“So now it’s out in the open. Everyone knows. Congrats. It still doesn’t change the fact that you are an asshole,” Holden said loudly to Orlando. He started down the stairs, but doubled back. “And you...” he told Tariq, “keep your filthy hands off any woman that doesn’t specifically tell you she wants your attentions.”
Tariq opened his mouth to say something, but he was silenced by Holden’s fist. He threw all that was in him into the punch, knocking the very well-built man out cold. Sheriff Hill had not moved.
“If you need to take this any further, Sheriff, you know where to find me,” Holden told him.
Jacquetta was on the porch watching the whole scene as well. No expression showed on her face.
“Quetta, I am sorry that I have disrespected your home. My humblest and sincerest apologies,” he told her. He nodded his head as he made his way around the house to his motorcycle.
The entire drive over to his part-time home with Tallulah, he knew she was going to be furious with him. He didn’t expect the reaction he received when he walked into the back door. She was throwing his belongings into a garbage bag.
“Tallulah, what are you doing?”
“Get out!”
“What?”
“I said get your shit and get out of my house, Holden Cimoc!” she yelled at him.
“I’m not understanding,” he said. “The man tried to assault you.”
“No, he tried to assault your woman! Your woman! Really! Why didn’t you just whip out your dick and piss on me while you were at it? I am the caregiver to those people’s children! Do you think they’re going to trust my judgement now? This will be all over Venture before your chickens start laying eggs in the morning. I am ruined. Ruined. Everything I worked so hard to build. Ruined in one night because you wanted to establish dominance and let the cool kids know you were banging me. Congrats, you dipshit. Good for you! Now get the hell out of my house. Get the hell out of my life. If I never see you again, it will be too soon!”
She threw the garbage bag at him and pushed him out the door.
“I am changing the security code on the alarm, so if you try to get back in, I will have you arrested!” she yelled.
Confused.
Hurt.
Not wanting to leave but knowing he needed to, Holden strapped the garbage bag down to the bitch seat on his bike, climbed on, cranked the engine, pulled out of her driveway, turned on Mulberry, drove up Main Street, and headed back to his apartment. He didn’t look back. Tallulah also did not watch him drive down the street from the front picture window.
Instead, she curled into a ball on her bed and cried.
Chapter Fourteen – A Break in the Current
Holden started his Wednesday rounds delivering teas, soaps, and recently added shampoos to his customers. Jacquetta invited him in to share a cup of tea with her but he declined, as he had the past three Wednesdays. Quietly, he handed her the order, took the payment, and left.
“This will never do,” Jacquetta said. The spark was gone from her Holden.
Jacquetta grabbed her bike from the back porch, pedaling at full speed to Flynn’s Hardware Store. A few customers called out greetings, which she ignored. The anger in her had reached a full tilt and her knuckle-headed husband was going to receive the full brunt of it. She stormed past everyone to get to Orlando’s office.
“This is all your fault!”
“What did I do?”
“Meddling in other people’s affairs!” she yelled at him again.
“Is this about Holden?”
“Yes. He doesn’t even smile anymore. A whole month, Orlando. It’s been a month and he doesn’t come in to have tea with me, the spark is gone from his eyes, and she...she looks pitiful. She lost a third of her clients all because of you wanting to out them,” she said.
“I didn’t know he was going to go all ham on Tariq,” he said.
“You knew how Tariq was. Even after he came to after being knocked the hell out, he was hitting on ladies inappropriately,” she said. “Holden loves her and understands her. From the moment she walked in the door, she was out of her element. She damned near had a panic attack, but he was right at her side. You could tell she didn’t want to be there, but she probably came for him...because he wanted it.”
“I’m sorry, Jacquetta. I had no idea,” he said softly.
“You are right you had no idea. Who the hell am I going to talk to now?” she wondered.
“You can talk to me,” he told her.
