyed by his leaving, seeing his mom and Pope around always gave me a strange sort of comfort—like there was a piece of Lucien left behind.

  When we were together, she treated me like I was her daughter—she thanked me once for being a stabilizing factor in her son’s life—her words. I smiled because there was so much I didn’t know about Lucien yet. Like what happened between him and his father, or why they came to live in Arkham at all. I found all of that out later.

  Now, I’m here in their old house—a house I haven’t stepped foot in for so long. It looks exactly the same as I remember. The outside needs some work. The cheap wooden fence is old and rotting. The upstairs windows ne
eded replacing back when Reagan was president. But inside the house is so well kept. She poured her heart and soul into making this place beautiful on the inside. The house is a facade—hidden beauty wrapped in ugliness.

  In other words, this house is the East End.

  I’m standing inside the house he hated so much, like he was embarrassed by this place, even though I didn’t live that far from him and my house was nothing that would make you turn your head if you passed it.

  Eventually I made him take me—to meet his mom, to see his house. It wasn’t easy. He tried everything he could to keep me out, but when I told him I wasn’t going to kiss him again until he let me meet his mom he finally gave in. He didn’t know it was the worst bluff in history in bluffs.

  She was a great woman. I’m so sorry this happened.

  It means everything that Lucien let me come back home with him. He’s about the only thing that could bring me back to this place. It speaks volumes that I’ve been in Arkham for days and haven’t visited my own mother. Jessalyn keeps giving me shit about it but I’m not ready to see her. She’s spent the last few years becoming “her best self” and getting so far into eastern medicine and holistic self care that she hasn’t had time to care about what’s going on in my life. I’m used to it.

  So I’m here alone eating Chinese takeout from the one place in town that I used to go as a kid. I can’t believe it’s still here. After the funeral, he said he needed to spend some time with Pope, so I’m hanging out here watching Netflix on my phone and remembering what it was like to be eighteen again.

  It’s around ten when I hear keys in the front door.

  Lucien walks in. Actually, he stumbles in the doorway. I get up off the couch and meet him in the kitchen. I can smell the booze on him

  “I’m drunk,” he says. “And I’m pretty sure I need to throw up.”

  “Well don’t throw up on the floor.” I take the keys out of his hand and help him get to the bathroom. It looks ridiculous because he’s so much bigger than me. He comes out five minutes later, glassy eyed and unstable.

  “No vomit, so I guess that’s a win.”

  “You have to take what life gives you, right? How’s Pope?”

  “Staying at an old friend’s house—some skank he used to make out with in high school. You believe that?”

  “Oh no,” I say as soon as I realize who he’s talking about. “Not. . .”

  “Yeah. Susie. You remember her?”

  “Remember her? Kennedy hated her. They were like mortal enemies.”

  “Because of my brother?”

  “Who knows?” I tell him. “She never gave me the whole story. Denied it every time I asked her if there was something going on between them.”

  “Huh.” He falls down on the couch with a big thump. “He’s never said anything to me, but we’re not close like that. We’ve always kept a lot from each other.”

  But not where you went, right? Pope knew where you were the whole time you were gone, but he wouldn’t tell anyone—not me, not Kennedy, not any of our friends, no one.

  I sit down next to him. Even though he smells about 80 proof I nuzzle up in his neck. “How are you doing?” I ask.

  Lucien is allergic to vulnerability. Even when we were kids, he’d never admit any physical or emotional pain. The only emotion he had no problem expressing ever was anger. “I’ll live.”

  “Your mom was one of my favorite people while I knew her. I should have come back more often.”

  “Not your responsibility. Pope and I should have come back more often. We’re the ones who failed her.”

  I sit up. He’s looking off into the distance with deeply drunk eyes. I can tell he’s sad. I gently pull his face towards mine so that he’s looking at me. “Listen to me, you did not fail your mom. That big heart she had finally gave out. No one could have seen that coming.”

  He stands up for a second and goes to the fridge. He comes back with a bottle of water and sits on the big chair next to the sofa. I wonder why he’s not sitting next to me.

  “Do you remember the fire?”

  His voice is deep and somber. As he looks down at the floor, I wonder why he’s bringing this up.

  “Of course,” I answer. “Everyone remembers the fire.”

  It was a huge event in a town as small as ours. After the spring pep rally, the town council put up a celebratory float in the middle of town for all of our school’s varsity athletes. A day after it went up, the whole thing caught fire, and before the Arkham FD put it out the fire had spread to a few local businesses and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. It was a huge deal.

