For Which We Stand: Ian's road (A Five Roads To Texas Novel Book 3)

by Joseph Hansen

  Maybe Boomer isn’t home and we can just quietly take it? Waiz hoped but he knew that wasn’t the case. He saw him in town earlier and made eye contact and even gave a little nod. It made Waiz think that maybe he was coming around and not as angry at us anymore. At least me, Boomer never really liked Ibrahim.

  He felt bad that it was Boomers they were going to hit tonight, but they had been called to the cause and if they were to become men they had to accept their destiny and theirs was the cause.

  Waiz remembered the two laser eyes on the main drive and stood behind them waiting for some sign it was his time. He had worked up one side of the drive coming at the cameras from behind before he looped around to get the last one up high for a birds eye. Fortunately the coaxial was simply tacked to the side of the pole where a simple clip with a Milwaukee tool ended its connection.

  The cameras being cut off was an alarm bell to Boomer inside and Waiz soon heard the screen door click quietly shut on the back door. It typically slammed shut when people passed in and out of it all day long so he knew Boomer was being wary. His wife still ran the overnight shift at nursing home in town and Boomer didn’t like dogs with all of the shooting that happens out here so he was alone.

  Waiz was the shadow in the darkness watching as the scene infolded, his part already played. Boomer stepped away from the house his form silhouetted by the glow of a small light above a distant barn door. His AR15 held tightly in a two handed grip a side arm holstered on his waist, his large head swept east to west. He advance towards the driveway as the thief in the night observed not daring to make a move. Waiz wasn’t going to be the target of the man’s lethal aim and he found himself wondering how Ibrahim and Sa’ir would get around his abilities. Boomer owns the gun shop and had built a range alongside of it. His life was guns and maneuvers which he proved by slowly walking the edge of the drive his weapon shouldered and ready a green laser slicing out in front of him.

  “Hey Boomer, it’s me… Ibrahim.” Ibrahim said trying to sound like the kid he used to be.

  Boomer spun and pointed his rifle at the kid who he had known for so long.

  “What are you doing out here Ibrahim?” Boomer asked lowering the barrel but not taking it off his shoulder.

  “My car broke down and I am walking back to town. I saw you out here and was spooked so I let you know it was me.” Ibrahim replied innocently and Boomer noted that he was still actually on the road and not in his driveway. Could it be coincidence that he was walking by just then? Just then when my cameras failed? He was suspicious but had known the boy for a long time and his cameras had failed before. Boomer didn’t think to check the infra-red trip wires because he shut those of on his way out the door. No need having all the bells and whistles going off when you’re trying to be stealthy.

  He dropped the rifle down to his side and slung the shoulder strap over his shoulder. He thought about offering the kid a ride home or even help him with his car but it was a nice night for a walk.

  “Goodnight Ibrahim, and good luck with your vehicle.” He turned to go back to the house. He didn’t make it two steps when something big and very hard slammed him in the side of his head. He turned and looked confusedly at Ibrahim who was simply standing in the road watching. He looked down and saw a fist size boulder on the ground and his head started to spin. He was hit again as he tried to get his gun back into his hands and he fell onto his knees. Boomer saw a skinny man rush to his side and a clear plastic bag was thrown over his head and tightened behind his head. Ibrahim was walking up the driveway now, when he got close he reached down and took the 1911 out of the holster on Boomer’s hip checking to see if a round was in the chamber.

  Waiz came out of the woods and Boomer looked up at him with pleading eyes as Ibrahim put the gun to his head as Sa’ir held the bag tight suffocating the semi-conscious man. He wanted to do something, punch Ibrahim and take the gun or cut the bag so Boomer could breathe but he didn’t. He did nothing; he said nothing, he felt…

  The shot rang out into the still night air echoing across the plains. A single shot to scare off coyotes or kill a skunk, nothing that would even be commented on when the sun rose again.

  Shouldn’t the days of new opportunities be gone?

  So many better days have passed that I can’t help but wonder…

  Do I have it in me?

  For her… for her, I just might have enough.

  Bob.

  Chapter 1

  Bob gently applied another layer of synthetic wax on the powder-coated, aluminum hull, buffing it slowly in circular patterns. Using a soft chamois, he gently smoothed over the glaze, bringing out the flawless luster within the finish. He often wished he could do that with life; just give it a little elbow grease and watch the smudges wisp away. Bob was a man who loved many things; his garage; now that he expanded it into a nice shop, his mid-western home, and the boat that his garage held. Sadly, what or should I say whom he truly loved was no more. He also had no illusions about life and the world today nor about the people in that world. People he had helped to guide and offered a leg up to turned sour. Not just to him personally, that never bothered someone like Bob.

  He worked feverishly at a scuff that he was beginning to think was an actual damage to the paint. No, it was just a stain, something he would have to use stronger chemicals on to get out. The though made him freeze in place. How ironic. They were stains too, those who hate and steal or kill. They were running rampant in the world today and it was the world who paid the price. But they were still people and not just smudges that could be buffed away… were they? Had they actually become stains requiring removal. A stronger chemical or treatment being all that the world needed to get rid of this scum?

