Looking back at his military career, the things he'd done over fourteen years of service, this was minuscule by comparison. How could going to a matinee with his niece be such a big deal? It wasn’t, and he had to quit making it into something bigger than it was.
Buckle down, he reminded himself. You got this.
The ticket line was irritating. He didn't like strangers standing directly behind him, their presence looming over his personal space. It was one of the sensations he had the most trouble with in the civilian world, the awareness that someone was directly behind him and he was unable to keep an eye on them. In regular life, the situation was unavoidable. You couldn’t just turn around and stare at the people behind you in line. That got weird. It was never a problem in the military. Someone that close was a brother, a man you could trust. A man who’d lay down his life for you with the expectation you’d do the same for him.
The slower moving concession stand line was even worse. Sounds from the adjoining arcade filled the concession area with a barrage of sound effects – beeps, chirps, and firing lasers. Ty was getting antsy, shifting on his feet, anxious to get into the theater and be seated. Maybe then he could chill out a little bit. He’d close his eyes in the comforting darkness and take some deep breaths, use some of those relaxation strategies they kept pushing on him. He needed to find his happy place, although he hadn’t had much luck with that. Perhaps he didn’t have a happy place. Could be that all he had was a dark and angry place. That was how it felt sometimes.
It didn't help that there was an action movie playing in one of the theaters. The ultra-realistic sound system shook the walls with gunshots and explosions, the sounds pulling Ty in like a nightmare. It was remarkable how the explosions in that theater, rattling the walls and making the floor tremble, sounded like they were being shelled.
The sound made Ty increasingly uncomfortable. He felt exposed and vulnerable, like he should be doing something, anything, to get them out of there. He needed to get Aiden somewhere safe before a round hit the building. At any moment they could be trapped in a pile of rubble with all these people. A line of sweat trickled down his back.
The people ahead of them got their popcorn and drinks, then moved on. Stuck there in his head, Ty didn’t notice the line moving. He didn’t notice that Aiden had already stepped forward and was waiting on him to join her. What Ty did notice was the man behind him reach forward and peck him on the shoulder.
“Go on, buddy,” the guy said. “Wake up.”
That unexpected physical contact was exactly the wrong thing for the man to do. Ty didn't hesitate. He didn't think. He spun and trapped the man’s outstretched arm beneath his left. His right shot to the man’s throat and locked onto it. He swept his leg, and took him to the floor hard. It was pure reflex, the product of over a decade of training. He had every intention of shoving the man’s voice box through his spine when he caught himself.
He saw the man’s shocked expression. He swept his surroundings and took in the stunned faces of the man’s family. He took in the sea of other dumbfounded faces in the concession lines. This was not the kind of thing you saw at the Movie Mall Twenty. Everyone stood there frozen in that awkward moment, uncertain of how to back up from it. Ty certainly had no clue and the man in his grasp was too scared to even breathe.
"Uncle Ty?” It was Aiden, her quiet voice breaking the spell.
Ty released his grip on the man and stood. The other man got awkwardly to his feet, brushing at his clothes. Ty didn’t help him.
"Don't touch people you don't know," Ty warned, his voice barely above a whisper.
There were a lot of people were staring. It was uncomfortable attention.
"We want the bottomless popcorn with lots of butter," Aiden told the concessionaire. She’d already moved on. "What do you want to drink, Uncle Ty?"
He turned to the counter and hesitantly gave his drink order. Rattled, he took a napkin from a dispenser on the counter and mopped at his forehead. They got their jumbo tub of popcorn and two overpriced drinks, then turned around to find two security guards waiting on them. Behind them was the man Ty had dropped, standing with his wife and their two confused young boys. Ty knew he’d screwed up.
"Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave the premises."
There was a day when Ty would have given these guys a run for their money. He would have called them names and warned them they were biting off more than they could chew. The fact there were two of them meant nothing to him. Odds never concerned him. The problem was that Ty was currently employed as a security guard too. He worked for a different company but it was the same crappy job. Any of the slights he would have thrown in their direction would have applied to him equally and he didn’t want to go there. He’d heard it all before and hated it when people treated him like a second-class citizen because he was a security guard. There was something about that uniform that made you a magnet for assholes and anyone with something to prove. People talked real tough when they knew you couldn’t fight back.
The other side of the spectrum was that the uniform sometimes made you invisible. People were programmed to ignore you in the same way they did homeless people. They didn’t make eye contact, didn’t speak. Somedays Ty craved that invisibility.
The only thing that made him reconsider taking the high road was the smirk on the face of the man he’d taken to the floor. Ty had already calmed down, the moment had passed, but that look stood ready to inflame his anger all over again. He was pretty certain if he tossed his drink forward the two security guards would jump to the side. That would leave an open channel to the smirking man and Ty could finish what he’d started. On the other hand, there was Aiden and the trust his sister had placed in him. He didn’t want Aiden to see him hauled off in handcuffs.
