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Speak to You Soon

  Copyright 2013 Van Thomas

  Cover Art: Van Thomas

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  1 – Davey

  2 – Julie

  3 – Jorge

  4 – Raven

  5 – Last Text

  6 – Katrina

  7 – The Initiation

  8 – Missing

  9 – A Perfect Storm

  10 – Tino

  11 – The Search

  12 – Pressure

  13 – News

  14 – Wilson Street

  15 – The Shooting

  16 – CNN

  17 – The River

  Part 2

  18 – Saint Vincent’s

  19 – Darius

  20 – Crash

  21 – Drunk

  22 – Sutures

  23 – Consequences

  24 – Mr. Vala

  25 – The Deal

  26 – Surveillance

  27 – Court

  28 – Therapy

  29 – The Visit

  30 – The Research

  31 – The Plan

  32 – Dr. Gage

  33 – Connections

  34 – The Interview

  35 – The Plan

  36 – Stakeout

  37 – Eric’s

  38 – Life

  39 – Hope

  Part 1

  1

  Davey

  “Davey, come on. Stay over. I got a fifth of Jim Beam to keep you here.” Eric pulled the bottle out from under the couch cushion. “Ta da!” he grinned.

  “Hot shit, Davey, I didn’t know your uncle was a magician as well as an asshole,” Vince laughed.

  “Who you calling asshole, asshole?” Eric shot back.

  “I can’t. Not tonight. I promised Julie I’d come back. Dad’s picking me up in the morning, early, and I don’t think I’ll be back for a long time.”

  “I’d go home for Julie, too,” Pat purred. “Meow. Your sister’s hot.”

  “Yeah, if I wasn’t related to her, I’d do her,” Eric said sitting back down on the couch.

  “You’d do jail time for that buddy,” Vince said shaking his head. “What are you? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-six,” Eric said shrugging his shoulders. “So what? I’m not drunk enough to bang someone my own age. Sixteen to twenty-one, that’s the sweet spot right there,” Eric grinned and put the bottle in his mouth, using his teeth to open it. “Every year older I get, there’s a whole new crop of them ripe for the picking.” He took a long pull on the bottle. “Here, hand it over to my little nephew there, would you, Vince?”

  Vince handed it down to Davey who sat on the floor, his back against the couch. Davey shook his head no.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Vince asked.

  “Don’t talk about my sister that way ever again. I’ll fucking kill you all if you do. I mean it.”

  “Jesus, Davey,” Pat said sitting down beside him on the floor. “Don’t take it so serious.”

  “Here, man, take this and lighten up,” Vince handed the bottle to Davey a second time.

  “I’ll be damned if you’re going back home tonight, Davey,” Eric glared, “You’re too full of shit for your own good.”

  2

  Julie

  “What do you mean Davey’s missing?” Mom shrieked to Uncle Eric on the phone. I flipped open my phone and speed dialed Davey, but his phone was turned off. “What the hell are you talking about? He texted Julie earlier and asked if he could sleep over.”

  Grandma hopped up from her chair and turned off the tv.

  “You did what? Took him out on the water? Eric, what the hell are talking about?”

  “Where are u? Mom is freakin out,” I texted.

  Mom slammed down the receiver. “Julie, come on, Davey’s missing. We gotta go find him.”

  “Where are u?” I ask again. “Davey, we’re comin to Erics.”

  “You are not taking my car,” Grandma said as Mom took her keys off the hook in the kitchen. “Annie, you’re not taking my car!” Grandma yelled again. “It’s bad enough you brought all these kids to come live with me. Your kid’s just run off, like he’s done a million times before.”

  “Listen, Mom. Your son took my kid out in a boat and now they can’t find him. Eric lost Davey, Mom. Don’t give me this shit now, ok? Julie, you and Kerstin run out to the car. Mom, I’m leaving Danielle. She’s sleeping. I’m not waking the baby up.”

  “She better not wake up, Annie,” Grandma said irritably as she turned the tv back on and cranked the volume before sitting back down in her chair. “I’m not getting back up again.”

  “KiKi don’t cry, honey, we’ll find him,” Mom said pulling out. “I’m going to kill him when we do, but we’ll find him.”

