Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One

by Adam Knight

  “I trust you, son. You’ve always done the right thing, even when it hurt you.” He stared at me then, his heavy brown eyed stare.

  I blinked my eyes a few times. Must’ve been the smoke irritating them as they clouded over. I brought my hands up to rub at them achingly, trying to get them clear.

  When I opened them again I was in my room, staring up as the ceiling as faint sunlight trickled through the window well over my head. Pain flooded into my awareness, bruises and aches demanding my attention like a screaming infant.

  The tingling sensation was back at the base of my neck. My shoulder was still warm from where Dad had gripped it.

  And I was starving.

  “Fucking dreams,” I groaned before rolling off the mattress to face the music.

  Chapter 41

  The next couple days were fairly busy. Or at least, I made certain I was busy. Being busy was good. Kept me from thinking. I hate thinking. Thinking just makes things complicated.

  Which is probably why I don’t have a girlfriend. Because I hate complications. And in no way because I live in the basement of my sick mother’s house.

  Moving on.

  It took some fast talking to convince Mom that the beating I took came from a tripping and falling incident. After about an hour she gave up arguing and allowed me to resume my normal duties as far as caring for her went. Including of course Doctor’s visits, medicine runs to the pharmacy and the daily trip to the church to move chairs around in the multi-purpose room for a wedding or whatever.

  In truth I know that she knew I was full of shit. But after a time Mom’s learned to give me my space, trusting that eventually I will open up and let her know what’s gone on.

  She was going to be waiting a while for this one.

  Tamara called twice a day to check up on me. I ignored her calls. Same as the ones from Cathy, who called a few more times leaving messages on the answering machine. Coming back from a grocery run and throwing out the notes Mom had taken earned me more disapproving looks, but I was fairly good at ignoring those look by now. She hadn’t yet unleashed the Mom Stare on me, so that was something.

  By the time Friday morning rolled around I was feeling much better physically. Looking at my reflection in the mirror showed the black eyes had almost healed and become that faint yellowish hue. All my cuts had closed up to faint red marks along my flesh. Even the deep bruises along my body and ribcage had healed up nicely. Amazing what rest and healthy eating can do, right?

  Mealtime was a silent affair for me. Mom would turn on the news every night and I would take my dinner downstairs to watch something mindless and useless. So FOX News and MTV Canada primarily.

  My appetite was a bit odd. While I was still crazy hungry at times, it wasn’t as intense as the week prior where I would be ravenous going without food for more than two hours. Since my days consisted of sedentary actions and relaxing in my own misery, I figure I just wasn’t as hungry as I would be if I had gone to the gym and pretended to be a damned athlete.

  So I picked away at my meals while watching shitty TV and tried to ignore the world around me.

  Yeah, I was feeling sorry for myself. And guilty. Very, very guilty for my own cowardice.

  But you don’t get it. Sometimes in life you don’t get to decide things. They get decided for you.

  Over a decade ago, life had decided to take away my plans on becoming a television producer and sports reporter. Instead I became my mother’s keeper and the resident drunken nightclub patron’s security blanket.

  You think I wanted this? That I wanted to be in this position in life? This deeply stuck in my own head and unable to get clear?

  It was enough to drive a man to drink.

  Huh, not a bad idea.

  Mind made up I heaved my sorry ass off the couch, grabbed my breakfast dishes and stomped my way upstairs.

  Mom met me in the kitchen as I gave my cereal bowl a quick scrub.

  “How are you feeling today?” she asked, her face neutral.

  I grunted in response. Might’ve been a positive or a negative.

  Mom tightened her bathrobe some, folding her arms in as she did. I tried to ignore the worried expression in her eyes face by scrubbing a bit more furiously at the frying pan. It was beyond clean but I didn’t trust myself to meet her eyes.

  “Joe, are you in some kind of trouble?”

  The pan slipped out of my fingers and made a loud banging noise against the stainless steel sink.

  My face flushed and I didn’t answer.

  Mom nodded knowingly.

  “Does it have something to do with the club you work at?”

  I closed my eyes, still not answering.

  It’s really not fair. Mom’s been able to read me like a damned carnival psychic since I was eight years old. Asking leading and probing questions until my own fool reactions gave me away.

  It’s a good thing Mom doesn’t play cards. What happened to my poker face?

