Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Oh,” he said, coming back from wherever he’d gone. “This guy King and I used to sell weed to when we were kids taught us. There was one summer we ate so much of these fuckers we had to stop when we realized we started to smell like them too,” he said with a laugh, recalling the memory.
“They’re so small,” I pointed out. “Hardly seems like enough for two growing boys.”
“It’s not. That’s why we need more,” Preppy said, yanking me by the hand back to the end of the dock. We caught seven of them before Preppy declared that was enough for our lunch. We drove to what looked like an abandoned shack in the middle of similar looking shacks in the middle of the causeway. The smell of freshly fried seafood wafted from the little building making my stomach growl. “Hungry?” Preppy asked, guiding us into the small space which only held a few mismatched tables and an old Pepsi cooler.
“Starving, you?” I asked, surprised when we didn’t take a seat. Preppy pushed passed the counter into an even tinier back room where a large man with silver hair was standing over a pot.
“Preppy, my good man, what do you have for me?” he asked, taking the bucket from Preppy’s arms.
“The gift of crabs,” Preppy announced.
The man chuckled and set the bucket on the ground next to the stove. “This might be the only time when crabs make a good gift,” he said. “You want them the usual way?”
“You got it,” Preppy said, tugging me by the hand out the back door. “Oh, and this is Dre,” he called back my last minute introduction. “That’s Billy.”
“Like Dr. Dre?” Billy asked.
“Yep, she has a sister named Snoop,” Preppy said, opening the creaking screen door. We sat on yellow chairs at the single rickety patio set that looked like it had been rotting in the sun for quite some time.
Preppy leaned in closer like he was studying me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning back from his intense glare.
“Trying to figure you out.”
“Huh? Me? Why?”
Preppy pointed to my face. “You have these huge eyes and although they’re dark as hell, they’re still bright somehow. You’ve got seriously black hair, so black it’s almost blue, but your skin is only slightly tannish. What are you? Some flavor of Spanish? Oh! I got it, a little Asian? No, that’s not it. Caribbean islander, maybe? Barbados? Antigua? Narnia?”
I shook my head. “Narnia? That’s not even a real place. It’s fiction.”
“Have you ever been there?” Preppy challenged.
“No.”
“Then how can you be so sure?”
“I guess I can’t be.”
“I rest my case.”
I laughed. “Well, real or not, I’m not…Narnian. My mom’s background is English if you go way back and my dad’s side is French Canadian.”
Preppy slid his sunglasses down his nose. “So…you be a white chick then?”
“Like, I totally be a white chick.”
Preppy sighed. “Bummer. Here I thought we were all interracial and shit.”
“Disappointing, I know.”
“The struggle is real.”
After a few moments of comfortable silence, Preppy spoke first, “What are you thinking about over there, Doc? I can see your wheels turning.”
I shrugged. “You’re just always so comfortable. Around everyone. You know, when you’re not threatening me or trying to teach me a lesson or dragging me around somewhere.”
“And?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“And I was wondering how someone…in your line of work can be so relaxed all the time.”
“And what line of work is that?” Preppy asked, leaning in toward me and grinning like he was up to something.
“You know, dealing the drugs,” I said, wincing when my sentence came out as awkward as I felt.
“Well, Doc, I can tell you that, although I deal in the drugs, the reason I look so comfortable is because I am.”
“Don’t you have enemies? Business deals gone bad? I mean, you carry a gun so you have to be worried about something.”
“You’ve seen too many movies, Doc. Although sometimes I do have to use it for more than putting it to your head while I make you come,” Preppy said. I blushed. “It’s BECAUSE I carry a gun that I’m not worried.” He looked out over the water. A rusted shrimp boat was slowly pulling up to the dock. One man jumped off onto the dock, while another shouted instructions and tossed him a rope. The gentle breeze blew Preppy’s sandy-blond locks around the top of his head. He turned back to me “And you’re wrong you know.”
“About what?”
“I’m not always a hundred percent comfortable around everyone,” he said, locking eyes with me. “There is this one person. This girl who I think…” Just then Billy pushed open the door.
“Hot plate!” he announced, setting down a huge platter of newly steamed crabs in the center of the table. The platter actually wasn’t a platter at all I realized, but an upside down lid of a metal garbage can.