"Sir, I'm not asking again. If you don't leave right now we’ll call the police and have you removed. Please don't make a scene in front of these children."
Ty released a long sigh, trying to blow off this new stream of tension, but it would only go down so far. He glanced at his niece and found her staring back at him with large, curious eyes. Not disappointed, not angry, simply watching and waiting to see what he’d do.
"Let’s just go, Uncle Ty. Mommy will be mad if I have to go to the hoosegow."
Ty couldn’t help but smile. "Where did you ever learn a word like that?"
"Uh, you taught me."
The nervous security guards insisted on following them out the door and all the way to his truck. Ty could sense their relief. They didn’t want to fight him. He and Aiden didn't particularly hurry, enjoying their popcorn and drinks as they walked. Ty gave a little wave to the security guards as they pulled out of the lot. He noticed one of them snapping a picture of his tag number. He was uncomfortable with that. The best case scenario was they would ban him from the facility. The worst was that he might get a visit from the cops tonight.
They drove to a park less than a mile away. They found a rickety wooden picnic table, its peeling green paint carved with initials. They had a picnic of popcorn and gigantic sodas.
"Your mother is going to be so mad at me," Ty said, slurping from his cup. He’d been mulling it over while watching Aiden toss popcorn kernels to a chunky gray squirrel.
Aiden snapped her head round and looked at him like he was crazy. "How’s she going to find out? I'm not to tell her. Are you going to tell her? ‘Cause that would be dumb. I’m just saying."
"Well, I didn't exactly plan on it but I assumed you might since it was probably the most interesting part of the evening. Isn’t that what kids do? They tell their moms about their day and stuff?"
Aiden narrowed her eyes and stared off into the distance. She almost looked like a wizened old trapper recalling a particularly hard winter. "I learned a long time ago you can't tell mothers everything."
Ty grinned. "You learned that a long time ago, huh?"
She nodded and shoved so much popcorn in her mouth that she couldn't close it. Sh
e nodded and chewed, struggling to speak, popcorn falling out of her mouth. "Yeah, I figured that out pretty quick after I started elementary school."
“You told on yourself?”
“A few times,” she admitted. “Then I figured it out.”
"You know, you're a pretty sharp cookie. You might be a force to contend with one day."
She frowned at him. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're smart enough to be dangerous. It means you're so smart that the things you say will make people mad at you sometimes. You’ll understand things about people and smart-aleck comments will come out of your mouth before you can even stop them."
Aiden smiled at that, relishing the thought that she had a tool of torment in her arsenal of which she’d previously been unaware. “I think that already happens sometimes.”
“I’m sure it does.”
She took a drink from her vat of soda and gave Ty a serious look. “So why did you get mad at that man? Did he do something to you? I didn’t see what happened.”
“What man?” Ty’s head had wandered somewhere else and it took him a moment to find his way back.
“Duh? The one in the popcorn line? How many other men have you laid the smackdown on today?”
Ty frowned at her choice of words. More disturbing to him was how he could have forgotten the situation that had just taken place? If violence was that inconsequential to him, was he even fit to be wandering around in normal society? He wondered sometimes. It was part of what he was trying to come to terms with.
“No, he was the only one today. Lines make me nervous. The guy touched me and it startled me. I reacted before I had a chance to stop myself.” He started to add that it was a “war thing” but didn’t know if that would mean anything to her. He certainly didn’t want her to think there was something wrong with him. He didn’t want her to be scared to be around him. While he wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world, that would hurt.
“Are you a ninja?” she asked.
Ty laughed. “No, definitely not a ninja.”
“Have you ever in the past been a ninja?”
He admired the way she rephrased the question. She was sneaky. “Not exactly.”
“Well, that was a ninja move. You dropped that guy like a bad habit.”
“Where do you learn these expressions?”
Aiden shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I overreacted because he startled me. There was nothing cool about it. I shouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t the right thing to do and you should never act like that. Just because I did it doesn’t make it right.”
“I know. Mom said you get like that sometimes,” Aiden admitted. “She said I shouldn’t jump out of the dark and scare you.”
Oh great, Ty thought. She already knows there something wrong with me.
He smiled warmly at her. “Definitely not. I might wet my pants and I’d be embarrassed.”
Aiden thought that was hilarious. She held her belly and laughed.
“So what do you want to do, kid? I don’t imagine you want to sit here and talk to me all evening. Would you like to go to a movie at a different theater?”
She looked doubtful. “Can we do that?”
“Of course we can. You think they’ve got wanted posters for me at every theater now?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. They might.” She was fighting back a smile, the edges of her mouth twitching.
“Let’s go.”
She looked at her drink and popcorn. “Will they let me take this in at a different movie?”
“I doubt it. Toss the popcorn out for the squirrel. It’ll make him happy and I’ll buy you some more at the next movie.”
Aiden dumped the greasy bucket to an excited looking squirrel and they threw their trash in a rusty green can. Ty took a deep breath.
