by Jessie Cooke
As soon as the words “You can’t smoke in here,” were out of his mouth, Jace wanted to kick himself in the ass. He couldn’t help being ugly, but he could try being a little smoother. The smile was still on her face as she said:
“I know. My friend is…” She looked over toward the bikers and said, “…busy. I was going to slip outside for a minute and have a smoke.”
“Oh, well, I don’t have a light.” Shit. There I go again. He could have asked the fucking bartender for a match. For that matter, she could have too. Maybe she really just wanted to talk to him? Nah…surely not. “The bartender might have matches, though,” he said, quickly. “I’ll check.” He jumped up and went over to the bar. He asked the female bartender for matches and she barely looked up at him as she tossed a pack over the bar. Jace caught them and went back over where the woman was sitting. He held the matches up and her smile grew even brighter.
“You’re my hero! Do you want to have a smoke with me?”
I don’t smoke now was on the tip of his tongue, but he caught himself that time and said, “Sure.” She slid off her stool. She was tall, for a woman. She came up to Jace’s shoulder. She had on jeans and a top that fitted her snugly and showed just a little bit of cleavage…enough to make Jace want to see the rest. He let her go ahead of him and as he followed her through the bar toward the front door he couldn’t help but notice how nicely round her ass was. He felt his body responding, but he also had to remind himself that this girl wasn’t like Ginger; he couldn’t just pay her for sex.
The chill in the air assaulted them as soon as they walked out of the door of the bar. The girl put her hands up on her arms and began to rub them. Jace pulled off his coat and held it out to her. “Oh no! I can’t take your coat. You’ll be cold.”
“I’m alright,” he said. “Hot-blooded.” She smiled at him again and his blood temperature spiked another degree. When she took the coat out of his big hand, her fingers brushed his and he shivered.
“Oh no, see! You’re shivering.”
“It’s not the weather,” he said. She seemed to understand and she smiled again, almost wickedly, as she slid her arms into Jace’s coat. She pulled it closed in front and said:
“Oh goodness, it’s so warm, thank you.” Jace nodded and she began to dig through her bag. “I’m looking for…”
“Rachelle? What the fuck are you doing out here?” Jace and Rachelle were standing in the shadows. When the man with the angry voice stepped underneath the light from the other side, he looked like an apparition. Rachelle gasped and said:
“John, what are you doing here is the question! Are you checking up on me?”
“Looks like a good thing I was,” he said, looking at Jace. “We’re you really going to fuck Frankenstein?” Jace felt that old familiar feeling of rage begin to flare up in his core. It was like being back in grade school and being called “Jace the Giant” or “Jaliath.” It took his memory back to that dark, ugly day when they all threw stones at him, hitting him in the face and head, like it was nothing, like he wasn’t human and didn’t have any feelings.
“Stop it, John. You’re such an ass. Go home. I’m here with Lisa. I’ll be home later.”
“Huh-uh,” he said. Jace hadn’t said a word, but he was glaring down at the man. “I’m not leaving you here with the Jolly Green Giant. Come on, let’s go home.”
“No. I’m not going.”
“Bullshit,” the guy said. Either he was a fucking idiot, or the bravest man that Jace had ever met. He reached across Jace and grabbed the girl by the arm. “Come on, you stupid bitch.” And that was the moment that the rage took over. Jace grabbed the guy and threw him up against the cement wall behind them. The girl screamed and all hell broke loose. “John” hadn’t come alone; three more guys were suddenly on Jace. He was getting punched and kicked, but he was still giving as good as he was getting until one of the guys pulled out a knife. Jace reached for the guy’s arm just as he saw one of the big bikers pull the other guy off him. He heard the sounds of their fighting while he struggled with the guy with the knife. He had it leveled at Jace’s neck and before Jace could get his arm bent all the way back, he felt a horrible sting as his skin separated. He could feel the hot blood running down his chest and the man’s arm snapping at the same time. The knife fell from the man’s grasp and Jace hit him with his fist, right between the eyes, before letting go of him and letting him fall to the sidewalk. Sirens were already splitting the air before the guy’s head hit the cement, bounced up, and hit it again. Jace had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that this was it…his miserable life was finally over.
7
Five Years Later
Jace picked up the phone on his side of the partition. Newell Jamison sat on the other side, taking up every bit of available space with his massive body. He smiled at Jace and said, “Kill anybody today, fool?”
Jace didn’t think it was funny that he’d killed a man, but what he had to learn over the past five years was that if he didn’t laugh at himself and his fucked-up situation, his life really would be over. “Not today,” he said. “How’s things with you?”
Newell shrugged. “You know. They still won’t let me fight in sanctioned fights. Fucker’s hold a grudge, let me tell you. But I’m gonna show those bastards. I’m starting up a chapter of the Black Warriors in a place called Buckeye, Arizona.” Newell had been on his way to becoming a professional fighter before he met Jace. That night at Spirits, Newell had been there with his brother. He was visiting from Arizona and his brother was the VP for the Black Warriors. Newell had been the man that pulled John off him. Newell had broken that guy’s orbital sockets, his nose, and one of his arms. The police took Jace and Newell in and charged them both with assault. Because of Newell’s affiliation with professional boxing, however, he was also charged with attempted murder. He spent three years in prison for it.
