by Adam Vine
“Oh, we’re on the road. The road is not the problem. We stopped to get fish tacos in Half Moon Bay. You ever had the ones I’m talking about?”
“Beer battered, with the homemade salsa and orange sauce?”
“Uh, yeah. Actually, I called so I could talk to you about Bea.”
“What about her?”
Jay sounded annoyed. “Seriously, man?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Drew, it was a rough week for everyone. I lost my fucking dog today. I really think we need to be honest right now.”
“I am being honest,” I said. “I’m just sitting here playing Mass Effect 3 and getting my ass kicked by killer space robots right now. What’s on your mind?”
“I feel really bad about what happened.”
“So why don’t you tell me, and get it off your chest?”
Jay breathed a heavy sigh into the phone. “Look. I know how much you like her.“
I cut him off. “No way. She’s just a friend. And you heard what she said earlier. She might not even be my friend any more. So, fair game. Play ball.”
“Would you be mad if I hooked up with her?” Jay said.
“Are you asking for my blessing?”
Jay sighed. “It’s bro code. I don’t want to step on your toes.”
“Then no worries. These toes are un-steppable.”
I got blasted by the killer space robots and the screen went black, overlaid with the words “Game Over” in red. A familiar death leitmotif played in the soundtrack.
“God damn space robots,” I said.
“Did you just die?”
“Space robots are for faggots,” I heard Rob say in the background.
My skin went cold. “Am I on speaker?”
“Of course, man. I’m driving.”
“Why would you put me on blast like that? This is personal. Not cool.”
“They don’t care,” Jay said.
“Whup,” Ry agreed.
“We got enough problems to deal with already,” Rob said. “Jay, hurry up and hit this. It’s burning my finger hairs.”
“So hold it with your other hand, dickhead.”
My previous save file loaded. I got my revenge on the space robots while Jay was arguing.
Jay returned to the call. “So you wouldn’t be mad if Bea and me hooked up? I love you like a brother, man. I won’t do it if it’s going to cause shade between us, but she was sending me some really strong… uh… signals the past few days.”
Except, you already did. You’re no brother of mine. Brothers are loyal. You’re nothing but a liar and a traitor. I should have killed you.
“Nope. No problem here, Jay. She’s all yours. Get it in. Pillage the village.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of searing the village a nice ahi steak with a bottle of wine. I think I actually like this one, man. She’s a really great girl…”
My character in the game I was playing died again in a hail of blaster fire. I stopped listening.
Snapshot #27
Caption: My 21st Birthday
I saw green dragons spouting liquid fire from my body and fluffy white flesh clouds dripping bile rain where they spilled under my half-torn open t-shirt. My Chunky Hamburger Meteor magic reached level ninety-nine. Welcome to my 21st birthday.
In the picture you can see me hugging the toilet, one crimson eye peeking over a puke-covered arm and staring placidly at the camera.
I wasn’t just praying to the porcelain god. I was begging. Begging that deity, Lord of The Place Where All Bad Things Go, to let me survive. We’d done a bar crawl downtown – my first ever – but I blacked out halfway through.
The only clear memory I have of that night after it went downhill is Bea peeking her head through the bathroom door while I was puking. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t look her in the eye. “Not like this,” I said to her. Wasn’t that a line from a movie I liked? The Matrix?
“What?” Bea said.
“I don’t want you to see me like this. Not like this.”
“You’re dumb,” Bea said, and shut the door. A minute later she brought me a glass of water.
Happy birthday to me.
Part 4:
Initiation
The next week passed without incident. I watched the garage door every night from the driveway-side window of my bedroom, but no one came or went.
I was alone most of that week. Carter and Natalia went to their A.A. meetings. I didn’t know they hosted A.A. seven nights a week, but in Santa Cruz, they did. The few times Carter and I talked, it was about his “recovery,” and I could feel him climbing higher and higher onto his sober horse every day.
