by Tahlia Gold
When I finish, she swallows then gives me that grin again. If the devil had a wife, she would grin like this.
My body sinks into the bed. Jess props herself up on her elbows, resting on my thighs. Her greens eyes gaze over my body then up to my face. She smiles at me, like a lover this time. I can feel the love coming off of her, radiating out like heat, filling the space around us, filling the room, filling the clubhouse, filling the city, her love expanding so big that it fills the entire universe. I’m at home with her.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
“Of course.”
“How is this war of yours going to end?”
I think for a moment. “I have no idea. And it’s not my war.”
“Whose war is it?”
I shrug. “It’s the club’s war.” Is that true though? At this point it feels like it’s the VP’s war and he’s using the club to fight it. But these aren’t things you say out loud if you like your life.
And right now I fucking love my life.
But these also aren’t things I should be talking to her about. She shouldn’t technically know about any of the internal MC business. It doesn’t matter though. She’s right as always. How is the war going to end? More people are going to bleed. Hopefully it’s not our guys that stop breathing though. I don’t say anything else and she seems to take the hint. I swear that girl can read my mind.
She gets up and goes to the bathroom.
I could definitely get used to this. Prez is right, having a good woman by your side is invaluable. I feel like I can trust her with anything. I would do anything she told me. Absolutely anything—even quit the club. I would never fucking tell a soul that, but I would do it. She would never ask it of me though. I know that in my heart. She cares about me too deeply and she knows what it means to me. I don’t deserve this girl. But I don’t care. Maybe I’m just selfish like that.
Maybe I should be more proactive about smoothing out this war. This ridiculous war that serves no purpose other than to line Road Dawg’s pockets so he can stay drowning in his whiskey river of prostitutes. I don’t fault him for that. His life is his business and I would never tell another man how to live his life. It’s a short ride we have and if you don’t lay your bike down around a few curves, you’re not going fast enough.
But on the other hand, if you’re so selfish that you would put your brothers into harm’s way to maintain your lifestyle then somebody needs to step in.
And I don’t see anybody else doing any stepping.
If the war was over, things wouldn’t be so goddamned hectic. I could have a clearer idea about what to do about Jess. War is bad for me, bad for business, bad for the club, bad for everybody—everybody except Road Dawg.
Who knows, once that shit is behind me, maybe Jess and I could move in together. Jesus Christ. What am I thinking? It feels so right though. Get a little place somewhere. Rent of course. I’m not going to tie myself down to a mortgage and a picket fence. But have our own place? Yeah, that feels right.
She comes back in, naked, her perfect breasts, her perfect smile, every bit of her womanhood smiling at me. Yeah, it feels so fucking right.
My body is floating.
She says, “What?” Gets into bed next to me.
I say, “I like you.”
She nuzzles her head up against my chest, wraps her leg around mine. I can feel her pussy against me.
She says, “You’ll do for now I guess.”
I start to tickle her and she squirms away. When she finally settles down, she says, “What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t care as long as it’s with you. We could just hit the road. Pick a random direction. Drive until we can’t drive anymore. Fuck it. We hop on a boat, take my bike across the Atlantic then drive across Europe.”
She giggles. It’s so cute, I can’t stand it. “How about we start with brunch then a drive through the Redwoods?”
“Perfect,” I say.
Then the door opens. Jess clutches for the sheets to cover herself. She’s almost hiding behind me to shield herself.
“What the fuck, man?” I yell. It’s Road Dawg standing in the door. Of course it is. Who else would come ruin my perfect morning. I’m about to tell him off. I start to get up, ready to beat his ass. Adrenaline shoots straight to my fists.
Road Dawg says, “Goldie got jumped. They fucked him up bad. He’s at the hospital now. In surgery.”
“Goddammit. This is your fucking fault.”
He shoots me a look, then over at Jess. “Be ready in one minute.”
I’m going to fucking kill him. But not now. Right now we have to go send a message. It doesn’t matter that it’s a stupid war. If we let them walk over us, then the club is done. I have to leave Road Dawg for another day.
Once I start to pull my jeans on Road Dawg seems satisfied that his soldier is back in line and he leaves, slams the door.
I yell, “Fuck!” as loud as I can.
Jess is sitting up in bed. The sheets are pulled up over her breasts. Tears are starting to well up in those green eyes of hers. “Don’t go,” she’s saying but there isn’t much conviction in her words. I think she knows I have to, that I won’t sit this out. But she has to say it anyway. Like some kind of formality. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“No shit,” I say, then I regret it.
She looks away, out the window. Maybe she’s thinking she needs to get as far away from me as possible. If she is, then it’s the best idea she ever had in her life. But I don’t have time to tell her.
She looks back now, a new resolve in her face. “Why do you have to go?” she asks.
I start to explain. Explain how it’s a war and in a war, blah, blah, fucking blah. I stop and say, “I don’t have time to explain it to you.”
I grab my gun and a couple extra magazines. “Besides, you wouldn’t understand.”
