by Jessie Cooke
The white coffin that held his mother’s body was lined with gold trim and the gold handles gleamed in the morning light. Doc thought it appropriate that the only person he ever knew that seemed to be able to channel the sunshine should be lain to rest in something that seemed to soak it up. The nausea swirled around in his empty stomach, souring when it mingled with the two shots of whiskey he’d had that morning before leaving the clubhouse. His head was swimming with regrets and his heart was working so hard that it felt as if it was pumping tar rather than blood. The black cloud that hung over him still, rained sorrow down on top of him and the preacher’s voice grated on his nerves as he droned on. He talked about entrusting Rose to God and what a welcome addition she would be to heaven. Doc’s mind began to wander again as he tried to block it all out and he looked around at the sea of marble tombstones that surrounded them. He remembered coming to the cemetery when he was small to visit two sets of grandparents that he’d never met. His father never came with them, but after church every first Sunday of the month, his mother would bring him with her and they would lay a single rose on each one of the graves. He was born so late in his parent’s life that by the time he was old enough to want grandparents like all of his friends had, his were gone. Being the only child to older parents had its benefits as well as its drawbacks. He looked over at the aunts who sat next to his dad. One was his dad’s older sister…she had to be pushing eighty by now. He barely remembered her, just that she always smelled like oatmeal cookies when he was small. The other was his mother’s younger sister. She was probably in her sixties. She sat with her spine as stiff as a board and her son sat on her right, holding her hand. Doc’s eyes went to those hands and he had to wonder again: if only he’d held his mother’s hand a little bit longer…
The preacher finally stopped talking and invited Landon up to speak. His father walked toward the podium, stooped and leaning against his cane…looking like a very old man. The onlookers were dead silent and the sound of Doc’s father clearing his throat when he reached the microphone startled several of them. The old man looked around as if taking stock of everyone there. For a few seconds his eyes landed on his son’s face. The old man’s face was void of expression and Doc wondered what he was thinking as he looked at him. Did he feel anything for his son, other than contempt? He finally took a deep, almost painful-sounding breath and began to talk.
“I wrote a letter to Rose last night and I was going to read it to her today. But the truth is, even if I wrote a million letters, I wouldn’t have enough words to fill an entire page. Everything I have to say about my wife, I can say in three little words. I miss her. That’s all. I miss my Rose. She should be here and if one of us had to be in that box, it should be me. I wish I was there with her. I don’t know how to live without her. Rose was filled with life. She was never selfish. She had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and I didn’t deserve her, but I thanked God every day that he saw past that and let me keep her. Her pretty blue eyes always sparkled, and all I had to do when I was having a bad day was look into them, and it was all better. I don’t remember a life before my Rose. We were married for almost fifty years. That’s a lifetime. What do I do now…now, that the biggest piece of my heart is about to be buried in that box?” A huge, choking sob escaped from his throat and his body shook. He tried to stop crying, but Doc could tell that he was losing the battle. Finally, he just said, “I love you, my Rose. I can’t wait to see you again.”
Tears were streaming down Landon’s face and to Doc it almost felt like an intrusion for them to all be there. The old man started to walk back to his seat and as if things were happening in slow motion, Doc saw him drop his cane and bring his hands up to his chest. All of the color drained from the old man’s face and he fell toward the ground. Doc was in motion before even he realized it and he was at his father’s side before he hit the ground. He caught the old man’s head in his hands and watched helplessly as he tried to speak.
“Someone, call an ambulance!” Doc barked at the shocked faces staring down at them. “It’s okay, Dad. Don’t try to talk. Help will be here in minutes, you’re going to be fine.” It would take someone minutes to get to the pay phone at the entrance to the cemetery…but Doc wanted to keep his father calm more than anything.
Landon was gasping for air and still trying to talk. Doc pulled the top half of his body into his arms and held him. One of Doc’s cousins, he didn’t remember which one it was, knelt down and loosened Landon’s tie and unbuttoned his jacket. The sound of his father’s ragged breathing was like nails on a chalkboard, but Doc sat there in the dirt and held onto him, watching the life slowly drain from his eyes. It was minutes, Doc wasn’t sure how many, before Landon’s breathing became slower and steadier and he was finally able to talk. He actually smiled through the tears that still stained his face and he said, “I’m going to see my Rose.”
“Dad, don’t say that. I hear the sirens…they’re coming…”
“No. I don’t want to go with them, son. I need her. I know I’m a cold, hateful man. She was truly my heart. I never had one before I met her. I’m sorry, Adonis. I’m sorry I never knew how to love you.”
“Shh, Dad…it’s okay.” Doc felt the sting of tears as they began to roll down his cheeks. He had cried exactly twice in his adult life, and both times in a matter of days. The funny thing was, he never thought he’d shed a tear over his old man, but here he was with his heart aching. “Stay with me, Dad. We can help each other get through this.”