  “Once Gorply investigated it, he came to the conclusion that it was arson, remember?”

  There had only been a rumor that someone had started the fire. First it was just people talking, and then when Officer Gorply launched a week-long investigation, he came to the conclusion that someone had set the float on fire.

  “I didn’t know it was official, but I’d heard people talking about it.”

  “That guy had it out for me and my family from jump street. He decided who me and my family were the second he slapped those cuffs on me. To be fair I gave the guy a reason to not like me, but still.”

  “Even so, he shouldn’t have treated you like a suspect for something you obviously didn’t do. Having a fight couple fights doesn’t make you an arsonist.”

  “That’s what I told him. He didn’t want to hear.”

  “Wait, you mean he really thought you did it?”

  He nods. “Came to this very house,” he tells me. “Walked right through that door over there. Fucker sat on my couch, and in front of my mom accused me of starting the fire. She pretty much had to throw him out.”

  This is the first I’m hearing of this—he never said a word to me when it happened right before spring break of our senior year. “He was such a piece of shit.”

  “No argument here. And he wasted no time in reminding me that I was eighteen, and if I were to be convicted that I’d do big boy time in real jail—no more juvenile detention shit. He was really particular on that point.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t need to know. You were always a worrier, and if I told you that I was under investigation for arson that would have been about the only thing we talked about. I didn’t want that.”

  “So what happened? He asked you some questions and then left you alone?”

  He snickers. “I wish. That’s what he did the first time. By the second visit, he kept saying that he had it on good authority that I was involved somehow. But he never said what that meant.”

  There’s no way Lucien was involved. No way. “Did he eventually drop it?”

  “After coming to the house for the third time, he realized that I wasn’t going to confess to something I didn’t do, and he didn’t have any actual evidence against me, or Pope. So he moved on. As far as I know the case was never officially closed.”

  “Because Gorply was an incompetent idiot.”

  Lucien smirks and takes a sip of his water. “Ironic.”

  “What’s ironic?” I ask.

  “That dude hated my guts, but I could have helped him solve the whole thing. Would have taken me about three seconds.”

  I’m confused. “What are you talking about? How could you have helped him solve the arson case?”

  Another swig of water before he finally makes eye contact with me. “Easy,” he says. “Because I know who did it.”

  Forty-One—Preacher

  The Past

  A walk home from school is never a good thing when a cop is trailing you without actually trailing you. That Gorply asshole has been up my ass since the fire. Actually, he’s been up my ass since we got to town. I don’t care though—a little harassment isn’t going to do anything to me, and I know I wasn’t involved in any of that shit.

  But I know who was.

  Draven and his boys. Kyle. Dax, all those Alpha douches.
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  How do I know that? Because they told me.

  Lyric had stayed late at school for extra help because that’s the kind of student she was. Me? I left five minutes before the last bell even rang—bathroom break that turned into me just walking the hell out. I wasn’t alone. All those boys were in the parking lot, cutting class in plain view of any teacher who bothered to look out of their window.

  We made eye contact, and then I looked away.

  That’s when I heard the footsteps behind me. I readied myself for a fight—I knew their little Alpha egos were still hurting from their original ass whooping before school started, and that only meant they wanted to get me back. I took a deep breath as the steps got closer to me, and if I had to take on all of them by myself, well then so be it.

  When the steps get too close for my comfort I stop and turn around—the last thing I want is to get cold cocked when I’m not looking, and he’s the kind of guy who’d do that too.

  “We going for round two?”

  He stops in his tracks, hands up like he doesn’t want to actually fight. Figures. Guy’s a total pussy. “Not interested. Only trashy East Enders brawl in the street. You know the type—the same kind that light fires.” He has my attention now.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “What I really wanted to do was offer my apologies for all the shit you’re getting from Gorply. That has to be annoying. Guy pretty much works for my father at this point—him and everyone else. Honest truth, he’s a fuckin idiot, but it helps having the police chief in your back pocket.”

  “I’m sure it does,” I tell him, wondering where this is headed. “Must be nice.”

  “It comes in handy. Like when the cops come to your house asking about a fire that almost killed three people and caused a crazy amount of damage in town. It helps to throw them a name of someone you think might have done it, even if it’s total bullshit.” That fucker. He’s the one who threw the cops on my tail. I bite my lip to stop myself from killing him right on the spot. “If only he knew it was Kyle. Never seen him so drunk. When I dared him to take out his lighter I was joking. The crazy fuck actually did it.”