She says, “Fuck you.” The emotion gone from her voice, but there’s tears still coming down.
I tuck the gun into my waistband, pull on my shirt. I can’t fix this. There’s no win here. I just have to do my job and hope and pray for the best. Hope that she doesn’t get hurt.
I sit on the bed next to her. “Listen, I’m sorry. I understand how you feel but I have to go. This is what I signed up for. It’s like the military. They say jump, you say how fucking high. No man left behind.” Jesus, is there any other cliché I could add in?
She says, “Goldie wasn’t left behind. He’s in the hospital right now.”
“I know, but it’s not about that.” I’m doing my best to have a calming voice. I feel like the farmer talking nice to his favorite pig that he’s about to slaughter. “It’s about them not getting away with hurting us. We operate as one.”
She’s really crying now. It reminds me of that day in her house so long ago. My eyes start to well up too.
I don’t know what to do. It’s like hot fire in my insides seeing her like this.
But I have to go.
So I do.
25
Jess
Madison says, “There’s a kid with a hand laceration in room two, a 57-year-old woman with abdominal pain in room four and that drunk is completely passed out in seven. We need the bed. There’s thirty people in the waiting room. It’s a zoo in there.”
I say, “I know it’s super busy today.”
“No,” Madison says. “It’s an actual zoo. A guy with a petting zoo got bit by a goat and he brought the goat with him. He said he wants to have it tested for rabies.”
“What the hell…”
“Yeah, it’s one of those days.”
I really don’t mind. Actually, I’m happy about it. Anything to take my mind off thinking about Dylan. My brain has been racing in circles since he went off half-cocked yesterday. I’ve been hoping for the best but imagining the absolute worst-case scenario. My stomach is all twisted. I keep thinking he’s lying in a ditch somewhere covered in blood and there’s nothing I can d
o about it. I can’t fucking stand it.
He’s not answering his phone. I’ve called it thirty times in the last twenty-four hours probably. Maybe he thinks I’ve lost my mind. I don’t care. He can think whatever he wants as long as he just fucking picks up the goddamned phone.
I try it again. This time it goes straight to voicemail. I say fuck under my breath and go to room seven to tell the drunk to wake the hell up and get out of my bed. I have no patience for people who aren’t actually sick today.
The thing that really gets me is my mind keeps going back to when my brother was killed. To afterwards, when Dylan was nowhere to be found and I needed him. I really, really needed him; I was calling and calling and he was gone. He was fucking gone and I had no idea where he was. That’s exactly how I feel right now. All that is flooding back over me. It’s history repeating itself.
What’s that saying? Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Here I am, repeating the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life. I might as well lay down in room seven because I’m no smarter than the drunk they found face down in the gutter.
I should have known this would happen.
I don’t feel so good. My stomach is in a knot. If I didn’t actually know anything about anatomy, I would assume it really is possible for your insides to turn into a knot because that’s exactly how it feels.
I go to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. It doesn’t help. And being in there triggers something inside me. I run to the stall and what little I managed to eat that day comes up my esophagus, out my mouth and splatters into the toilet.
Ugh.
When I finally get myself together and get back out on the floor, Madison comes up to me.
“You look like shit,” she says.
“Thanks a lot. I needed that.”
“No, really,” she says. “Are you okay? You’re pale as a ghost. Are you sick?”
I shake my head, no. “I just threw up but I’m fine.” I’m always fine; even when I’m not; I put on a happy face and I do my job. That’s the life of an ER doctor, the life I signed up for and spent the last however many years dedicated to.
“You threw up?” Her eyes dart around, she lowers her voice and says, “Maybe you’re pregnant?”
“Fuck!” I say a little too loud. “Don’t even talk like that. It’s not funny.”
That is the absolute last thing I need in my life right now. A baby? From Dylan. The man who is currently MIA and involved in a motorcycle gang war. Shoot me please.
We’re standing by the nurses’ desk and a call comes over the radio. “Two adult white men, GSWs.”
Gunshot wounds. Wonderful.
The voice on the radio continues, “One is going to be DOA. Other is critical with a wound to the head. They’re bikers. It was some kind of biker shootout.”
No. Just no.
This is not happening. I want to slap myself, wake up from this nightmare. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
My whole world slows to a crawl while we wait for the ambulance to bring me my fate. My cheeks are wet with tears. I don’t care who sees at this point. I know what’s coming.
Fucking asshole.
I can’t handle losing him. I’ve never hated someone and loved someone at the same time so much in my entire life. I didn’t know it was possible to experience an emotion like this.
There’s a million things going through my head.
All variations of this: why did he have to go and why didn’t I stop him?
I tried. I asked him. But he didn’t listen. He gave me some macho bullshit about loyalty or whatever the fuck he said. I can’t even deal with it now. I don’t care about him anymore. If he dies, I won’t have to worry, at least.
That thought is the one I cling to. At least I won’t have to worry anymore. Ever since he left the first time, at least in the back of my mind, in the recesses where I try not to look, I’ve been worrying about him. At last that part of me can finally let go, if… If he’s…
I’m bawling like a baby now.
