He didn’t know. The question wouldn’t stick in his mind to be considered. So he rode on.
Another overpass. This time, Brian felt himself turn and point at the retaining wall. But again, some kind of switch inside him had him skidding on the gravelly shoulder and getting back on the highway.
Now Brian made himself think. Was he trying to abort this botched mission he called a life? Would it make a difference if he did?
Sure, there were people who’d be sad, but would it make a difference if he were here or not?
No.
Everyone who knew him had a life that would continue unchanged. Only Mo might really be affected, but he’d already lost her. She didn’t need him, because he wasn’t enough.
He rode on, mulling those thoughts, and decided.
As the next overpass appeared, Brian sped up.
Suddenly, a Harley roared past him and cut him sharply off. Brian pulled back on the throttle, downshifted, tried to veer to the other lane, but he’d been locked into his decision to ride into that wall, and all his reflexes toward any other action were haywire. He wiped out about fifteen feet from the overpass, bounced across the shoulder and went end over end down a grassy hill into a sodden ditch. Above him, he heard the steel-rending scream of his chopper crashing into the wall. Without him.
Aching and angry, hurt but not mortally, Brian lay in the murky ditch water and stared at the unbroken expanse of summer sky, the gold rays of sunset bleeding into the blue.
A Harley engine on the road above, coming to a stop. Then the asshole who’d cut him off was running sideways down the hill.
“Whoa, man! You okay? Anything broken?” He offered Brian his hand. “Can you move? Sit up?”
“Fuck you. You cut me the fuck off.”
The guy dropped his hand, and his face compressed into an angry squint. “I know what you were doin’, and you know what I was doin’. Now, do you want help, or not? ‘Cuz I’ll leave you here in the ditch, if that’s what you want. I reckon if you lay here long enough, you’ll get what you were after anyway. Or you can get your ass up and be a man about it.” He stuck out his hand again.
Brian took it. The guy helped him to his feet, and Brian discovered, when he tried to put weight on it, that he’d fucked up his leg. “Ah, shit.” He looked down and saw a rip in his waterlogged jeans, across his thigh, and blood soaking through. Prepared for the worst, he peered into the tear and saw a gash, about six inches long and at least an inch deep. On the outside of his leg, though. Not near an artery.
Some road rash, complete with imbedded gravel, on his arm, too. It looked pretty nasty, but all things considered, he was getting off easy.
Jesus, had he been ready to kill himself? By riding into a concrete wall and leaving Mo to identify his gooey remains? To leave her with that memory? What a fucking asshole he was.
“Shit.”
“If I help, you think you can get back up top? We’re about a twenty-minute ride from my town. There’s a doc there. You can ride with me, and we’ll get you fixed up, and your bike picked up.”
Brian put his weight on that leg. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it held. “I can do it.”
The guy nodded, and turned, offering his shoulder for Brian to lean on. He was wearing a kutte, with a patch on the back. Brian couldn’t quite make it out in their current positions. ‘Night’ something, he thought.
“Hey, I’m D,” he said.
The guy nodded. “I’m Ike.”
“Thanks, Ike. I’m glad you were on the road today.”
“Yeah,” Ike said, and they made their way out of the ditch.
~oOo~
Signal Bend, Missouri. That was Ike’s town, and near the point where Brian had dropped his bike—or, more accurately, been forced from his collision course with permanent stupidity.
Signal Bend seemed like just about any rural town in these parts—small, quaint, a little rickety, but tight-knit and bustling. Ike pulled onto the gravel lot of a place called Signal Bend Construction, and Brian saw a sign at one end of the building, hand-painted and hanging over a nondescript door, announcing that it was the Night Horde Motorcycle Club. Much better name than the Poison Cobras.
‘Big Ike’ was president of the club, which Brian had learned as they were mounting up on the side of the road. Near the gas-soaked snarl of rubber and steel that had been his beloved 1961 Duo Glide. His chopper. Goddammit. Fucking idiot.
Ike helped him into the clubhouse.
“Is the doctor close?” he asked as they went into a large, dim room set up like a bar. There were a couple guys lazing around, but for the most part it was quiet and empty.