Bea avoided my texts. When I hit her up for the tenth time, saying I was really sorry about the past weekend, that I was glad the worst was behind us and we could all chill out again like the old times, Bea finally replied and said she was too busy to text this week, because she was working a lot to cover for all the days she took off over the New Year.
Ill c u Fri when Jay comes back, Bea’s final text message read.
Jay was coming back the upcoming weekend, and staying until Sunday. Ry and Rob weren’t going to be with him this time.
I tried to be a good friend and plan something fun for everyone. Carter and Natalia couldn’t drink, so I planned a mellow board game night, and set up a few tables in the living room where we could play Scrabble, Monopoly, and the Game of Thrones tabletop game.
I stayed up late, tossing and turning, unable to quiet the raging thoughts in my mind. Despite my exhaustion from not getting a good night's sleep in weeks, I couldn't stop thinking about the pictures.
My power to spy on Bea, and on my friends, was gone. I only had one picture left, the one of Bea and Jay standing on the sidewalk. I had checked it hundreds of times a day since Jay left, but it didn’t change. Bea’s hand was frozen mid-way down the scruff of Jay’s cheek. Her eyes held a desire that made my heart hurt, and he was smiling like he was high off three blunts and dancing to John Coltrane.
I took it out of my pocket and looked at it. I spent hours staring at that image, waiting for it to update. When it finally did, I regretted ever looking.
***
“You miss me?” Jay said into the screen.
“You know I do. I never miss anyone this much,” Bea said.
Their voices were a soft crackle, as if transmitted through telephone wire. They were both lying on their beds talking on FaceTime, a hundred miles apart.
“You’re a free bird,” Jay said.
“You know that’s the name of a really terrible burrito place in Santa Barbara?”
“Yeah!” Jay said. “In Isla Vista. But I wasn’t calling you a burrito.”
Bea made gagging noises into the phone. “Ugh. Yuck. That place made me throw up.”
“I doubt it was the food in Isla Vista that made you throw up,” Jay said.
“Hey, I wasn’t that drunk.”
“I bet you were. Did you meet your Prince Charming?”
“You’re rude.”
“You’re evading. It’s not like I asked how many guys you’ve slept with.”
Bea frowned. “A little early for that talk, isn’t it?”
Jay chuckled. “I’m just teasing. Shit, I’ve done I.V. like five thousand times. I met girls down there, too.”
Bea giggled. “I bet you did.”
Jay played with his hat, rolling onto his side. “I love the way your voice sounds on the phone, by the way.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah. It’s like music running through a sock full of gravel.”
“You are such a dick.”
“I thought you liked me being a dick.”
Bea thought about it, a smile crawling steadily up her lips. “I do. As long as you don’t mean it.”
“I don’t. Hey, I was thinking. About this weekend when I come down.”
I’m going to kill you both. You’re both going to di
e screaming, I thought.
“Continue,” Bea said.
“Is this gonna be the last time I see you? Because I don’t want it to be,” Jay said.
And Bea, “I hope not.”
“Okay.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t want to sound like a little bitch, Ms. Beatriz.”
“Mr. Jay. I’ve been wondering, is that short for something?”
“No.”
“What were you gonna say?”
“I was going to say that I enjoy your company. A lot. And that I wouldn’t be mad if this turned into a more long-term thing. Sure, we live far apart, but it’s not that far…”
“No, I get it,” she said, cutting him off. “I do, too. I can’t believe I’m saying this. Because I’m not… uh… I’m not a commitment person. Like, at all.”
Jay grinned. “So you did meet your Prince Charming in Isla Vista.”
“Oh, shut the hell up. More like Prince Too Drunk to get it up. He kept trying to just, like, shove it in. Without a condom. Ugh.”
“We didn’t use a condom.”
“I know, but I actually like you. That guy in I.V. was just a hookup,” Bea said.
“Is there a difference between a guy you want to date – sorry, I mean, have a sort-of-long-distance, sort-of-long-term thing with – and a guy you bang in I.V.?”
“Is that a serious question?” Bea said.
You whore.
“Well, I like you too,” Jay said.
“So, we’re twelve again.”
“Now who’s being a dick?”