“No, you big galoot. Holden is my friend. On Wednesday’s when he would stop by, we discussed the latest books we were reading. It was like our private book club, just me and him. One hour each week, I had thought provoking conversations on literature and best sellers,” she said. “He was my standing lunch date.”
“I didn’t know that,” Orlando told him.
“I also bet you didn’t know he was the technical writer of training manuals for electricians for the IBEW for the state of Georgia either, did you?” she asked him.
“Really? That hippie?”
“Orlando, stop judging people by what you see. His family supplies the community with natural organic products that they make. They have been doing it for years. Fresh eggs, soaps, goat milk cheeses, and so much more. Those people have sustained themselves completely off the grid, and his businesses are thriving,” she told him.
“What are you, his PR rep or something, ‘Quetta? I didn’t know all those things about him. I thought I was helping, getting them out in the open so we could have another couple to do something with. I mean, I like Ethan and all, but Janie with the whole third person thing is off-putting. Holden has a sharp wit and I was only hoping to make friends, so I could have someone to spar with, you know?”
”I understand, but she wasn’t ready. He was, but she wasn’t,” Jacquetta told him. “We could have invited just the two of them over privately on a Wednesday which is her half day. There were other options.”
“Yeah, I found out,” Orlando said. Truly, he was remorseful because he never meant to hurt either of them.
“Hopefully, they can work it out,” Jacquetta said.
There wasn’t any working it out for Holden. He was hurt, bitter, and very angry with the world. At the six-week mark, he’d had enough of pining over Tallulah Strom. His last call of the day on Wednesday was moved to Friday night. The order of shampoos and soaps to one lovely Sonja Sheppard was delivered at 6:30.
“Is that your bike, Holden?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.
“It is. Would you like to go for a ride?”
“I loved to ride anything you sit me on, Holden Cimoc,” Sonja said to him.
“They call you Candy, huh?” he asked with a wry smile.
“Yep, I am just that sweet,” she said with a wide grin.
The evening started with her arms around his waist as she held on to him while riding through the streets of Venture, her long red hair blowing in the wind like flames as he turned corners, making her grip him tighter. They stopped for turkey burgers at a small eatery by the college campus and ended the evening at his place, her arms around his neck as he tried to lose himself in her to rid his heart of the pain of losing his everything in Tallulah.
Her head rested on his chest and they both fell asleep in the full-size bed he’d made from reclaimed wood. Fitful dreams visited him most of the night, making the evening restless. In the wee hours of the night, he moved to the couch, only to come back to the bed. His roommate Brandon, who had an unnatural love of cheesy puffs, left a trail of orange dust all over the couch. Most of it was now stuck to Holden. He was too depressed for his OCD to kick in to even clean the sofa. Back in his bed, Sonja reached for him again. Since he couldn’t sleep, he hoped that a second round would exhaust him enough to bring on a night’s slumber.
It didn’t.
He missed Tallulah.
He wanted his life back with his woman.
Holden woke to the sound of voices in
the living room. Brandon was discouraging the guest from coming inside, but to no avail. The sound of high heels tapping along the linoleum floor made Holden sit up in the bed.
“Wait a minute, Doc, you can’t just barge into his room. Let me get him for you,” Brandon called out loudly.
Holden didn’t try to hide or cover Sonja up as the door opened. Tallulah stood in the doorway, looking at him and a very naked Sonja sprawled out in his bed. His eyes met hers with a vengeance that she understood. The hurt she felt was also unstated. Angry fingers working the ruby from her digit, snatching the ring off her hand as she fought back the tears and she threw it at his head. He caught it with his left hand and set the ring on his nightstand as if she had done nothing more than blow him a sour kiss. Tallulah stormed out of the room just as Sonja stirred in the bed.
One sleepy eye opened, peering at him. Sonja asked, “Holden, is everything okay?”
“Everything is okee-dokee,” he told her. He lay back in the bed next to Sonja and fell to sleep. He slept better that day than he had in nearly two months.
