Future Portraits of the Unhappy Dead | Part 1
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Four years. That's how long it took Democrats to ruin our economy and plunge our southern border into anarchy. Who helped them hurt us? Ruben Gallego. Washington could have cut taxes for Arizona families, but Ruben blocked the bill. And his fellow Democrats gave a bigger break to the millionaire class in California and New York. They played favorites and cost us billions. And Ruben wasn't done yet.

We'll be right back.

Carrie and the Republicans will secure the border, support our families, and never turn their backs on us. Carrie Lake for Senate. I'm Carrie Lake, candidate for U.S. Senate, and I approve this message. Paid for by Carrie Lake for Senate and the NRSC.

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I drifted down the sidewalk, toward the Royal Court shopping plaza to my merciless 9-5 shift as a cell phone and computer repairman. Eight long hours spent staring through tech zones' tinted windows at a strip mall like any other in Oakfield, Texas, fantasizing about a better life that would never come. Sleep clung to me like glue, hung in the corners of my eyes as I finished my Red Bull and rounded Lincoln Avenue onto Wilson Lane.

The last stretch of my six block commute always took courage. One look at the Royal Court and its endless stretch of asphalt sadness made me want to keep walking until my feet disintegrated. The fact that I was still here in Oakfield, 26 years after my birth, was a testament to my vapid, meaningless life. Where most of the people I knew had left long ago and made something of themselves, I'd stayed and stayed.

and stayed. Overweight and frequently out of breath. A stunted man-boy who leased an apartment that held a single couch, a sometimes functional toaster, and a few cracked dishes. That's me, RJ. Short for Ronald Jones. Associate Technician at Tech Zone for Life. Yay.

Besides football games attended by a feverish, boarding-on fanatical fanbase for the local high school football team, nothing much ever happened in Oakfield. Which was why I was surprised to see the pair of police cruisers parked in front of Pete's Hardware as it came into view. Pete himself stood near the curb, shaking his head as two cops dragged his employee, Lyle Brooks, from the store.

Blood splotched his shirt and jeans. A string of spit swayed from Lyle's chin like egg yolk. He stared at me as I neared. No, he stared through me, with eyes that were empty and dazed, like someone had just stunned him with a cattle prod. By the time I made it past him and into tech zone, I'd grown damp with sweat, which turned to ice as soon as I opened the door.

As usual, my manager, Avery Carter, paid me no mind. She just stood there looking effortlessly beautiful, like she'd fallen off the cover of Cosmo, while she watched Lyle's arrest through the window. I can't believe it, she said. Wasn't he just in here yesterday? What happened? The question rolled out of my mouth before I could stop it. I already knew the answer. I just needed her to confirm it.

She glanced at me and ran a hand through her sandy blonde hair, a motion that would normally have me swooning, but now only left me chilled. "They're saying he killed his wife or something. That he strangled her to death." The words plowed into me like a Mack truck. I nearly vomited as ribbons of heat flooded my brain. I saw her then, tied up like a slab of meat in Lyle's basement, staring up at me from the picture on his phone.

saw those fist blackened eyes and lips glossed in blood. Sarah, who pleaded for help from someone, from anyone, before Lyle silenced her forever. The image flickered and flashed. Blow worms danced through my vision. When I toppled, I swear it felt like I was outside myself, watching Avery rush across the tiled floor with her arms outstretched, but nowhere close enough to break my fall. You wouldn't believe the things you see when you repair people's cell phones for a living.

Besides all the dick pics, and there are way too many dick pics, there's a lot of weird shit people like to memorialize. Like, just the other day, this bodybuilder dropped off a phone full of pictures of him sitting in an oversized high chair, wearing nothing but a diaper and bonnet, while aggressively sucking on a pacifier. There was photo after photo of him smearing baby food all over his face and chest.

and also a video of him shitting his diaper, doing the "Goo Goo Gaga" thing. Kid you not. While whoever was running the camera told him he was such a naughty, naughty boy. Look, I try not to rifle through people's personal lives. I really do. But sometimes my urges get the better of me. I'm a pervert, a voyeur, depraved, sick, whatever you want to call me, I won't argue. I'll probably agree. It's not something I'm proud of.

I don't want to be the guy in the trench coat masturbating in the bushes outside your house while your wife showers. Not that I've ever done that, but you get my point. I want to be a better person, to stop living vicariously through other people's lives and to actually start living one myself. And I had for nearly a year before Lyle waltzed through the door and dumped his phone on the counter.

