Thomas Prescott Superpack (4 page)

Lacy found the Mariners’ playoff game, they were down 5-4 in the seventh, and took a third of her sandwich down in one bite. She smiled, revealing one of Angelini’s mammoth meatballs bulging from each cheek.

I couldn’t help myself and said, “Conner has trained you well.”

Lacy said she was going to bed and I watched her negotiate the stairs flawlessly. I on the other hand, retreated to the back deck for some leisure reading. I wasn’t cold, but I had goose bumps on my arms and threw a couple logs in the outdoor fireplace. (I’d chided Lacy when she’d first purchased the novelty, but it had come to be my favorite addition to the house.)

The waves washing up thirty yards behind me played lead orchestra to the Surry Breakwater lighthouse’s baritone foghorn.

I cracked my second copy of
Eight in October
, the white pages glistened in the moonlight, and I had the eerie feeling the moon was trying to read over my shoulder. I was a half paragraph into Tooms’ description of the third victim when
Eight in October
reunited with his long lost cousins in the outdoor fireplace. The heart of the book erupted in flames, shimmering the deck in a flaxen glow. I laid back in the chaise lounge, my goose bumps a distant memory.

Chapter 5

I woke up as a couple jaundice-riddled fingers of light began to extend from the horizon. The Surry Breakwater lighthouse floated in the fog, its strident warning coming in thirty second intervals.

I ambled down the deck stairs to the beachfront and did a hundred sit-ups followed by a hundred push-ups, then set off in a brisk trot down the shoreline. The gull to sand grain ratio went from roughly one to eight, to one to none, in a matter of twelve seconds. If you’ve never seen a maladroit seagull, you’re one of the lucky ones. It’s almost painful to watch these birds expend so much energy simply to hover. It was the aviary equivalent of only paying the interest on your credit card bill. But enough about birds.

My right quadriceps tightened after a quarter mile and I stopped to knead the muscle with my hands. My right quadriceps was visibly smaller than its left counterpart, my fingers subconsciously finding the bullet’s entry and exit wounds. Both scars were roughly the size of a nickel and it looked, and felt, like the tissue was made of cork.

When I set off again, the sun had officially broken the horizon, its rays slowly riding the waves toward shore. It took me twenty minutes to cover the distance to Owl’s Head peninsula, smack the sign with my open palm, and turn around. I covered the distance back in about half the time, sprinting the final three bellows of the foghorn before collapsing in a heap on the white sand.

I glanced into the bay and saw Lacy treading water about thirty yards out. Lacy had been an All State swimmer in high school and had been attending Temple on a swimming scholarship when she was diagnosed with MS. With the onset of her temporary blindness, she began treading water daily for forty-five minutes to keep fit. She must have heard my sandy collapse and screamed, “Conner called ten minutes ago. He said that if you aren’t there in the next ten minutes, he’s hiring a lawyer, then killing you.”

The Verona Rowing Club was a large red brick structure surrounded by high terracotta walls. There was a group of four women milling around the club entrance, all peeking in my direction as I approached. I wasn’t sure if it was fame or infamy that brought about the stares, either way it was unpleasant, and I picked up the pace as I made my way past them. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have walked like I was squeezing a quarter between my butt cheeks, but hindsight’s twenty-twenty. Get it?

As I made my way through the front entrance to the outdoor lockers I could make out Conner stretching on the other side of the bridge, an oar over his shoulders, bent over at the waist. I grabbed my rowing shoes from the locker and ran the last hundred yards up and over the bridge.

Conner caught my last final strides and straightened. He had his shirt off and his initials, CED, tattooed across his ripped abdominals. I must have been a sight because his initials were vibrating wickedly.

He said, “What? Rowing isn’t enough of a workout, you have to get a ten mile jog in beforehand? You look like you just escaped your own grave for Christ’s sake.”

I would have laughed, had I not been throwing up. Conner tossed me an orange Gatorade, “Holy shit. You aren’t gonna die out there, are you old-timer?”

I rinsed out my mouth and killed off the entire contents of the Gatorade. “Call me old-timer again and you can start calling that oar Bubba. You got that Ellis?”

Connor bit the inside of his right cheek, something he did every time someone called him by his middle name. And about the threat, it was empty. Conner was like Godzilla and I was a fleeing three-foot-five Asian, yelling ill-timed English outbursts. Conner was twenty-seven, a couple inches taller than me, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a physique the likes of Batman’s armor.

The women from the entrance had made their way outside and I noticed a brunette pointing me out to a newcomer. She was either saying, “That’s the guy who threw up all over the bridge,” or, “That’s the guy who walks with his butt clenched like a queer,” or, “That’s the guy from that
Eight in October
book.”