  One more thing for you darling, I think I can fix one more thing for you and then… I am spent. I am ready.

  Bob was not the type to consider taking things into his own hands, it just wasn’t in him Although, some days, he wanted it so badly that he almost… almost, but no, not him. To take his own life would deny him being with her, and it went against everything they had believed in. Life… is precious but meaningless without each other.

  Bob knew that enjoying things helped to pass the time, but it wasn’t real and left a man empty. He regretted never having done a stint in the military or volunteering for anything at all, his private time being too precious. It could have given him that feeling of brotherhood that he never experienced in his adult life, he didn’t think he missed it but he didn’t really know. He never really did any community stuff; not like Maria used to. In fact, he avoided social contact like that. In turn, it made Bob a very dull person, living a very lonely life now that she was gone. He began to realize that his life was in some ways… wasted. Then an opportunity presented itself, a chance to make a difference and do some good before it was too late. An opportunity that originated as snail mail with a letterhead for Tri-fold Industries. A letter that was followed up with a visit exactly forty eight hours later.

  Every logical thought led to Tri-Fold being a fraud, he didn’t believe what they were doing could even be done, but he was doing it. If it was all smoke and mirrors then they were very convincing smoke and mirrors. The point was she was gone now and it seemed every decision he made nowadays were because she gone. His soul was laid open, his every though and action centered around making their life better. A struggle as old as mankinmd —and he missed it terribly. He had lost the only thing that had mattered in his life, and he would do anything to just to spend one more minute of life or death with her; anything to just smell her again.

  Forty years, you were the very oxygen breathed and I don’t know what to do without you. Until now. I have nothing left except things and knowledge. I never truly contributed to the greater good. I worked and served my own needs. Maybe there was still a chance to do something … Maybe there is still an opportunity to make a difference.

  His lamenting came to an end when his friend and neighbor, Wayne, slipped into the garage and wit
hout so much as a nod, moved deeper into the shadows of the riginal one car leaving Bob in the new two car shop. It only took a couple of minutes more before two more men arrived in front of the open overhead door. Both wore baggy blue jeans and expensive brightly colored tennis shoes and dark jerseys from some west coast team. There was aggression in their stance .and wearing angry faces. The sun had set leaving a wisp of range apinted clouds on the horizon, star showing upon the blackness above telling Bob that the timing was as close to perfect as he could have hoped for.

  Just the two men Bob was hoping for. Both the same age but one was thin and gangly while the other was stocky and thick. Worse yet, they were both as dumb as rocks

  “Where did he go, old man?”

  “Where did who go?”

  “The kid. We know he came by here,” Ibrahim said. Bob thought they were nice kids when they first moved into town, but that was many years ago. About three years ago things started to change, it didn’t take long to get to this point.

  “Yeah, mister, he probably smelled like he shit his pants he was running so fast!” Waiz said, laughing as if he was some kind of tough guy. He was the kid who ran home to mommy when he fell off his bike and cried when the bigger boys stole his soccer ball. Real tough.

  “Why do you call me ‘mister’? You know my name; you’ve known it for ten years,” Bob said, even though he had refused to say theirs for the last two.

  “Yeah, we know your name, oldman. You used to be cool with us, but now you’re not an it don’t feel right” Waiz, the calmer of the two, said curiously. He was the thinker of the two; probably the thinker of the whole lot of them but he played second fiddle and seemed to be happy doing it.

  Is there still hope, or had their crimes already surpassed their worth? Could there still be enough decency locked within to bring them back to what they might have been? Bob shook his head, knowing the truth. He looked at the ground when he saw the hate on their faces—the lust to raise hell as well as the passion to inflict pain.

  “Cool, huh? Yeah, I suppose cool will have to do,” he said while recollecting favors and help that had been provided to their families.

  The refugee crisis around the world had put great strain on many larger cities, but small towns like his had found a way to find mutual benefit. Unfortunately, things had gone south since their initial successes.

  At least that is how it turned out here, but with these two there was still hope. Slight as it might be there was still hope because deep down, Bob knew they had the propensity to do good.

  A clang rang out as Waiz let his steel pipe slide out of his sleeve so the end bounced off the apron of the driveway while retaining the other end in his hand still partially tucked into his coat sleeve.

  “You know I heard that pipe bouncing off the road from over a block away. My ears aren’t so good anymore so that tells me you wanted people to know that you were there. Why is that?”

  Waiz smirked and spat back at Bob. “You know my name old man, say it!”

  “No.” He paused, searching for the words. “I don’t know your names anymore. You are no longer worthy to bear them. I once knew two boy’s named Ibrahim and Waiz… but that is not who you are. They were nice kids who shoveled my walk in the winter for ten bucks, but I always gave them fifteen because one was smart and nice while the other was so damn funny.” Bob looked sadly at Waiz, remembering his smile when he was saying something ridiculous, and searching for the boy he once knew. “Where are those boys now? What happened to them? Who, or better yet, what have you become?”

  “This is bullshit, Bob. We grew the fuck up! Opened our fucking eyes and saw the truth. So just tell us where he went so we can get back to business. We don’t want to have to hurt you too, Bob,” Ibrahim said.