  I checked my phone again. “Moms gonna ground u for life!” I typed.

  “Davey said he was going to sleep over there, right?” Mom ask as she drove over the Palos bridge that connected Athens to Nelsonville.

  “He first asked if we could come get him and then later he wrote back and said Pat and Vince were staying over and could he, too?”

  “God dammit!” Mom yelled and then looked at me, “where could he be, Julie? Where?”

  3

  Jorge

  I always tell people I’m the youngest in my family when they ask. My two big sisters are Maria and Julesia, then Alfonso, Tatyana, and me. But after me really came Tino. I don’t forget, it’s just easier that way. Before we moved, everyone knew what happened. I didn’t have to explain. In Athens, I got tired of it. The teachers would treat me differently for a few days and then they’d forget. The kids would remember for longer. The girls were real sweet to me after I told them. My first girl, Rosa, she let me play doctor with my toes after I told her, right up under her skirt, right there in class with the teacher at her desk and all the kids around. The boys thought it made me weak, having a brother who died that way. Like I should have saved him. Or, I should have taken the bullet, the second son, not the third, not the baby of the family.

  Sometimes I wish I had taken it. I wish it’d been me instead of Tino who died. I know Mom does. She’d never say it, but she can barely look at me anymore. She stopped loving me the day Tino died.

  4

  Raven

  “He just walked right by me, Mom, right by me and the baby.”

  “Raven, I’m not surprised, honey. Him and his family act like the baby’s not even his. We could all starve, all of us, and freeze these cold nights, and they’d all just walk right past our apartment. Them, I expect it from. His family never liked me, never liked you because you’re mine. But, Darius, I thought he was different. He was good to you, too, before the baby came.”

  Darius had been good to me. He’d come to my Open House last year when we were living down South and talked to my teachers. Called himself my uncle. That, “If there’s any problems, call my cell.” That, “I was too smart not to do good in school.”

  Mama always said people don’t really change. You are who you are. She says she still feels like she’s my age, fourteen, inside, but she has to keep that part of her hid because she’s got
us to take care of. And, after Katrina, after Auntie Reneta dying, after Darius leaving her, she has to put away that young side. Now, all she does is look for work. And, the not finding a job is aging her. People used to ask us, “Who’s the mother and who’s the daughter?” Mama loved that. “This here’s my daughter, Raven, she’d brag.” But not no more. Thirty on her is real hard, tired, and heavy; Mama looks worn out.

  “Mama, I’m cold,” I said. We were all in one room together with the space heater on: the two of us in one bed; C.J. we’d made a bed for out of the dresser drawer. I helped Mama make it soft by putting a blanket on the bottom, folded up, and then another blanket on top of that to cover him up with. He’s closer to the heater, but not too close that he’ll burn up. I got up and put on my favorite gray hoodie, the same one I wear everyday ‘cause it’s just a part of me, like a warrior putting on armor, it helps me face the day; I feel safe in it, and it covers up my fat. “Big boned,” Mama says. But, according to the doctor’s chart, just plain old fat. Mama’s big, Auntie Reneta was, too. So’s Granny and Auntie Faith and Auntie Nellie. All of us big, and dark, too. Real black. Except C.J. He’s so light he don’t even look like he’s related.

  “Here, Raven,” Mama said as I crawled back under the covers, “have some more of the covers.” I took her offer and listened to my stomach growl until I finally fell asleep.

  5

  Last Text

  “Julie, Im sleepin over Erics, k?

  “U said ud come home.”

  “I no. Pat and Vince are here 2.”

  “So?”

  “I wont c them again for a long time. Ask mom.”

  “So? U wont c me either.”

  “Did u ask Mom?”

  “She said what r u doin?”

  “Hangin out. Stayin here.”

  “Mom said k. B careful 2.”

  “k”

  “Davey, I had fun 2day.”

  “Me 2”

  “Text me later, k?”

  “Speak 2 U soon.”

  6

  Katrina

  “Reneta, you need to get out of there,” I remember Mama telling her little sister on the phone. “You know what they’re saying, it’s going to be a Category 5 when it hits the Gulf Coast. Ain’t no way it’s not going to hit Mississippi. I seen it on the news, Reneta, and it’s nothing like what we’ve been hit with before, babe. Bill took Mama up north to Jackson. He said he’s on his way up here, got his truck loaded with a delivery for Michigan, that he said he’d take ya’ll to Jackson, or drop ya’ll off here with me and the kids for awhile.”

