Free Geography of Murder by P. A. Brown Page A

waved back toward the office I'd just come from. "Your boss is out, so I thought I'd see if you'd had lunch yet."
    He stuffed the screwdriver into his back pocket and hopped down beside me, wiping his hands on the rag. I could smell oil and diesel fuel on him. It overrode the harbor stink of rotting fish and brine. "No," he said. "But I need to finish up here.
    Phil wants to take the boat out tomorrow."
    "You get charters this time of year?"
    "Not many, but every now and then someone comes along and wants to go out." He looked regretful. "I gotta stay, man."
    "I can grab something. Bring it here."
    "Sure, I can stop for a few minutes to eat. I just can't leave..."
    "Hamburger okay? Coke?"
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    Geography of Murder
    by P. A. Brown
    "Cheeseburger. Coke is good."
    I found a nearby Jack-in-the-Box and grabbed us both sirloin bacon and cheese burgers, fries and drinks. Back at the Marina we sat on the side of the dock, legs swinging out over the dark water below us, defying the local gulls to try and take our food. A particularly persistent bird kept dive bombing us until I threw a scrap of bun at it. It scooped it out of the water and flew off, pursued by several other birds.
    "Rats with wings," I muttered.
    "Hey. I like gulls. All birds really. I once thought of going through for a degree in ornithology."
    "Why didn't you?" I edged closer to him on the rough dock until our hips almost touched. He tapped his foot against the pylon holding us up. He looked pensive.
    "Life. It has a way of interfering."
    "Something happen?"
    "I ... left school kind of suddenly."
    "Why?" I don't know why I persisted. Usually I didn't care that much about the twinks I picked up. They were too temporary to concern myself with their shallow lives.
    He chewed on his burger, idling tossing scraps to the hovering birds. "Shit happens."
    "Come on, Jason. I want to know."
    It didn't seem to occur to him that he could just tell me to go to hell. He sighed and threw the last piece of bun to the most persistent bird.
    "I was a confused kid. What kid isn't right? But being gay makes it worse somehow. Know what I mean?"
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    Geography of Murder
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    All too well. I didn't answer. He barely seemed to notice my silence.
    "I went out with this girl for a while. I was trying so hard to be normal, it used to make me sick. She had this brother, Brad, and we got to be friends. Then we were more than friends. His sister caught us one day." He shook his head ruefully. "To say the shit hit the fan is an understatement.
    Poor Brad, his folks shipped him off to some reorientation place that summer. I never saw him again. His sister..." He lowered his head and stared into the restlessly moving water below us. "His sister made my life a living hell the next year in school. I had to leave, but the rumors followed me. In the end I dropped out. Said fuck everybody, if I was going to be a faggot, I was going to be the worst one I could." He gave a short bark of laughter. "I ran away and ended up in San Francisco. Do you know what a place like that can do to a naïve sixteen-year-old who thinks he's so tough but really doesn't know jack shit?"
    I did. Some of my dead people were kids like that. I stroked his back, not surprised at the tension there. "What brought you back here?"
    "Family," he said hastily. "What else can bring you back to a place that has nothing but bad memories. My father died..."
    "I'm sorry."
    "Yeah, well, he was actually a pretty good guy. Didn't have a clue how to deal with me, but it's not like he didn't try. He just wasn't any good at bucking public opinion."
    "What about the rest of your family?"
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    He shook his head again. "Mom and dad broke up years ago. She went back east someplace. No one knew where. For a long time it was just dad and me. Then I left. I don't think he ever got over that." His voice went soft and I had to bend over to hear him. "So maybe I killed him. Maybe if I'd been stronger I