by Amber Burns
That decided, I got off my bike and followed the little path to her front porch. My bike had already announced me. If she was home, she would have heard me pull into the quiet little neighborhood. I pulled out my keys and fished through the ring until I came across hers. I held up my keys on the ring, looking at it hard like it had the answers as to how to fix this; like it could tell me what to say.
I knocked, keeping her key in hand. If she demanded it, I would have to give it up. I knew this, and I couldn’t argue. It was hers after all. But, maybe, I could get her to see reason. But the door remained shut. I looked at the little hole covered in glass, and I wondered if she was glaring at me through it. Did she hate me? I knocked again, straining my ears to see if I would be able to hear anything.
“I know you’re home,” I said to her door. “I just..” I paused feeling like a jackass. “I just want to explain what happened. I’ve not lied to you so far, and there’s no reason for me to start now. Give me the chance to tell you what went down before you decide to cut me out.”
I got silence, and I knocked again, a little harder. “Madi, please,” I pressed my brow to her door. “Please, c’mon.”
There was no answer, and it was decided. I started to work her key off the ring.
“For what it’s worth,” I could hear my voice crack with emotion. “I’m innocent. Something along the lines of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I followed Jimmy out there because I had a feeling he was getting into some bad shit.” Once I had her key wrestled off my ring I held it up to her peephole in the event she was looking out it. “I have court in a couple of weeks, come find out for sure if I’m innocent if you want.”
I stood there, waiting to see if she would open the door; if she would say anything. I got nothing.
“I meant it, you know,” I said against her door, being quiet enough, so I didn’t have to worry about her neighbors hearing me embarrass myself to her. “I love you. I get why you’re doing this, but I think you should at least hear me out.” I tapped the key against her door, “I promised not to break your heart if you promised not to break mine.”
Still nothing.
“Fuck,” I sighed and turned.
I tried, right? There’s an A for effort for that, right?
I sat down heavily on her front step and tried not to let her lack of an answer get to me. I kept her key in my hand as I tried to figure out where to go from here.
“I guess this is it, huh?” I said to the key like it would give me an answer. “No chance to argue my case, no chance to beg for forgiveness. I get fucked over not once, but twice; both in a serious way.”
I turned so I could put the key on the door mat, grimacing as I felt the tightness in my chest start to burn its way up my throat.
“I wouldn’t have done this to you, just so you know,” I said to her door again. “I would have given you the chance to explain yourself because I love you. Because you do enough for me that I would want to forgive you and not lose you… I guess it’s not the same for you.”
I forced myself up and trudged my way to my bike. I had to get out of there before I broke. I had be strong, nothing like putting up a front for how broke up you are. I got on my bike without a real thought of where to go, letting the grumbled growl of my bike soothe me.
23
I decided to go with the original plan for the day. I got to the bar and started work on the first bike I saw. It was Wilson’s, of course. I didn’t bother asking, just pulled out a small tool box and started giving it a tune up I was sure it needed. It was near lunch when I started to shine up the chrome on his bike, and someone noticed I was there.
“The fuck are you doing?” Teddy asked.
“I need a distraction,” I said not bothering to look up as I ran a polishing cloth over a chrome exhaust pipe.
“And you’re cleaning up Wilson’s bike instead of your own?”
I gave him a look and nodded to my own bike. It sat in my usual spot, shining without a spot on it. If he cranked it, he would have heard an unfettered growl to its engine.
“Touche,” he chuckled. “What’s going on? Why do you need a distraction?”
“I went to see Madi,” I said lowly, giving a glance to the rest of the lot. We were out there alone. “Didn’t go well.”
“Ah,” he looked away, not looking like he had anything to offer.
“You want me to do your bike next?” I asked as I went back to work.
This bike would probably look good for the first time in years, Wilson was the kind of man that road shit hard and didn’t bother to take care of it outside of what was necessary. When Teddy patched me in it had become my job to do the maintenance on his bike. I was okay with it.
“Sure,” he hovered over my shoulder, watching me work. “D’ya need to talk about it?”
I stopped, looking at his distorted reflection in the chrome. Was this his way of reaching out? Teddy was a stubborn man, he would beat his head against the wall before he’d admit he was wrong. I glanced over my shoulder at him, and I saw remorse looking back at me.
“Talk about what?”
“Your woman issues,” he snorted at me as he found a cigarette in a pocket of his cut and pulled it out. “I can’t claim to know much about them. I’ve only been married to Doris for fifteen years before she decided to call it quits.” He paused to light the cigarette and inhaled sharply, “Fucking Wilson was right though. If you don’t make an effort to fight for them, let them think you’re not interested anymore they don’t have a reason to stick around.”