One look at it, and I knew, just fucking knew, there would be pictures on the camera roll I'd want to see, that I had to see. And there were. There was Lyle's extremely attractive wife, Sarah, dancing around the living room in a set of acorn print pajamas. Another one with Sarah, outside, perched on a fence post, looking innocent beneath a blushing summer sun. A selfie of the happy couple on a hike,

Another selfie in a park. Sitting on a bench near a duck speckled pond. Selfie after selfie. So many goddamn selfies. And so goddamn boring. This is why I'd broken my sobriety? For this? I'd refused to believe it. Which is why I hit the deleted folder. And it was there. Right fucking there. The photo I'd been searching for the entire time. And the picture I wish I hadn't found.

Sarah, bound and gagged in an ill-lit basement, thrust against a cinderblock wall with her face washed out and both eyes blackened. Sarah, with the hand clutching her neck in blue-veined violence, the fingertips leaving little dimpled imprints on her skin. A hand I recognized as Lyle's, the bastard, based on the barbed wire tattoo inked around his wrist.

I'd debated telling Avery, and I'd almost shouted, "Hey, I think you should come take a look at this!" That's how much the picture bothered me. It felt wrong, dangerous. But then I remembered that at Techzone, we take customer privacy very, very seriously. And I'd already been written up once. I went back to work, digging Lyle's pocket lint from the charging port with a paperclip.

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I woke up in the hospital. All around me, machines beeped and chattered.

Across the hall, someone moaned. A nurse with a featureless face asked me how I was feeling and would I like some soup. "No," I said. "What happened? I'm afraid you had a seizure, darling." I grimaced and rubbed my temples. A seizure? They'd haunted my childhood, left me quaking, foam-mouthed on elementary playgrounds more than once.

It took a couple of months for the doctors to diagnose me with epilepsy, a condition I thought I'd long outgrown. I hadn't had a seizure in over 15 years, and I never thought I would again, but it seemed fate had other plans for me. Avery gave me the rest of the week off. I spent most of it locked away in the dark reaches of my apartment, playing video games and taking edibles. I filled my time with movies and brainless television shows.

I browsed Avery's Instagram page and imagined myself in the place of her dipshit boyfriend, Eric Van Horn, and his mirrored aviators. There we were on vacation in Colorado, hiking through a field of columbines, both of us smiling at the camera with our bronzed faces and sparkling teeth. Another post.

An elegant dinner. Just the two of us clinking our wine glasses over a table, salted in votive candles. Looking ready to tear each other's clothes off the second we left the restaurant. And how precious. A picture of us in a bookstore, drinking coffee while laughing at some hilarious inside jokes. I love our inside jokes. They're so funny, so sweet.

"Our one year anniversary," Avery's caption read. "Find someone who can make you laugh." I'd make you laugh, Avery, if you'd give me the chance. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have an authentic conversation with her. To command her attention in that way was a fantasy of the highest order, and one wasted on Eric, who I'm sure talked about nothing but finance and weightlifting. The only reason Avery was with the guy was because he had money.

If you ordered a ribeye anywhere near Houston, there was a good chance it came from Van Horn stock. Still, he didn't appreciate her like I did. Didn't notice the small things, like how adorably her nose scrunched when she concentrated on something, or how her dimple popped when she really smiled. He didn't care that she woke up early most mornings to take pictures of the sunrise or realize she dreamed of one day becoming a professional photographer.

Normally, I'd spend hours thinking about it. How I deserved her, and he didn't. But right now, I couldn't. Not with that damn photo of Sarah bobbing through my subconscious like some insidious fishing lure. Ripping me back to reality every few seconds. And on TV. The few times I'd flipped on the news, there she was. Sarah Brooks with the oval face and glossy lips. Shooting sunshine at me through the screen with her smile.

Sarah, who had been found tied to a sewage line in the basement of her quaint suburban home with her wrists bound in constrictor knots. If only they'd known about Lyle, the real Lyle, her parents said. Maybe they could have prevented this if only someone had told them. The way they wept and dabbed their eyes, the way they sniffed and sobbed. They might as well have been sitting in my living room, talking to me. By Friday, I couldn't take wallowing in my shame anymore.