“I’ll call him. Hey, Ceej!”
“Yeah, boss?” A scruffy guy with a round beer belly stood up from a broken-down sofa.
“Call up Frank and get out on 44 with the flatbed. Eastbound, the overpass for 17—there’s a wadded up bike by the shoulder. It’s totaled, but let’s bring it in. Watch for gas—the tank ruptured.”
“Will do.” Ceej walked up, gave Brian a squint. “Your bike, I reckon.”
“Yeah,” Brian answered.
“C.J., this is D. D, C.J.”
Brian offered his hand, and C.J. shook. Then C.J. went behind the bar and picked up the phone.
Ike put up his hand. “Hold up, I need to call Garvin.”
“Doc’s fishin’ this weekend, boss. He and Murph’re down at Pomme de Terre, remember?”
“Right. Shit. Well, fuck.” Ike turned to Brian. “That’s the doc and the vet, both.”
“I can sew myself up,” Brian said. “I’d need some supplies, but I can do it.”
“Nah, we’ll get ya took care of. Just need to make some calls. You okay to sit a spell?”
“Yeah, I’m alright.” He pulled the makeshift bandage, which was his own t-shirt, from around his leg. The heat and the ride had more or less dried his clothes, but the t-shirt was soaked through with his blood. “Could use a fresh towel or somethin’, though.”
C.J. got him a clean towel before he went off to collect the ruin of his chopper, and Ike made some calls and ordered somebody to come perform minor surgery. Then Ike pulled a couple bottles of Hamm’s from a cooler and popped their tops.
They were alone in the clubhouse now. Brian looked around. It wasn’t much different from the VFW, actually. Though the ‘décor’—in the form of posters on the walls—was much raunchier.
“This is cool, this clubhouse.”
Ike shrugged. “It’s a place.” He took a drink. Without looking Brian’s way, he said, “I’m not gonna ask why you were doin’ what you were doin’.”
“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.”
“Fair enough. Y’know, I don’t rightly care if people wanna punch their own ticket, but don’t make a fuckin’ mess for other people to clean up.”
Brian didn’t answer. They drank in silence for a bit.
By the look of him, Ike was about Brian’s age, give or take a year or two. They were similar in size, too. But Ike was fairer and kept his hair military short and his cheeks smooth. It occurred to Brian to ask if he’d served, but he didn’t want to start the inevitable war stories exchange.
Then he noticed Ike’s wedding ring. “You married?”
“Yeah.”
“Kids?”
“Yeah.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Brian caught his eye and lifted his eyebrows, asking.
Ike huffed. “Two. Girl’s five, boy’s about one.”
“You like being a dad?”
“Are we gonna be friends now?”
“You saved my life. Is there a better reason to be friends?”
Ike grunted softly and took another deep draw from his bottle before he answered. “I guess that depends on if you’re glad I did.”
“I am. What was goin’ through my head—I don’t honestly know it all. Things are shit. I’ve made shit of everything that matters to me. But checkin’ out fixes none of it. So thank you.”
; Ike grunted again. The man was obviously not a big talker. “A man makes a family.”
“Huh?” That was either a non sequitur or far too painfully, and eerily, on point.
“It don’t matter if I like bein’ a dad. Or a husband, for that matter. A man makes a family. You got kids?”
Brian shook his head. “Hasn’t worked out for us yet.”
The woman you married was born to be a mother.
As much as she loves you, that love is not enough.
A man makes a family.
Brian rubbed his forehead, pushing those thoughts away. Damn, he was tired. The long day, the wreck, the blood loss, the beer, it was all getting to him, all mixing with his already deep melancholy, and he set his head on the bar.
“Here’s Kelly,” Ike said and stood up. Brian lifted his head and saw a pretty blonde woman, young and voluptuous, sashay toward them. She was dressed to impress, in tiny cutoff shorts and a flowered top barely enough to cover her substantial rack. It tied just under her tits, and the tail of the tie brushed her bare belly. She looked like a Hee Haw Honey. Incongruously, she carried a fishing tackle box.
