Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
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 open, 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
I was born minutes away from the beach and minutes away from the sticks, in Logan’s Beach, Florida. Saltwater in my veins. Dust on my soul.
Which was probably the reason it never bothered me when Bear, King, and I didn’t spend our Friday nights like most teenagers in LB were. Kicking up shit in the woods or sneaking beer into the drive-in dollar movie theater.
Then again, King, Bear and I weren’t most teenagers.
Our Friday nights were spent a little differently. Like rowing out to an island to bury our ‘investments.’
Although it didn’t have an official name, we’d dubbed the little five-acre slab of land separating the Bay from the Gulf as Motherfucker Island.
MFI for short.
Motherfucker Island was uninhabited and only about as big as a typical strip mall. Dense brush covered most of it, for the exception of a small clearing in the center made up of red dirt and shell. An almost perfect line of mangroves lined the perimeter.
We’d started our ‘supply bunker’ a year before. It was really just a hole in the ground, but you could only reach the island by boat and the mangroves and alligator infested shallow waters around it didn’t exactly make it a hot-spot destination for anyone but three delinquent teens trying to hide newly acquired cash, guns, and drugs.
The apartment King and I were renting wasn’t much by way of security unless you consider the flimsy chain lock on the door with rusted hinges secure. Hence the need for MFI.
The sun was setting as we rowed toward Motherfucker Island in the tiny metal boat barely large enough to hold the three of us. The time of day when it wasn’t still day but night had yet to take over the sky. I liked to call it the time of day when I couldn’t see shit. The rays from the falling ball of fire in the sky reflected off everything in sight causing me to go half blind as I rowed, hoping King and Bear could keep us on target.
A manatee blew out water a few feet from our boat. “Hey, buddy,” I said, leaning over the side and lightly patting the surface of the water.
“What the fuck are you doing?” King asked with a laugh.
“Making him come to me. I saw it on a TV show when I was a kid.” I continued to pat the water. “Come here, buddy. Come to Preppy,” I said, whistling like I was calling for a dog.
“I’m pretty sure that only works for dolphins,” Bear said, a cigarette dangling from his lip.
“Manatees are dolphins much fatter, slower cousins,” I argued. I either remembered that fact from somewhere, or made it up.
Chances are I made it up.
The manatee’s head disappeared. He flipped his tattered back fin in the air before disappearing back under the water, creating a circular ripple in the surface where he’d just been.
“Anyone else think the manatee just flipped us off?” King asked.
“He sure as fuck did,” Bear agreed. “Way to go dolphin-cousin whisperer.”
I sat back up and glared at my friends. “It’s your attitudes that scared him off. It deters even the wildlife.” I reached for my lighter in my back pocket. “In addition to girls.”
“I don’t have any problems with the girls,” King argued.
“Yeah, they’ll fuck you, but they’re scared of you,” I pointed out.
“Don’t bother me none,” King said, taking a deep breath. “Prefer it that way, actually.”
“This town can be such shit,” Bear said, exhaling smoke. He pointed to his cigarette at the disappearing ripple in the water where the manatee had just been. “And then you see shit like that and it makes you think that maybe it’s not so fucking bad.”
“I fucking love this town,” I said. “And we’re gonna own it someday. Well on our way.”
“Then we’re gonna own one of those,” King said, tipping his chin to several huge homes on pilings, towering above the water. Some of them were dark, hurricane panels covering the windows and doors. A sure sign that they were owned by someone who only lived in them ‘in season’ which was somewhere from November to March.