I lay in the bed I slept in since I was a child, barely awake, my hand squeezing my dick, and I think about what I’ll do when I do finally lay eyes on Coralie. It will be such a bittersweet moment. For those first three seconds, as our eyes lock onto one another, she’s going to be processing her shock. I’m going to be drinking her in, savoring every last inch of her before she turns angry and runs away from me.
My thoughts drift. I doze, and a part of my brain thinks I’m awake and my mother is calling me from down the hallway, asking for water. That’s all she ever seemed to do at the end. All she ever wanted. Water. Ice chips when she couldn’t really swallow properly anymore. No matter how sick she got, she never stopped laughing, though. Every day, I would hear her laughing about something.
Outside, someone starts up a chain saw, and all thoughts of my mother and Coralie vanish like smoke. I’m pulled out of my dream state and back into reality, and I realize I have to piss like a goddamn racehorse. As I pad naked to the bathroom and take care of that, I think about the things I need to do today.
Visit Shane. Visit Mom. Buy groceries. Go pay my respects to Friday. Go to the funeral home and lurk like a creepy motherfucker until I see Coralie. If I’m honest, I’d drive over there right now and sit in the parking lot until she showed up. Wouldn’t matter how much of the day I missed. It’s a supremely bad idea, though. Seeing her for the first time shouldn’t take place as she’s making arrangements for her father’s burial. It should be later, at a far sexier time of day. Right after I’ve been on an eight-mile run and I’m covered in sweat, for instance.
Shane was my best friend in high school. I find him at the hardware store his family has owned for the past thirty years, and the fucker looks like he’s gained twenty pounds. His face is obscured by the most ridiculous looking beard, too. Before I shaved mine, it was trimmed and neatly groomed, more hipster than Wildman. Shane looks like he’s fucking homeless.
I haven’t told him I’m back purely so I could swing by and surprise the shit out of him, and from the stunned look on his face as I walk toward him, I’ve succeeded in my goal.
“Are you frickin’ kidding me!” he yells, slamming a pricing gun down onto the counter top in front of him.
An old man standing a few feet away from Shane looking at Command Strips with his back to me clutches a hand to his chest, making a choking sound. “Jesus Christ, Shane Willoughby, what in god’s name is wrong with you? I have a pacemaker, damn it!” He turns and I see that it’s Mr. Harrison, my biology teacher from high school. He was old as dirt when I was enrolled at Port Royal High, and now he looks like he has one foot in the grave, poor bastard.
He claps eyes on me and he immediately starts shaking his head like he’s seen a ghost. “Well. I never thought I’d see the day,” he says.
“You mean you hoped you wouldn’t,” I reply, offering out my hand for him to shake. Mr. Harrison pumps my arm up and down, squinting at me through his inch thick horn-rimmed glasses.
“You look older,” he advises me. “Probably drinking too much.”
“Definitely.”
“Smoking too much.”
“Without a doubt.”
He casts a cloudy eye down at my crotch, one bushy gray eyebrow rising slowly. “Sleeping with too many women, I’ll bet, too.”
I love that he’s looking at my dick like it’s about to pop out of my pants and try to defend itself. “One hundred percent true,” I say, laughing. “I just can’t help myself.”
“That was always your problem, Cross. You never could.” Mr. Harrison’s head rocks back and he laughs, deep and throaty, clutching at his side with his free hand. “Never mind me. I’m just jealous I didn’t have as much fun as you boys when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”
He bids me farewell and leaves the store, and Shane stands there with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at me.
“Can I get a number one Phillips head and a pack of those screws, please?” I grin from ear to ear, trying not to laugh.
“You’re joking, right?”
I fight earnestly to sober up my expression until I look more serious. “No. Not at all. You know how I like a good screw.”
Shane picks up the pricing gun and throws it at me. He was aiming for my head, but I catch it out of the air and hold it up like a regular gun, aiming it directly at his face. “Well, you don’t seem all that happy to see me,” I say. “I was expecting more fanfare. A tickertape parade. A cold beer and a handshake in the very least.”
“You aren’t drinking any of my beer, asshole. You’re lucky I didn’t throw a hatchet just now instead of that price gun.” He looks genuinely pissed off, which is definitely not a good thing.
“I’m sorry man, okay?”