Madison is trying to shield me from everyone else.
“Pull yourself together,” she says. “We don’t know anything. It could be anybody.”
Then we hear the ambulance coming with its siren.
I can’t look when they open the doors.
Madison tells me, “It’s not him. It’s not him Jess. We need you.”
I can look now. It’s not him; but it’s the President. Prez they call him.
He’s dead. We’ll go through the motions on him, but he’s definitely dead. And for what?
The other guy is from a different gang. Probably the one they’re at war with. He’s shot in the head. I can see his brains coming out of the hole. He might live but he’ll be a vegetable.
I’m relieved it’s not Dylan but I still want to know what the hell happened.
I want to know where he is and what he’s doing. Did he do this? Could he? Would he murder someone? And over what? Some silly turf war between guys that like to ride motorcycles?
My worry is replaced by a seething anger. There’s enough death and suffering in this world without some macho idiots adding to it.
If he were here I would strangle him.
After we get Prez in a room and check his vitals one last time, I pronounce him dead.
“Time of death, 4:17pm.” Hope it was worth it Prez. Hope it was worth the hole in your chest. Did you have a good life?
The other guy gets stabilized. They try to get a hold of his family. I’m sure they’ll just love finding out he’s going to be connected to a machine for the rest of his miserable life.
When I can finally pull myself away from all the shit, I call Dylan again. I know he’s not going to pick up but I call anyway.
I let it ring just three times and I’m about to hang up when someone answers.
It’s not Dylan. I don’t recognize the voice.
I’m screaming. “Who is this? Where is Dylan?”
No answer.
I’m crying again. People are staring at me. I slink down to the cold hospital floor. I can’t deal with this anymore. All this is too much for me. “Where is Dylan?” I ask the unknown voice on the other end of the phone, softly this time, between loud sobs and desperate gasps for air. “Where is he?”
26
Dylan
My insides are screaming. Every move I make my body is telling me with every cell that something is terribly wrong. It’s a good thing I have two lungs because one of them isn’t working right now. Breathing has become a war—one that I’m currently losing. You never realize how important and effortless breathing is until it’s not effortless anymore. This shit is so painful. I tell myself that if I live through this, I’m going to give up smoking.
“How you doing man?” Viking asks.
“I’m fucking peachy bro. Real peachy.” Talking sends daggers reeling through my chest. Viking was a field medic in the Marines. He says he saw lots of cases like this in Fallujah. It’s definitely a punctured lung he says. I won’t go to the hospital so he made some calls and found a vet that likes to gamble and is in way over his head. A dog doctor. A dog doctor for a dog. It’s fitting.
My phone rings on the floor a few feet from me and I jerk my head to the side. I’m on edge. Everybody is, but having a hole in your chest—leaking blood everywhere—will tend to get your nerves a little frazzled.
Something tells me it’s Jess calling. Somehow I usually know when she wants to talk to me. I reach for the phone but I’m met with blinding pain. My eyes fill with white light, I feel like I’m going to pass out so I do the sensible thing and I slink back onto the dingy couch that is apparently my new home because I can’t move from it.
Viking looks at me, face full of concern, then answers the phone. After a few moments of saying nothing he brings it over and holds it up to my ear, says, “It’s your girlfriend.”
Jess is sobbing into the phone, asking for me.
“Are y
ou okay?” I ask.
“Dylan?! Where the fuck are you? What’s going on? I’ve been calling you non-stop. I thought you died. They brought some bikers in with gunshot wounds and I almost passed out thinking about what if it was you.”
“I’m fine. It’s okay. Just calm down.”
That was a mistake. She raises her voice. “Calm down?! Don’t fucking tell me to calm down. Nothing is okay about this situation and I’m not about to calm down. Where are you?”
“I’m…” I actually don’t even know where I am. I look around. “I’m in a warehouse I think.” I groan as the constant dull ache in my chest intensifies from speaking so much.
She hears the pain in my voice. “What’s the matter with you? Are you hurt?”
There’s no point in lying to her. “Don’t worry too much please but I was shot.”
“What? Where? Come to the hospital.” Fear is trembling through her voice.
“I can’t come right now,” I say.
“Bullshit. Where are you shot? Is it still bleeding?”
I look down at my chest. The bandage Viking put over the hole is completely soaked and stained a dark red. The metallic smell of blood is thick in the air. “I think it stopped bleeding.” A small lie won’t hurt.
She deliberately calms herself down now, puts on her doctor voice. It sounds like she’s talking to a child when she says, “Tell me where you were shot.”
“In the chest. It went through the lung.”
I have to pull my head away from the phone because she screams so loud. I’m not sure if she actually said something or if she was just screaming. Then there’s silence.
“Jess? Are you there?”
“I’m here. I’m here at the fucking hospital which is exactly where you should be because you have a fucking hole in your lung which you could easily die from but you somehow think it’s a good idea to not come to the hospital. So, yeah, I’m here.”
“Jess, baby.”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