The guy who cut Jace showed up in court for Jace’s sentencing, looking all pathetic. Jace had broken his nose and his jaw. The arm he’d had the knife in was broken in two places. He stood up and talked about how he still hadn’t been able to return to school and how the doctors told him there was permanent damage to his arm and it would never heal right. He even had tears. However, the judge was the type that wanted the full story. By the time the sentencing hearing was wrapped up, Jace was given ten months and the judge had the other guy arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. He was pissed that the knifer hadn’t already been charged and said something about how stupid he was for picking a fight with a guy Jace’s size. Thankfully, the other guy lived in an entirely different county, so Jace didn’t have to see him in jail. Unfortunately, there were still quite a few assholes that he did have to deal with.
Halfway through Jace’s sentence, when he was looking forward to seeing his little sister in only five months, he was assaulted by two inmates in the shower. As it turned out, the inmates had been paid by the family of the guy who cut Jace at the bar…but that didn’t help Jace any in the end. He knocked the first guy out pretty quickly, but the shower floor was slick and when the second guy jumped him, they both went down to the tile floor. Jace lost the advantage for just a second and the other inmate slammed his head into Jace’s face. He felt his nose crunch and his head felt like it had exploded from the inside out. All he could hear at that point was the hiss of the rage as it crawled up through his veins. It was hot and when it reached his eyes it colored everything red. He grabbed the man on top of him by the shoulders and literally threw him off. The attacker flew up and hit the wall behind him. He hit it just right to snap his neck and by the time the guards got there, he was dead.
The judge gave Jace five years for that. The video surveillance in the jail saved him from an outright murder conviction. He was charged instead with manslaughter, and self-defense was taken into consideration. The worst part of it all was the torture he went through trying to find out what was happening to Rosie. He was sure the old man wasn’t taking her to school
or cooking her special dinners every night, and when he finally got in touch with her old care provider, he found out that he was right. The son of a bitch had put her into a “home” for people with special needs in Connecticut and once again all he had to do was cut a check every month. Jace almost drove himself crazy worrying about her until he finally got access to the Internet through a smuggled-in cell phone his cellmate let him use, and he looked the place up. It was highly rated and most of the reviews were positive. He still lay awake at night thinking about Rosie’s hating him for leaving her all alone, but at least he felt better about her physical needs being taken care of.
“I’m sorry,” Jace said to Newell. “I hate that you lost everything because of me.”
“You didn’t ask for my help. Those fools were going to kill you. Hell, as if I was gonna stand by and watch a bunch of skinny white boys take a guy out for no other reason than that their rich white asses knew they’d get off scot-free doing it.”
Jace chuckled. “I’m a white boy, Newell, you ever notice that?”
“Yeah, but you ain’t no pretty white boy. You ugly as fuck. I got a thing for the underdog and one look at your face told me you were it.”
Jace laughed, genuinely. Newell’s barbs were meant to be funny, and not mean, and Jace was learning to recognize the difference. He was also learning to not care what other people thought of him. So many times his life had been upended, and almost ended, thanks to his inability to ignore a bully. It wasn’t worth it. Once he got out of prison, he wasn’t going back, no matter what. “I do appreciate it,” Jace said.
“I know you do. Anyway, I came to see Trevon, but I’m headed back to the West Coast today. Wanted to come by and lay eyes on you before you killed someone else and they locked you up in solitary or some shit.”
Chuckling, Jace said, “So are you serious about the club?”
“Hell, yeah! My bro is the president now, you know?”
“I think I heard something about that. Their president had a bad accident out on the highway, can’t ride anymore?”
“Yeah, it fucked him up bad. He bounced off a car and the bike slid underneath a semi. He ain’t never gonna walk again. He’s a good guy, it’s sad as fuck. But, they gave him honorary status for life and voted Trevon in as president. When they started talking about expanding Trevon thought of me, since I know so many guys out there on the West Coast. Shit, I brought twenty guys in just last week.”
“Good for you.” Jace had to admit that he was a little jealous. He still dreamed of being a biker someday, but now he was twenty-three years old and he still hadn’t been on the back of one except the day he rode on Dax Marshall’s bike. While he was locked up he heard that Doc Marshall died of a heart attack or something. That made him sad. He had always held onto the silly notion that the blue-eyed man meant what he said about Jace joining up with them someday. He doubted that his son would remember him or feel the same. “Maybe I can join up someday,” he said with a wink. “I’m out of here in a week.”
Newell threw his head back and laughed. “Boy, this is the part where I tell you that I sure did notice you were white.” It felt good to laugh. Not much of that happened in prison. Jace felt like he had to be constantly on guard. He was jumped twice when he first got there. The first time he was stabbed multiple times in the back with a punch tool that the inmates used in the leather shop. The second time it was his cellmate who attacked him in his sleep. Jace got the better of him, but it still made him want to always sleep with one eye open, and he rarely ever rested. He was lonely and depressed most of the time. His yearly visits from Newell had been the highlight of his stay in prison and they were always much too short. The buzzer sounded and as their visit came to an end Newell said, “You know I can’t bring no white meat into my club, but if you ever need anything, man…you know where to find me.”
