Page 75 of Thug

I laughed. “I’ve got a few ideas on how you can pay me, and it’s not with money.”

She shot me a glare.

“I don’t need paid,” Panzer said.

She gave him a funny look. “What do you mean?”

“Friends don’t charge friends for their help.”

Gray beamed with pride. “We’re friends?”

He draped his arm over her shoulder and gave her a side-armed hug. “What else would we be?”

Panzer had yet to learn the details of what happened to Gray. He knew something went awry, but I hadn’t shared the true details with him. I simply told him it was something that she did not want to discuss, and to respect her wishes.

I could now see that when the day came that he did know the truth, there’d be hell to pay.

21

Gray

Sunday finally arrived. It was a good thing, because Price was ready to strangle half of the members of his club for either making jokes about him being a shitty waitress or because they weren’t picking up after themselves. The fact that he made it through the week without losing his composure was impressive.

Since the incident, I noticed changes in him. Not in how he acted or treated me, but in what he offered me. He was still the same person. Many things about Price would likely never change. He rarely smiled. He was always stern in his actions and his appearance. Then, there was his temper. Holy crap. He was as hot-tempered as a caged cat.

Each time I saw him he revealed a little more of the man behind the mask. I wondered how many layers would have to be peeled away before I caught a glimpse of the Price McNealy no one had been fortunate enough to know.

I peered into the top of his music console. It contained an eight-track tape player, an analog radio, and a phonograph. It was in remarkable condition, but it was obviously old and outdated by today’s standards. The sound, however, was phenomenal.

“I think it’s amazing that this thing sounds as good as it does,” I said. “How old is it?”

Lying flat on his back on the couch with his feet propped on a pillow, he glanced to the side. Following a short blank stare, he responded.

“Must be about fifty years old. I’m forty, and I think my dad got it right after him and my mom met. They’d been married for a year when I was born, and were together for ten years before that.”

“A ten-year engagement?” I gasped. “That’s crazy.”

He gazed at the ceiling. “I don’t know if it was an engagement or an arrangement. Guess it doesn’t matter. After ten years they decided they just as well tie the knot and have kids.”

We were listening to In a Silent Way, by Miles Davis. Price chose it, saying it would allow him to relax on his one day away from the bar. I didn’t like it at first, but the longer it played the more I enjoyed it.

“What’s your fondest memory of them?” I asked.

I hoped I didn’t overstep any boundaries. I was fascinated with the story I’d heard about his parents, although I realized it had more than likely been embellished over the years. Price had told me about his aunt and explained how close they were. I wanted to hear more about his parents. What he was willing to share, at least.

Still staring at the ceiling, he propped his left ankle on top of his right. “Oh, I don’t know.”

I sat down in a chair across the room from him. “Is it hard to remember? Because it was so long ago?”

“Not so much. Just tough deciding what my fondest memories are. Haven’t given it much thought.”

I sat quietly and allowed the music to float into the room.

My parents were never married. I didn’t know it until I was almost eighteen. My mother confessed to me one night when she was upset with my father for not coming home for over a month. He, like Price, didn’t care much for cell phones. He rarely carried one. However, as my mother explained to him one night while in an argument, he always had access to a phone and he knew our telephone number.

On that occasion, she assumed he was dead or in jail. Sadly, neither proved true. I spent many of my nights wishing he be arrested and thrown in prison. Not because of who he was or what he was involved in, but for how he treated my mother and me.

For as long as I could recall, our finances were like a roller coaster. During the peaks, there were months that it seemed we were never going to have to worry again. The bills were paid, we had plenty of food, and my clothes were new and comparable to everyone else’s in school. Then, there were the valleys. No electricity. The water shut off for days—or even a week—before we could manage to scrape enough money together to pay the bill.