Son of Destruction

19




Bobby


Now that they’re here, Bobby’s glad Chape called them back to the cabin to regroup after the search. It’s the first time he and these old friends have been together in this room since his life went south. He thought it would be hard, reading the truth about himself in their faces, but, these poor guys! Whatever life did to him, it hasn’t spared them, either – except maybe Chape with his burnished, impregnable smile. This is Bobby’s rehearsal for re-entry, which this party will be, unless it’s death by total immersion, and so far, it’s going pretty well.

Stitch and Buck were uneasy with him at first, but Bobby’s always been good with people, a tremendous asset when he was in finance. A few words, a warm grin and they were his again. The unfamiliar, surprisingly old faces of his friends morphed into the kid-faces he remembers, and Brad? Passed out somewhere. Dead drunk, doubtless, he might as well be in Atlanta or on Mars.

Buck reported, ‘I saw every bartender on Bay Drive. They all claimed he threw up in their toilets.’

Stitch grinned. ‘He punched a guy out at Diggers.’

‘There was breakage at Mook’s Tavern, but I paid.’ Bobby was thinking, Schadenfreude?

‘Brad always was a schmuck.’

‘Face it. Brad is one mean bastard.’

‘We did what we could,’ Chape said.