I showered and went to work. Avery stood when I entered, looking alarmed, which was nothing new. I often got the feeling I made her uncomfortable, because I did. It was her phone she'd busted me snooping through a few months back, lurking behind me on silent feet as I perused a few of her beach pictures and zoomed in on her hips. "What are you doing, RJ?" The only reason she didn't fire me on the spot was pity.

And not even that so much as a sense of obligation to my mom, who'd been her favorite teacher in high school and a shoulder to cry on after she lost her father. Mom, who'd begged Avery to take me on before moving to Boston to be closer to my normal non-letcherous sister, Janelle, and her non-letcherous kids. She made Avery promise she'd look out for me, her final act of motherhood, before washing her hands of any further parental obligation. Not that I blamed her.

But a favor only buys you so much rope, and I'd already used up most of mine. So, yes, Avery's alarm didn't surprise me, but her concern did. "'Why are you here?' she asked. "'You're supposed to be resting.' I rubbed the back of my neck. The thermostat in my cheeks clicked a few degrees higher. "'I can't. Not after what happened.'

"You had a seizure, anyone would have a hard time with that." She touched my arm and her fingers set off little earthquakes in my heart. I wanted to cover her hand with my own and hold it there forever. "Thanks, but I'm talking about Sarah," she blinked. "Lyle's wife," I added. Her eyes clouded and she glanced beyond me, through the front window, like she was watching Lyle's arrest all over again, managing to look both fragile and lost.

I wanted to curl my arm around her and pull her close, to tell her how sorry I was that Sarah's death had affected her this way. I wanted to offer even a sliver of comfort, an acknowledgement of her pain, which I knew ran deeper than this week's events. Much deeper. Instead, I opened my mouth and blurted, "It makes you think about your dad, doesn't it?" The clouds parted, and her face paled as she snapped toward me. Almost as if slapped, I instantly cursed myself.

with a single moronic sentence. I'd sent her spiraling back to the creek near Junction Bluffs where they'd found her father, face down on the bank two decades earlier. His murder was big news for a while and had shocked the town in the same way Sarah's had, with one exception. The cops had never found his killer. She wiped her eyes and nodded, and was about to say something when the door chimed.

The smell of artificial wood and vanilla hit me first, the glare from the sunglasses second, a pair of aviators tilting up to reveal two ice-blue eyes above a smile like freshly fallen snow. Eric, in all his polo-shirted glory, here to steal my moment. "Hey, Tubbs," he said, brushing past me to scoop Avery into his arms. "Tubbs."

because he'd never once asked my name the thousand and one times he barged into the store to steal Avery. Tubbs, because it emasculated me, and we both knew there wasn't a damn thing I would or could do about it. "What are you doing here?" Avery asked with a giggle, pulling back to tap his chest. "I thought you had to work today." "I do, but I figured I'd see if you wanted to grab a quick coffee first." "Sure," she said, glancing my way.

Start with Tuesday's drop-offs, RJ. I'll be back in a bit. She wouldn't. She'd take her time. They'd be doing more than simply having coffee. I watched them go, fuming inside. At myself more than at them, as I turned my attention to the repairs. A cell phone either worked or it didn't. Hard drives were black and white, on and off. Unlike people, they actually needed me to function. I shook my head and groaned. Ugh.

How stupid to bring up her dad like that. It was the first time in over a year that Avery had looked at me with something other than barely restrained disgust, and I'd ruined it in the space of a few seconds. Figures. I sat down, went to work, repaired a few cracked screens, swapped out a laptop circuit board, and updated an ancient Mac OS. An hour passed, then two passed. Still no Avery.

There were batteries to replace and malware to scrub, keyboards to clean and software to configure. By the time I snagged the blue iPhone from the repair stack, scrolling through the camera roll was the furthest thing from my mind. I only opened the photo app by accident. With a stray swipe of my thumb as I aimed for the settings, my eyes settled on a picture a third of the way down the screen. Nothing remarkable about it. Nothing that demanded I click on it.

but click on it, I did. A locker room, a team in celebration, players frozen in high fives, a kid with spiked hair giving what looked like a victory speech, his chest aimed proudly outward. The entire scene was one of frenzied, joyful emotion, which was why my gaze came to rest on the boy seated on the bench near the lockers. He wore no shirt and had ribs that cut against his skin like a poorly wrapped gift.