  “Don’t worry about hurting me; you have already done that, Ibrahim. Business---now what kind of business would you be involved in? Oh, you mean chasing Wayne? You call that business?”

  “You mean Wang, don’t you? His name is Wang, and we’re going to bust his Buddhist ass,” Waiz said with a weird run-on type of laugh that Bob thought he felt made him sound crazed or like some kind of bad ass.

  “Wayne. His name is Wayne and he’s not Buddhist. He’s a member of the Lutheran church just down the block. How can you be angry at Wayne? Wayne never bothered anyone.”

  “He shouldn’t have been talking abo---” Waiz started before before Ibrahim stopped him with a hand held out to his chest.

  “Wayne… has some dues to pay,” Ibrahim said slyly.

  “Dues? Oh you mean the Lions Club or the Jaycees or some other club like that?” Bob said toying with them a bit.

  “Something like that. He’s here, isn’t he, Bob?”

  “Good, I thought it was something like payback for turning in your boy, Sa’ir,” Bob said and waited for the impact of his words to settle in. “Yeah, it’s regretful what happened to Molly that is. I can hardly believe that Sa’ir would do something like that,” Bob continued as he rested his forearms on the gunnel of his boat, his hands dangling inside. Bob would have liked to have had Sa’ir here too, but the authorities had gotten enough out of Molly to at least get him off the streets.

  “She played him,” Waiz spat, his disgust for the girl beyond evident. “She got what was coming to her” which caused Bob to stare at him incredulously. The look on Ibrahim’s face showed that he agreed with his friend.

  “Poor child, that poor sweet child whose only crime was growing up in the same town as people like…” Bob paused with hopes that leaving it open-ended would make them think and fill in the blank with their own thoughts. “She might not survive, you know… no, you don’t care. You don’t give a rat’s ass! You grew up with her, swung on the same swings and played in the same fields. What in the hell is wrong with you?” Bob questioned as if they were his own children, but they weren’t his kids for Bob never had any of his own.

  “Quit trying to distract us, Bob.” Ibrahim dragged out the O in his name. “Where do you have Wang stashed?”

  “If you keep calling him Wang, I will begin to think that you are a little racist, Waiz. Where would you and your family be if the whole country was racist?” Bob said, trying to strike a chord of gratuity or something. What was the one emotion that would get through to these bastards who seemed destined to stain the earth with more blood?

  “Don’t you dare say that to us. You have no idea what we have lived through. We’re not the racists;, you are. You and all who are like you” Ibrahim protested, angered by Bob’s comment.

  How could he see himself as being anything other than a racist asshole? Bob wondered.

  “We have been the focus of your country’s racism our whole lives, old man. You wouldn’t survive the shit we been through.” Waiz said while slowly sliding the steel pipe up his sleeve as a car crept slowly around the distant corner. It was the act of a predator, a beast on the prowl, ready to do harm instantly. Aware and conscious of his exposed back, watching, listening… prepared to hide, run or kill.

  “Racism? My country’s racism is the only reason why you survived the mess that is and was your country. For thousands of years you have been warring with each other, jumbling borders in such a way that today you don’t even know who you are and what you fight. It was our racist country that took you from that and offered you something more.” Bob was on a roll and planned on spitting it out while he had the chance.

  “You say we live a lie and that we’ are phony, and I don’t deny it. Sometimes it’s called courtesy, and it is a vital ingredient towards the cohabitation of human kind. Did you ever think that maybe that was how we were able to stop killing each other enough to progress our lives? Did you ever think of that Ibrahim? Waiz?, No? No, I guess you haven’t,” Bob said with finality. “You would rather kill, maim, and destroy instead of accepting that some people are different than you and being a little phony is nothing but diplomacy that is required to keep things moving.”

  A squad car was approaching slowly
down a hill on the street just north of Bob’s house. The Sheriff’s deputy who lived up the block was starting his shift or coming off his break. Andy was a good kid who was only a couple of years older than the punks Bob was interacting with. He stopped and surveyed the scene before they heard the hum as he powered the window down.

  It is a sad day when a sheriff’s deputy in a small town has to be so cautious, Bob thought.

  “Ibrahim, Waiz, how are you boys doing tonight?” Andy asked, nicely but guarded.

  “We’re good, Officer Andy,” Ibrahim said with condescending sarcasm coating his words.

  Bob noticed how Waiz turned toward Andy, his arm with the pipe in the sleeve slightly behind him. Bob recognized the stance of a snake ready to strike, ready to bash Andy’s head in if it came down to it. He pulled one arm off the gunwale of the boat and turned to face the three with a relaxed smile.

  “Hi, Andy!” Bob said with a wave as his other hand opened the glove box on the console of the boat.

  If that pipe drops out of his sleeve. I know he’ll use it on Andy. I can’t allow that to happen. I will kill him right where he stands regardless of the planned project…

  “Just having a chat with the neighbor boys, Andy.”

  “Sounds good, Mister Johnson. Have a good evening then. Waiz, you haven’t been seen at your community service. You’ve got eight hours left… let’s get them done so I don’t have to come and talk to you, all right?”