Jace nodded and smiled. “The same goes,” he said. “I owe you a lot.”
“Damn straight you do!” Newell winked. “I’ll see you around, white boy. Stop killing people.”
Jace’s hands shook as he sat in the dayroom, holding the rag doll he’d bought for Rosie in one of his big hands. He’d come straight from the prison, walking most of the way until a truck full of farm laborers picked him up and took him into the city. He wasn’t about to call his old man to pick him up, not even if he had to walk a hundred miles. The prison had given him his wallet back and luckily it still had fifty bucks in it. He called the bank as soon as he could and his account had a little over three hundred dollars in it still, so that was all good news. It would be enough to keep him going for a while, at least until he got a job. In the meantime he at least knew Rosie was in a safe place.
He looked around the room he was sitting in. It was large and the floor was so clean and shiny that he could almost see his face in the reflection…not that he would want to. Adding insult to injury, he wasn’t just ugly now, but he had new scars. The man at the bar hadn’t succeeded in slitting his throat, he’d only gotten off a few flicks of his wrist, but they’d left slashes and those slashes had turned into scars. He didn’t even want to think about how he’d explain the scars left by the leather punch when…or if…he was ever with a woman again. Sometimes he felt like he couldn’t get any uglier and then life proved him wrong.
“Mr. Bell?” Jace looked up. There was a nurse or maybe she was a social worker, standing next to the table. He stood up, squeezing the little doll in his hand and said,
“Yes. Is my sister okay?”
The social worker smiled. “Yes, she is. I’m Maria Olague. I’m Rosie’s therapist. I just wanted to meet you. She talks about you, a lot.”
“Talks? Rosie talks?” When Jace got locked up, Rosie was able to say a handful of words, but they were hard to understand and she wasn’t able to put them in sentences.
“Yes,” she said. “She can even sign a little.”
“Wow, that’s great. This place must be as good as the brochures say they are.”
“We try,” she said, with another bright smile.
“Do you know…has our father come to visit her?”
“No,” the therapist said. The smile fell off her face. “I contacted him each time there was a review of Rosie’s case or a family day. I let him know when visiting was and that she was able to go home for the holidays now…he didn’t seem interested in any of it.”
Jace had to stop himself from letting the words roll off the tip of his tongue. He wanted to tell her that the Colonel was a piece of shit, but he knew that it was pointless. He just nodded and said, “I’m sorry. I’m here for her now.”
The therapist smiled again and nodded. “Good. Oh, and here she is.”
Jace looked toward the door and his jaw dropped. The girl standing there couldn’t possibly be Rosie. This girl was a teenager with long, straight black hair that was all shiny and she had a headband on that matched the skirt and sweater she was wearing. She had curves, like a woman. Fuck…his little sister had grown up, and he wasn’t even there to see it.
Jace stood up. “Rosie?” The girl didn’t move. Her dark eyes ran over him, slowly taking him in. Jace hoped that she was just taking him in, like he had her, and not that she’d forgotten him. The therapist walked toward her with her hand out and said:
“Rosie, come say hello to Jace.”
“Jace?” His name rolled off his sister’s tongue almost as easily as it had the therapist’s. Her voice sounded different too. It was much more mature, like a woman’s and not a little girl’s. She was only thirteen…almost fourteen…but still. Jace didn’t remember girls looking like her when he was fourteen.
“Yes, Rosie…it’s me. Jace.”
She took the therapist’s hand and let her lead her toward him. Staying put was hard, but he didn’t want to scare her. He learned, when she was small, never to approach her too quickly. Sometimes it caused her to have a complete meltdown. “Jace,” she said again. He smiled and nodded and fought back the tears that were stinging his e
yes. The therapist led her up to him and Rosie lifted her small hand and put it on the side of his face. Jace closed his eyes for a second and just let all the feelings soak in. When he opened them, her dark eyes were locked into his and he said:
“Rosie. I missed you. I’m so sorry I had to go away.”
“You left,” she said. It wasn’t a statement, or a question, but rather a little of both. Jace slowly brought his own hand up and covered hers with it as he nodded.
“I did…but I didn’t want to. I’m so sorry, Rosie. I love you.”
She brought her other hand up and put it on the other side of his face and said, “Love you.” Jace lost his battle with the tears and his impulse control as well. He wrapped her up in a hug and felt her go stiff. He let her go right away and said, “I’m sorry. It just made me so happy to hear you say you love me.”
“Love,” she said, nodding. Then her eyes caught the doll he was still holding in his left hand and she actually smiled. “Doll?”
Jace smiled back and held it up. “Yes. It’s for you. A doll for Rosie.”
“What do you say, Rosie?” Maria asked her.
“Mine.” Maria and Jace laughed. Jace gave it to her and she held it to her chest and said, “Thank you.” Tears rolled freely down his face then. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, even all the long lonely nights in prison. But these were different. These were happy tears, the kind that reminded him he was alive, and why. So many times he thought of all the reasons why he shouldn’t exist…and in the process, he’d almost lost sight of the one reason that he did.