His shoulders were slumped, his arms hanging from his knees in what felt like a contradiction of the moment. Like he'd suffered some monumental personal defeat instead of victory. I immediately felt a weird kinship with the kid and zoomed in on his face. On what little I could see of his eyes, which were mostly hidden behind his weeping brown bangs, I wanted to peel them back and gain a better understanding as to his state of mind. Who had done this to him and why?

I wanted to tell him to hang in there, that things would get better, and that high school doesn't last forever. But I never got the chance. Because the picture moved. The only reason I didn't drop the phone was because my hands were already resting on the countertop when the boy lifted his head. Actually fucking lifted it. And looked right at me with eyes that were vacant pools of sorrow. You never stop. Please, you have to make him stop.

His voice whooshed through my head like a cold gust of wind. I'm not certain, but I think my heart stopped. "Looks like you made some decent progress." I startled at Avery's voice and tried to stand, then tipped backward off my stool and slammed ass-first onto the floor. "Jesus, RJ! Are you okay?" she asked, kneeling to cup my shoulder. Her perfume filled my nostrils with a vaguely floral scent.

I thought, for a second, she might bend down and give me a kiss. "I'm fine." I lied with a wince. "I'll be okay." I popped my jaw and glanced behind her, toward the phone. "No, you won't." She replied. "You shouldn't be here. You've had a rough week. Go home. Take Monday off too. I'll see you Tuesday." I left from Tech Zone into an afternoon so ripe with humidity, it felt like walking into a sponge.

I'm not much of a sun worshipper, I'm a ginger. Heat like this would normally send me scurrying for the HVAC bliss of my apartment, but not today. Today I needed to walk, to think. When I reached Lincoln Avenue, I turned east instead of west, and headed toward downtown and its ever-deteriorating row of shops that somehow still stood in defiance to the capitalist tyranny of the Amazons and Walmarts of the world.

Jerry's Sporting Goods, Office Express, The Weathered Spine, a bookstore that served exceptionally bad cappuccinos paired with stale pastries and scones. The sun sparkled off the cement as I walked and forced me into a squint. The tarred black top wobbled beneath my shoes like cake batter. My shins were covered with sweat, and it felt like work to breathe, like my lungs would soon swell and overheat.

The temperature had to be north of 100 degrees. Not that I gave it much thought. All I could think about, all I could picture, was that photo. That kid. He won't stop. He'll never stop. The words rolled around the inside of my head like a tumbler full of gravel. They grated against my skull. What did they mean? Who was this kid? And who was he talking about? Who was it that wouldn't stop? Doing what? I didn't have a clue.

All I knew was I couldn't go home. Not after what had happened. Had it happened? Another question without an answer. A question that only raised more questions. Had my brain short-circuited? Had the seizure turned it into a mash of smoldering neurons and tissue, and now it was simply misfiring? Painting incoherent visions only I could see on the screens of Tech Zone customers? As badly as I wanted to believe that, I couldn't.

The way the kid had looked at me. The way he'd stared straight into my soul. Like he'd been in there this entire time. Buried in all those photos. Waiting for me. And only me. To pick up the phone felt too personal. Too real. Crazy, I know. Narcissistic, even. But what else was I supposed to think? That I'd lost my mind? Because that was the only other reasonable alternative maybe I had.

Either way, the event had given me something I'd lacked for a long, long time. Purpose. A plan had hatched somewhere in my subconscious, sparked by the banners hanging all around me, clinging limply to lamp posts stretched taut over entrances. The displays were typical this time of year, with streamers and cutouts everywhere I looked.

Main street windows shouted at me in burgundy and white decorative paint with far too many exclamation points. "Go Bulldogs! Oakfield State Champions! Crush Jefferson!" At the center of the town stood the stadium, soon to be pulsing with streams of light and noise. I dreaded going inside. The prospect made my skin itch. Crowds bothered me. They made me feel untethered and unmoored.

What should I do with my hands? My arms? Where should I sit? Like I might float away at any moment. And the smell of so many people mixed together. That stale soup of cologne and perfume and sweat always turned my stomach. But none of that mattered because I'd be there tonight, scouring the field for the kid from the picture with the brown hair and sad eyes. I had to find a way to talk to him, to discover what he meant. I had to help him.

After Sarah Brooks, doing nothing wasn't an option. I killed the rest of the afternoon and the early evening at the Shell station across from the stadium, lounging in a booth near the magazine rack, drinking 32-ounce cherry Cokes, and reading issues of Wired and Popular Mechanics. Anything to keep my mind off the talking photo. By the time I made my way to the game with a hot dog in hand, I'd developed a solid case of indigestion.

