The next day I was awoken by someone banging on my door repeatedly. I fell out of bed and of course cursed at anything under the sun. I hated when I was in a deep sleep and someone found a reason to interrupt that. Now that I have gotten older, sleep had become very precious to me.
“I’m coming hold you’re damn horses.”
I meandered my way over to the door and was met with Kevin who looked like he had been up for hours. He was carrying a cup of coffee for me in one hand and a can of paint in the other one.
“Morning sunshine…here’s some coffee…”
“What the hell time is it anyway?”
“7 on the dot.”
“What? Kevin why are you waking me up at 7 in the morning?”
“Because we have a lot of work to do.”
“But, 7? You couldn’t wait for at least 9?”
“Nick, you know if I had waited until 9, we’d be having the same exact conversation but only you’d be asking me why I didn’t wait until noon.”
I was half listening to him as I climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up over my head. All I wanted was to go back to sleep…nice, quiet, sleep. I had the weirdest dreams last night. I usually do my first night away from home. I’ve always been like that. Of course when I was younger they were nightmares, always with the same recurring theme…not being able to find my family. It’s weird that now that would kind of be a nice dream.
Kevin walked over and pulled the blanket off of me, “Come on little man…we’ve got to go and paint!”
I sat up and shook my head at him, “You know, there’s something not right with you!” I yawned as I forced myself to finally pull my legs over the side of the bed. “Have you woken AJ up yet?”
Kevin nodded as he sipped on my coffee, “He’s in the shower now.”
“How come the other guys aren’t here to have as much fun as we are?” He laughed at my sarcastic wit. I’m sure I reminded him of the younger me just then. I recognized the laugh. He used it often when I gave him the all too familiar rolling of the eyes or shaking of the head. He liked to call it, “The return of baby Nick.”
“Because you have always said that you wanted to do something fun...just the two of us.”
“Yeah, well if you haven’t noticed…AJ’s here too.”
“Because he has always said the same thing, so I figured I’d get you both done in one pop.”
“You’re a real riot Richardson.”
“I know…now get dressed and I’ll treat you guys to breakfast.”
“Yeah…yeah.”
He came over and ruffled my hair, which was already a huge mess, “I’ll be back in about a half hour. Try not to go back to bed!”
“What? And miss all this fun?”
He winked at me as he left my room and as tempted as I was to lay right back down, the 26 year old in me, needed to go and pee. I walked over to the bathroom and after doing my business, poured some cold water on my face. As much as I liked to complain about being here, I kind of felt good that he asked me along. At first I was a little annoyed that he also asked AJ to go, more like jealous I guess, but I got over it.
AJ and I always had this secret competition going for Kevin’s attention it’s just that neither of us would ever admit to it. Truth was we both longed for that big brother/father figure in our lives. It just seemed more likely that AJ would need that more than me because his dad was noticeably absent. It’s hard to take that seriously for someone like me, when my dad was always right there. Kevin saw through that though, it’s like he understood.
I contemplated my strange relationship with Kevin while in the shower, which was odd I admit, but still. It is something that has always baffled me. Why it was that Kevin mattered so much to me. As I shut off the water and made my way back into the main room I shook my head as I heard AJ singing outside my room.
“Let me in Nick.” He sang to the tune of Brother John.
“Why don’t you just knock like normal people?”
“When was I ever a normal person?” He asked, which was a pretty good question.
“Good point.”
“I’m surprised you showered, you know we’re just going to get all dirty anyway today.”
“Well shit, I didn’t even think of that.”
“That’s why I’m here Julio.”
“Julio?” I searched the contents of my suitcase, looking for something that I in essence could ruin since we were painting today. “You know, Kevin didn’t tell us to pack smocks!”
AJ seemed amused by that, “Smocks? Do you own a smock Nick?”
“No, but I would have brought a shirt that I didn’t care about if I knew I was going to ruin one today.”
“But the one you are wearing is full of holes Nick.” He laughed at me and I guess he did have a point, but I paid good money for these strategically placed holes.
“I can’t believe he woke me up so early… 6 freaking o’clock in the morning.”
“He let me sleep until 7.” I decided to brag. I did say we enjoyed a friendly competition didn’t I?
He gave me the finger as he adjusted the FUCK cap on top of his head. “What do you think his deal is anyway? I mean renovating a house is just fucking odd, even for Kevin, don’t you think?”
I sat on the bed and yawned, debating on whether I should even bother to run my fingers through my hair or not. Most likely I was going to get all sweaty anyway. “I have no idea…maybe it’s some kind of midlife crisis or something.”
“He has been acting weird ever since our tour has been over.” I nodded at AJ, he was right. Kevin had been acting strange and very un-him like since we ended our Never Gone run.
“I have no clue…”
I was interrupted by a knock which was immediately followed by an “Are you ready Nick?”
AJ was the one who opened the door, “Yup, he’s ready. I made sure of it.”