  There was a pause while Auntie Reneta talked to Mama. This wasn’t the first time Mama called her. She’d been calling now that was all that was on the news: Hurricane Katrina hitting land in the next eight to twelve hours. Mama said watching the people leave the coastal cities on tv is like in the Old Testament, when Moses lead the Israelites to the promised land. “Only there ain’t no promised land for any of them to go to.”

  A Jehovah’s Witness came to our door and said Katrina was ‘cause of God’s will, that the sinners are being punished. And, that there’s more bad times to come. Mama shut her up as fast as she could.

  “You trying to get us to join your church, aren’t you?” Mama said as she stepped between the door and me.

  “Did I say anything about you joining my church?” she asked me.

  “Well, we ain’t,” Mama said. “And, if you want to talk to us again, you call first.” With that, Mama shut the door and bolted it.

  “Mama,” I laughed, “she don’t have our phone number.”

  “Exactly, Raven,” she smiled.

  “No, Reneta,” Mama urged again, “if you wasn’t so hard-headed, you’d get out. If I wasn’t so far away, I’d get you out myself. Ya’ll can come back home,” Mama said again. “Just take what you need, you and Albert and the boys, just for a few days, ‘til the worst of it’s over. They’ve got a shelter in Jackson. Faith’s gone there, too, and Vernon, and they got Nellie and her kids there. And, Mama. Just think of it as a Wilson reunion.”

  Mama shook her head while she listened.

  “I don’t care what Albert says,” she continued. “Ya’ll get your stuff and go.”

  Mama took a big breath and held it while Auntie Reneta said something to her.

  “Reneta, please, don’t be a fool. Just ‘cause you rode the other ones out don’t mean you can beat this one. It’s worse than the others ones, Reneta. Come on girl,” Mama coaxed, “get the boys, get your things, kick Albert’s big butt out of his chair, and get on out of there. I mean it.”

  7

  The Initiation

  “I’m going to put my foot up your ass if you don’t stop being such a punk,” Eric growled.

  “What?” Davey asked.

  “You think you’re better than us now? Living in Columbus with your dad and his people?”

  “No, he doesn’t think that,” Vince said reaching down from the couch and shaking Davey’s shoulders playfully.

  “What’s it like up there, anyway?” Pat asked passing the bottle back to Eric.

  “It’s alright. I got a job changing oil at Jiffy Lube.”

  “Hey, Davey, that’s real good. I wish I could find a job. Figures, the youngest one out of the four of us and the only one with a real job.”

  “Did your dad help you?” Eric asked.

  “What?”

  “Get a job?”

  “I don’t know. He knew some guys there.”

  “There you go, man. That’s why you think your shit don’t stink, right?”

  Davey shook his head.

  “Hey, Eric,” Vince said trying to change the subject, “Did you finish painting your Pontiac? That is one sweet car. The walls shake when you’re coming up the road to get me.”

  “No, just the base coat. I got it parked in the shop now. Some guy came in and offered me two grand on the spot for it last week.”

  “Two grand? I’d take it.”

  “Course you would, Pat. But, I’m holding out. I put more than two grand into that car just getting it road ready.”

  “Remember last summer when Eric took us all out for a ride?” Vince asked Davey.

  Davey grinned. “We ended up somewhere in Kentucky, didn’t we? I thought we’d get pulled over. Remember? You stole Grandma’s plates and put them on the Pontiac.”

  “Yeah, we were breaking about every kind of law that day,” Pat said.

  “Son-of-a-bitch. I forgot,” Eric laughed. “You got one slick uncle, don’t you kid?” he reached over and pulled Davey’s baseball hat down over his eyes.

  “I’d never seen so many cows in my life,” Pat laughed. “It was Wild Animal Planet in the boonies.”

  “Then we found that quarry, remember?” Davey asked pulling his cap back up.

  “Yeah, and your dog ran off and wouldn’t get back in the car,” Vince added.