Thomas Green Memorial Stadium rose like a tumor in front of me. Malignant, with school spirit, bleeding burgundy and white. I trembled as I purchased my ticket and limped through its gate. At 26, I felt no better than I had at 16. No more confident or self-assured. In fact, I felt worse. Where before I had managed to somewhat blend into the student section, I now stuck out like a sore thumb.

An obese adult in a yellow and purple Tech Zone polo and an ill-fitting pair of slacks. With my glasses and curly red hair, I wondered if I looked a bit like a pedophile or a mass shooting perp with a gun hidden in my belt. The game started as I squeezed my way into a bleacher midway down the stands with another coke. I searched the field for the skinny kid with the slumped posture. Where was he? Why couldn't I find him anywhere? It wasn't until halftime that I had my answer.

My stomach clenched as the announcer asked for the crowd to rise for a moment of silence. There he was, the boy from the picture, staring back at me from the jumbotron, Jeremy Coleman, dead at 17. "What happened?" I asked to the man next to me. "To the kid? Heart attack, I think. Died right there on the 40-yard line last season." He gave me a somber shake of his head.

The man gestured toward a diminutive woman with black hair, several rows lower. Sobbing next to a guy in a cowboy hat who had his arm curled around her, he whispered something into her ear and clutched her closer.

She shook her head and pushed away, then stood and fast walked up the stairs past me with a muffled sob that sounded like the cry of a wounded animal. I pushed to my feet and hustled after her, wheezing with the effort, barely managing to catch her as she strode into the parking lot. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said in a voice loud enough to startle her. She turned and looked at me with a face that was older than Jeremy's but too young to be that of his mother. His sister, maybe? A friend?

"Yes, I..." "What? What did I want from her?" "Sorry to bother you, but the player who passed away... you knew him, right? Jeremy?" I saw her attempting to process my face as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "Were you one of his teachers?" "No. Jeremy and I knew each other online." Her squint deepened at my lie, and she crossed her arms.

"Aren't you a little old for him? You a creep or something?" A bad start. I held up my hands. "It's not like that. We talked about computers and tech. Video games mostly. Stuff like that. And then he just vanished. I didn't even know he died until recently. You're his sister, right?" Her features bunched, and for a minute, I thought I'd pressed too far too fast, but then she nodded.

She laughed.

Are you kidding me? He was the worst one! He preyed on Jeremy's insecurities, bullied him along with the rest, and then had the balls to profit off him. Profit? How? Pills. He pushed Jeremy beyond his limits. The kid never complained once, not even when he injured his knee. He could barely walk, but that didn't stop the coach.

He shot Jeremy up and put him out on the field, fed him painkillers. And then, after a few months, he sold him painkillers. Wait, what? Yeah, and not just him. Any player who got hurt. How do you know this? I found the bottles in Jeremy's room and... Look, I don't know why I'm telling you anything. If you really want to know what happened to my brother, go ask Coach Brennan yourself. Not that I'd recommend it.

Brennan? The name flashed and settled in the pit of my stomach like a lead brick. Mason Brennan? Why? You know him? Yes. Well, no. Not personally. Jeremy talked about him. Said he was an asshole. Yeah. At least he got that part right. She started toward the parking lot. I followed after her. Wait. You said you wouldn't recommend talking to Coach Brennan. Why? Because! She said, glancing back over her shoulder. Brennan?

This town loves its football, and anyone who gets in the way of that eventually gets hurt. Mason Brennan. The name hung over me like a storm cloud. I'd spent high school trying to avoid the guy. Four miserable years ducking into bathrooms and slinking around hall corners, hoping he wouldn't spot me and send me crashing into a locker or sprawling to the floor. His taunts... Hey, McDonald! ...were the reason I changed my name to RJ.

The guy was a ruthless bully, a true dickhead if there ever was one, popular of course, and the first four-star football recruit from Oakfield in over a decade, which covered a hell of a lot of sins. Last I'd heard, he'd gone to Baylor on a full-ride scholarship, and I hadn't thought about him since, until now. The fact that he'd returned without my knowledge didn't surprise me. My world consisted of the six square blocks between my apartment and tech zone,

After high school, I'd purposefully wrapped myself in a cone of blissful ignorance. I had done everything I could to bubble wrap myself from the outside world. I didn't care about current events, the stock market, wars, or politics, or what happened in town. To me, none of it mattered. I simply wanted to be left alone, to live life on my terms, in peace. And now, with the utterance of a single name, that peace had shattered.

