Drowning Tucson Read Online Free

Now he wasn’t sure what to do. Lavinía had told him outright that she wanted him, and thatwas hard to turn down. She was fine. Beautiful brown hair. Nice rack. The works. Now here she was telling him that after he became a King she would be proud to be his girlfriend. He ignored his friends rambling about all the different bitches at Mansfield they wanted to screw and thought about Lavinía and how much he’d like to give her a book he’d stolen from the school library. The librarian let him steal books because he took good ones. Not the usual horror or romance novels the other kids tried to lift. If he gave her
Wuthering Heights,
maybe she’d invite him over one day after school and they could talk about it on the couch while he rubbed her arm or her hair and leaned forward as she was in the middle of a sentence to surprise her with a kiss. After that she would give herself to him and they would make love and snuggle until it was time for him to go home for dinner.
    He stopped walking when he reached the fence at the far end of the schoolyard and told his friends to go on without him. You sure, Felipe? Yeah. You too, Ricardo. I need to be alone. They left and he stood looking at the brush on the other side of the fence, thinking of Lavinía and his mother and his brothers and all the things everyone expected of him, growing angry, frustrated. He jumped over the fence and ran, ignoring his friends, who yelled after him. If he had turned around he might have seen Ricardo smiling and nodding his head. But he didn’t.
    He ran as fast as he could, leaping over cactus and weaving around other, spidery plants until he made it to the nearest alley, where he turned and ran more, ignoring the pain in his chest and shins and the pounding in his temples, trying desperately to think of a place to go and scared that if he stopped he would break into tears over his foolishness and feel like a helpless little boy, so he kept going, running until he found himself exhausted and standing in an unfamiliar part of the city.
    Stone Avenue was dotted with empty buildings. Hotels with their signs bashed or burned out, a few strip joints, stores that reminded him of Old West watering holes. Felipe wandered around trying to catch his breath, looking in windows and checking doors to see if any were unlocked. None were. He stopped at a pastel blue building with a sign that said The S ank Club. There was a bright outline of paint where the W had fallen off. Looking for a place to rest, he walked behind thebuilding and found a cove where deliveries were only accepted between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m. It was shady and cool. He found some old cardboard boxes and spread them out, then he lay down on them and slept for the rest of the afternoon.
    When Felipe woke hours later, the sun had already gone down. He lay still with his eyes open, trying to remember the route he had taken to end up in this deserted part of the city.
    When he finally rose and walked to the front of the building, he was startled to find the street alive with activity. Cars cruised by playing music loudly, their drivers sunk down in their seats with only their foreheads visible above their opened windows. The hotels, which had looked abandoned earlier, were lit up against the desert sky.
    The walls of the Swank Club shook with the deep bass of dance music. Felipe tried to see inside, but the windows were blacked out. He didn’t understand why a bar wouldn’t want anyone to see in, so he walked to the front door and pulled it open. When his eyes adjusted to the smoke and lights, he saw a woman lying on her back in the middle of the bar, twirling her bra above her head. She got to her knees and began pulling at her panties, revealing a little patch of hair, and Felipe couldn’t believe his luck. A naked woman, with great tits, right there in front of him. Close enough that he only had to take a few steps and he could reach out and feel her soft skin.
    Is this some kind of joke?