cottoncandypink

Entry tags:

2018,
tess mercer

Tess

The door opens to Wilford's dressing room. The blue walls are decorated with framed vintage movie posters, opening up for a vanity that doesn't look like it's been used since Wilford moved into the building. Along the exterior brick wall is where Wilford's set up his office, with a few shelves and filing cabinets behind the massive desk. The other side of the room is more of a lounge, with a black leather sofa and matching chair, and a smudged up glass coffee table that shows evidence of small, sticky hands.

Wilford closes the door behind them, only to open it again to reveal the large closet where he keeps several other guns. He stores the rifle in with the rest, making sure the door is locked so the nosy little toddler can't find his way in.

Beyond the door leading to the hall, people are obviously coming and going. Someone's having a heated argument, but the soundproofing in the building is heavy enough that nothing specific can be made out.

Now that there's signal, Wilford pulls out his phone to check the traffic report. Wilford sighs. "Someone dropped a yacht on the beltway," he says.

His phone isn't buzzing with missed texts though, so he's hoping it happened after Andy got past that point.

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Almost!

"He'll be out for a while," he says.

On their way out of the office, he waves to get the bartender's attention, and points back at the door. She nods and waves at them as he leads the way toward the beach. Normally he comes out to the patio to smoke, but people are actually dining out there today. There are a few groups with umbrellas and picnic blankets scattered out on the sand just beyond the boardwalk as well. They shouldn't have anyone out on blankets if they're short-staffed, so he stops by one of the groups to briefly make sure they don't need anything.

Once they're far enough away from paying customers, Wilford stops and lights a cigarette, offering one to Tess.

"I complain, but you should have seen him when I got him," he says, watching a group of jet skiers out in the surf, riding the waves and throwing grenades at one another. "I actually thought he was deaf."

She takes her shoes off again and follows him onto the beach, a wary eye on the jet skiers and their weapons.

Waving off the cigarette, "I can only imagine with how he was treated. He's young enough that he may not remember most of it."

The jet skiers stay where they belong, and are far enough out on the low tide that one of them would have to be a major league pitcher for their grenades to reach Tess and Wilford.

"Here's hoping," Wilford says. "But kids are off-limits. How fucked up do you have to be?"

Wilford knows he's a selfish prick. He never does anything unless it benefits him somehow. But there are lines you do not cross.

"She better hope she doesn't get parole, because she's not going to live long enough to enjoy it." There isn't even a hint of exaggeration to his voice. He's probably never not going to be angry about this.

She doesn't say anything for a long few minutes.

"I never got to kill my dad, but I sure as hell thought about it." She glances over at him. "You've got the money, keep her in jail."

"I've spent my entire life putting people like her in jail. And now it's my own fucking kid."

The irony is not lost on him.

"There's no telling how your kids are going to turn out. Especially if you're not that present in their lives."

She lifts her chin a little, looking out toward the water again.

"Why weren't you in hers?"

Wilford takes a drink of his beer, still watching the jet skiers.

"Didn't know about her. I was fourteen, and kind of a shithead."

'Kind of' is an understatement.

"She doesn't know who her father is, and I'm having the kid's name changed so she can't track him down when she figures out he's not where he's supposed to be."

He shrugs. There's no changing it now, so he's just going to do what he can.

"Fourteen? Jesus."

She can't imagine ever being able to have looked after a child at that age.

"Have you got him legally?" Above board or otherwise, she means.

"Oh, yeah. She ain't getting him back." Wilford is going to make goddamn sure of it.

The problem with jet skis and grenades (and what may or may not be a rocket launcher?) is that it's hard to hear much else that's going on further down the beach. They're close enough to the pier that they should be able to hear the roller coaster, but it's all blending into the same continuous noise.

"They don't tend to let violent felons keep many rights. The state took him, and put him with his grandmother, but she didn't want him either and was going to put him in the system."

So now Wilford has him, and has no idea what to do with him.

There's more noise than she's used to, but it's slowly becoming normal.

She nods.

"Are you going to tell him when he's older?"

It's when there's no noise that Wilford gets uncomfortable. His is a world of noise and chaos, and he's never known anything different.