Mason Brennan, hometown football hero. Mason Brennan, head coach of the Oakfield Bulldogs. Mason Brennan, ostensible kiddie drug dealer. It wasn't a stretch. He'd been on the fringes of the party scene back in the day, wheeling between the burnouts, slackers and jocks, slippery as a fish. He did his fair share of drugs. Everyone knew that, especially Coke. But he always came out clean when the cops busted a party or pulled him over.

His lawyer father even managed to help him slip a DUI charge after a car crash left his then girlfriend, Maggie Thompson, permanently disabled. I spotted her around town on occasion, laboring down the sidewalk in her wheelchair. Just another piece of collateral damage floating in Mason's wake. And now it was happening all over again. Mason back to harvest a fresh batch of victims, while everyone else in town looked the other way. Everyone except me.

I wasn't going to let him. This time, I'd actually make a stand. I waited for him in the parking lot, loitering near the player entrance until the game petered out and the crowd thinned.

When he sauntered outside, I recognized him instantly. He had the same build, still muscular, but now with a sizable Bud Light paunch and a thinning hairline. His gait was the same too, his legs slightly wishboned, taking long, stiff strides as he aimed for a gleaming black Ford F-150 parked a few spots down near the curb. A nervous buzz filled my ears as I started after him.

Nausea bubbled thick at the base of my esophagus. My reflux cranking to ten. I had to say something, do something. My knees croaked. My spine popped. Words formed. I cleared my throat and... "Hey Mace, you're gonna meet us over at the Crow, right? Celebrate the win?" The voice came from my left, barking over a freshly revved engine. Another truck firing beyond the F-150. Two guys leered from inside the cab, grinning.

I knew them, a couple of Mason's jock friends from his high school glory days. Their faces already flushed pink with booze. One of them glanced my way and spat something dark into a beer can. His eyes seeming to go black for a second. A chill swam through my body and I looked away before he could recognize me. I angled past Mason and kept right on walking.

The crow's nest is about a mile from the stadium, two doors down from the only strip club in town, Pat's Truck Stop, a shady, all-nude venue that doesn't allow alcohol, or so I've heard. Most guys pick up a buzz at the crow and then saunter over to Pat's to empty whatever money is left in their wallet on girls half their age, who were more than willing to help them.

I'd never set foot inside. As stupid a notion as it was, I still had aspirations of seeing a naked woman without paying for her to take off her clothes. I hope it will be Avery. It's an idiotic fantasy. I know, since I'd never even so much as kissed a girl. Unbuttoning a shirt was simply unimaginable. It took half an hour to walk to the Crow.

My feet were aching by the time I reached the place, and I settled down on a bench near the parking lot where I could see Mason's truck. The crow was ripe with the meatheads, the bikers, and the jocks, all of whom were itching to relive their glory days. Going inside was a dangerous proposition. A geek like me would be an easy mark, and I didn't particularly feel like losing any teeth tonight. Instead, I sat there and played out the scenarios in my head.

Me intercepting Mason with a pithy shout. "Hey, fuckface!" Before cracking his orbital bone with a haymaker. Me sliding up behind him to unload a vicious kick to the nuts. Both options that would likely end up with me bleeding in the dirt. No. I'd need to try a different tact. Nothing too aggressive. Just enough to let him know I knew. A few words to give him pause. What they'd be, I still couldn't fathom. An hour passed.

Then two passed. The dark, silent confines of my apartment called to me like a siren. I wanted to leave, to stand up, walk away and forget any of this had ever happened. But I couldn't. Not when I'd done that very thing with Lyle's phone and didn't report what I saw. And for what? So I could keep my shitbox job and indulge my schoolboy crush on Avery? Avery, who treated me like an annoying younger brother and one she didn't particularly like.

pathetic as I was, I knew if I did the same thing now, ran, and another kid like Jeremy died, I'd never be able to forgive myself, to live with myself, something I already struggled with mightily. So, I just sat there with waves of muffled base spilling from the truck stop, feeling like a fraud,

until a shadow lurched from the bar. It had the right shape, the same dense outline of muscle bordering on fat I'd seen at the stadium, accompanied by twirling car keys. I stood and made my way to his truck, praying I'd have the nerve to speak this time. Jeremy's pleading voice leaked through my head. "They'll never stop. Please, you have to make him stop." I didn't think I could make Mason stop doing anything, but I'd at least try.