Bea rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her forearms. “To be perfectly honest, I’m a little bit scared. Not scared like I was last week when that guy, or homeless lady, or whoever, was stalking me. This is different.”
“Why?”
Bea chewed on her words a long time before saying, “I don’t care half as much about myself getting hurt as I do about possibly hurting those who I care about. I can be a bitch, Jay. I’ve… hurt others in the past. And the thought of hurting you, it makes me – I don’t know. I’ve known you less than two weeks. But it kinda scares the shit out of me.”
Jay smirked. “Remember that night during Natalia’s séance, or Ouija thing, whatever she called it, when we were sharing our worst fears?”
“Yes.”
“Because that’s not what you said.”
“I lied. I didn’t want you to think I was lame,” Bea said.
“I do.” Jay chuckled. “I think you’re really lame. Happens to be one of my favorite things about you.”
“So are you, Captain Dad Joke.”
“See if I ever try to make you laugh again.”
“Hey, I love your dad jokes. I only wish you were here, to tell them to me in person.”
Jay smiled at his ceiling. “Beatriz, I'mma tell you how it’s gonna be.”
“Oh, really? Sure. Go ahead.”
“We’re gonna take it one day, one mile at a time. I don’t know how the story of you and me will end, but I like the beginning so much, I’m willing to keep reading. Even if there are risks.”
“Me too, Jay.”
“So, stop worrying. This old heart of mine doesn’t break so easy.”
“Good. Because I have no intention of breaking it.”
I wish I had that problem, I thought.
***
I went out to the sun deck, where I sat and contemplated burning the picture of Bea and Jay until I lost track of time. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. All the other pictures and all of my power were gone. I didn’t want to lose the tiny shred that I had left.
I heard an unfamiliar sound, something like distorted voices. At first, I thought it was more audio filtering through the picture of Bea and Jay, but as I listened harder, I realized it was a police radio somewhere nearby.
I walked through the chilly January night in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the redwood trees behind our house. I crept as silently as I could to the small gravel and dirt alley where we kept the garbage dumpsters. It’s not easy sneaking when you weigh almost three hundred pounds, but I don’t think I made any noise. The alley ended a few hundred feet up the hill, behind Mr. DeLucio’s house. Our neighbors never parked there, so I was startled when I saw headlights.
A police cruiser pulled out onto the street and slowly drove away.
***
I decided to break into Mr. DeLucio’s house at noon the following day. I had to know if I'd left the last set of pictures behind. I figured hidden-in-plain-sight was the best way to go, so I walked up to his front door, acting as if I didn’t know the owner of the house was dead. My plan was to look concerned when he didn’t answer my knocks, then go around back and try to find a way in.
“Hey, Mr. DeLucio? You home?” I called.
I tried the front door. Fortunately, Officer Skoakland had left it unlocked.
Nobody had been inside DeLucio’s house for a week. The cats were gone, and so was the body. The trash stank. The dirty dishes in the sink stank. The whole house reeked of rotten vegetables. No one had bothered to clean it up. The vomit stains had set on the bedroom carpet.
I poked around the piles of Polaroids still strewn across his bed, desk, and floor. Everything was still in its place. The pictures of our basement, complete with bright red circles where Mr. DeLucio thought there were unmarked graves, were all there. All of them, except the ones I was looking for. I checked the bed, the floor, the desk, flipping through every Polaroid scattered across the room, arranging them into a pile so I could be sure I wasn't overlooking anything.
Nothing, I thought, feeling both incredibly relieved and disappointed at the same time. They’re not here. The five Polaroids I thought had fallen out of my pocket the morning I saw Mr. DeLucio’s corpse were nowhere to be found. Not on the bed. Not on the floor. Not on the desk. Had I imagined them, after all?
As I opened the big middle drawer of Mr. DeLucio’s desk, the question about the missing pictures vanished from my mind. There was a stack of files inside, the covers all scribbled with neat, obsessive handwriting. The files bore five names: Marty, Rebecca, Gloria, Apple, Andy.