I looked away from him and started to pack up my shit, “I tried to fight. She didn’t even make an effort to listen, I get the feeling I was barking up the wrong tree. She’s not in it for the hard stuff, and I got a lot of hard shit going on. Not just with this shit,” I threw down the cloth, and I struggled to my feet. “If you would have just fucking listened to me, opened your Goddamn eyes, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.” I looked at him hard, “If you had fucking listened to me, neither of us would have gone to jail. I might still have the girl of my fucking dreams instead of being here shining fucking bikes because I don’t think about what I just fucking lost.”
“Blame me,” he shot back at me. “I deserve it because you’re right. Jimmy is Doris’s nephew. What right do I have to believe family over you?” His tone had gone sarcastic, and he waved his hands as he spoke. “What has Jimmy done for me besides bust his ass?”
“And I haven’t busted my ass for you?” I snapped back. “I don’t have any stake in this club and all that it does? Do I ever make shit up for giggles?” I took a step towards him, baring my teeth as I spoke, “Have I ever done you wrong?”
He seemed to relent then and shook his head, “No.” After a length, he looked me in the eye and sighed, “I’m sorry, kid. I fucked up your chances with that girl, and you can hold that grudge against me for as long you want. Blame me for it all.” He threw out his arms, “Hell if I left you alone where do you think you’d be now?”
Six feet under, but I didn’t tell him that. I know over the last few days I had considered it. I backed down and rubbed my hand against the back of my neck.
“What do I do now?” I sighed.
Teddy relaxed, I guess he could see me for what I was: a directionless asshole. He shrugged,
“Do what you need to keep your head on straight. Worry about what you have control over and do what it takes to keep yourself out of trouble, like Michaels said.”
“What about the idea of the shop?” I asked out of curiosity, I remembered pitching the idea, but I didn’t know what was said after that.
“We’re going to move forward with it,” he fished his keys from his front pocket. “We got a building that’s ready and can support that kind of business. I’m going to go through the guys that need work, legal work, and see what their mechanical training’s been.” He tossed the keys to his bike at me, I caught them easily enough. It distracted me from the anger that still throbbe
d in me at his man. “I mentioned you should manage it and do what you can for pay. Help get you out of that shit hole you call an apartment.”
“Don’t judge my shit hole,” I grumbled and started picking up my tools.
“Smudge his bike back up,” Teddy chuckled. “Fucker won’t recognize it looking so clean.”
I started to make my way to Teddy’s bike without bothering anymore with Wilson’s.
“Then point it out to him if he starts to think his got stolen,” I called back. “Let me know when you get shit started for the shop, and I’ll do what I can.”
Any distraction would be a good distraction was the way that I saw it.
I spent the next couple of weeks doing it like that. I had a while before the trial, and I was determined to keep busy. I decided to not let any of it dwell in my head. It was work and if the Army taught me anything it was better to have work on your hands than to be idle. So I worked on everyone’s bikes, regardless as to whether or not I was asked to. I did work around the bar, replacing some rotted out wood and even climbing my ass up onto the roof to replace shingles. After I climbed down the ladder, I saw Wilson waiting on me with a scowl.
“The fuck did I do now?”
“You got a suit?” he asked, eyeing me as if I were something he had to look at and he found the act distasteful.
“Why would I?” I picked up the ladder to take it around to the little shed that sat behind the bar. “Do I look like a man that’d own a suit?”
“You’ll need it for trial, you can’t show up in a courtroom in jeans and a t-shirt covered in grease,” he followed me as I walked. “You’ve got a lot going for you in your corner, it’s in our best interest that you don’t look like some sort of punk kid.”
I snorted in amusement as I sat the ladder in the shed, “Ain’t I a punk kid?”
“Exactly,” he grunted at me as he leaned back against the wall. “We’ve got to paint the picture of you being an upstanding citizen that was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. At least part of that will be true,” he chuckled to himself. “Give Cindy your pants size, I think she can probably find a decent one.”
I groaned, but I couldn’t argue. We went back into the bar to find the attorney waiting for us.
“This why you came to hunt me up?” I asked curiously.
“We do need to start preparing you for trial,” Warren spoke up from the table he was parked at. He already had a plate of wings and a pint of beer on the table. “Give you an idea as to what you should expect and how you’ll be expected to behave.”
I went to his table to join him, “I don’t get to just sit there and look pretty?”
Warren chuckled in amusement, and I heard Wilson growl out, “Fucking kid.”
“No,” he shook his head. “While that’s the majority of what you will be doing, sitting there and listening. It’s in your best interest to pay attention and try to do your best to keep from looking bored. If you fall asleep, that can pretty much be a nail in the coffin for you.” He looked down at the meal before him and seemed to be considering his words. “You might be asked questions, and it’ll be smart that you refrain from using profanity.” He looked at me, “Will the majority of your tattoos be covered by a suit?”
