Toward the Sound of Chaos

by Carmen Jenner

  “You really believe that? That your happiness isn’t important?”

  “I do.” I stare at his hand before rolling my gaze up to meet his. “I know it’s difficult to understand, but that boy is my whole world. He is and always will be the most important person in my life.”

  “I understand,” he says, removing his hand from my arm.

  I know Jake Tucker understands how important my son is, but I don’t think he grasps just what Jake Tucker means to me; how could he? Because even though everything I’ve told him is true, walking away from him, turning my back on the only thing that I’ve wanted in a really long time, feels like a knife to the gut.

  ***

  We work on my yard for the entire day, tearing down the fence and putting up a new one. We paint it together, and while Jake takes away the old fence palings in his truck, Spencer and I decide we need a new garden to accommodate the fence, so we began planning.

  “You wanna stay for dinner?” I ask Jake the second he walks back through my front door. He glances at Spence, as if he isn’t sure how to answer.

  “Stay, Jake,” Spencer shouts. “It’s Spaghetti Saturday.”

  “I love me some spaghetti,” Jake says, grinning at my boy.

  “Well alright then,” I turn and head to the kitchen to get started. Jake follows and Spencer is hot on his heels, as always.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Why don’t you two take Nuke out on the back deck so he doesn’t have to be alone out front,” I say, pulling the ground beef from the fridge and getting to work. “I think Spence has some plans for a new garden that he’d like to discuss.”

  “That so, huh?” Jake chuckles.

  “That’s so.” I nod and shoot him an apologetic smile.

  “I have a lot of ideas,” Spencer says seriously.

  “Well, what are we doin’ standin’ around then?” Jake asks. “Let’s do it.”

  My son tears through the house toward his bedroom, coming back with crayons and a bunch of empty scrapbooks he likes to doodle in.

  “Thank you,” I whisper as Spence tugs on the hem of Jake’s shirt and he has no choice but to be pulled along. He don’t say nothing, but the sweet grin on his face as he’s walking out my back door about sends my heart into cardiac arrest.

  I make a garden salad to accompany spaghetti and heat up one of those frozen garlic breads, and the boys help me take the food and plates out to the table. After we eat, Spencer shows me their landscaping plans, and then he and Nuke run about the yard chasing lightnin’ bugs while Jake helps me wash the dishes.

  I offer him coffee and dessert, but I get the feeling he doesn’t want to disrupt the schedule too much, so when he tells me he has to leave in order to head home and feed Nuke, Spence and I walk him out to the car.

  “Well goodnight.” I jam my hands in my pockets, feeling like a school girl on a first date.

  Jake looks at me funny, as if he’s memorizing my face. Finally, he says, “Thank you.”

  “I should be the one thanking you,” I say, shaking my head ruefully. “I can’t imagine what you’re getting out of all this.”

  “I’m no longer alone,” he whispers, and pulls me close, pressing a kiss to my forehead. I’m still reeling when he pulls away and he and Nuke climb in the truck and head for home while I stand in my driveway, my heart racing, my stomach fluttering and my head spinning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jake

  I’m held down on a rickety table by one man on each of my limbs, while another stands against the wall with a rifle aimed at my head. The infection in my side burns. I’m running a fever—a pretty fuckin’ nasty one if the hallucinations are anything to go by. With any luck, it’ll kill me, because these fuckers don’t seem capable of doing the job, despite their best efforts. When we landed in Afghanistan we were given names and faces of Taliban leaders, not unlike the personality identification playing cards of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  Aasif Bashir had been on that list. I’m staring up at the very same motherfucker I was sent back to Afghanistan to kill, only we’re in the wrong positions.

  He orders one of his men to hold the muslin over my face as another stands by with a bucket of water.

  “You will talk,” he says, not in Pashto, but heavily accented English. “Or you will die, but not before you are begging for your miserable life.”