All the options were equally painful and I was ready to shy away from the paparazzi. I cocked my head at the water insinuating it was time to ship out and Conner slipped into the front slot of the shell as I hopped in the back.

An artificial reef helped stop the Atlantic from invading the mile and half expanse of still water, which at seven in the morning housed close to twenty scullers. This was the fifth time I’d rowed with Conner—albeit, the first since the publication of
Eight in October
—and we hit a steady rhythm early on.

We skimmed over the glass water and Conner said between strokes, “So what’s it like being famous?”

Oh, and I forgot to mention, when you row with Conner, it’s imperative you pass the time with idle chatter. I tried to conceal my wheezing lung and said, “What?”

He yelled over his shoulder, “I said, what it is like being famous?”

I’d heard him the first time, but I’d needed a few seconds to rest and to phrase my answer. “That book never should’ve been written. (Breath.) I didn’t ask for this shit.”

“What? To be recognized? To be famous? Did you see that lady pointing at you? You’re a state treasure for Christ’s sake. Did I say state treasure? Because I meant national treasure. Which magazine cover was your ugly mug on,
Time
or
People
?”

For the record, I was on both. I wisely ignored his question. “What about you? (Breath.) Don’t tell me you haven’t (breath) been getting your (breath) fair share of celebrity (breath) status.”

Conner stopped mid-stroke and turned around. He was biting the inside of his cheek again, and said, “Tell me you’re kidding. Didn’t you read the book?”

I could feel my heart beat pulsate in my right shoulder and I was thankful for the chance to rest. “Nope. I accidentally dropped one copy in the Atlantic and another copy accidentally fell
into my outdoor fireplace.”

“And Lacy didn’t tell you anything about me in regards to the book?”

“Nope. I told her if she even mentioned the book I’d rearrange all the furniture in the house.” Which I’d gone ahead and done anyway. Lacy just recently stopped smashing her shins against the coffee table.

Conner’s lips tightened, “That weasel Tooms didn’t so much as mention my name. Can you believe that shit? I make the biggest break in the whole case. Hell, the only break in the case and Tooms doesn’t even mention my name. That’s bullshit, is all that is, fucking bullshit.”

He wasn’t lying. Conner had been the one to stumble on the information leading us to the killer. Sorry—
supposed
—killer. I felt bad for the kid, I thought for certain his name would’ve surfaced once, if not multiple times throughout the book. In the back of my mind, I knew I was solely responsible for his name’s absence. If I’d sat down with Tooms, I would have given all the credit to Conner. I grabbed his shoulder, “That is bullshit. You know I would have set him straight, but I don’t think you, me, or anyone else deserves an iota of credit. It’s not over.”

“What do you mean, it’s not over? It’s been a year Thomas, Tristen Grayer is dead. D-E-A-D—Dead. You need to quit reading that
Pet Cemetery
shit, it’s messing with your head.”

I dug my paddle into the water and said, “I don’t read Stephen King, I read Michael Crichton.” I prefer to be confused shitless rather than scared shitless.

We spent the rest of the hour talking about how big a bastard Alex Tooms was and swapped retribution recipes should we ever get him alone. Hypothetically speaking of course. Conner wanted to take him to some island, Matinicus or something, and torture him until he wrote a revised version of
Eight in October
. I wanted to potato peel his entire body, let him scab over, and
nearly
die of infection. I’d get him to a hospital before the wounds became gangrenous.

Yeah I know, I’m a softy at heart.

Chapter 6

I somehow made it up the deck stairs, through the sliding glass door, and flopped face first onto one of the tan leather couches, the leather immediately bonding to my sweat laden flesh. Lacy heard my wheezing resounding through the leather and let out one of her infamous cackles.

Through a fit of giggling she said, “I have the best visual of you right now, and if it’s anywhere near what’s really going on, you are one pathetic loser.” She did a good Lloyd Christmas.

I shouted through a crack between two cushions, “Water. Drinky. Dying.”

Lacy needed to brush up on her caveman seeing as how the water was not poured down my throat, but down my back. My body went from being so hot to so cold so fast, I’m surprised I didn’t have a seizure. After the initial shock, it wasn’t half bad, that is until the water found its way down the crease of my back and into the mighty balloon knot.

I tilted my head up, stretching the leather’s molecular boundaries, and yelled, “You are the devil.”

The faucet ran again, and seconds later a cold glass was placed in my hand. After a tremendous effort on my behalf and a fair portion of my skin pulled from the bone, I was on my back and without lifting my eyelids, successfully guided the cold glass to my lips. I chugged.