  “I near left that dog there,” Eric laughed, “except she’s a good little money maker for me. I got most of those Pit puppies sold before they’re even weaned. I got some good looking Merle pups now. And a real pretty all white little girl I was thinking about giving to Julie.”

  “You know Grandma won’t let you do that,” Davey said. “It’s bad enough Mom’s up here with no where else to stay.”

  “Yeah, my mom’s a bitch,” Eric said.

  “I thought old people got nicer,” Pat added, “’til I met you mom. She’s like one of those chics that’s constantly on the rag.”

  “I never blamed your mom for running off with your dad,” Eric started. “She was what, seventeen? A year older than you? Annie got the worst of it, being the oldest and being a girl. Dad was long gone by then, anyway, shacked up with that woman with all of the horses. We drove by her house last summer when we got all turned around. It looked just the same.”

  “You had us believing we were lost,” Pat said.

&
nbsp; “We were lost. I just stumbled on it by accident, that’s all. I rode my bike from there all the way back to my mom’s once.”

  “You crazy?” Vince laughed.

  “Yeah, that’s been pretty much established, ain’t that right, Davey? Then you had to come along and steal all the attention.” Eric yanked his hat off this time. “You’re a little punk, aren’t you, Davey?”

  Davey shrugged.

  “My dad pissed me off over something or other,” Eric continued. “Don’t remember now. But, it was one long bike ride. That I do remember.”

  “Ain’t your dad dead?” Pat asked.

  “Yeah, he’s dead. I’m glad he’s dead. He never did one goddamn thing for me.”

  “He wanted to see you when he was dying,” Davey said quietly.

  “What? So he could tell me how sorry he was for all the things he’d done to me? Screw that, man. He was dead to me a long long time ago. He died when he left us there to rot with Mom.

  There was an extended silence.

  “What, Davey?” Eric glared. “You little punk. Just ‘cause he set you up with a fat little chunk of change, you think I give a shit? Fuck you, Davey, man. Fuck you.”

  8

  Missing

  Before we even turned onto Eric’s street, I heard the sirens. Then, red and blue lights flashed like a strobe light inside Grandma’s car.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Mom yelled, pulling over and jumping out of the car. I closed her door and KiKi and I ran to catch up.

  “Where’s Davey?” Mom cried to Pat and Vince. “Somebody tell me where my son is!”

  “M’am,” a police officer said walking up. “I’m Officer Tremblay from the Nelsonville Police Department. I’m looking for Annie Price in regards to Davey Price.”

  “I’m Annie Price.”

  “Ms. Price, we received a report about some noise out on the water.”

  “My son’s not here,” Mom said looking around frantically.

  “Who was he last with?”

  “My brother, Davey’s uncle.”

  “When I arrived on the scene, M’am, I observed one man out in the water, diving and calling for help, while another young man was sitting by the shore, and a third, your brother, you say . . . ?”

  Mom nodded.

  “He was standing close to the apartment complex.”

  Mom shook her head back and forth, as if trying to make sense of what was being said.

  “Can you identify those three men?” Officer Tremblay pointed to Eric and to Vince and Pat who were a little further away next to another officer who stood, note pad open, taking notes.

  “That’s my brother. And those are their friends.”

  “Names?”

  “Eric Chapin and Patrick and, and, I don’t know!” Mom wept. “What about Davey? Eric!” Mom screamed over Officer Tremblay’s shoulder. “Eric! Where’d Davey go?”

  “We have reason to believe your son might have been out on the water.”

  “No,” I spoke up. “My brother can’t swim. He’s afraid of the water.”

  “Davey wouldn’t have gone out there, would he, Mommy?” asked Kerstin.

  “No,” Mom said firmly. “He’s somewhere else. He wouldn’t have gone out there with them, Officer. I know my son.”

  “According to the caller, there were four men out on the water. We have divers out there now. You understand we have to take this very seriously.”

  “It’s not true,” Mom said. “He wouldn’t go out there. He wouldn’t go out on the water. Eric!” Mom shrieked again. “Davey wouldn’t go out on the water with you, would he?”

  9

  A Perfect Storm

  Mama kept the little tv on in the kitchen 24/7. We picked it up by the side of the road. It worked good, too, for being free, even though the colors are a little off. White people end up a little green, blacks a little