Doc Marshall

by Jessie Cooke

  “So happy you could join us.” The judge looked at the defense table then and his eyes lingered on Chris. Doc hated the way it made him feel to look at Dallas’s boyfriend. The man had been nothing but cordial to him both in person and over the phone, and that pissed him off even more. Why was he answering her phone anyway, was the question. The last time he called to talk to his son and Chris answered, Doc had actually gone so far as to plan his murder in his head. They would suspect him…but they’d never find the body. Of course, Dallas would know it was him, and she still wouldn’t let him touch her…so it was a moot point. “Mr. Vierra,” the judge said to Chris. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting Mr. Marshall have your seat?” The fact that the judge had to ask pissed Doc off even more. That asshole was nothing to Dax. Chris looked at Dallas, and Doc almost smiled when he saw that the man was deferring to her. At least he knew the man was a pussy. Doc brushed into him, lightly, as they passed, just hard enough to be slightly intimidating, but easy enough to deny that, if it was called into question. Chris just gave him a dirty look and took a seat a few rows back in the galley. When Doc stepped up to the table, Dax surprised him by grabbing him up in a tight hug.

  “Thanks for coming, Dad.”

  “Of course,” Doc said. “I’ll always be here for you.” The judge slammed his gavel down and said:

  “I’ll need order in my courtroom.” No one was talking other than Dax and Doc. Doc let go of his son and they focused on the judge. Dallas was staring forward. She hadn’t really looked at him at all. The courtroom was empty except for the judge and a representative from juvenile probation, Chris, Dax, Dallas, Doc, and the attorney. The judge looked at Dax and said, “Mr. Dax Marshall, you’re being charged with shoplifting and evading arrest as well as assault on a peace officer; how do you plead?” Dax looked at Doc. Doc thought it had all been worked out, so he looked at Dallas, who touched Dax lightly on the arm. Doc couldn’t help but notice that the boy cringed away from her touch. He held his head high then and looked at the judge.

  “Guilty, your honor,” he said.

  “The court accepts your plea and I’ve read the recommendations from probation. The state is recommending a one-year suspended prison sentence, full restitution to the retailer, two hundred hours of community service, and two years probation. Does either counsel have anything different?”

  “No, your honor,” the probation officer said.

  “No, your honor,” Dax’s attorney said.

  “Your honor?” Doc said. Dallas looked at him, wide-eyed, but he ignored her.

  “Mr. Marshall?”

  “I’m sorry, but will the probation be an issue for my son visiting me in Boston?”

  The judge looked down at the paperwork in front of him for several long minutes and then said, “Do the two of you have a legal custody agreement?”

  Doc began to feel sick. They’d never drawn up paperwork. There was no need. Dallas kept her promise to let Doc see Dax whenever he could. “No, your honor.”

  “Well then, Mr. Marshall, I’m sorry to say that you’ll have to drive to Newark to see your son for the next two years, as one of his conditions of probation will be that he not leave the state of New Jersey.”

  “No!” Dax yelled, splitting the silence of the courtroom in two.

  “Dax…” Dallas whispered. He only yelled louder as he shook the hand off that his lawyer laid on his arm. “No! I’m not staying here with her and her…husband,” he spat the word. “For two years! I won’t. I’ll run away.”

  The judge was banging his gavel while Dax yelled and in the midst of all of it, Dax tried to run. Doc caught him, but as soon as he did, the bailiffs were there and the judge was talking about his being in contempt of court.

  “Your honor, he’s just a kid. He’s confused…”

  “Mr. Marshall, you’ll stay quiet or you’ll be held in contempt too.” Doc opened his mouth again, but that was when he saw Chris out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly he had a place to focus the rage he was feeling inside. As his son was being dragged kicking and screaming out of the courtroom, the probation officer and the judge and Dax’s attorney were huddled around the bench. Dallas was crying, and Doc couldn’t wait to get out of there, so he could punch Chris right in the face. This was all his fault. Dax was doing fine until he came along.