  I laugh, causing the muslin to be drawn tighter over my face, and then I suffocate beneath the deluge. Buckets and buckets of water are poured over my face, and he’s right—I do beg. Between drowning and breathing, my mouth, nose, eyes, and ears filling with water, I fight, despite my brain telling me not to. It’s instinct, and afterward, as I lie there with my whole body on fire, my wounds reopened in the struggle and my lungs burning for breath, I beg for my life. I beg for mercy, and I beg for them to kill me.

  Bashir doesn’t say a word, but he leans over and licks the water from my cheek.

  I jolt awake, sitting bolt upright, my breaths coming hard and fast. My heart races and my whole body trembles. Nuke is in my lap, licking my face. He whines and jumps off the bed, pressing the lamp switch with his nose, which I rewired into the wall at the right height for this very reason.

  “Nudge,” I command, my voice shaken and so alien after the dream. Nuke rests his head on my knee, and I pat his fur with trembling fingers. I run my free hand through my hair and it comes away as wet as it’d been on that table two years ago. I wipe my sweat off on the sheet and get up, though I wind up pacing the room a few times before lying down on the floor beside the bed. Nuke lies in front of me, and though I’m burnin’ up and shakin’ like a leaf, I hold him, taking comfort in his warm fur.

  Several hours later, I still can’t sleep, and I get up and walk downstairs, opening the French doors onto the back deck. Nuke follows me out into the garden and down the walkway to the pier house. I don’t bother switching on the lights; the moon is high tonight, and I don’t need to see where I’m going because I’ve walked these boards a thousand times since I got back.

  The last time I came down to the pier house was around a month ago. I open the front door and stale air greets me. It reeks of salt and dust, but I ain’t here for the smell or the view. I’m here for what’s hidden in the small pantry beside the sink.

  I open it and grasp one of the three bottles inside, and then I unscrew the lid and take a hearty gulp. It burns all the way down, and the nightmare hits me full force—the water, the shortness of breath, the ache in my lungs. I stumble over to the couch and toss worn cushions aside and there I stay, looking out at the moonlight on Mobile Bay, drinking Johnnie and wishing like hell things had ended differently in Afghanistan.

  The scenery has changed, and the people, but at the end of the day I am still a prisoner in my own body. I may have been home for a year, but a part of me never came back, and I’m still the same man now that I was in that building, a gun to my head, longing for death with no way to pull the trigger.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ellie

  Sunday after church, Jake didn’t show up at the beach like he always did, and he didn’t come by the house to finish the gardens like he’d said he would. I’d had this niggling feeling in my gut since I woke up, this ache inside that I couldn’t put my finger on. I learned a long time ago to trust that feeling, so when he doesn’t show up at the duck pond Monday morning, I take Spence to school like nothing is amiss and then I drive to Jake’s house.

  Now that the huge sand-colored Prairie-style home looms up before me, I wonder if I shouldn’t just turn right back around, but I steel my nerve. I grab the container full of snickerdoodles made from Memaw’s recipe that I stayed up baking until one because I couldn’t sleep—nothing gets my mind sorted like filling my house with the scent of warm vanilla sugar—and I switch off the engine and climb out of the car. It’s so quiet here and eerily still. There’s not even a breeze off the bay this morning—not that you’d get much of one from the front of the hou
se with all these beautiful trees blocking it. It sure is a private lot; I bet you can’t even tell that you have neighbors for all this green around. Jake may not be so great with people, but he has one hell of a green thumb.

  I close my car door quietly in case he’s sleeping, and I climb the front porch steps. I knock, but I can’t hear nothin’. I try the knob; it’s unlocked, so I poke my head in.

  “Jake? You here?”

  Nuke barks, but it sounds as if it’s coming from the back of the house, and then I hear a terrifying roar of anguish and the sounds of breaking glass. “Jake?”

  More barking and a scratching sound too, as if the dog’s been locked out and is desperate to get in. I run down the hall. The house is huge and I’ve never been inside before, but I realize when I reach the kitchen and family rooms that the barking is coming from upstairs, so I double back through the hall and take the steps two at a time. The scratching starts up again and I follow the sound through another hall leading to the main bedroom. Inside, Nuke scratches at a closed door, tearing away strips of varnished hardwood. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence, he’s so desperate to get in.

