ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(11)

The tiny beach cottage I happened to be watching was up on half pilings with a storage space underneath concealed by white strips of lattice, half of which were missing. On top of that was a deck with a small pool desperately in need of care. The water was at least a foot lower than the rim and was as green as the mildew growing on the faded yellow siding. It was more mote than pool.

There was a condo building to one side and a small fenced in area containing several trees to the other. A sign on the fence read Conservation Area. Keeping five trees out of harm’s way in exchange for all the condos you could build seemed a bit ridiculous to me, but I wasn’t in real estate. I didn’t build or create anything.

My job was to destroy.

From my vantage point, up high on a branch of one of the very special conserved trees, I was concealed from anyone walking by on the beach or glancing through the narrow alley from the main street. Most importantly, I had a great view into the house and of the driveway in the front by the street in case the boy had any visitors. Unfortunately, I’d been there for three hours, and although I knew someone was in there, judging from the sounds of the dog, the TV, and the lights occasionally flipping on and off, not so much as a door had been opened or a window shade drawn.

Just as I’d set my thoughts in stone that the next few days or weeks would be the longest of my life, the back door of the cottage slid open and suddenly, my target was in view. Although he was…different. Because the person who appeared on the deck was the same kid from the picture, the boy.

Except he wasn’t a boy at all.

A little black French bulldog with a white face emerged from the house, snaking around my target, who was still in the doorway. He panted his way around the deck and into the bright sunlight. I assumed it was the little tic dispenser responsible for all the barking I’d heard earlier. He drooled his way around the pool, long lines of foamy, white saliva trickling out from both sides of his permanent frown. His long pink tongue was in the shape of a playground slide, scraping the splintered wood as he waddled from one end of the pool to the other, happily lifting his leg on the hedges, then the two chipped garden gnomes on the pool’s edge. He brushed his paws against the deck like he was trying to bury a bone, then darted away to his next target.

Little f*cker.

Every few intakes of breath, the dog made a sound as if he was having an asthma attack. A deep whooping noise barked its way up through his nose and throat and it was like he changed from a dog to baby sea lion.

The sound of this dog’s erratic breathing didn’t seem to concern the guy sitting in the doorway. No, he was very busy staring off blankly into the dirty water of the pool that probably contained everything from the bubonic plague to scurvy, to syphilis or whatever else you could catch on the f*cking Oregon Trail.

The guy wore a tight white wife-beater style tank top, his shoulders were broad, the lines of his muscular biceps danced and flexed as he moved his chin from resting on top of one closed fist to the other. He had some sort of tattoo on his back, but I could only make out the part that reached over the tops of his shoulders, stopping just short of his collarbone. His hair was still the color it was in the picture, light brown, tinted with red. It fell over his eyes with a slight curl at the ends. Long enough to push behind his ears and fall around his chin. I couldn’t see much of his other facial features from my aerial tree position, but I could make out a slight bend in his nose.

I was still observing my new target when the dog bent over guy in the doorway was still staring out into space as the dog splashed, huge-head first into the pool. It was then, when he didn’t make a move to save his dog, that I noticed the reason why he wasn’t moving. He was sitting. His right leg stuck out before him, bound in a black cast of some sort and resting on a stand attached to his chair.

His wheelchair.

When my target finally pulled his head out of his ass and noticed his drowning dog, he frantically rolled forward toward the edge of the pool. He called out, “Murray!” as he attempted to reach down into the water for the dog who’d already sunk too far. When that didn’t work, he tried to get up out of the chair, but all he managed to do was tip it over, and with a much larger splash, he joined his dog under the water.

Then nothing.





CHAPTER FIVE




Nolan


UNCLE CALLING flashed across the screen of my phone. With a sigh I pressed the red END button, sending him to voicemail for the third time since I’d been back in town. I didn’t have time to deal with my uncle, or anyone else, because I was busy. Super busy. I was smack dab in the middle of week two of having myself a grand ole pity party of epic proportions. Booze and weed in mass quantities were the only things on my immediate schedule.

My summer should’ve been filled with my old friends, parties, then moving into my new dorm in the athletic center of State for my junior year. Instead, I found myself staring at the wall in my grandparents’ old beach cottage, waiting for my circumstances to somehow miraculously change.

I’m gonna be waiting a f*cking while.

I’d given up so much to get where I was. The sacrifices I made were well above and beyond what most college athletes were expected to give up. But I did it anyway. For a while it was worth it. A few short months prior to my injury, I was on top of the f*cking world. No, I was king of the f*cking world.

How the hell did it all go so wrong so fast?