Saint Walsh

JC Mulvaney

Year: 2020

His piercing blue eyes burned a hole in the side of my face, his skin pale like the moon, his grin deceitful like a cheshire cat, and his lips bubble gum pink--and thin. Because of these extremely white all-American boy qualities, he hung on the wall of our school as a monument of greatness. His photo frame was made of gold, his certificates placed all around, and his trophy treasures filled a whole glass case---his name you ask? Saint Brandon Timothy Walsh. Never ask the question who he was? because if you did it was an absolute give-away that you weren't from Beverly Hills.

Walking past his shrines of glory for the a millionth time, I scowled at the portrait of the MIA golden boy who represented everything that I thought I was not. In the cool of night, my brother and I were wandering around the school hall after hours trying our best not to fit in. In the next room over was the fall dance on the basketball court and we at this point had done everything not succumb to the typical, everyday, student-body event. We had no plans of showing-up to this dance, but we couldn't resist poking our faces through the door window of the gym to spy on the pathetic gathering of adults and spoiled teens. As much as we hated Beverly Hills, we had to admit hating it from afar was a drag---now---hating it up close---that was a sight to see.

Different from the normal West Beverly apparel, I wore patterned pants which could pass for pajamas and my nappy curls tried to stay tucked under the thin rubber band I had forced on it. My brother stood beside me and he looked the same kind of awful. He had a red bump forming on the cleft of his chin, his power ranger shirt was two sizes too small, and he was wearing these old dress shoes that were peeling away with every step he took. Appearances didn't matter to us back then, we were two pissed off high school students, who had just been stripped from our father, living in a cramped apartment outside of town and attending a school that didn't even sorta reflect us. If anyone were to ask me what Beverly Hills was like, I would tell them that it was exactly what all the TV shows and magazines said it was: a place with a lot of money but no morals. (At least the part we went to was.)

In the corner of the dance room we spotted Detective Valerie Malone, her dress resembled the night sky painted a navy blue, decked with a glittering array of diamonds, she was beyond beautiful I had to admit. She had the naturally poufy lips, silk hair and she carried a gun--that's what those horny tenth graders loved the most. They assumed she was the sexier version of Robocop, or something.

"She looks nervous about something," My brother realized as he pressed his face up against the gym's door window even more. "I think Ms. Malone was forced to come here tonight." He grinned menacingly. He had a run in with the detective before when he vandalized her vehicle. She made him wait in a holding cell until Ms. Kay, his mother, came; he had despised her ever since. Whenever bad things happened to Malone he was thrilled, which was the reason why he was so excited when he noticed something had to be eating away at her that night.

I peeked in through the other window to get a full view of what he was seeing. "Yeah she is nervous looking." I saw Valerie's perfect almond-shaped eyes shoot to Mrs. Kelly Sanders, her sworn enemy. But Kelly couldn't afford to keep tabs on the detective because she was too busy ominously staring at her husband Steve Sanders. Steve Sanders, the billionaire, secretly whispered to the Chancellor of California University, Clare Arnold. He whispered to her passionately, (you could tell they dated before.) He did all this completely oblivious to the fact that his wife knew he was cheating or going to cheat with Clare.

My brother caught this too and announced in a loud whisper: "Front page, front page!" That was our inside joke whenever we saw an incriminating situation going down at the school. It doesn't matter how big or small the situation was you could count that it would be "front page" of someone's blog or paper. Welcome to Beverly Hills where privacy is illegal!