“I’m sorry son. I can’t. I need her.” Landon closed his eyes and Doc cried harder. He felt his father stop breathing. He felt him go limp in his arms. He held him even tighter and it took four big men to wrestle the man that Doc only wanted to love him out of his arms.
13
1978 New York
Dallas was awakened some time during the night to a rhythmic thumping sound. She opened her eyes and tried to blink the sleep out of them as they adjusted to the dark. She could see Doc’s beefy arm as it rose up over his head and struck the wall behind the bed. As soon as it hit the wall, it fell down to the mattress and repeated the motion. That was frightening enough, but he was also muttering something in his sleep. It sounded foreign, and like a song, almost. “Doc,” she whispered. He didn’t wake up and the next time his hand hit the wall, someone on the other side of the wall hit back.
“What the fuck! It’s three fucking o’clock!” a man’s voice screamed at them through the wall.
“Doc, wake up, baby.” She touched him that time and instead of hitting the wall, the back of his hand slammed into her face, knocking her back into the wall. The room spun around her even as she watched Doc’s blue eyes jerk wide open and he literally jumped straight up out of the bed. He was sweating and his blue eyes were wide, with fear.
He looked like he was awake, but he started yelling, again in that crazy, foreign language. “Shut the fuck up!” the man from the other side of the wall yelled and that time it seemed to jolt Doc fully awake. His blue eyes looked at the wall, and then fell down to Dallas’s battered, worried face. She put her hand up to her bleeding mouth, hopefully hiding it. Over the past two years they’d had some wild fights, but Doc had never laid a hand on her in anger and she knew he was going to freak out when he realized what he’d done.
“What’s going on?” he asked, breathlessly.
“You were hitting the wall and talking in some weird language,” Dallas told him. She had witnessed his nightmares before, but this was the most bizarre and the scariest. Doc looked down at his right hand and that was when Dallas noticed his knuckles were scraped and bloody. “Oh, no! You’re hurt.” She threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Doc stood rooted to his spot until she came back from the bathroom with a wet cloth. Tentatively, she took his hand and held it in hers as she pressed the cloth to his knuckles. He was still breathing heavily, and it took him several minutes to come down. That was when he looked at her face.
“Dallas? Wha
t happened to your face?” When she didn’t answer he said, “Oh, fuck! Motherfucker! Did I do that? Oh, Jesus.” He reached up to touch her and then, suddenly looking sick, he grabbed his stomach and ran into the bathroom. Dallas followed him to the door. She could see him leaning over the toilet, heaving into it. She had only seen him get sick once before, the night after his father died…at his mother’s funeral. That was the night that she knew she had to stay with him, no matter how crazy the idea of moving in with a man she barely knew was. Their relationship since then had been passionate, crazy, volatile, and the most addicting thing she’d ever experienced. That was the only word she could think of to describe it. She was addicted to him. She loved him, of course. Sometimes she liked him, and others, she hated him. But what was true beyond the shadow of a doubt was that she had a hard time getting through any day without him, and him her. He pissed off a lot of his men when he announced that she’d be traveling with him. None of them were allowed to take women with them, but Doc’s rules didn’t apply to him, or to her. She was his confidante and most of the men hated that Doc told her everything, but what they didn’t know was that he also asked for her opinions on most everything. A lot of the major decisions Doc made came after long, passionate discussions with Dallas. She loved being his partner and she didn’t care what anyone thought about it.
When he finally stopped heaving and coughing, he dropped to his butt on the tile floor and looked back up at her. He looked pitiful. Again, the only time she’d ever seen him show any kind of weakness in those strong blue eyes was the night his father died. It was there now. She could almost feel his heartache as he looked at her face. “I’m okay,” she said, gently. “You were asleep. You were dreaming. I know you’d never hurt me.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, in a shaky voice. Dallas got down on the floor next to him and he lifted his arm. She snuggled up against him, both of them naked on the bathroom floor.
“I know,” she whispered. She could feel his body shaking against hers. The dream had shaken him to his core but she knew better than to ask what it was about. It was the one thing that Doc refused to talk to her about. Anything to do with Nam was off limits and he got angry when she tried to coax it out of him, so she had given up. She clung to him now and just tried to let her energy seep into him. It worked, slowly. They had sat there for over an hour before she felt his lips brush the side of her head and he whispered:
“Go back to bed. I’m going to clean up.” Dallas did as he said and the next morning when she woke up, it was alone. There was a pillow and blanket on the floor where Doc had slept the rest of the night on them and a note on the nightstand that said, “Keep the doors locked. Order room service when you’re hungry and don’t open the door unarmed. Page me with any problems.” Doc had spent hours training Dallas to use her gun. He said she couldn’t travel with them unless she was as skilled with a weapon as he was. She was proud of her marksmanship, and the pager thing, she was also proud of. Pagers had been around since the late fifties, but no one used them except doctors and some wealthy businessmen. She had suggested to Doc that they might come in handy in keeping the guys in the MC in close communication with each other and with the people they did business with. Not long after, a load of them “fell off a truck” in the middle of the night and every man in the MC had one. Every man, and Dallas too of course. It had given the MC a leg up in business and it made Dallas feel better to always be a beep and a phone call away from her man. She wasn’t happy about being left in the hotel room, though. The club they were there to meet with called themselves “The Sinners.” The Sinners originated in Massachusetts, and Hawk had been good friends with one of the guys who started the club; when Doc came back from Nam Hawk was thinking about jumping ship with the Skulls and joining up with them. Doc convinced him otherwise and over the past two years had pushed them out of Massachusetts altogether and they’d taken up residence in the Bronx, New York. The two clubs had a very tenuous relationship, but Doc found himself in need of them. They had shipments coming in from Ireland, gun shipments, and the Irish brought their ships into port in New York, not Boston. So, Doc was going to have to do something he didn’t do well…eat a little crow and deal with a club and men he thought were beneath him, to get something he wanted and needed, badly. Hawk had set the meeting up through his friend in the Sinners, but Doc was still wary of the Sinners’ motives and worried it was some kind of setup; that’s why he was insistent Dallas stay back at the hotel.
