I handed him the water.
He took it but didn’t express gratitude.
“Eat hearty,” I bid as I moved away, wishing I could sit next to him, hang with him, shoot the shit with him. If he wasn’t into me, at least be his friend.
I exited the space and moved into my bedroom.
He did not call me back.
* * * * *
Deke
The next afternoon, Deke sat in his deck chair close to the shore, his line in the lake, a cooler of beer in between him and his bud, Wood, the only guy Deke knew in Carnal who liked to fish.
Luckily, he was a decent guy, was good with being quiet and being in the sun by the lake with a rod and a beer, but when he talked, it wasn’t about bullshit or the man could be funny.
“Hear Max’s got you workin’,” Wood noted.
“Place on Ponderosa Road,” Deke answered.
“Flash?” Wood asked, being a lifetime Carnal resident, knowing that area and knowing most of it now, with new builds and renos, was flash.
“Yeah and no. Gonna be the shit when it’s done, but not in-your-face the shit.”
“Who’s the client?”
“Woman named Jus. Loaded. Crazy.”
“Crazy-loaded or loaded and crazy?”
“Both.”
“Pain in your ass?”
“She brings me sandwiches.”
Deke felt Wood’s eyes so he looked to him.
“That’s crazy?” Wood asked, grinning.
“Don’t want her bein’ nice to me, don’t need her charity.”
Wood quit grinning and started looking watchful but puzzled. “Charity?”
“Rich bitches like that, gotta stay alert. They give with one hand, take a lot more with the other.”
“Seems you got experience,” Wood muttered, still watchful.
Deke absolutely fucking did.
“Dad got dead when I was two,” he told Wood. “Ma did what she could, which meant bein’ a maid. Live-in ’cause she needed a roof over our heads. Ate shit for as long as I could remember. Watched her do it. Folks she worked for had three daughters. Little cunts, all of ’em. Treated Ma like dirt, same with me. They had friends, not a one of them better than the three. Wife of the man who paid my mom was no better. She had friends too. Different colored hair, cut from the same cloth. So yeah, Wood, I got experience.”
“This Jus woman like that?” Wood asked.
“They don’t come off like that when they need somethin’ from you, so no. All that kind got it in ’em, though.”
Wood looked to the lake. “Didn’t think you had it in you, paint everyone with the same brush.”
“You watch your mother clean up vomit splashes every fucking day, ’cause two of those bitches were bulimic and one was the mom. Watch them shout at her like the world was about to end when she didn’t set a table like they wanted, that bein’ not buyin’ coral roses for a centerpiece instead of peach, whatever the fuckin’ difference is. I could go on for days, brother. Fuckin’ days, and it gets worse. So Jus seems cool. But I don’t open wide for women like that. No fuckin’ way. You don’t keep your shit, you get burned.”
“Not bein’ funny, just pointing out, known you years, first I heard of this so you don’t open wide for anyone, Deke. That bein’ said, you the last man standin’ in our posse who doesn’t have a chain you don’t mind dangling from your ankle, it’s especially with women,” Wood remarked.
“Got reason,” Deke grunted.
“One of those bitches burn you?” Wood asked quietly.
Clearly sun, beer and a rod in his hand put Deke in the mood to share. Share shit only a few people knew and the only two of those in town were Tate and Jim-Billy.
Or maybe it was being around Jus, day in, day out, the temptation of her, that meaning he needed to get this shit out and remind himself who he was and how that came about.
“One of the daughters played me. Went from nasty to sweet. She did this because she wanted my dick, panted after it. I was fifteen and the only thing on my brain was pussy, so I gave it to her,” Deke stated. “When I didn’t want more, she told Daddy. He canned Ma’s ass then blackballed her and Ma and me ended up in a homeless shelter six months later, this was after livin’ most of those months on the street. All that Ma endured and all that was on me. So yeah, one of those bitches burned me, Wood.”
While he was talking, Wood looked his way. “Jesus, Deke. Had no clue.”
“Ma eventually got a job, I was old enough, so did I. We got out. Took two months, but we got out. Worked and didn’t go back to school to keep us out of that fuckin’ place.”
“That sucks, brother,” Wood said quietly.
It fucking did.
It was the worst.
He could hack it. Deke could hack anything. He didn’t need much. Learned not to need it so his mother could live with not being able to give it to him.
But he’d fucking hated watching his mother suffer like that. Worry so bad, she never slept (and Deke knew she hadn’t because he didn’t and he heard her toss and turn in her cot in that fucking shelter). Kick her own ass she couldn’t give her boy better. Beg child protective services to let her keep him as she pulled her shit together.
He hated all that because there was a lot to hate.
And most of that hate was about him putting his dick where it didn’t belong and making it so his ma went through that.