He nods. "He needs to know as soon as he's able to understand what the words mean. I never got any good at lying and keeping secrets. I'm better at exposing them."

One of the jet skiers gets obliterated by a grenade, but it doesn't seem to faze his pals. Right up until his machine explodes and takes a few more of them out with it.

"It's going to be hard on him. It wasn't very easy to take as an adult."

The skiers are watched with a sense of morbid fascination.

"I don't have any family on my side either," Wilford says. He takes another drink of his beer. "But he's got enough shit to deal with as it is without wondering why we don't go see Grandma on the weekends."

Wilford figures that if it's out in the open to begin with, there will be no awkward conversations later.

What's left of the jet skiers abandon their machines in the water and start swimming toward shore. Except for one guy, who didn't get the memo, and runs over one of his friends. The guy that got run over surfaces eventually and rushes to catch up with the group as they head up toward the boardwalk.

Somehow, the beach doesn't seem much quieter with them gone.

"All he needs is you."

Then again, Tess' opinions and experiences with family are rather unusual.

"This chaos is all completely normal to you, isn't it?"

He shrugs. "It's..."

Her question brings him out of his own head. He got kind of lost there for a minute. The beach is awfully noisy, even for a Saturday evening. Lots of people screaming.

A lot of people are screaming. It might have something to do with the dozen or so ATVs painted a rainbow of colours tearing down the beach.

"Fucking shit!" Wilford throws his beer at the one heading straight for him, as if it will help.

She turns to see what the commotion is about and stares with wide eyes.

Unfortunately, she's always been more fight than flight.

The beer bottle, predictably, does nothing. It hits the sand, and fails to explode or do anything to help. The ATVs at the back of the pack don't seem to be paying too much attention to the race, or whatever it is, and are swerving around to run over beach-goers.

Wilford checks his inventory for anything that would help, but it's crammed full of crayons and toys and a box of crackers. It's a rather alarming thing to realise in a moment where he'd really like to have a gun.

He remembers all too late that he locked everything up in his dressing room. Luckily (unluckily?) the jet ski guys come back with their grenades, and decide to start flinging everything they have at the rampaging ATVs.

"Time to run," he says, turning to try to run away from the pack of speeding death machines that are already starting to make the path back to the boardwalk a little scary.

"Yes." She barely manages before starting to do just that. Of course, running in sand isn't the best of ideas.

It also isn't comforting that her life is starting to flash before her eyes. Again.

It doesn't take long before they're right in the middle of the pack. A few seconds at most, and now the drivers have lost interest in their race (if they even were racing in the first place) and have decided to just chase down beach goers.

Wilford has never been particularly fast, especially in the sand, and without a gun he's feeling rather trapped. The morons with grenades aren't helping, partially because they're also being run over.

Tess. He should probably focus on getting Tess off the beach. He'll pick her up and carry her if he has to. He tries to grab her to pull her along with him, but he gets clipped by one of the ATVs, which throws him off his balance long enough for a second to get him with its fender. He goes down into the sand, which is not particularly easy to breathe. He tries to get up, but something is very, very wrong.

She does her best. It's a crowded beach and her bare feet sinking into the sand isn't helping her at all. She tries to reach out for Wilford but something stops her.

It's not what she expected. She's not prepared this time. But that familiar darkness descends on her anyway.

Wilford stays in the sand for longer than he needs to or should. Eventually, the roar of engines fade off further down the beach, meaning it's probably safe to get up. It takes him longer than he wants it to. He can't seem to support his own weight, but he eventually manages to get to his feet by rolling over onto one side. His arm is pain from his neck to his fingertips. He's bleeding. His glasses are god knows where. Other people on the beach are getting to their feet and fleeing before anything comes back for them, while lifeguards and paramedics start making their way out to help get people off the sand.

He can't see very well, but Wilford is pretty sure he should be hearing Tess shouting at him right now. She's not. But something that is vaguely Tess-shaped and coloured is lying in the sand not too far from where Wilford got flattened.

Fuck. That's just... fucking great. What in the hell is he supposed to do about this?

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Tess

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