Bud Smith - F 250

Seth had talked about that place. I knew it from his description. Golden lake. Dirt roads. Swans, ducks, and turtles. Old wood. Sailboat with mildewed ropes. A tire that swung over the water. Squeaky floorboards. Wine cellar. River rushing through the stone. His grandfather’s grave.

“It’s all our idea to be buried there together.”

“Oh.”

“As a family,” he said. “It’s important to me that it gets done right. By someone who loved my brother.”

So, then, that was it. No matter what, I had to do it.

Mark said he wanted to build Seth a tomb up in the mountains at Aunt Kathy’s house, “To house my brother’s ashes.” He said it’d been Seth’s favorite place in the world. He wanted me to have the job. A stone tomb to house his brother’s ashes.

“Will you do it?”

Feral was still yelling. He was arguing with Trish about their prospects, about having to go and live with Trish’s off-the-boat, Irish mother. Where else would they go?

“I’ll do it.”

“Oh, good. That makes me happy,” he said.

We talked about money, he wanted to know where to send the check.

“I’m kinda in-between residences right now.”

“I’ve had enough of you. I’m outta here,” Trish screamed at Feral.

“Everything okay?” Mark asked.

“Oh, just some wild animals,” I said. “I live amongst them — thrashing.”

“Super. Then I’ll mail the money to the mountain house. It’ll be in the mailbox when you get there.”

The whole thing happened so quickly, I didn’t know what to say. Life is like that sometimes though, isn’t it? I hung up the phone and walked out of the room. Feral was still spazzing out, pretty much rightfully so I supposed. After all, his house was gone.

“Can you believe Trish? She wants me to go live with her mother. Her mother is a nasty woman. A total bitch.”

I said, “Really? She seemed alright to me.”

“In what way?”

“Well,” I said, “I crashed into her. Totaled the back of her LeSabre. When I got to her house, she’d made me dinner. She had a place set for me and everything.”

“Made you dinner after a wreck? Well, whatever. I’m still not excited about the idea.”

I helped him load the F-250 with all his cardboard boxes. We drove away from the house, out of the marshes. Trish was at the Wawa smoking a cigarette next to the pay phone.

“Come on,” Feral said. “Let’s go to your mom’s.”

The road opened up.We drove in a caravan towards Mount Mercy. Tull Lake. Everyone was excited in their own way. Leaving. We were all leaving. That’s what we all wanted from our lives, what the whole world wanted. Feral and Trish were leaving the mother’s house. Myself, June, and K were getting away from Studio Mike’s pullout couch.

June said she very much wanted to help me with my work. K seemed indifferent to the entire thing. What else was new?

I was sitting by the passenger window with my hand on K’s knee. K had her hand on June’s knee. The windows were down, and we were cruising along. The summer air poured into us as the mile-markers flashed by. June drove the truck. Ten and two — her hands at all times. She was nervous, because she hadn’t done any real driving before.

“I’m great as a bus passenger.”

“It’s easier in a big truck like this,” K said. “Don’t worry.”

“Why’s it easier?”

“Everything will get out of your way,” K said, kissing June’s cheek.

“Within reason, everything will get out of your way,” I offered. “Don’t hit a mountain or anything.”

June smiled, but the smile faded quick. Each approaching road sign, fork in the highway, car in her rearview, and cop on the side of the road made her nervous.

We’d crossed the New York State Line many hours before. New Jersey peeled away. The ocean went first. Then the industrial wastelands disappeared as we crossed through the Meadowlands and past Giants Stadium, Elizabeth, Newark airport. We saw the urban sprawl of New York City. Once we were over the George Washington Bridge, we’d officially entered NY. Then, the suburbs of Westchester. River town after river town. After that, railroad lines cut through the center.

“Just keep pointing north,” I said. “Keep pointing north. Aim for those mountains.”

“What mountains?”

“They’re there. You just can’t see them yet.”

June was so serious when she drove. I think that’s when I first really started to develop a major thing for her. K was fooling around. She’d reach down and play with my dick and give me little bites on my ear, but my attention was locked in one hundred and fifteen percent on June Doom — the way she sat with her chest up close, into the steering wheel, while biting her lip. I kept stealing glances of her while K threw herself at me.

Feral and Trish followed behind in the van. He’d agreed to help me do the work without much prodding.

“This house is a secluded paradise in the mountains near a little river and a clear lake.”

“Can’t wait.”

I said, “I even think there’s a little pier to fish off. Maybe, if I remember right, there’s also a rowboat.”

We barreled up the highway, closing the gap to this place of seclusion. My pulse quickened, and it wasn’t because K was practically jerking me off. She started to play with my fly like she was gonna unzip me and start to make me feel really good. I kept looking over at June. There was something about her. I didn’t get the same feeling from K. She just wasn’t all there for me.

June took her eyes off the road for a moment, looked at me. The truck was just gliding forward. June Doom and me stared at each other as if we were saving each other from some unstoppable force. K kept kissing my neck. June let out a sigh and looked back at the road.

“You two have fucked … alone. I know it. And that’s terrible.”

“No,” K said very seriously. “No we haven’t.”

I didn’t say a word. There was a problem developing. It was, as all problems are, based off of a lie. Lies, plural, really. K told June that she didn’t sleep with me, that she wanted to sleep with me, that she wanted us all to sleep together. June was reluctant, but K kept pressing the issue. It didn’t quite go off the way K wanted. She was still trying to get the atmosphere right.

K took her hands off of me.

I said, “This is the exit here.”

June left the highway. I relayed directions from a hand-written note on a slip of paper. After a few turns off of the main drag, we were rising up into the mountain on a winding road flanked by tall Douglas firs.

I pointed at a small dirt road up ahead, “That’s it, there.”

The lake appeared before us. It was beautiful and expansive. The road became gravel that led up to a small stone house. It was a good-looking place.

We parked in the dirt driveway. Feral pulled next to us.

“This place is the shit,” he exclaimed.

I immediately went to the mailbox. There was an envelope in there addressed from Chicago. I opened it up. A small note written by Mark was included with the cash. It was all there. I could just tell it was. I didn’t bother to count it out or anything. I just put it back in the envelope and put the envelope in my back pocket.

I tossed the key to the house to K, who insisted on going in right away. I walked along the edge of the lake and looked across.

On the other side of the water, there were a few massive houses. That surprised me. Seth said that the house was isolated and that there weren’t any neighbors. Looking out, I counted five homes towering on the other side of Tull Lake.

One of them was very modern. The place, which looked like something out of the Hollywood Hills, had a sick-looking yellow speedboat docked on its pier. This place wasn’t how Seth said it was at all. It’d changed a lot in the fifteen years since he’d been here.