Mason? My pitch climbed on the N and stamped it with a question mark, like I didn't know it was him. Who's there? He answered in a squint, looking back, the edges of his words slurring together in a way that let me know he was operating with a comfortable buzz. His eyes widened with recognition as I neared. McDonald? Is that you? Please don't call me that.

A wobbly grin swam across his cheeks. "Holy shit, it is you! How you been, man? You work at Tech Zone, right? Only reason I recognized you is because I dropped my phone off for repair the other day." And there it was, the owner of the phone, Mason Brennan. Everything suddenly made sense.

"I saw your picture on the wall," he continued. "Employee of the month! I asked for you, but your boss said you were out sick." He winked. "She's cute, by the way. Said something about you having a seizure. You okay, man?" I managed to nod, and he reached out and cupped my shoulder with surprising tenderness, like he half expected me to fall down on the spot.

I'm glad. I deal with a lot of concussions. Brain injuries are brain injuries. It's good to see you're feeling better. The empathy and warmth in his voice set me back a step. Whatever I'd expected from him, it wasn't this. So, what brings you here, Ron? You stalking me or something? Want an autograph? He laughed. I frowned. I... This is going to sound strange, but...

My jaw opened and shut and opened again. "The kid on your team who died?" "Jeremy Coleman." "Yeah, what about him?" "It sounds like he struggled. With the team and all." Mason shrugged. "No more than anyone else." "Why? What's it to you?" "Nothing. It's just, I've heard some rumors about some pretty bad things going on with the team and-" "And what, Ron? Spit it out."

and some things, well, about you." His features hardened, and I glimpsed a bit of the old mason surfacing, a shark swimming up from the depths. "Look, I don't know what it is you are doing here, Ron, but I'll tell you the same thing I've told everyone else.

"Footballs are rough sport. Jeremy was a good kid. What happened to him was unfortunate. A freak accident, that's all. Now I gotta go. The wife's waiting up for me if you know what I mean." He winked again, elbowed me. "Good catching up. Maybe I'll see you around town sometime." He moved for the truck and I grabbed his arm, clamping down harder than I'd intended.

Wait, Mason, please. He looked down at my hand and back at me again, his forehead creasing and warning. I asked the question anyway. Were you, are you, selling pain pills to these kids? Is that what happened to Jeremy? He rubbed the bridge of his nose and blew out a long, slow sigh.

"Damn it! Why'd you have to ask that?" And then his fist rammed into my gut with a blinding violence that emptied the air from my lungs. I doubled over in time to see his knee coming up a half second before it collided with my jaw and sent me stumbling backward into his truck, where I collapsed. A fireball of pain filled my mouth, and I fought for breath as Mason crouched next to me, looking like a dad settling in for one of life's little lectures.

"Look, Ron. I know I didn't treat you well in high school. I'm sorry for that, truly. I'm not proud of the things I did as a young man. Or of this." I vaguely registered him waving a hand at me like the motion absolved him of any wrongdoing. "But let me tell you something. If I hear that you're spreading these rumors about me, what I did back then and what I just did now will pale in comparison to what I'll do to you next."

His fingers worked into my hair, and he guided my eyes toward his with a quick, forceful tug. His face swam in the dim, sodium vapor light like an impressionistic art piece. His mouth and cheeks and nose were one swirling smudge of color. "You understand me, McDonald?" I blinked and managed to nod as my fingers scraped dirt and wound around something hard. "Good.

"I'm glad we had this little." His eyes widened as I slammed the rock into his temple. It connected with the moist crunch, and he thumped down onto his ass, swinging for me as he did in a wide, lazy loop that missed by a mile. I lunged and brought the rock down on his skull again, and again, pounding away until there was nothing left of his face but a warm mash of blood and doughy flesh.

Hey guys, thanks for listening. I want to give you all a quick heads up regarding some upcoming political ads you may start hearing leading up to this year's presidential election.

These ads do not represent my own political viewpoint. So if you hear a political ad play on the podcast and it's not in my own voice, then it has absolutely nothing to do with me personally as a podcaster. Thank you again for being a dedicated listener of mine, and I can't wait to have another amazing year with you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.