She had recently started thinking about not traveling with the club. Maybe it was time she started staying at the ranch and asserting her role there. The club girls and the old ladies treated her with respect because they knew Doc wouldn’t accept anything less. But Dallas realized recently that she had a few ambitions of her own, and one of them was to be respected because of who she was and not who she belonged to. Her only qualm was what Doc would say about her suddenly deciding she didn’t want to travel with him any longer. She knew he liked her with him, but she also knew a big part of his insistence that she went along was his hesitance to leave her behind, alone with the other guys. Cheating on him would never cross her mind, but even two years into it, he insisted often that she promise him that all over again. Sometimes it made her feel good, to be valued so much, and other times it was just downright annoying.
With a sigh she got up and dressed in a pair of shorts and t-shirt and then she called down for room service. While she waited for it to come up, she straightened up the room and tried to plan out what she might say to Doc about not traveling any longer. She’d have to approach it diplomatically and somehow make it sound like it would be best for him in the long run. She loved Doc, but she was in no way naive enough that she didn’t know he did nothing unless it benefited him somehow…even where she was concerned.
“Room service!” The knock on the door and the man’s voice caused her to jump. She started for the door and then remembered Doc’s warning.
“Just a sec.” She went over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. She took out the revolver that Doc had bought just for her and she tucked it into the front of her shorts. Before opening the door, she looked through the peephole. The young man was clean-cut and dressed in the burgundy and black uniform of the hotel. He had a tray in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. She unlocked the door and he smiled at her. “Come in,” she said, taking a step back. Everything happened in the blink of an eye then. The door was pushed into her, hard, and she flew back at least three feet, landing on her butt on the floor. The man in the doorway dropped everything he was carrying and as it clattered to the floor, he pulled out a gun. What he failed to realize was that she was even more ready than he was, and she had her own gun already pointed up at his head. “Who the fuck are you?”
The guy smiled, leveling his gun at her face. “Name’s Pope. I heard you were a little spitfire. This should be fun.”
“If you call a hole in your head fun.”
He laughed. “You should put that down, baby, it’s not a toy…you’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“No, asshole, I’m gonna hurt you, if you’re not out of here on my count of five.” She’d never shot a living person and she wasn’t absolutely certain she could do it. But she was proud that her voice wasn’t shaking and she felt, and at least hoped, that she looked as confident as she sounded.
The man was an obvious idiot, or he didn’t believe she had it in her. But instead of leaving, he lunged at her. Before he got there, she pulled the trigger and a hole ripped through the center of his forehead. He didn’t even have time to look surprised before he was dead. His heavy body fell on top of her, lifeless and bloody. Dallas sat there, in shock, shaking and trying to breathe underneath his weight, wondering what in the hell she had just done. She didn’t know how long she sat there before it finally sunk in that a corpse was lying on top of her. Disgusted, she used all her strength to push him off enough so she could wriggle out. She was just getting to her feet when an armed security guard scr
eamed at her from the doorway,
“Drop the gun and put your hands up!” Dallas had shot the man trying to kill her, but she didn’t have it in her to shoot an innocent man only doing his job. She let the gun fall to the floor and put her hands up over her head. As she listened to the security officer call for backup and tell whoever was on the other end to call the police her mind suddenly went to Doc. What was he going to say…or do…when he came back to find her in jail…for murder?
14
Three Months Later
“Dallas Paxton, under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269 Section 10(h)(1), it is illegal to possess a shotgun, rifle, or firearm without a license or permit. It is also illegal to carry a loaded firearm in a public way. A public way is any public ground, including sidewalks and streets. It’s illegal to discharge any type of firearm in a 500-foot vicinity of a dwelling, unless permission of the owner has been obtained. Do you understand that these are the charges you are facing and here to enter a plea on today?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Are you ready to enter that plea now?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“On the charge of possession of a firearm without license or permit, how do you plead?”
