Free Clear Water by Amy Lane

worry. I’ll be there with you to make sure the water stays out, okay?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. I’m gonna have a woody in the morning, okay, kid? Don’t get any ideas—we’re not doing that.”
    “Damn.” Well, that was disappointing. All of the sort-of-shitty boyfriends who had simply assumed Patrick would put out, and this one, who smelled like sweat and river, was telling him to give it up. But that was okay, because sweat and river were apparently going to lie down with him, and he liked that.
    He barely remembered lying down, and then the smell of river and sweat engulfed him, and he fell back asleep.
     
     
    W HISKEY was gone when he woke up. In fact, as he padded out to the kitchen, he saw that Fly Bait was too. There was a note, a list, and a set of keys on the counter.
    1994 Celica, dark red w/primer spots. Get gas at dock pump. We have an account.
    Follow road up to levee. Go right. Walmart eventually.
    Get following: milk (2%), yoghurt—you pick, pasta & sauce, hot dogs, mac & cheese, lunch meat, non-stale bread, three flats of bottled water, fruit that won’t die tomorrow, anything you feel like cooking, flip-flops and tennies to fit you (wear Whiskey’s flip-flops into town), socks, underwear, two pairs of cargo shorts, three T-shirts, Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, and anything you want with the change.
    Be back by two o’clock, you can help us reorg the kitchen so you can sleep on the fold out.
    Even if you fuck this up somehow, we won’t rip your head off. If you decide not to come back, leave the keys in the car and call us at this number so we can come get it.
    W & FB
    There was $160 in cash under the car keys.
    Patrick looked at the cash for a while, just pondering. It wasn’t that he was thinking about grabbing the $160 and taking off for the hills; it was more like he couldn’t remember ever being given such a simple housekeeping task before. He’d done stuff like this when he was working his restaurant job all the time, but that had been self-motivated. He liked the job, so he did what the manager told him. He couldn’t remember a single time his mother had told him to buy milk or cook dinner or pick up something on his way home from school. His father had employed housekeepers—one to cook, one to clean—and shit had just sort of appeared. Patrick had gotten old enough to buy his own clothes, and the credit cards had appeared too.
    And here he was, with $160 in cash and an injunction to buy stuff to make a household run. To be a part of something. Decide not to come back? God, he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to leave.
    He took off immediately, which was a mistake. No breakfast, no yoga, no meds—fighting his way through his brain jungle was interminable. He must have consulted his list in Walmart about six-dozen times to make sure he got everything just right. He bought the clothes first, then the groceries and cleaning supplies so he could buy extra groceries right up to the limit, including tax. He shopped carefully—for one thing, he wanted to be trusted again, and for another, he didn’t want to live off of the yuck that was currently in their refrigerator anytime soon, and he knew that what he bought now could possibly be yuck later. He was pretty proud of himself, actually, and that feeling of good will lasted right up until he was pushing his cart past the electronics department to the register.
    There, on at least forty televisions, half of them big screen, was his car getting pulled out of the river.
    The sound was off, but the caption read “Business Owner’s Son Missing, Foul Play Suspected.”
    Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. His father thought he was dead?
    A sub-zero ice floe settled beneath his skin, and his stomach cramped with anxiety. Oh, crap. He knew better. Here he had been, playing house, and he hadn’t taken care of his shit. He needed to call his dad.
    If you fuck up, we still won’t rip your face off.
    Silly words, really, but for some