  I’d heard those same noises the night Jake had shown up on my doorstep. He needed me, and now Nuke needs to get to him. From beyond the door, Jake roars, and the loud thud of flesh hitting the wall repeatedly sends a chill down my spine. That’s not a sound I’m unfamiliar with, though it is one I hoped to never hear again in my life. Despite my fear, I twist the knob. The door is locked.

  “Jake. It’s Ellie. Let me in,” I say, surprised at how steady my voice sounds. Another anguished cry and the door I’m leaning against rattles on its hinges. I press my palms to it. “You let me in this bathroom right now.”

  “Go home, Ellie.” He grunts, and he don’t sound like himself. I glance around the dark room. The sheets on the four-poster bed are tangled in a heap, and on the nightstand there’s not one but two empty bottles of cheap whiskey turned on their sides.

  Oh Johnnie, you always were a mean bastard.

  “I ain’t going nowhere, Jake, so unless you open this door, I’m gonna find a way to break it down. If that means I have to call the police or the fire brigade or the fucking mayor of Fairhope, I will.”

  “Did you just curse?” he says, and his voice sounds less angry now. Drunk, but less angry. Hooray for small mercies.

  Nuke scratches at the door again. I tell him to stop, but I’m not his handler, so he doesn’t listen to me. I let out a sigh and lean my head against the wood. “Open the damn door, Jake.”

  The sound of the lock popping open rings out like a shot. My whole body goes tense and Nuke barks. With trembling hands, I turn the knob. It opens.

  Glass tinkles across the floor, swept up by the door as it swings wide. Every fiber of my being braces for the worst, but it isn’t as bad as it sounded. A broken mirror—that’s for sure—and a couple of items on the floor—pill bottles, cologne, some hair product, and a broken man, sitting in amongst the debris he made. Nuke tries to push past me, and I grab onto his collar.

  “Nuke, stay,” Jake says, his bloodshot eyes meeting mine across the room. The dog whines but sits back on the carpet, panting and clearly distressed.

  “You fool of a man, what have you done to yourself?” I stare at the blood trailing down his forearm. There’s a gaping hole in the wall where the mirror used to be and blood smeared across the drywall around it. Carefully, I cross the floor, glass crunching under the soles of my white tennis shoes. I don’t even think about not touching him—I just reach out and draw his arm to me in order to inspect the damage. He wrenches out of my grasp with a grunt and the astringent scent of liquor rolls over me.

  “You been drinkin’, Jake?” Obviously, I already know the answer, but I ask anyway because I need to get him talkin’. I don’t like the way his eyes seem to look right through me.

  The corners of his mouth turn up in a bitter grin. “Yeah, I been drinkin’.”

  I pick up the bottles of pills strewn all over the floor and set them on the counter. “How many of these did you take?” I snap.

  “None.”

  I discard the pills in the trash because they wouldn’t do no good after they’ve been rollin’ around in glass. “You shouldn’t drink when you’re on meds.”

  “It don’t fuckin’ matter anymore.”

  I snap my gaze back to his and grit my teeth. “It matters to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I care about you,” I say. “We care about you.”

  His eyes get all squinty and he slurs, “You don’t even know me.”

  “Is that what you think?” I snap, losing all patience with him. “That I don’t know the man I’ve been letting into my house? I know you, and the Jake Tucker I know—the Jake Spencer knows—is not this Jake.”

  He smiles that twisted grin again, and so help me, I’ve never wanted to put my hands on a person in anger so much in my life. I want to slap that smirk right off his beautiful face.

  “Maybe this is the real Jake; maybe I’m just another asshole you hardly know tryin’ to get in your panties.”

  I stare at him in shock, and I won’t lie, it takes a moment to recover, but like any southern woman worth her salt, I’m a master in the art of backhanded compliments and southern charm. “Then you clearly ain’t as smart as I thought you were, ’cause this Jake? He don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere near my panties, but the other may have. Looks like now we’ll never know.” His cocky smile falters. “Now, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up.”