Mr. DeLucio had kept a file on every member of the ’93 Sunny Hill Crew.
The first one I opened was Marty’s. Marty’s obituary fell out of the manila folder into my hands, as well as an invitation to his funeral, complete with a memorial bookmark featuring a picture of Marty and a quote from the Bible – Isaiah 57:1-2, “Those who walk uprightly enter into peace”.
I sorted through the rest. There were the original police photos from the car crash, pictures and maps of the road where Marty died, diagnostic printouts of Marty’s black 1986 Chevy Camaro, and a report of the car’s known mechanical flaws. There was also a piece of paper torn from a notebook, with Mr. Delucio's handwriting scrawled across it: Old Eight Mile Road, 14 collisions in 50 years leading to ZERO deaths. And, Marty’s car had damage to the rear driver’s side wheel well and traces of paint from another car, too. Black.
I took a closer look at the coroner’s photo of the crash. It was hard not to focus on the blood-splattered shape of Marty half-wound around the twisted pretzel of the driver’s seat. It appeared something had hit the back of Marty’s car, causing him to spin out.
The front of his car was wrapped around a tree at the bottom of a ditch. It was hard to make out in the pictures, which had been taken at night, but the outline of the tree was there.
I went back to the police report. The responding officer was Andrew Skoakland. Why Andy? Mr. DeLucio had written in his notes. WHY ANDY! What was Andy doing THERE?!!
The cause of the crash was cited as unknown/accidental. But it wasn’t an accident. Officer A. Skoakland wasn’t California Highway Patrol. He was a Santa Cruz police officer. The Santa Cruz PD didn’t patrol past the city limits. They didn’t take long late-night drives on quiet, seaside country roads – for example, Old Eight Mile, which is almost twenty minutes up
Highway One. They didn’t happen upon fatal accidents of unknown causes on said quiet, seaside country roads. They didn’t respond to calls past the city limits, which was the CHP’s jurisdiction, unless they had good reason. Followed, Mr. DeLucio’s notes read, then: Andy killed him.
Andy murdered Marty. He ran him off the road into a tree-lined ditch.
“Didn’t hurt much,” dead Marty’s voice echoed in my mind’s ear. “Shit. Barely even felt it. Real talk.”
But why? What would possess someone to murder his best friend?
I closed Marty’s file and set it down on Mr. DeLucio’s desk.
The next file in the desk drawer was Gloria’s, labeled “Lor.” Its contents were even more gruesome than Marty’s. Obituaries, police reports, and crime scene photos, all put together in jigsaw fashion to show how Andy had driven five hundred miles south to murder Gloria in her apartment in Los Angeles, and how afterward, Gloria’s gangbanger boyfriend had taken the fall.
Andy had been sloppier this time, his mistakes much worse than a scrape of black paint left behind on the victim’s car. Andy didn’t cover his face, for one. In the transcripts of the witness interviews section of the police report, the neighbors at Gloria’s apartment complex reported seeing a large blonde Caucasian man enter Gloria’s apartment.
Skoakland wore bags on his feet to conceal his footprints, but one must have ripped off during the struggle and remained at the scene of the crime. The blood was Gloria’s, but the tread mark of the shoe inside the bag matched Andy’s size.
The police report ruled it a murder-suicide, pinning the crime on Gloria’s dead boyfriend Antonio – who Andy had shot twice in the heart before stabbing Gloria to death – as the perpetrator. It failed to explain why someone committing suicide would shoot himself twice in the heart rather than once in the head, or why a handgun reported stolen from a home in Northern California would be used to commit a crime five hundred miles south, or at what point Antonio had visited Northern California to steal said gun at all.
Mr. DeLucio’s notes put the pieces together. Blonde man enters, blonde man leaves. 11:52 PM – ten minutes before the murders. Shouting heard by neighbors. Plastic zip-lock bag found with a size twelve shoe-print in Lor’s apartment. Antonio’s feet were size ten. Why would someone who was going to commit suicide after murdering his girlfriend wear bags on his shoes?