“Hey, baby,” Ike said, and bent to kiss her. The kiss was so deep and lengthy, Brian could only assume she was his wife.
Ike released her lips and turned to him. “This is Kelly. She works at the doc’s, and patches us up from time to time. She’ll take you back and get your leg sewed up. You can bunk here tonight, and I’ll get you home tomorrow. Good for you?”
“You don’t need to take me all the way back home. That’s four hours each way. But a ride to the nearest Greyhound’d be appreciated.”
Ike nodded. “Alright then.”
“Come on, baby,” Kelly said and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels off the bar. “Let’s get your booboo all fixed up.”
Booboo? Kelly was a pretty little thing, but if that was how she normally talked, Brian understood why Ike didn’t like to be married.
She tried to help him walk out of the bar area and down a hallway, but Brian wasn’t about to lean on her. He limped on his own power.
Kelly led him to an open door, which showed a room like a dorm room, with a twin bed and a cheap dresser. She set the tackle box on the dresser and opened it, revealing an array of medical supplies.
Then she turned to him and put her hands on his belt.
“Whoa, hey,” he said and caught her hands. “What’re you doin’?”
“It’s your thigh, right? I need to get to your thigh, so you need to drop trou, baby.” She smirked coyly. “Don’t tell me you’re shy.”
He wasn’t, but it still felt wrong. Then again, that gash in his leg hurt like a motherfucker, and was no doubt getting infected. So he opened his belt and his jeans and pushed them down. He left his boxers on, however.
“Lay down, now,” Kelly said. Brian lay on the bed’s scratchy blanket.
Kelly sat on the edge of the bed and lifted his strafed arm. “Ooh, baby, that’s nasty. Okay, this gonna hurt some. Get a couple good swallows of the whiskey, okay?”
He grabbed the bottle and did. He wasn’t a baby about pain, but these days, he didn’t trust himself with any kind of emotional reaction. The Jack mixed quickly with the beers and the exhaustion and pushed cottony ease into his joints. He had another big, hot swallow, just in case, and lay back with a sigh.
“Here, take this, too,” Kelly said, and Brian opened his eyes. She was offering him a couple pills.
“What are they?”
“Painkillers. They’ll help when I sew you up. I don’t have Novocain.”
He swallowed the pills back with another gulp of Jack.
It hurt when she cleaned out the road rash and the gash, and it hurt more when she suck a needle in him over and over as she closed the wound, but he didn’t actually care. The pain was far away, and he felt pretty good. For the first time in weeks, he had no thought, no doubt, no pain, no loss tormenting him. He lay back and considered his physical discomforts with the cool of an impartial observer. The way all those civilians had watched news reports of the war while they stuffed their faces with TV dinners.
“All done,” he eventually heard a voice say in a high-pitched, sing-song tempo. “You did real good, baby.”
Then lips were on his lips, a tongue in his mouth, and his nose was full of roses. Mo usually smelled of roses. It felt good, so sweet and calm, so soft, and Brian chased that feeling. God, how he’d missed her. More this summer than he had when he was gone whole years at war. He missed her so much.
His hands came up and held her, and he felt her hand slipping into his boxers, wrapping around him. Fuck, he was hard. Oh fuck, he needed this so bad.
“Ooh, baby! Look at you go!”
The voice wasn’t Mo’s. This wasn’t Mo. Fuck, this wasn’t Mo. What? Where? Who? He was so lost in the feeling, in the need, that he almost gave into it anyway, even as the fog of drugs and booze eased slightly back. He needed this, and Mo didn’t need him. He’d lost her, but this girl was right here, straddling him, wanting him.
If he did this, he’d never have Mo again.
He made himself get clear and see what was happening.
He was naked. Kelly was also naked and about two inches from impaling herself on his cock.
“What the fuck?” he asked, and grabbed her hips.
She made a pout and sat down on him. Even as her weight made the ache in his sore thigh flare hot, Brian couldn’t help the shudder of pleasure that went through him as her body surrounded him.
But it was Mo he needed. “Fuck, stop.”
“What, baby? I’m gonna make you feel better. I know you want it.”
