Black Mamba: Part IV

Black Mamba: Part IV

Part I

Part II

Part III

        In a strange twist I ended up liking Bucky the most...



Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was avoidance. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Lola in four months, or maybe it was something else that had drawn Buck out to that particular patch of dirt down at the back of his parents property. Bob and Rita Mason were still in Europe and to be fair, Buck had thought more than twice about starting to dig where he had. So maybe this time he wasn’t being completely irresponsible.

For at least a week he’d gone back and forth, toying with the idea. There was something down there and he was sure of it. He was sure it was down there. Something. Instead of working on his final exam studies or the immense history assignment that would soon be due — the things he should have been doing, and he knew it — he found himself kicking up dust and walking to where the space between the trees called to him.

Most of the properties in Coster Park were sprawling and Buck had heard about the Dupont twins finding a half-pound lump of gold out near their dam. He wanted something like that to happen to him. Shit, he wanted something to happen to him and he was sure there was something down there, under the dirt.

So once school had let out on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before the party that he and Stacey were planning, Buck took a large shovel from his father’s tool shed next to the stables. The dirt was hard and compacted, dry on the top, but darker and easier to move the deeper he got. He couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because it was morning by the time he woke up in his bed, dirt and mud caked on his skin and bed sheets. He was late for school.

Eating a peanut butter toast and using his cell phone to take photos of the hole, Buck managed to get later and later for school. He was impressed by how deep he had gone. He found it almost hard to believe that he’d done it by himself. He quickly texted one of the pictures to Stacey and then jumped on his push bike.

At school he promptly got detention.

“Bucky,” Stacey said as they sat down to an early lunch and the cog continued to turn inside Buck’s head. “Buck, what is this man? Are you missing her or something?”

Buck shook his head. He knew that Lola was a distant memory. A very fucking close distant memory, but still, that wasn’t what was bothering him. “I found something.”

“You found something?”

“Yeah man. It’s this big, flat, stone thing. It’s like ancient, something. Egyptian maybe.” He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s big and flat and it’s at the bottom of the hole that I dug last night.”

 Buck saw Stacey roll his eyes in frustration. “You dug a hole?”

“Yeah man. I mean, I had this feeling, and I’ve been thinking about it and —”

“You had a feeling?” Stacey unwrapped his lunch burrito.

“Yeah man. It’s like —”

“And it’s Egyptian or something?”

“Yeah. Man, it’s fucking incredible. Wait until you —”

Stacey looked up sharply and Buck knew he was in trouble.

“What about your history essay?” Stacey asked accusingly.

Buck was silent. Stacey took a bite of his burrito. Buck knew the point his best friend was trying to make but that didn’t really matter. What he needed to do right now was go to the library.

“Look man, this Lola business is no good for you,” Stacey said with a mouthful of burrito. “Focus on Robbie. She’s happy — Jesus, she’s nice — she’s good for you.” With a shrug and a look of forfeit, Stacey remained at the lunch table while Buck continued turned away and continued on with avoiding his detention.

The library wasn’t unknown to him, but it was definitely not a place he frequented unless he wanted to spy on Lola. She was usually in the corner of one of the couches in the fiction section with her legs tucked underneath herself and her mind somewhere far away. Buck liked to watch her facial expressions as she leafed through paperbacks or scrolled in her phone or stared off into space. She wasn’t there today.

He made his way to the history section and felt a stab of guilt that he wasn’t working on his essay. He brushed it away. Robbie would text him about it later anyways, after a prompt from Stacey, and the guilt would stab again. No need for Buck to worry about it now.

Ancient Egyptian history encompassed a large amount of books, but he didn’t have to spend too much time looking. There were quite a number on hieroglyphics and translating them.

Buck flicked through his photos trying to find one that was clear enough to make out the inscriptions on the flat piece of stone at the bottom of his excavation hole. There was one that was fairly decent but some of the markings were still too hard to make out. At the end of a half hour, and with his ignored detention probably earning him another, all Buck had deciphered was — The Snake Leader something something again lift.

It seemed wrong and he knew he’d fucked it up, but his mind had stopped lingering on the hole he had dug. It was wandering now and it was wandering to Lola. He flushed with guilt, feeling as if someone had been watching him. His phone buzzed. It was Robin.

Hey baby. So, Safety Stacey is telling me you’ve dug a fucking hole and are avoiding your essay.
Buck like Robin. He liked how crass she was, he liked her bright painted nails, he liked her unbreakable happy smile, he liked how eagerly she had gone down on him on multiple occasions.

Bucky knew he was a dick.

He hesitated and then flicked off the message without responding. Maybe he could convince Lola to come to the party instead of Robin.