A Death Never Lived by Clifford Evan

Author:Clifford Evan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Florida noir, coming of age fiction, first love, supernatural romance, urban fantasy, literary crime thriller, dreams and visions, underground crime network
Publisher: Tempest Books
Published: 2025-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Beauty

AN HOUR BEFORE CLOSING I’m hanging out front on the boardwalk, breathing some fresh ocean air, when waitress Bessie with her supercute dimples pops outside next to me. Since she only works once or twice a week, I don’t know her too well. Plus she’s always all spazzed and stressed out, so I’m not even sure why she’s a waitress. Angelo must have the snakes for her.

“Hey,” I say and check out her thin legs in short-shorts, pink Chuck Taylor high-tops, tattoo of a violet feather near her ankle. Over the ocean the crescent moon almost seems icy as it watches through wispy clouds.

Bessie smiles, those dimples blinking blue and red in the glow of boardwalk neon, as she lights a skinny cigarette that looks like a lollipop stick. In silence I watch the smoke ribbon swirl and vanish.

Finally I nod at the sky and say, “It looks like cold fire.”

“What looks like cold fire?”

“The moon and clouds...over the water.”

But there’s only more silence, a tiny breeze, the churning of waves from the edge of the sand, as I watch her lips pout a beam of smoke at the sky.

Finally Bessie says, “It’s beautiful,” in this smart voice like dark velvet. “I love the crescent moon.”

“Just hanging there in space.”

“My favorite moon...Like it’s winking at us. Laughing because it knows all our worst secrets.”

I look at her, then away, as I start head-counting my own long list of freakshow secrets. Not one of which I plan on yakking to Bessie about.

“Like it can see us naked,” she says.

By the way she’s leaning toward me, I realize that I’m the one who’s supposed to talk. Only now I feel like the moon’s listening, and I need to keep my trap zipped.

Except she’s talking about being naked, so my ears perk up.

“And here’s the mysterious and silent Jesse.” She pokes me on the elbow. “What’re you up to, dude, plotting to take over the world?”

I glance down the boardwalk, at the line of storefronts and cafés trailing into the darkness.

“Just a little distracted.”

“I knew it. World domination.”

I chuckle, look back at her, suck a slow breath. Then it somehow feels OK to speak. “Actually someone told me, wasn’t that long ago, that I don’t have to conquer the world...”

Bessie scrapes out her cigarette against the pavement, tosses the twisted butt into a trashcan near the edge of the sand.

“Just my own world.”

“Good advice,” she says.

“Yeah, I think...”

I watch the breeze ruffle the blonde bangs across her brown eyes, until she fingers the hair away from her face.

Miles out on the ocean, the outlines of cruise ships, lit up white like Christmas decorations, hover in the blackness.

“So what’s up there, Mr. Jesse? Mystery Man who likes to start talking but doesn’t like finishing.”

I smile, inch a step closer, notice the moonlight glimmering the tiny diamond chip in her pierced nose. As I catch a whiff of her skin, like a lick of raspberry ice cream on the breeze.

“Ever realize that our names rhyme?”

“Bessie. Jesse.

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