  The attorney came back to their table and the bailiff called for everyone to rise. The judge left the courtroom and the attorney said, “Sentencing will be postponed for two days. Dax will have to stay in juvenile hall until then.” Dallas sucked in a shaky breath and said:

  “How will this affect his deal?”

  “We’ll have to all meet again. It could nullify it.”

  “And if that’s the case?” Doc asked.

  “Then he could be looking at serving the maximum on these charges which is 2-4 years in juvenile hall.” Dallas dropped down into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Doc was torn between wanting to comfort her and wanting to go and beat the shit out of her boyfriend. He put his hand on Dallas’s back.

  “He’s going to be okay, Dal…”

  She looked up at him with fire in her eyes and said, “How do you know that? You going to pay off the judge? Have him killed maybe?”

  Doc was shocked. Dax’s attorney was looking at him and the probation officer had just walked up to the table. “Dal…”

  “Don’t! This is your fault. It’s your fault he’s this way. He’s killing me, Doc. He’s so defiant about everything. I am exhausted from trying to keep him from doing something that’s going to get him killed. He hates me, and he pushes every limit, just to spite me. He’s just like you. He’s arrogant and narcissistic and he thinks he’s smarter than everyone in the world, even his own mother.”

  “Oh, okay, this is my fault?” The attorney stood up and said:

  “Maybe this isn’t the place…” Doc gave him a murderous look and he gathered his things and hurried away. As soon as he was gone, and the probation officer, Chris was at the edge of the table. Doc looked up at him and said:

  “This is about our son. It’s none of your fucking business.”

  “He’s going to be my stepson soon, so he is my business,” Chris said. Dallas jerked her head up and looked at him with a groan. Doc’s eyes went to her left hand. Sure enough, there was an engagement ring there.

  “Oh, this is my fucking fault?” he said to her again. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with you being too busy…”

  “Don’t say it, Doc.” He didn’t miss a beat:

  “…too busy fucking your pussy-ass boyfriend so he’d ask you to marry him, to pay attention to my son.”

  Dallas slammed her hands down on the table in front of her as she stood up. “Fuck you. Fuck you! I have done everything I can for that boy, and I won’t stop…not until I’m in my grave. All I wanted from you, Doc, was a little bit of support. I let him come and go from the ranch whenever he wants to, whenever you call. That’s the problem. He’s spending too much time in a place where rules and boundaries mean nothing.”

  Doc narrowed his eyes at her and he stood up. “If you think that, then you’ve already forgotten what it was like there. Besides, I don’t give a fuck what you think his ‘problem’ is. You…” he looked at Chris, “…and your pussy boyfriend, won’t keep me and my son apart.”

  Apparently the “pussy boyfriend” comment pushed one of Chris’s buttons. He dove at Doc and Dallas tried to get in between them. Doc brushed her away, firmly, but not aggressively, and he and Chris hooked up…right there in the courtroom. Doc got in a few good licks before the bailiffs broke them apart. But it looked like Dax wasn’t going to be the only one spending some time in jail.

  38

  May, 2000

  “Hey, Dad…you almost ready?” Dax stood in the archway between the dining and living rooms. He was dressed in a black suit and his hair was freshly cut and his face freshly shaven. He had turned into such a handsome man…and Doc knew he was going to be a much better man t
han he was. His eyes moved down to part of the evidence of that. Cody Miller was standing next to him. Dax was gripping onto the little boy’s hand. Cody had never had a mother…not one worth a shit, anyway. Molly overdosed when he was three or four years old…Doc couldn’t remember which. Badger was still around, but he was mostly just a drunk. The club had stripped him of his SA title, but kept him on. He was worthless both as a part of the club and as a father…but Doc had kept him on for Cody, and Keller. He’d thought more than once about just making him disappear…and he might just yet when the boys were a little bit older. If he did it now, without Dallas around to help him, they’d end up in foster care. Dax loved them both, but Cody was his favorite. Their relationship was more like blood than if they were real brothers. Doc couldn’t risk Cody being taken away. Dax had already lost too much in his life.