Kevin pat the top of AJ’s head, “Well, aren’t you a good boy…come on kids…let’s go.”
After a hearty breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon…well also some sausage for myself, we were back at Kevin’s newly acquired mansion from hell. That was my nickname for the place after being here for two days. It wasn’t as menacing looking as it was yesterday but that creepy and sad feeling came over me as I once again carefully climbed the front porch steps.
“I think your first order of business should be fixing these steps before one of us dies Kev.”
He nodded at me and then threw a paintbrush at my head. His aim sucks! I know he thinks he is an incredible pitcher but good Lord, if I didn’t duck, I would have had a concussion.
“Why don’t you guys start on the living room? I’ll work on those porch steps…okay? Happy?”
“As a clam.”
Once Kevin left AJ and I alone, I turned to my short, little bald friend and had to ask, “Do you have any idea how the hell we are supposed to do this?”
“Nope and I can’t believe he didn’t leave us a long list of detailed directions so we don’t fuck it up.”
“Maybe before we paint we should move the stuff off of the fireplace first?” I shrugged at him as I said that. It seemed like the logical thing to do, I mean we couldn’t paint around the pictures.
So he walked over and helped me remove all of the photos that lined the mantelpiece. We placed them on the canvas covered couch, but instead of painting I went over and looked at them once again. I’m not sure why, but I felt a closeness to these people, maybe because of the tinge of sadness emanating out of every one of them.
I picked up the big one which all the other smaller pictures surrounded and turned it around to look for a date. I coughed at the amount of dust that came off of that thing.
“Hrmm…September of 68. These are hella old pictures. I thought they were more recent than that.”
“What are you babbling about?” I looked over at AJ and held out the picture, “This picture was taken in the 60’s.”
“Dude, you can’t tell from what they’re wearing? I mean look at that chick’s hair. She’s got freaking hippie written all over her!”
He was right, the oldest girl in the picture was dressed in a long, flowered skirt and her hair was long and braided. She was kind of hot in a ‘she’s probably my mom’s age’ kind of way.
I put that one down and went for some of the others. They all were kind of generic and didn’t have any info on the back, except for one. There was one picture of one of the boys sitting up against the side of the house, holding up his hands to his eyes to shield them from the sun it looked like. This picture had a different look then the others; it was almost as if a real photographer took it. When I turned it around though, it actually had something written on it.
Our last picture of Tommy…I love and miss him.
What happened?
Belle
“Nick, are you going to sit and stare at those pictures all day or help me paint?”
I looked over at AJ and had to laugh because even though he had just opened the can of paint, he already had managed to get some on his pants, which of course I was more than happy to point out to him.
“Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed once he looked down to the place I was pointing to. “Kevin is so going to owe my ass a new pair of pants! I loved these things!”
“I wonder what happened to the kid in this picture.” I said as I walked over and grabbed my paintbrush.
“What do you mean?”
“The back of the picture said it was the last picture of him.”
“He’s not in any of the others?”
“You know…I didn’t even look.”
“Well don’t now…we have to paint.”
“You’re no the boss of me McLean.”
“True…but if we don’t start painting soon; lord knows what he’ll make us do next.”
“I just want to see real quickly,” I walked back over to the place where all the photos were lying about and sure enough, the boy was only in a handful of the older ones. He was missing from most of them.
“Huh…he’s not in them. I wonder what happened to Tommy?”
“Maybe you can try to solve the case later Joe.”
“Joe?”
“Hardy…you know Joe and Frank Hardy? The Hardy Boys? Oh forget it…”
“Oh I know who they are.” I know he was being a smartass, but maybe AJ did have a point. With them leaving all of their stuff here, I was sure I could find something about what happened to that kid. Not that he was a kid; he was more like a high school kid, but still. Too young for it to be his last picture.
“How’s it going in here boys?” Kevin walked in, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
“We just started.” I announced as a master of the obvious.
“The porch steps are now fixed so no need to worry about falling through them whenever you come up the stairs.”
He looked over at me and smiled when he said that and suddenly, I just had the urge to give him a hug, so I did just that.
“What was that for?” he asked when I finally pulled away.
“Just because.”
AJ shook his head at me as he continued to paint. “Hey Kev…you said these people left everything here as is right?”
Kevin walked over and grabbed my paintbrush and began helping AJ, “Yeah.”
“So they probably left like all their personal things as well like mail and stuff?”
“I guess, I haven’t even really looked to be honest but the upstairs rooms are a mess.”
“Can I go up there and look around? I mean if you guys are okay with painting?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“He doesn’t mean that literally Nick…so try not to walk into any walls or anything.”
“Thanks for the tip AJ.”
“Sure.”
I grabbed the photo of Tommy and headed up the stairs, for some reason my curiosity was in full bloom and I needed to know what happened to this kid. Besides, he looked a little bit like me, did I mention that?