  She nodded slightly, her expression unreadable. Well, mostly unreadable. I can’t count the look of worry on her face, she had that expression no matter what was going on.

  I made a show of finishing up with the frying pan, dried it thoroughly and put it away.

  “Are you in danger?’

  Yes.

  “No, Mom. I’m all right.”

  “Clearly.” She stepped up next to me, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter. I still refused to meet her eyes. “What is going on?”

  For half a second I almost told her. Not just the about the ass kicking, about all of it. The craziness with the tingling sensation. The punks who broke into my van. The brownouts at the hospital. The street gang looking for their missing women. The club. Cathy. Tamara. My anxieties about life. Seeing Dad in my dreams.

  Mom sensed my weakness, my insecurity and leaned in closer, resting a pale and weak fingered hand on my upper arm. “It’s okay, Joseph. You can tell me.”

  My palms rested down on the counter as my body sagged wearily, hanging my head low. I chewed on my lower lip for half a moment as thoughts churned and rolled in my brain, trying to keep my priorities in order. Remain focused on my number one priority; keeping Mom safe and healthy for as long as I could.

  “Joseph?”

  “I am so tired, Mom.” My voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

  Her fingers tightened slightly on my arm.

  “Tired?”

  “Tired,” I repeated a bit louder. “Tired of being unable to fix anything.”

  “What do you need to fix, Joe?”

  A slight bitter chuckle burst from between my lips. “What don’t I need to fix?”

  “Is your van broken?”

  “What? No. It’s … Well, okay. It’s kinda broken, but it drives. And that’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My fingers tightened on the countertop, clenching into fists. The back of my neck tingled faintly in the distance but I immediately shoved the sensation away, something I’d learned to do in the last two days of self-loathing.

  One deep calming breath.

  I stood up straight and unclenched my fists while turning to Mom, plastering a bright smile on my face. As cheerful as can be. I took her in my arms and held her gently, protectively.

  “Joe?” her voice was muffled against my chest.

  My eyes were closed, fighting to keep the smile on my face. “I’m all right, Mom.”

  The phone began ringing off in the other room.

  Mom turned to get it as I stepped away, slipping my battered boots on as quickly as I could.

  “Hello?” her voice said off in the background. I stamped my feet into place and reached for my Poison hoodie. “Oh, hello. Yes, he’s right here. Hang on.”

  I closed the door behind me as quickly as I could and trotted over to my van. I’d started my poor baby up and backed her out of the driveway. Mom made it to the front window and tried to wave me down as I drove away.

  Like a coward. />
  The false smile dropped off my face.

  Time for some cold ones.

  It was a prestigious line up of fools waiting for the neighborhood beer vendor to open. Two derelicts who’d wandered in from downtown with a shopping cart full of collected empties. A professionally dressed man in his mid-fifties talking loudly on his cell phone, trying to figure out what types of wine his wife wanted for their dinner party. And a big goomba dressed in dirty track pants, worn out work boots and a black concert hoodie.

  My life. Whee.

  I was quite proud of myself for waiting until I’d parked my van back in its usual spot in Mom’s driveway before cracking open the two-four of Corona and popping the top off one of those bottles. Eyes closed and head tilted back I drained my first beer and waited for the pain to go away.

  Mom met me at the door, her expression beyond disappointed. Wordlessly she handed me a note and refused to turn away until I took it from her. Once I did she spun on her heel and stalked to the living room.

  Shame flooded my senses again, adding to the guilt I was already dealing with. Thankfully I had the cure to those feelings in the cardboard case shipped directly north from Mexico just for me. Jamming the note into my pocket I stumped back down the stairs to my self-imposed hideaway in the dark and stocked the spare fridge with my beer.

  Time sort of became meaningless for the next few hours. Daytime soap operas faded into dinnertime sports preview shows. Beer and nachos were my only friends that day.

  At least until the phone rang again, snapping me out of my drunken stupor. The jangling of the old model phone on the side table next to my couch jangled insistently.

  My hand lurched towards it unsteadily, orange Dorito dust covering my fingers as I pawed at the handset. I was on autopilot, trying to keep the phone from waking Mom and not even considering who was on the other end.