  “Yeah. I’ll be out in a few.” Dax’s eyes looked worried, but he left his father alone, towing Cody along behind him. Doc smiled as he watched them go. He never thought he’d be any kind of father, and maybe in reality he hadn’t been much of one. But he loved Dax more than he ever imagined he could love another human being. He was so proud of him, and the only thing he ever prayed about at night any longer was that God would look after his son and make sure he had a long, full, prosperous and happy life.

  Doc had just turned forty-seven years old. Most people didn’t think that was old, but most people hadn’t lived his life. He’d been in the jungles of Nam before he was even the age Dax was now. Buried both of his parents on the same day. Rode hard on the back of a Harley for over twenty years, crashing and totaling the bike twice along the way. He’d been shot twice, once in the back. He’d been stabbed three times, that he could recall. He’d been punched more times than anyone could count. He’d been kicked and beaten with a baseball bat. He’d killed a few men…maybe more than a few. He didn’t feel like it was anyone that didn’t have it coming, but some of them still lived on inside of his head. He had fucked over a hundred women…and only loved one. Today was the day they would put her in the ground, and Doc’s biggest fear was that his heart would stop beating as soon as they did.

  With the offensive tears he’d been fighting for weeks swimming in his eyes, he finally stood up. He glanced in the mirror over the mantle and adjusted his tie and then with no more time to stall, he headed out to the waiting limousine that would take them to Dallas’s funeral. As soon as he climbed inside, Dax asked him again if he was okay. It was the dozenth time at least that Dax had asked him that since they got the call. Doc knew he was only worried about him, but it was getting annoying. “I’m fine!” he snapped. It wasn’t true, but what good was it going to do to say that he wasn’t?

  Would that bring Dallas back? Would it make him a better man, a better father? Would it change the fact that he’d managed to almost cheat Dax out of a mother and the other child completely out of a father? Nothing could change what was already.

  As Doc watched the countryside disappear out the window, the limousine moved onto the highway that would take them to the other side of Boston where Dallas’s grandfather had been laid to rest. She had cremated him because she hadn’t had money for a proper burial. But eventually Doc had paid for a plot and a headstone, so she would have somewhere to go when she wanted to pay her respects. She always said she wanted to be cremated too, and she wanted to be put beside her grandfather. Chris had honored the first part of that wish, and he had held a memorial for her in New Jersey at his parent’s home. Doc didn’t attend that one, but Dax did, at least for as long as he could tolerate it. He told Doc that the family treated him like he was the outsider. His mother had only been married to Chris for five years but they acted like she was theirs, and that had pissed Dax off. He also told Doc that they acted like he was going to put their silverware in his pocket or something. The stepbrother was nine now and Dax said that even he had treated Dax like he was poor white trash and didn’t belong at his own mother’s memorial. The only saving grace was that Chris had had the ashes placed into two urns. Before Dax left, Chris had given him the one that they would place next to Dallas’s grandfather today. Doc didn’t know what else Chris said to his son, but he was sure it was kind. Dax and Doc both had given poor Chris nothing but a hard time…and in the end, it turned out that he hadn’t deserved any of it.

  Dax served six months in juvenile hall when he was twelve. The people who thought that would scare him straight were wrong. For the following two years he did everything that he possibly could to try and break up his mother’s marriage. He was horrible to Chris and refused to even meet his stepbrother. He ran away, often, always when it was Chris’s weekend to have his son, forcing Dallas to be out looking for him instead of after Chris’s boy. When Dax was thirteen he ditched school, stole Chris’s car, and took it for a joyride. He wrecked it in a ditch, and Chris lied to the insurance company and told them he was driving. Three weeks later, he stole another one from a neighbor. That one came back unscathed, but everything Dax got away with only encouraged him to try something bigger and better the next time. He was fourteen when Dallas finally called Doc and said:

  “I can’t do it anymore. I’m not sure he’ll make it to adulthood at this rate, at least as a free man. I need your help, Doc. I need you to take him. He hates me, and he hates Chris. I made a mistake by making him come here.”

