Riding with the Beast (an MC Fairy Tale)

17 - Beast

Hey everyone! Some of you noticed that the Beast's name changed (or thought that I might be introducing a new character). I'm sorry about the confusion! I did change the Beast's name to Brian. If you want to read more about why I did that, you can see here: http://eclairbooks.tumblr.com/post/89986845100/some-comments-on-beast

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!!!!! I can't believe the feedback I'm getting on this story. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

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Beast

Lamplight peeked through crooked blinds of Prez’s office in the back of the shop. Everyone had cleared out hours before, leaving behind the scent of motor oil and bikes and cars in various stages of assembly. My feet were heavy as I made my way up the seventeen cement stairs to Prez’s office. The bell above the door jingled as I entered.

The wall leading to the desk was plastered with photos of Prez’s ex-wife Kathy, his twin girls, and his son. Most were from when they visited the Grand Canyon and Disney Land. The old camera they’d been taken with made them look like stills a 70’s B movie—you know, those ones with incoherent plotlines, bad dialogue, and scenes of nothin’ but some car drivin’ around in the desert for 10 minutes.

Prez folded his hands. “Beast.”

I took my seat in a small chair in front of the metal desk.

Prez appeared washed-up in front of all those Technicolor, high-contrast pictures. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he’d been looking at before I came in. The drawer he kept his daughters’ cards in was open.

He often sat up here and looked at ‘em. Rainbows stretched across the pages, framing smiling suns. On every one of them, two yellow blobs with joker smiles and red bows stood side by side. No, holding hands, Prez would correct. You could tell because their porcupine needle fingers were stabbing each other, and because those girls had been inseparable.

That was all when he was still with Kathy. Back when Emma still loved him. Before Natalie’d been found in a dried-up streambed thirty miles north, so badly beaten and cut-up that her own father shouldn’t have been able to recognize her.

But he had.

My throat felt tight. He still blamed himself for Nat’s death, and Emma wanted nothing more to do with him. I didn’t know what to say to a guy who spent his free time reading cards from his daughters when they were six and too naïve to feel anything but love for him. I didn’t think there is anything you could say to someone like that. So I just asked, “You still wanna talk?”

Prez sighed. “I said we’d talk, not that I wanted to.”

“Well talk, then.”

He rocked back and forth, chair squeaking. “I take it everything went well in Texas?”

So he wanted to start with business. That wasn’t surprising. “Yeah. Like I said, they’re up for it. Expecting the first delivery in three weeks.”

“Did you settle on a price?”

“Yeah. Didn’t have to negotiate.”

Prez almost smiled. “You never do.” He leaned forward. Back to business. “Do you think Hazel will be done?”

“Oh yeah, she’s just about ready to start trimmin’.”

Hazel had a pet iguana and a parrot that said “Pretty Flower” every time it saw me. She always wore a straw sunhat when she gardened, even in her basement grow room in the winter. She cultivated some dank ganja, but even among her strains Grand Grammy Purple was somethin’ else.