  The earpiece smacked into my temple in my rush to answer, adding to the throbbing pain in the back of my skull. I smacked my dry lips to work some moisture around before mumbling into the phone something that might have resembled a greeting in Caveman Speak.

  “Hello?” Cathy. Shit. “Joe, is that you?”

  My other hand came out of the mostly empty family sized bag of nachos it had been resting in and wiped down over my face in frustration. Way to go, dipshit. You’ve only been avoiding her calls for two days.

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, blinking my eyes at the digital clock over the TV set. Shit, six-thirty PM? I have to make Mom’s dinner.

  “Well it’s about time. Why haven’t you been returning my calls? I was getting worried.”

  I rubbed at my face again, undoubtedly getting grease and crumbs all in my unshaven beard.

  “What do you want, Cathy?”

  She paused on the other end of the line. Clearly taken aback.

  Couldn’t really blame her. Just three days before I had called her for info on street gang hideouts full of piss and vinegar. After surviving that debacle I had gone into hiding. Looking at things from her perspective …

  Ugh, that made my head hurt. I reached for my beer bottle me even as my stomach protested.

  “Okay, now I’m really worried.”

  Shit.

  “Look, Cathy. I’m dealing with some stuff right now,” why is it that everyone who’s tried to come up with a plausible sounding lie for why they don’t want to talk on the phone always uses some derivative of that line? “So if there’s nothing crazy going on I should really get back to it.”

  “Some stuff?” Cathy asked, her voice disbelieving. “Stuff?”

  “Yeah. Stuff.”

  Noises were happening frantically in the background. Was she at the studio? Something frantic was … wait, six thirty? Cathy should be in the middle of the nightly broadcast by now. Why was she …

  “Fine. Go deal with your stuff.” Cathy huffed, her voice now distracted and more than a little annoyed. “I have to get back to work anyways. I just figured you’d want to know that Keimac Cleghorn’s body was found beaten to death in Central Park about half an hour ago.”

  Chapter 42

  I made it to the TV studio fifteen minutes after the broadcast ended.

  Immediately after getting off the phone I lurched into motion, leaving everything where it lay and hauled ass up the stairs. I frantically scribbled a note for my sleeping mother while slipping on my battered boots and hoodie, grabbing my keys and flying out the door.

  In retrospect I probably could’ve taken five minutes to clean myself up before rushing out the door like a madman. Next time I’m in a similar situation, I’ll make sure to do that.

  My poor Windstar was not happy with how hard I pushed her. Air whistled through the gaps in her chassis making a whining sound in the chilly, wet air.

  I found a parking spot on Portage Avenue about two blocks from the studio and slewed into it dangerously fast, cutting off a cab driver in the process. I began jogging over to the studio, ignoring the frustrated honking of other drivers as I weaved across the still busy street. My mind was on high alert and it had pushed my body onto auto pilot. The tingling sensation at the back of my neck was present but only faintly. I didn’t want to worry about that craziness at the moment and was intentionally pushing it away.

  I rounded the corner onto Graham and hustled past the arena towards where cameraman Jimmy was waiting for me at the entrance to the CTV Studios. His expression turned bemused as I got closer.

  “Damn, I almost mistook you for a homeless guy.”

  “Where’s Cathy?” No small talk today.

  Jimmy blinked once, taken aback. “Upstairs, but she’ll be in a post-production meeting.”

  I nodded once and started up the stairs.

  “Crazy thing, right?” Jimmy asked, his voice sounding curious and sympathetic at the same time from behind me as we climbed the stairs. “What are the odds of the same gang member who shot you getting killed within a few weeks.”

  Lousy. Very, very lousy.

  “Man, I wonder what that guy was into.”

  Prostitution. Intimidation. Probably a lot more than that.

  “Hey, you okay? Shouldn’t you be happy about this?”

  Shouldn’t I?

  “Joe?”

  Getting out onto the main floor I strode past the reception area without a word back at Jimmy and scanned the nearby studio for Cathy. I saw a number of other reporters chatting amongst themselves along with their co-workers, but no Cathy.

  The detached and rational part of my mind noted how calm everyone else in the room was behaving. To them, this was just another day. Gang member killed, tax hike coming from lying politician, infrastructure deficits a major topic among urban families and as the Jets Season comes to an end what are their plans for next year? All that and more tonight on “News at Eleven.”