As it turned out, nothing was okee-dokee for Holden. When Wednesday rolled around for him to make deliveries, nearly all of the orders were cancelled with the exception of Jacquetta’s. Tail between his legs, he took her order to the door.
“Holden, she has been crying all over town. She is sitting alone in places, crying into cups of coffee, tea, over a hamburger, you say ‘hi’, she is crying. Everyone in town kind of hates you for cheating on her,” Jacquetta told him.
“Cheating on her? She packed my belongings in a garbage bag, threw me out, and said she never wanted to see me again. That was two months ago. She dumped me!” he said in frustration.
It was like a nightmare that would not end. “I can’t even see my sister because my sister is married to her brother, who keeps looking at me like he wants to kill me,” Holden said.
He ran his fingers over his head, dropping his chin to his chest. “Her mother grabbed me and started praying over me last week. The good and just Reverend is giving me the evil eye and even my Dad is looking at me funny,” he told her. “She is destroying me!”
He didn’t even bother to collect the payment from Jacquetta before he stormed off the porch. The one person he thought he could count on was Sonja, who, upon his arrival at her small apartment was loading her car.
“Where are you going?” he asked her.
“To live with a friend in Atlanta! Some old lady threw an egg at me yesterday and called me a homewrecker. Everywhere I go people are calling me names. I can’t live here, Holden. I thought you said you were broken up?” Sonja said to him.
“We are!”
“Yeah, but no one in this town seems to know that!” She kissed his cheek and climbed in her car. “Maybe you should consider leaving town for a while, too, until things cool down a bit.”
By the end of the week, he as beginning to think Sonja was right. The only service call he received the whole week was from Orlando Flynn. That job Holden referred to someone else. Even at his lowest, he wasn’t willing to deal with that bunghole. He did, however, make a new friend named Jack. He and the bottle of liquor made their way home where he sat on his orange dusted couch and took his first drink. As many times as he vacuumed the couch, there always seemed to be a fresh layer of orange dust. The couch made him itch but the liquor made him forget the couch was full of living organisms which were probably feeding of his dead skin cells and morphing into orange covered nuclear dust mites. He drank some more of the booze. The numbing effect was a welcome change to feeling all the pain and angst of loving a woman who was destroying him from the inside out.
After two strong infusions in a little tiny glass from his new friend Mr. Daniels, Holden started to sweat. Brandon arrived home to find him sitting on the couch in a pair of tidy whities, singing to himself. He was singing an old Negro hymnal about no one knowing the trouble he had seen.
“Holden, what are you doing man?”
“Drowning my...something,” he mumbled. “Is it hot to you? I am hot.” He stood to remove his underwear, but Brandon stopped him.
“Man, you need to go and sleep it off. Come on, let me help you to your room,” Brandon said, hoisting him up from the couch.
“I want some cookies. I am going to go and see my Mommy,” Holden said to Brandon. Blowing a gust of sour mash breath in Brandon’s face, Holden began to cry. “My Mommy is the only person who still loves me. I am going to see her and she will make me some cookies and I will feel better.”
Holden pulled away from Brandon to go and get his keys.
“Wait a minute, you can’t drive; you’re drunk. Let me use the bathroom and I’ll take you to your parent’s house,” Brandon told him.
“You aren’t driving me anywhere– you’re high,” Holden said.
“And you can’t drive because you’re drunk,” Brandon said to him. “Plus you are crying like some kid.”
“I’m not crying! The liquor is draining through my eyes,” Holden yelled.
Brandon parked Holden at the kitchen table while he went to the bathroom, but he came back out to find Holden and the bottle of Jack gone. Holden’s pants were still in the floor, the shirt was still on the arm of the couch, and the red gnome that was sitting by the television was also gone. He knew this was wrong. Holden would never leave anything lying around. His touch of OCD wouldn’t allow it.
“This is bad,” Brandon said.
Uncertain whom to call, Brandon left the house as well to look for his friend, but came up short when he found his abandoned truck on the corner of Main Street. The door was wide open. There was no sign of Holden.
