‘You’ll see soon,’ he said with a smile, getting up and walking away. The next week, after graduation, I got a text from John, asking me what I ...lanned to do that day. After telling him I had nothing planned, he asked if I wanted to hang out. I said sure. We both agreed to go to the park down the street from my house, and hang out for a bit. I got ready, dressing in my tightest jeans and a low-cut tank top. When I first saw him, I ran up to hug him because I had missed him. After we sat down I. I gently pushed Preethi onto the clothes-washing stone. She screamed in the heat. ?It’s too hot? she said. I ignored it to the dismay of the others. I made her face down leaning on the slanting stone. I scrubbed her back to intensify the heat but I was careful enough not to peel her skin. She shook, and attempted to turn her head crying ?Please stop!?. I turned her around and scrubbed her arms and hands. Then, I gently scrubbed her upper chest, breasts, nipples and stomach. I then bent down and. I slid out of the berth up forward and looked at the puffy-eyed stranger in the mirror, threw on some clean pants and ran my belt through the loops, then hooked my badge over the left front pocket and strapped my old Sig P-220 into the crusty leather shoulder holster a wife had given me twenty years and several divorces ago. Funny how some things from marriages last longer than others, even if the joke turns out to be on you. On second thought, maybe it isn’t so funny. I hopped off the boat —. There he watched Mia and her mortal climb into the rusty remnants of a first generation Ford Escort. He again followed as they traveled to a moderate sized apartment building and stood watching as they went inside. Once he had learned the apartment number, he faded into the night, not willing to tolerate the disgusting display of sentimentality for so much as a second longer.The passage of less than half an hour found him in South Oakland, a neighborhood that was a curious mix of dilapidated.