  It broke her heart to let him go, but once Dax was at the ranch, he was like a different kid. He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t obstinate and defiant either. Of course, the ranch had fewer rules than Dallas did. He got his first Harley, and by the time he was sixteen, Doc let him become a prospect. He was king of the roost again, so there was really no reason at all for him to act out. The only thing that Doc regretted about bringing him home to Boston was that he didn’t insist Dax maintain a relationship with his mother. Dallas tried; she called often and invited him to visit. Dax always had an excuse not to go and he always had to rush off the phone. Doc was sure that now that Dallas was gone, his son would have regrets…and he blamed himself for that, for not setting a better example, but he had been busy.

  In 1998 the UN had a huge summit on drugs. They started cracking down hard on the cocaine coming in from both Colombia and Peru. They were hitting what was being filtered in through Mexico hard and the cartels were losing money hand over fist. There was a scramble to find new ways to get the drugs into the country and although Doc didn’t want to be involved in transporting the drugs or selling them, he had seen other opportunities to cash in on all of the money the cartels had to throw around. The Southside Skulls would provide security for the coyotes that smuggled the drugs into the US through underground tunnels, and they would even be willing to help with the construction and fortification of those tunnels. The money was great, but Doc needed more men to be able to rotate the ones that were working the borders in Texas, with the skeleton crews left in Boston to handle all of the other business. He spent a big portion of his time out recruiting and he was gone from the ranch a lot. Some of the men had come to him several times and complained about Hawk’s poor handling of things while he was gone. They were telling him that Hawk had a lot of complaints about how Doc did things and had been very vocal about it lately, behind Doc’s back. Doc just wrote that off to Hawk’s being as overworked and stressed as he was, and he moved on to the next problem…which ultimately turned out to be a big one.

  The vice president of a New York club was shot in the head execution style and left on the side of the road in Connecticut. Doc had heard about it, but he was too busy to think much about it, until the day the cops knocked on the Skulls’ door with a warrant for four arrests. Over the course of the next few days, Doc found out that the police had information that the NY club was there to meet with a white supremacist club in Connecticut for a gun buy. That buy had supposedly been arranged by the Skulls, but it was a setup. Gunfire was exchanged, and the club VP was the only one killed in the crossfire.

  Doc had a lot of problems with that story. F
or one, The Skulls were not running guns for anyone and they didn’t have any business with the club in New York or the Nazis in Connecticut. The police claimed they had a witness who said otherwise. That witness had given them four names: Doc, Hawk, Chain Dog, and Beezy. The latter two were good friends with Dax and newly patched members. They were also unable to provide an alibi. Doc knew where they had both been that day, working in the tunnels with the cannabis plants. But that wasn’t a story they could give the DA and he wasn’t buying anyone else’s reports that they’d been on the ranch all day. Luckily for Hawk, he had been in New York when it went down. He told Dax he was talking to a group of young men who had formed a small club in Albany and he was trying to recruit them to the Skulls. He told the police, however, that at the time the VP had been shot, he was with a woman there. The woman provided his alibi, as did the security cameras outside of her building, so the DA was forced to drop the charges. Doc, on the other hand, had an alibi as well, but proving his would be trickier. In the meantime, he had the rest of his men running around trying to find out how their name even got brought into this mess, and what was really going on. It was stressful and exhausting.

  Dax had been at the ranch for two and a half years by that time. Dallas had only seen him once, and that was a year after he left Jersey. The more he rebuked her, the more depressed she became. Finally, one day Doc got a phone call from her. She sounded almost desperate and she begged him to have Dax come and see her. She was in Boston, at a hotel near the harbor. Unfortunately, she didn’t call until she was already in Boston, and Dax was out of town. Doc had sent him and two other prospects on a run to the Texas border with a delivery for some of the crew working for the Colombians. When he told Dallas that, she began to sob and then the line went dead. Thankfully she had called his cell phone and he had the number she was calling from. He tracked her to the hotel where she was staying, across from the aquarium. It was a little bit expensive to get the guy at the front desk to give him a room number, but it was worth it. He smiled now as he thought about that day. In the end it had caused a lot of drama for Dallas…but she had stepped up for him again.