Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“You are,” I growl back at him, clutching the cat pillow like I’m wrestling with it—and accidentally roll myself right off the couch, crashing to the floor with a grunt. Lick a dick.
Haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in years.
Seems like tonight’s gonna be no different.
Another scream from the TV, and another avoidable murder I can’t see from the floor. “You probably deserved it,” I mumble at the ceiling, “investigating weird noises in your house wearing just your underwear … idiot.”
Then my mind drifts right back to G.I. Joe, to his wet clothes, to his mad eyes as he fought over control of the jukebox with me. And the look of his pompous, perfectly-sculpted tight ass in those pants each time he walked away, thinking himself the winner.
I wonder if he’d be stupid enough to investigate weird noises wearing just his underwear.
Somehow, I doubt it.
6
BRIDGER
The sky’s still dark.
I tighten my shoes, check the clock, then slip out of the house through the back. At the curb, I choose left, and go jogging.
There’s not a soul in the world but me this morning. No one’s breaths but mine. No footsteps but mine, and they’re so soft on the pavement, they’re barely there. The air is still, perfect for my morning jog. I pick a direction thoughtfully at each intersection and build a mental map of the whole town, taking me through the subdivision and down a street lined with little shops, all closed. I jog past a baseball and soccer field enclosed by a tall chain link fence, beyond which the wide, flat silhouette of a school looms.
At several intersections, I stop for a moment, jogging in place, as I try to imagine the community of Spruce. People waking up for work, both the ones in town and the farmers and ranchers living out on the perimeters of town. Kids getting ready for another day at school—when it isn’t the weekend. The churchgoers putting on their Sunday finest in a few hours. Someone sweeping off a porch.
The world makes more sense to me in the morning before the day starts. It’s like gazing at a fresh slate, untouched, no surprises, no dangers, no movement—a freeze frame of peace. For some guys on leave, the quiet can be unsettling. For me, it’s what I crave. The absence of action. No friction in the world. No people.
Early morning removes all the variables of the world.
Leaves me with just myself and the soft as cotton candy air.
These morning jogs center my brain like nothing else can.
I’m coming down Main Street when the sky starts to light up, and after passing a park, a clinic, and a movie theater, I stop in front of the bar we were at last night—Tumbleweeds. It looks a lot different in the blooming morning than it did last night.
And there goes my mind.
Right back to Anthony.
The one jagged-as-all-hell puzzle piece I can’t fit anywhere in this sweet, welcoming, peaceful picture of a town in my mind.
I stare at the window of that bar, not even jogging in place, all my steam and peace of mind lost as I gaze at my own reflection in the glass, more and more visible as the sun slowly rises. I hear the distant rumbling of vehicles. Someone pops into existence from a restaurant further down the street. Someone else at a shop, taking a box to the curb. The town is quickly waking up around me.
As if just the thought of Anthony introduced the commotion. Cutting into my peace like a knife into cake. Ripping off as big a slice as that guy wants. And not even a nicely-cut slice—it’s crude and off-centered, a square carved out of a circular cake, smooth frosting shattered, wrinkled at the edges with crumbs and lumps all over the place where they don’t belong.
Anthony, the peace breaker. His shit-eating grin, his malicious sneer. Throwing his arm around his girlfriend, sauntering off like a victor, messy hair and sweaty neck and stink.
By the time I get back to the house, I feel like I haven’t jogged at all. I slip in where I left through the back door and help myself to a banana per Trey’s insistence last night that I eat what I like. I’m chomping on a bite when my eyes zero in on something I stuck to the side of my luggage—that red smiley sticker with its tongue out that fell off Anthony’s ass at the gas station—and wonder what could possibly happen in a sweet and harmonious town like this to turn up such a rough piece of work like that guy.
“Enjoyed your jog?” Pete asks me in the lobby of the church.
I’m busy reading all these postings on a bulletin board. “There are so many things going on in this town,” I mutter. “Bake sales … piano and guitar lessons … karate … crocheting classes … PFLAG?” I glance at Pete. “This town has PFLAG meetings?”