Page 90 of Bazooka
“Jesus,” Tye murmured, as I buried my face in his chest, sobbing. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“You have to do something,” Jordan said. “He’s been crying his eyes out all week.”
Once in my room, I sat down on the bed as Carter spoke in a soothing voice.
“Tell us what happened, Luz. Maybe we can help.”
“It-t’s Baz-zoka,” I stammered, bawling. “He bet-trayed me. He to-told me to leave. And my father is to bl-lame. And now I’m hee-ere. And my heart is breaking.”
I had another crying fit as Tye sat down beside me and patted my back.
“Tell us what happened. Start from the beginning.”
So, I did. I told them every goddamn thing. How Bazooka saved me and took me in, and everything that followed. It included the curtains and the statue of a naked god with a huge but now broken phallus. Then, I told them about the best blowjob in the world that I gave to the person who deserved it the least, because fuck him! Why should I keep it a secret? I finished by telling them how he’d betrayed me.
“Luz, your eyes are puffy,” Jordan said with a weary sigh. “Please stop crying and put this on your eyelids.”
I took the jar filled with ice and cucumber slices that he gave me, sniffling.
“Thanks, Jordie.”
I lay down on my back and put two slices of cucumber on my eyelids.
“They help with the swelling,” I explained to my visitors. “It’s just in case Baz decides to drop by or something.”
Tye Thorsen’s sigh told me I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“Luz, what did I tell you? Find someone who isn’t straight and disinterested in your ass. Moreover…”
He paused, as if he were crossing a boundary of some kind.
“Bazooka is the worst person to crush on. He just… he doesn’t let people into his life, Luz. It’s a fact, and all of us who know him know that. Honestly, no one is trying anymore.”
“But we lived together,” I protested. “Everything was going so well.”
“He’s a good man,” Tye explained. “He has a kind heart under that cool act of his, but he’s bad at commitment. He lost his parents when he was six years old. Then he spent his childhood in and out of foster homes, sometimes moving from one to the other every month. He had to deal with some truly awful people. When he joined the police academy, his life turned around, but the damage was done. I have known him for a decade, Luz, but I still don’t know his middle name.”
“Alisson,” I mumbled, sniffling.
“What?” Tye said, sounding confused.
“Alisson is his middle name. Sister Mary told me. Do you know her?”
Tye shook his head.
“This thing with your father,” Carter said. “Do you know the details? How did they meet?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, mulling it over.
I was so angry and hurt when I found that card that I didn’t remember to ask Bazooka how he’d met my father.
“Maybe it was done with the best of intentions,” Carter offered.
I snorted. “Nothing my father does is with the best of intentions.”
“Bazooka, though,” he mused. “I don’t know him well, but he seems like a good person to me.”
“The best,” I admitted. “He’s the best person in the whole wide world.”
