The Salvation Shark, Chapter 30

Anton

Angela Hitchcock grew up in the Midwest with her parents and two brothers. She is twenty-two years old, and has never been on the East Coast. With her Philosophy degree largely worthless in the job market, her parents convinced her to spend a week with her cousin, Charlotte, and consider a few schools. Free of their yoke for the first time, Angela spent most of that week exploring the night-lives.

She has only had five boyfriends in her entire life, and had sex with two of them. She is a good girl, with good grades in school, and her parents were proud of her. She rarely drank, and it took only a couple hard lemonades to leave her feeling very good. Charlotte had a bit more, and has stepped inside a pizza place to pee. She is delayed by a drunk hippie that is throwing up mostly on the toilet.

I’ve just convinced two frat-boys that no matter what she says, Angela wants to have sex with both of them in the back alley. They’re fairly sober, but they have been following her and Charlotte all night, and really want to. I promised I would keep watch. I’m considering taking a turn of my own. Just as they grab her and punch her in the head to keep her quiet, I know what Becki did.

I’m furious for a moment, more that I won’t get my turn with this girl. It doesn’t matter, because that bone-head, Steve–who is from New York, and would have graduated this year if this didn’t happen–punched her too heard in the temple. Angela will be dead from a brain hemorrhage before the other guy, Andy-whose father is a lawyer in L.A., and who will only do two years in prison, but commits suicide a year after his release–has even shot his load. I don’t do stiffs, I don’t care what anyone says.

I wander away from the alley, leaving the trio to be discovered by a hysterical Charlotte, who will scream until two police officers–one of which will later have a tragic run-in with me–arrive on the scene and arrest them. Steve will cope with what he did by blaming me in the future and becoming a devout Christian while in prison. I’m a convenient scapegoat.

Go to Chapter 31