  He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “What do you know about it? You can’t even see what’s right in front of you.”

  “Oh I see it,” I huff. “I’m real familiar with how mean a bottle of Johnnie Walker can make a man.”

  “That the reason you never talk about why Spencer’s daddy ain’t around?”

  “Yeah, that’s the reason,” I say folding my arms over my chest. “Because, it’s a long painful road that I walked away from and one that I don’t wanna have to revisit. And considering where you been, Jake Tucker, I thought you might know something about that.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “It don’t matter.”

  “It matters,” he says through his teeth. “Believe me, it matters.”

  “Why? You gonna go to Charleston, find him, and beat the crap outta him for hurtin’ me? The best thing you can do for me is to not become him.” I take a deep breath and wonder why we’re talkin’ about me at all when there’s clearly more important things going on right here. “Why didn’t you show up at my house yesterday? And why are you drinking in the middle of the day?”

  “Day, night, it don’t matter. The nightmares don’t stop unless I’m three fuckin’ sheets to the wind.”

  I sigh and grab the washcloth from a rack. Running warm water over it, I wring out the excess and crouch down to his level. “Give me your hand.” He shakes his head. “Give me your goddamn hand, Jake.”

  He doesn’t extend it out to me, but he doesn’t pull away either when I grab his forearm. I get a good glimpse of the damage he’s done. He don’t need stitches, far as I can tell.

  I gently start wiping at the mess and get to my feet a few times to rinse out the washcloth. As the blood is washed away, his scars become more pronounced. This is the first time I’m seeing him in a shirt that doesn’t have long sleeves. It makes me want to cry because his skin is a patchwork of pain. It tells a story of hate and unimaginable cruelty, but there is splendor in it, too. There’s a tale of courage, survival, immeasurable strength, and beauty in the face of such ugliness. They tried to destroy him, and they failed.

  I trace my finger over the deepest scar on his forearm and blink back tears. Jake’s whole body stiffens. I decide it’s best not to push him any further by touching him again, but that don’t mean I’m going to go easy on him either. “So, you got any rubbing alcohol? Or did you drink that too?”

  He closes his eyes and l
eans back against the tub. “Under the sink.”

  I pull out the rubbing alcohol and a first-aid kit and get to work disinfecting and bandaging the worst of his wounds. He hisses when I place soaked cotton to the cuts, but he don’t say much beyond that. I take several towels from the rack and lay them across the worst of the broken glass. I’ll go in search of a dustpan soon, but right now I need him away from sharp objects and anything else that might cause him harm.

  “Okay, Marine, on your feet.” I gently grasp his arm and help him stand. He’s not the easiest man to move, but somehow we manage. “Let’s get you to bed.”

  “Words I never thought I’d hear coming from those sweet lips of yours,” he slurs as I lead him out of the bathroom and over to the bed.

  “Knock it off, Jake.” Not that a part of me isn’t thrilled to hear those words—my vagina is doin’ cartwheels in my panties right now—but I have no intention of letting him see that. I won’t be with a man juiced up on liquor. Been there, done that, got the emotional scars to prove it.

  I shove him back on the bed. His big body lands with an “oomph,” and I bend to scoop up one leg at a time and place them on the mattress that he barely even fits on.

  “I knew you weren’t a Bama girl. What are you doin’ so far from home, Elle? Livin’ on struggle street all alone with your boy. I bet there’s a hint of that entitled little South Carolina rich bitch in you still. Wanna know what it feels like to play with a man from the wrong side of the tracks?”

  “No. I don’t. I’ve played with those kinds of men before, and it always leaves a mark.”

  Jake is hardly from the wrong side of the tracks. I don’t know much about how he grew up, but I was willing to bet he’d inherited this house from his granddaddy. The house itself isn’t even that old, but this land is worth a fortune. I know that much. It might be a long way from Water Street, Charleston, but it is certainly a departure from Struggle Street, as he’s been so kind to point out.