The cold liquid moved down my esophagus into my stomach, rested for a microsecond, did a U-turn, started up my esophagus, exited my mouth and came to rest on the tan leather sofa. My eyes opened at some point in the ordeal and were now transfixed on Lacy, who if you’re curious was on her back, legs kicking, tears streaming.

Something is definitely wrong when you are subjected to a practical joke at the expense of a
blindy
.

I actually found myself laughing when I yelled, “What in the hell did you give me?” I licked my lips, but my buds only detected the acidic bile from my purge. The sofa was speckled in white and I said, “Don’t tell me you fed me some of that soymilk crap.”

Lacy had regained some control over herself and said, “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think it was going to work—” She started into another fit.

I stepped over her and said, “I hope you pee yourself.”

 
When I woke up in the bathtub the water was lukewarm. The hot bath and three Tylenol had tag-teamed my aching muscles, and I didn’t feel too shabby.

I walked out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom, sans towel, preferring to air dry. There wasn’t much in the room other than a queen-sized bed and an old beat-up dresser I’d bought at a neighborhood garage sale. Sitting atop the synthetic oak dresser was a picture of my parents. The picture was taken on their fiftieth birthday. Exactly two years later, on their collective fifty-second birthday, the two had been flying back from a Rolling Stones concert when my dad’s company Lear went down.

Next to their picture was a picture of Conner, Lacy, Caitlin and myself. The four of us had been together for close to nine months and they’d been some of the best of my life. Deep down, I wasn’t sure if I still loved Caitlin. I knew I didn’t not love her, if that makes any sense. This reminded me I still had to call her and I picked up the bedside phone.

She picked up on the third ring and I said, “Hi, Cait.”

Caitlin didn’t respond for a couple seconds and I envisioned her shuffling for the appropriate cue card. She cleared her throat and said, “I was hoping you’d call. We should still be friends, if not friendly.”

Yikes.

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this and after consulting my list of Swiss replies, I opted for, “Uh, how ya been?”

“Come on Thomas, we haven’t spoken for a month, and all you have to say is,
Uh, how ya been
?” She did a good impression of me.

I wanted to say, “It’s the only thing I’ve said so far,” but I didn’t want to put myself into a corner. I thought of a conversation with a woman as a boxing match and thus far—what five seconds in—I’d already taken a quick jab and was being set up for a swift right hook. “Look, I’m sorry, but it’s hard to stay friends with someone you love.”

Oops. I quickly added the unequivocal, “—d.”

This was the boxing equivalent of tying both hands behind my back and squirting lemon juice in my eyes.

I mouthed her next words with her, “Thomas, do you still love me?”

This was like
Mad-Libs
, all you had to do was fill in the blanks. I thought about the question while I wrote a
Mad-Lib
to myself on the back of an envelope;
Thomas Prescott is a(n) adjective, adverb, noun for getting himself in this adjective situation and should be forced to verb, noun, for being such a(n) adjective, adverb, noun.

Caitlin waited patiently for my reply, which sadly was, “I don’t know Cait, I just don’t know.”

I scribbled in the blanks and read what I’d written;
Thomas Prescott is a(n) ginormous, fucking, asshole for getting himself in this
confusing
,
uncomfortable
, fucked-up situation and should be forced to eat
shit
,
an onion
, glass for being such a stupid, fucking, idiot.

I was brainstorming for an adverb besides, “fucking,” when Caitlin said, “You don’t know? Great, Thomas, that’s just great. I guess I’ll just wait my whole life until you figure that out. Grow up you fucking coward.” The line went dead.

I guess
fucking
was the only adverb.

I threw on a pair of khaki shorts and a charcoal University of Washington hooded sweatshirt. Lacy came into the room, handed me a glass of pink liquid, and said, “I made you a smoothie, to, you know, smooth things over.”

I took the glass from her and after careful inspection took a sip. “Strawberry-banana, good choice. Consider yourself forgiven. Although, I should warn you, I will get you back, and it’s
going to be like a thousand times worse.”

I already had a plan, and it was mean, almost deranged. Diabolical actually. I couldn’t help it; I had to win at everything.

Lacy put on her inculpable face, “You wouldn’t take advantage of a whittle, itty-bwitty, bwind-girl, now would you?”

I grabbed Lacy’s easel and paint bag and walked to the car. Lacy was in the passenger seat, Baxter asleep on her lap, the cooler at her feet.

We headed down the long drive, snaked through a couple backstreets, and five minutes later I was merging onto US 1 southbound.

Lacy asked what I intended to do about Caitlin and I told her I wasn’t sure. We explored my options for the next twenty minutes, and we both decided it would be in my best interest if I called her back and set up dinner for later that evening.