“Dear Lawd, he is on foot in his underwear with them scrawny ass little white legs,” Brandon said. He sat inside Holden’s truck and waited for what to do next. It wasn’t a long wait. The Sheriff’s car was seen moving at a clip down Main Street but the sirens weren’t on. Just as he figured, someone had called the police on Holden.
Holden woke up the next morning in the Venture, Georgia jail. A long conversation with the Sheriff filled in the gaps of his drunken night, which included a broken window, an unwanted physical relationship with a garden gnome, and taking a dookie in Tallulah’s front yard. The Sheriff’s offer of heading to Wyoming to work on a project for the Sheriff’s sister sounded a whole lot better than what he was going to face next week. It only took one phone call and his truck was packed. Sunday morning, he began driving to Serenity, Wyoming.
A fresh start sounded a helluva lot better than trying to right the wrongs of the town he had lived in all of his life. All of the fine upstanding citizens whom his family had served all of his life, if not longer, had turned their backs on him. Fine. He would turn his back to them as well.
Most of all, he was getting away from her.
Being in love hurt. He loved her with everything he had and she hurt him.
The dead feeling would not go away, so it was best that he went away instead.
Chapter Fifteen – The Shocker
South Georgia never really got cold in the winter. Holden saw no need to buy winter clothing for Wyoming until he actually reached the state. He’d never had a reason to leave the state of Georgia, so making his drive across the country was a first for him in many ways. As he drove up 1-75 headed into Atlanta, a weight lifted from his shoulders. The mountains of Tennessee were as welcoming as the blue grasses of Kentucky to his weathered soul. He drove for only eight hours per day, stopping each night at a reasonably priced hotel that offered a free breakfast the next morning. His bank account wasn’t low and the pay for his new gig would sustain him, but he still saw no need to be foolhardy with his funds.
The sights and sounds of Missouri awoke a new spirit in him as he feasted upon Kansas City ribs while listening to a fat-bellied blues singer wail about a woman that did him wrong. Offers came from young women and a few older ones to keep him company for the night, but he refused the kind proposals for a quiet evening with a good book.
He’d purchased several from the library’s dollar rack on Saturday when he got cleaned up after his jail stay in preparation for his trip out west. In the morning, he would cross into Nebraska, placing his arrival in Wyoming by Thursday evening. He called his sister to let his family know he was doing well.
“Holden,” Janie said. “Janie misses you already. How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, sis. I have to get there first and assess the job, then I will know. I’m staying with Sheriff’s Hill’s sister for the night, then I guess at some bunkhouse or something in the town. I’ll call you once a week. It would help if when I called, you were at Mom and Dad’s so I can speak with them, too,” he said. He also wanted to check on Meg and Jem and stay in touch with Johnny. Meg would have to step up and take over the deliveries in his absence but all would be well.
“Janie can do that,” she said with a sniffle.
“Don’t cry, Janie. I can always send you a plane ticket to come for a visit if you want. You know we have never traveled, and I can tell you I have seen some of the most beautiful country on my way out to Wyoming. You would love it,” he said with a faint smile.
“I can imagine it’s lovely, Holden. Janie has just never woken up and not had you close by her side. We have been through so much,” she told him.
“Life is only getting better for all of us. I gotta jet. I have some driving to get done today so I can get there by tomorrow night,” he told her.
“Holden, did you say goodbye to her?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think I ever want to speak to her again.”
“I know she loves you. She was here Sunday night and she couldn’t stop crying,” Janie said.
“She has a funny way of showing a man she loves him. I gotta go, Janie,” he said softly. “I love you.”
“Janie loves you more, Holden,” she said.
“What do you mean he left?” Tallulah asked Janie.
“He left. He took a contract gig in Wyoming and drove out on Sunday. He should be arriving there tomorrow night, if he’s not already there,” Janie said to her sister-in-law.
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