Page 18 of Marlin's Faith

“Gahhhh!” Johnny had his hand on my chin, fingers digging into my face as he forced me up and away from him. I let fly with an awkward punch to his ribs and he grunted, doubling in on himself.

We rolled around on the deck for a good long while, and I did as promised, I whooped my younger brother’s ass. Though granted, he got a few good licks in himself.

Eventually, we each were sitting, legs sprawled in front of us, backs to the side of the boat, Each of us in a respective corner like a pair of wrung out prize fighters, glaring murder at each other as our chests heaved in great gulping gasps for air.

“What, this bitch’s pussy made of gold or some shit?” he demanded.

I snarled back, “It ain’t like that, and I could ask you the same thing. Better yet, when you gonna get your fuckin’ balls back outta Lynn’s purse?”

That shut his trap for a minute. He glared balefully at me through one eye swelling and wiped at the blood under his nose. Heh, yeah, I got him good. Of course, judging by the stinging under my left eye, he got me pretty good too. Cocky little bastard.

“I need the money or we’re gonna lose the fuckin’ house. She opened up a bunch of credit cards I didn’t know nothing about and has been skimping on the fuckin’ mortgage payments to pay ‘em, hopin’ I wouldn’t notice. The bank fuckin’ called me. I’m going into default-“

“Jesus-fucking-Christ Johnny! When you gonna learn? Better yet, when you gonna start spending your money on something that matters like a fuckin’ divorce attorney that specializes in child custody?”

“Man, you know how the fuckin’ system works! They always,always, give the kids to the mother, then she’ll have my balls in a vice when it comes to child support and who thefuckis going to take care of my babies then? You know she’s only good for a few hours at a time.”

I shook my head, I’d heard it all before, and I was sick and fuckin’ tired of his goddamned excuses. What I said next, I admit, was pretty fuckin’ shitty, but my brother had put me in an exceptionally shitty mood by this point and he still hadn’t apologized for mouthing off about Faith; who he didn’t even know.

“Fuck, Johnny. You’re more like Danny every fuckin’ day, except instead of smack, you’re addicted to that cunt’s pussy.”

My brother recoiled like he’d been slapped, and just stared at me.

“Low fuckin’ blow, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, well so was the crack about Faith.”

We stared each other down for a long minute.

“Never seen you go to bat so hard about some broad before, what makes her so special?”

“What makes Lynn so special, you little cock bite?”

“I asked first, you big bastard.”

I laughed, and Johnny laughed. No one can fuckin’ drive your ass crazy like family.

“Seriously,” he gasped when we got our shit together enough to speak, “What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know…” I said honestly, and I didn’t. I couldn’t explain it, yet there it was. We sat and talked a little more after that and I tried to explain. This wasn’t the first time my brother and I scrapped. Every once in a while it was like we each reached critical mass and had to blow off some fuckin’ steam or explode. We never hung onto it, or let it come between us for more ’n a minute, and this here was no exception.

We finished cleaning up the boat, then took turns in the water closet cleaning ourselves up before I packed up the laptop and other electronics and threw some shit in my bag.

“You stayin’ at Cutter’s with this girl?” he asked.

“Yeah, for now.”

“Mind if I do a few solo runs to catch up to Lynn?”

I considered it, “You gonna look into a divorce attorney? Shit ain’t getting better, Johnny. If anything it’s worse.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He stood there silent and I finally heaved a sigh, “You got keys. Be fuckin’ careful and call and let me know, when, where, how long you’ll be… all that shit, okay? In case I need to come by and grab something or, you know, want to fuckin’ come home.”

“Deal.”

“Gimme at least the next three days before you hit me up to do anything, and keep my cut from this trip.”

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