Let’s try this again. Going to the movies with your niece, take two.
“That squirrel is going to get really fat. I bet he won’t be able to get back up that tree when he’s done,” Aiden said.
3
“Try calling her again,” Barger suggested.
They were in Richmond, Virginia. The RV had been parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot all night and she’d done nothing but call and send messages since they got there. She groaned. Barger was getting on her nerves. “I’ve been calling. She’s not answering.”
“Why the hell is she not answering? You’ve been talking to this girl for months, right? She said she would go. Why isn’t she here?”
“Fuck if I know. Yes, I’ve been talking to her for months. Yes, she said she wanted to come. We’ve been planning this for weeks. She was supposed to be right here but she’s not. What do you want me to do about it?”
Barger had no answer for that. “Maybe she doesn’t see us?” He scanned the parking lot outside the window.
“Seriously? We’re the only RV here. We’re the biggest damn thing in the whole parking lot. If she were here, she’d have no trouble spotting us. She’s just not here.”
“Then where the hell is she?”
Tia pushed herself up from the leather recliner. She couldn’t listen to Barger any longer. He was like a broken record. She ambled stiffly to the table and grabbed a pack of menthol 100s. “I need a smoke.”
She left the frustrated Barger pacing around the narrow confines of the RV. He was getting on her nerves with his ranting and stomping around. How was she supposed to know what was going on? She’d done this dozens of times and it always went the same way. Everything went like clockwork.
Until this time.
She lit a smoke and walked around, though she didn’t go far. She was fifty-five years old now, ate poorly, and drank too much. She was overweight and her hips hurt with every step. She wiped her forehead with the tail of her tank top. The parking lot was not only hot, but humid in a way they didn’t experience in Arizona. It was like she was slowly being steamed to death, like a stalk of broccoli. She didn’t know how people could live here. The whole place was flat, hot, and miserable.
While she walked, she scrolled through her phone, a sharply-pointed green nail clicking as it tapped the screen. The girl’s name was Kellie and the two had been in regular communication up until yesterday. Kellie had accepted her invitation and was ready to come live with her. Tia had come all way from Arizona based on her word. They were supposed to meet last night but Kellie hadn’t shown. They’d been there for nearly twelve hours and Barger was getting nervous. He said he needed to get back home. Tia wanted to get back too, but she didn’t want to leave empty-handed.
Although she and Kellie usually communicated via Snapchat, they also used text messaging, Facebook, and Instagram. She leaned against the shady side of the RV and checked Snapchat again. Her message had still not been read. She went to send another and received a message that she’d been blocked.
What the hell?
She went to Instagram, both to check for any updates and to send a message through that app. The account she was looking for was gone. Tia went to Facebook and found the same thing. All of Kellie’s social media accounts had been deleted. This was not good.
Tia went to her messaging app and confirmed that none of the text messages she’d sent since arriving in town had been read. She had one thing left and it was something the two had never done. It was something she’d never done with any of the girls. She clicked on Kellie’s contact and chose to dial a voice call.
She raised the phone, her anticipation growing with each ring. It was not a person who answered. After several rings, an automated message informed Tia that the number she was attempting to contact was no longer in service. Either Kellie, or someone acting on her behalf, had made it impossible for them to contact each other.
Tossing the cigarette butt into the parking lot, she shoved the phone into her sweaty bra and clambered inside the RV.
Barger looked at her expectantly. “Anything?”
Tia waved him off. “We might as well get going.”
; Slouched in the dinette booth with a bottle of water and a bag of chips, Barger looked at her with surprise. “What? We’re leaving without her? What about that stupid puppy you promised her? The damn thing pisses all over the place. I’ll never get the smell out.”
Tia shrugged. “She either cut ties with me for some reason or they were cut for her. We probably don’t need to be sitting around here any longer. If her parents caught her packing, they might go to the cops. Who knows what she told them?” She ignored his comments about the puppy. It was just a prop, insignificant in the bigger picture.
Barger cursed and ranted as he made his way to the driver’s seat. She let him blow off steam, then settled into the passenger seat when he finally shut up. He started the engine, put the large vehicle in gear, and pulled out.
“So, I guess we’re headed home?” His tone was clipped, his anger apparent.
“Guess so,” she said. “I have other prospects but none are anywhere near our route. None were so far along in the process as Kellie.”
Barger didn’t care about that part of it. Those were Tia’s problems as far as he was concerned. “I still get paid, right? I mean, I did my part. I did what I was supposed to do.”
She didn’t answer him. The asshole always had his hand out. He had no appreciation. No respect.
“I mean, you being successful was never a condition of me driving,” Barger continued. “I’ve got fuel expenses, plus lost time on the job. This cost me money.”
“It cost me money too,” Tia retorted. “You think I don’t got shit to do? You think I lay around all day eating Doritos and watching telenovelas?”
Barger was silent. That was exactly what he thought.
Hard Trauma Page 3