I jumped on the Maine Turnpike, I-95, and after about five miles exited for Portland. At a population of 84,000, Portland is the most populated city in Maine. It would be a stretch to call it a Metropolis. It was a Tropolis at best. To be safe we’ll call it an Opolis. Olis, it was an Olis. It’s an Is.

There was a large marketplace to the right and I entered it, scanning the store fronts for a bookstore. I didn’t see any bookstores, but I did see a kite shop, and I made a mental note to swing by before Saturday. We drove for about a half mile before coming to a Super-Duper-Ultra-Hyper-Mart.

There was one copy of
Eight in October
left, resting in the number three bestseller slot. Speaking of three, I couldn’t believe I was buying the book for the third time. I was going to ask for a waterproof/fireproof copy, but they’d probably have to special order it.

I grabbed a case of beer and swiped the old Visa. Back at the car I handed the bag to Lacy. Rummaging through the bag, she found the book and said, “What’s this?”

“You know very well what it is.”

“I didn’t think you were gonna read it.”

“I finally broke down and bought it yesterday. Actually, I bought it twice yesterday.”

She shook her head, “Then why did you just buy it now?”

“We’ll my first two copies met an untimely demise.” I recounted each books respective demise.

“How far did you get?”

I knew what she was fishing for and said, “Conner told me.”

She winced. “You should have seen him. He read the book out loud to me, and when he realized his name was never going to show up, he lost it. He scared me, Thomas, he started breaking stuff.”

“Don’t think too much of it Lace, that Tooms guy really screwed him over. He’ll get over it.”

Lacy didn’t know exactly how to get to the lighthouse and it was an excuse to use theRange Rover’s navigational system for the first time.

I pushed the screen under the CD player and it instantly refreshed. I chose the audio option and the system became voice activated. It asked in a generic woman’s voice, “Destination?”

I stammered, “Uh, lighthouse.”

“There’s seventy-five lighthouses in Maine you idiot.” Lacy remarked wisely.

I mentally added
Car Navigational Systems for Idiots
to my book list and reset the system. The woman’s voice came on again, “Destination?”

I prodded Lacy with my arm and she said, “Portland Head Lighthouse.”

For the next ten minutes the generic woman’s voice shouted out commands every thirty seconds and I finally had an idea what it was like to be married. Once safely in the lighthouse observatory parking lot, the woman shouted, “Put car in Park.”

I put the car in park and she nagged, “Turn off ignition.”

It took every ounce of self-control not to smash the screen with my fist. I made a mental reminder to call the company and have them change the voice to that of Bob Costas or Heidi Klum.

Lacy took two sandwiches from the cooler and handed me one. After a bite I asked, “What’s so special about this particular house of light?”

She rolled her eyes. “I think it was the first lighthouse ever built that’s still in existence. It’s special to me because I’ve seen it in so many paintings I have a mental picture in my head and I’ll be able to paint it.”

“And you couldn’t do that in our front yard, because?”

“Because I’m trying to lead a normal life. I refuse to paint a lighthouse landscape from our front yard. If I keep painting these things I’ll never forget them.”

She tapped the side of her head, “I’ll keep them up here forever.”

“Lace, your vision will come back. One of these mornings you’re gonna wake up and the lights will be back on. You’ll see.” I laughed at my unintentional pun. “I mean you’ll see you’ll see.”

She held up her beer and said, “Cheers to that.”

The Portland Head lighthouse was all white stucco frame and stood on a large inlet of reddish-brown rock. Lacy asked me two questions before she made her first brushstroke;
roughly how many yards away was the lighthouse?
And
the diameter of the sun, in inches?

I answered about two hundred yards and an inch and a quarter, respectively.

I set two beers down next to Lacy and found the gravel path leading to the lighthouse. As I neared the lighthouse the sound of crashing waves grew exponentially louder.

There was a large rock about thirty yards to the left of the lighthouse, which I started toward. When I finally reached the rock, I saw it was a bit larger than at first glance and chose his little brother to the left of him. I took a swig of beer and looked down at my lap—where, oddly enough—Baxter was fast asleep. I guess when you move at the speed of sound and weigh
less than a nice T-bone you can sleep wherever you please.

After taking in the horizon for a dozen waves, I grabbed
Eight in October
and delved back into the massacre. I read close to eighty pages before my reading light plunged into the western mountains. In truth, the fourth murder was especially gory, and I took the liberty of stopping prematurely. But I did dog-ear the page in the off chance I ever built up the courage to revisit the scene. See, I already had nightmares of the guest bedroom, I didn’t need them solidified.