The Cove

Chapter 1: Cameron

It's evening, but it's not a regular one by a long shot. I'm sitting here on the back porch of a small, peeled-painted house, arms hanging over the tops of my bent knees. Phew. I'm tired and sore from spreading a lot of mulch around this guy's huge yard. What is it with rich people and their yards? Sullen, I look around at this one. There's hardly a backyard let alone a back porch, and the grass is sparse and brown. Our neighbor's clothesline is full of white bed sheets that sway mockingly with the wind, waving at me. I hear a baby crying and a high-pitched voice screaming from the low gray house to my left, and I shake my head. Those people are almost always crying or screaming about something irrelevant. The neighbors directly behind with their bed sheets trying to escape their hanging are outside in their tiny side yard with a few friends. All have cigarettes and bottles of beer. All are laughing loudly and talking like they want everyone in the world to hear what they have to say. They always do it every Wednesday when they get together to have their crappy back porch parties. Sick of the racket, I stand, growling in exasperation. It's hardly possible to get somewhere where you can't hear anyone around this dump. If only I was at the cove...but I'm not. I'm stuck here in the slums, and I don't really feel like driving that old, shitty car anywhere.

I stand here for a minute, stiff from sitting for so long and smelling the drift of cigarette smoke, and then I head for the front of the low, one-story house. It's a sad sight really, but my older brother and I with my seventeen years really try to make it look like something other than a trash heap. My twenty-three-year-old brother, Andrew—D—is all I have, the only one left of my family. He's employed as a waiter at a restaurant in town, and I work for a landscaping place. I shrug indifferently, the corner of my mouth twitching. Yeah, both aren't the highest-paying jobs out there, but that's how it is for us.

My eyes scan the same old cracked and potholed street bordered with cramped houses and small yards. Some places don't even have a yard, just a thin strip of yellowed, dried grass between the properties. Vans with duct tape on the door frames and cars with craters in the bumpers sit idly by, taking up space. I kick a stone past my own gray car parked on the curb. Yeah, my car. It was the cheapest one I could find, and I'd scraped enough for it. Then, I got enough money to fix it up—I'm pretty good when it comes to working on vehicles. At least the thing runs.

I sigh and sit down on the front step in front of a screen door and a white front door behind it—it's the only thing that's not peeling paint around here. I can still hear the din of drunken laughter, the crying and screaming, but it's less here in the front of the house, and I can't smell the cigarette smoke as strongly. For some reason, it reeks when others smoke it and I'm inhaling, but not the other way around. Oh, what the hell. I'm quitting...for her.

My jaw clenches, and the saliva trickles down my throat like an ice cube. One person... How can one person just come along and change everything? Nothing could have ever prepared me for her. My head falls between my knees and my fingers tangle in my hair as if to rid my mind of the image of her, but she won't go away. It's as if her face is branded in my brain like a mark on a horse, burning a permanent signature.

"Hey, Dunger," a sneering voice calls from the street. I look up from the cracked cement path, and my eyes catch him on the pavement—Fergus Hines. He's the meanest son of a bitch with the worst reputation around here besides me. I come in first, in terms of status set ablaze by rumors that I didn't bother correcting. Why correct something that could spare your hide?

Fergus swaggers up to place himself right behind my car, and my right foot twitches. If only I was in that car with the gear in reverse. He'd probably look a whole lot better as a pancake. Personally, I think Fergus was made mean by his name. Come on now, why the hell would someone name their kid Fergus? If I were the guy—what with that title and hideous porky face— I'd probably be mean, too...but I'm not him, thank God, or whatever's out there. Instead, I'm on the other end of his anger—the receiving end.