“I don’t!” But when she ground on his cock, he groaned and flexed. He did want it. She rocked on him, and he couldn’t help but lift his hips into that glorious feeling. Fuck, he needed to come. He needed to feel good again. He flexed again, groaning with guilty need, and she giggled knowingly and made a little twist of her hips that had him right at the brink.
But not like this. He needed Mo.
He had to get her back.
He pushed Kelly off, grunting as her tight heat slid off his cock. “I don’t want you. And what would your old man say? Ike saved my life today. I’m not about to fuck his wife tonight.” Technically, he supposed he already had. Goddammit.
Still straddling him, she laughed. “His wife? Baby, I’m not Big Ike’s wife. She don’t come anywhere near the clubhouse. I’m just his favorite fuck. I’m everybody’s favorite fuck. I’d be yours, too.” Her hands came up and lifted her tits—large and round, with big tan nipples. Dressed, she was a Hee Haw Honey. Naked, she was a Penthouse pinup. “If you don’t want some of this, I’ll find it somewhere else. Don’t get heartburn about it. And don’t pull your stitches. They’re some of my best work.”
She slithered off the bed and slipped into her tiny clothes. “Whoever she is you thought I was, she’s a lucky lady. That’s a beautiful dick you’re carrying.” She picked up her first aid kit and sashayed out the door.
Alone in the little room, Brian fell back on the bed, his ‘beautiful dick’ shriveling. He wanted to get out of here. But he was too wasted, too exhausted, and too bike-less to go anywhere.
He lay where he was and used his sudden mental clarity to work on the problem of fixing his life.
He had to get Mo back. She had to know she could trust him to be what she needed.
So he had to figure out how to reach her.
~oOo~
When Brian finally got home on Sunday afternoon, he’d figured some things out. After a shower in his own shower, being sure to take care of his various bandages, and a change of clothes, out of the bloody ruin his jeans had become, and the stale t-shirt he’d been given, he rode all the way back to the City and did some shopping.
His leg hurt, but he didn’t care. He didn’t quite know what he was looking for, but he didn’t care. At a boutique shop he’d never been in before, he asked a clerk for help and got something he liked, and thou
ght Mo would like, too. Hoped so, anyway.
Then he went to a park near the shopping center and sat at a picnic table. He got out some of the new paper he’d bought, and he wrote his wife a letter.
4 Aug 74
My Irish,
It’s been a little while since I wrote you a letter. But, just like when I was over there, this is the only way I have to reach you, and I’m going crazy without you. Sweetheart, I mean that now as much as I ever did back then. I need you so bad. I love you so much.
I know I haven’t been what you need, I haven’t been there when you’ve needed me, and I’ve been racking my head trying to figure out how to be more. Because I want you to trust me. I want to be worthy of your trust. You are my whole life, Mo. My whole damn life. I love you. I love you.
But I figured out that maybe I’ve been getting it wrong all this time. Maybe I don’t have to be more. Maybe I just have to be there. Not trying to reach for something outside what we already are. Maybe I just need to make sure when you turn and look for me, you know I’m there. Even if I’m not right at your side just that minute. You need to feel me with you.
I know you’ve been going through a lot. Most of your life, you’ve been standing up strong and taking punches, and you need to sit down sometimes and take a breath. Today, while I was alone, thinking through all this, I thought of something you told me once. A long time ago. You told me why you wanted to be a teacher. You said when you were having lots of trouble after your folks passed and you came here, you had a teacher who told you how to write things down and get them out somewhere you could see them, and you wanted to be able to do something so important for other kids. Or something like that. I might not be getting it just right. But I was thinking about that today, and you know, I’ve never seen you write things down. School things and to-do lists and stuff like that, but not how you were talking about, getting bad stuff out where you could see it and deal with it and get it away. You don’t keep a diary anymore.
This might be stupid, this thing I bought you. It might be too late. It might not mean anything to you at all. But I’m giving it to you because I want you to know that I love you as you are, strong and weak, happy and sad. I know there’s things you can’t tell me, or things I haven’t earned enough trust to know, and I understand. Put them here, if it helps.
Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning Page 34