I didn’t have any on my neck, and the only ones that I couldn’t cover were on my hands and fingers. I held up the back of my hands, “Unless I wore gloves, though I think that would be kind of lame.”
Warren nodded in agreement, “You can keep your hands off the table, and it’ll be a little less telling. It’ll be pretty easy to clean you up and have you presentable looking next week.”
“I’m fine with cleaning up as long as I don’t end up in jail for something I didn’t do,” I told him stiffly. It’s not that I didn’t think I could hack jail, it’s just that I didn’t want to hack jail, especially when all I was doing was keeping an eye on someone. If I had to wear a monkey suit to keep my freedom, I’d do it.
24
Of course, the trial was something that would creep up on me while I tried to ignore the stress and depression which were curling their fingers around my throat. I was so bound and determined to work my way through it that I had to spend the entire day before the actual trial scrubbing all the oil off my hands and working to make sure that I got the grease from under my fingernails. Cindy got me a suit that was only a little tight in the shoulders. When I tried it on for her, she whistled low and eyed me in a way I wasn’t used to from her. Despite the fact that she enjoyed calling me ‘pretty boy.’
“If I were twenty years younger, boy,” she started as she helped adjust the jacket for me. “I would make it so that you walked funny.”
“Jokes on you,” I shrugged, not liking the feel of the cotton on me. I felt trapped and cramped in it. “I already walk funny.”
I was given a white linen button down and a simple tie to polish off the yuppie look. Honestly, I would have preferred my dress uniform to this crap. I still had it in the back of my closet. I wore the shined up shoes to it, so there was one thing that kept me from feeling too out of place. Really, I felt more at home in my uniform than I did in this monkey suit. It didn’t help anything, all the preparing just made it harder for me to sleep.
So, I kept my work lighter, and I spent the majority of the time, chewing my pills and having my tens unit taped to me. The night before, I had Wilson eyeing me with something that looked like concern, “Are you going to need that tomorrow?”
I shook my head, “Even if I do hurt I’ll just suffer through it. It’ll keep me from falling asleep.”
“You got something you can take for that?”
“I got something that’ll make me look stoned,” I leaned over in my seated position and propped my elbows up on my knees. “Pretty sure we don’t want me looking high.”
He nodded and moved as if he were going to leave me alone now. But he paused, standing just a short distance away from me.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a length. “This would have been a whole lot easier if we just took your word for it.”
I nodded, not sure what to say because all this would have been avoided if they had trusted me.
It all came back to that. There was a lack of trust from Wilson and Teddy. There was a lack of trust from Madi. If they had just followed my hunch and questioned Jimmy they might have realized that I was telling the truth. Then I wouldn’t have been arrested, and Madi wouldn’t have been forced to choose something. Our relationship was still new, so it was asking too much to expect her to stick with me. I realized that and I didn’t find myself angry with her, though maybe I should be. It didn’t seem fair that she didn’t even give me the chance to explain or defend myself. But, I guess it wasn’t fair to ask her to take on this stress.
“Yep,” was all I could say.
I hand fell on my shoulder, and I felt it squeeze lightly, “I’ll do what I can to make it right.”
25
The trial was both boring and frustrating. There was a list of my crimes, and the prosecution painted a picture of a wounded warrior turned junkie due to the number of medications I was on, a few of which were narcotics. The lady had a very viable picture of me seeking a better high by abusing methamphetamines. I’d never really been big into drugs. The only times I ever got drunk were more for a means to just numb my thoughts. Though, considering the fact that my medicine bag looked more like a pharmacy, and the list of prescriptions I had, I could see where she was getting at.
Fortunately, Warren was quick to point out just what the drug screening reported. I only took the medications that I needed to function. Taking all the others didn’t seem to have the desired effects, and that was something I was willing to testify on. However, I didn’t get to testify at all. If anything all I got to do was sit and look pretty as my fate was argued between my attorney and a pretty lady that seemed all too eager to put me in jail.
This apparently was what the legal system passed for nowadays.
Fortunate
ly, for me, there was far too much evidence provided that proved that I was innocent. When the judge struck the gavel down on his bench, it was ruled that was what I was. I was innocent, just a fool for being in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I got a steely-eyed look from the man in the black robes and a stern, “Don’t let me see you in my courtroom again.”
I saluted and gave a convinced, “Yes sir.” I didn’t need to be told twice.
After that, it was our queue to leave. I turned, waiting as Warren packed up his things, and spotted a familiar brunette leaving the courtroom. Granted, brown hair was pretty common. I hadn’t heard from Madi since I was arrested, much less seen her. But at that brief sight I had to see if it was her for sure; if I could catch up. I shifted around Warren and breezed past Wilson and Teddy, trying to get out of the courtroom in a rush.
