Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“You pay my tab last night?” Dad asked.
I turned to see him standing inside the kitchen with his rumpled clothing, hair sticking up, scratching his beard. He had been forty when I was born. I’d seen pictures of him back then, and he’d still been handsome. Not so much anymore.
The life he lived had been a rough one. He had never married my mom, but he’d been married before her. Grams used to swear he was a good man back then. His wife had died young from a bad case of the flu. She’d had a weak lung already, and they hadn’t caught it in time. They’d only been married two years when she died. Grams had said Dad wasn’t good for much after losing her.
My mother had come along years later. He met her at a bar one night, and they got drunk, then had unprotected sex. She was significantly younger than him.
There was one photo of her in this house. Grams had kept it. She used to say I might want it one day. But I didn’t, and I never would. It had been years since I’d looked at that photo, but it seemed the image of her smiling at the camera, holding me, was burned into my brain. I had her eyes, her mouth, and her hair color.
She hadn’t wanted to live with an old man, Grams explained, but she tried for me. Dad wasn’t easy to deal with. She hadn’t put up with him for very long, but it was probably best she’d left when she did. That way, I had no memories of her and no attachment.
“Yeah,” I told him. “Why don’t you stay home tonight? I’ll bring back dinner.”
He looked at his mother, then back at me. “I’ll go if and when I want to.”
Which was every night.
“Fine. When I get a call to come get you, I’ll ignore it. You can sleep on the floor of the bar—or behind bars. AND pay your own tab.”
He scowled at me. “I thought you had to go to a fucking class. Why are you still here, jabbering on?”
“Good point,” I replied, then looked down at Grams, who was staring out the window again. “I’ll see you this evening. Maybe I can get some more of that chicken and dumplings you love, along with the collards and mac and cheese.”
She nodded, but said nothing. Dad often put her in this mood. Maybe I should have just let her live in her memories this morning. The present upset her too much.
“I’ll go get ready. Make her some toast since you’re up and have nothing else to do,” I said as I walked past him, heading toward the bedroom I shared with Grams.
“Thought you was gonna do that?” he barked at me, annoyed.
“I gotta get to class, remember?” I replied with a grin.
It was almost eight, and I needed to make a couple of stops before my Modern Literature class. Essays were due today, and Professor Brereton was too sharp. I didn’t drop off any assignments on campus. Not with his class at least.
Opening the closet, I took down the box I kept on the top shelf. Keeping things out of Grams’s reach was something I’d found was a necessity. She would move things around and misplace them. I took the lid off the box and counted out the three essays inside. Two of them would pull a solid A while one would be a mid B. I respected a guy who understood his limits. The B paper was smart. Professor Brereton would never believe Drace, a party focused frat guy, had written one of the A papers.
I closed the box and shoved it back up on the shelf, covering it with a pair of my folded jeans, then put the papers in my bag before getting dressed. I was enjoying this class. More than the others I was attending this quarter. Since I wasn’t actually enrolled at Howison College, this was the next best thing. I got to do the essays and make money. I didn’t always enjoy the classes or the papers that I had to write for others. But most of the time, I was thankful for the education.
The rich kids, whose parents could afford to send them to the private college, were more interested in Greek life, parties, social events. They didn’t care for the actual work that went along with passing their courses. Lucky for them, there was me. I made sure America’s future politicians, lawyers, CEOs and socialites at Howison graduated on schedule. It wasn’t like the government and economy could get any worse.
• Two •
“I even added a tip for such an entertaining performance.”
Sebastian
I picked up the beer the bartender had set in front of me without taking my eyes off the pool table. It was too damn entertaining.