King smiled.
“I’m glad you let that smile out, Boss-Man. I was afraid for a second that you were going to spontaneously combust. That or you had a serious case of constipation,” I said.
Bear snorted. “Well, make sure that when y’all get one of them places that you make room for me,” Bear said, sounding defeated.
“Uh, Bear. You’re in a biker gang,” I pointed out. I quit rowing just long enough to pass him the dented Pepsi can I’d made into a temporary bong after dropping my rolling papers into the fucking Caloosahatchee. “I hate to sound all mean-girls on you, but...you can’t live with us.”
“It’s a motorcycle club,” Bear corrected, looking off into the distance. “And I ain’t moving in. Just make sure you have space for me if I need to crash.”
King and I glanced at each other and understanding passed between us that Bear meant he needed a place to crash for when his ‘ol man, Chop, pushed him to the edge, which he was doing more and more of ever since Bear turned official Prospect for the MC.
“Sure thing, man,” King said, casually.
The three of us continued to survey the darkened waste of real estate until we came upon one that was different than the others.
It was lit up and being that it was closer to the water than the others, we could see directly inside to where a family was eating dinner together at the dining room table. A mom, dad, and little boy. They were smiling and laughing together. “Didn’t know families actually did that,” I said, not realizing how sad it sounded at the time.
“You don’t want that,” Bear argued. “Shit looks boring as fuck.”
King agreed with a slight nod of his head.
“I didn’t say I wanted that,” I quipped, shrugging my shoulders. “I just didn’t know people actually did that. Thought it was made up or something you only see on TV.”
“It is,” Bear said. “What you just saw there was a lie. The dad is probably fucking his assistant, who’s a dude, mom’s knocked up by the principle of junior’s school and has a thousand dollar a day drug habit, plus junior is so high on ADD meds he doesn’t know his dick from a wet noodle.”
“I feel like you’ve given this way more thought than it deserved,” I observed as the family eating dinner grew further and further away. “Wait?” I faked a gasp. “Are YOU the one fucking the dad?”
Bear punched me in the shoulder and smiled. “Boring as fuck,” he said again, like it was a fact he wanted me to remember. He slid his cigarette to the side of his mouth so he could use both arms to row against the growing current.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Boring as fuck.”
As we approached the island everything was cast in shadows, making the long roots of the mangroves look like hundreds of skinny legs dipping into the water. The trees themselves appeared to be large spider-like creatures standing guard around the island.
I held the flashlight, trying to find the clearing we’d hacked out months before. The light caught the yellow glowing eyes of a dozen or so gators lingering at the surface of the water. Some darted under the second they found themselves in the way of the beam, other braver ones slinked toward our boat without creating any sort of wake to better inspect the intruders.
Us.
“It’s like a gator orgy out here,” I said.
“Yeah, so let's get over there quickly without tipping the goddamned boat before it becomes a gator buffet,” King said.
Once we found the clearing we paddled toward it with all of our strength to keep the tide from pushing us back. The second the boat made contact with land King jumped out first pulling the boat further onto the shore, scraping the metal bottom of the boat over the rock and shell.
Bear and I followed, each of us carrying backpacks with our stash. It only took us an hour or so to locate our hole, dig it up again, bury our stash and cover it back up.
As we made it back to the boat my flashlight again caught the yellow eyes of the gators surrounding the boat. One thrashed as it caught a fish in its mouth before diving back under the water with its meal between its teeth. “Great night for a swim,” I sang, looking back at King and Bear.
“You afraid?” Bear said, slinging his empty backpack into the boat.
“You’re the pussy out of the three of us,” I said. “Bet you wouldn’t dip your big toe in the water.”
Bear raised a brow. “Oh yeah? I’ll do you one better, I’ll run in, knee deep if you run in with me.”
“One lap around the boat?” I asked, already kicking off my shoes and rolling up my pants. Bear did the same. We both looked to King.
“Fuck,” he said, tugging off his boots. “The only reason I’m doing it this is so I don’t have to fucking hear about it for the rest of my goddamned life.” He stood at the edge. “Don’t tell Grace a word of this,” he muttered.
The three of us stood at the edge and Bear pushed the boat halfway into the water.
“Ready?” I asked, cracking my neck and rolling my shoulders. “First motherfucker to get eaten...well, dies.”
“I’m not scared,” Bear said.
“Me neither,” King chimed in.
“Okay then,” I said. “Ready. Set. Goooooo!” I shouted as the three of us splashed through the water like a herd of zebra running from a lion. It only took a few seconds for us to round the boat before we collapsed onto the shore, breathing hard from the adrenaline rush.
“All thirty fingers and toes accounted for?” King huffed.
“Yeah,” Bear and I both said at the same time. I held a finger in the air, “But Bear’s pinky toe on his right foot is weirdly smaller than the rest of his toes, so the ‘all finger and toe’ thing is subjective at best.”
“Shut the fuck up, Preppy,” Bear said, reaching for me to hit me but his fist fell short, smacking the ground instead.
“That wasn’t so bad,” I said, still gasping for air.
My life would never be like the perfect-looking family eating dinner in that window, but it didn’t have to be, because at that moment, with my friends by my side, I decided I’d much rather live the kind of life that had me splashing through gator infested waters, feeling very much ALIVE.
I glanced over to King and Bear who recognized the look on my face and cringed.
“Wanna go again?”
CHAPTER SIX
Dre