Flashback: Jessie's drunk ...

I dug around under the bar and found a bottle of anisette that the guys used for shots to celebrate little victories.  I drank right from the bottle and shivered as the strong liquorice liqueur warmed a path down my throat to spread across my belly.  Taking the bottle I walked to the old Wurlitzer that Dad installed for the club’s reopening party and punched in numbers from the 1960s section and listened to the music Dad said was the narrative of his young life; Led Zeppelin’s ‘Good Time, Bad Times’, Clapton’s ‘Crossroad Blues’, Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth’, all the while sipping the anisette and weaving to the music.

Then I played all the songs I knew reminded Dad of Carrie; ‘Hey Carrie Anne’ by the Hollies, ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ by Procol Harem, and the one that made me cry that night; ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ by the Foundations, about a young man who was so desperately in love with a girl he knew would break his heart, but loved her anyway with every ounce of his being.

I knew them all by heart, growing up watching my Dad get that faraway look of longing and heartache whenever someone played one of them.  I was always in awe of a love that could endure for so long; kept alive and fresh even separated by such an impossible distance; the love he held for that long dead girl.  And knowing he was capable of that made me know that when he told me he loved me, he meant it and it was real.

I drowned myself in his music and Mike’s anisette until I was sitting on the floor, leaning against the Wurlitzer, with raw tears flowing down my cheeks.  I wanted my Dad right then, right there.  I wanted to feel his arms around me, holding me like he held me so many nights as I cried.  And him, never offering advice, never trying to fix it, never reminding me how I ended up in that state in the first place.  All he ever did was listen and hold me and love me, and that was more than anyone can ask.

I’d set out to quiet my busy mind and had drank myself into a state of crippling nostalgia.  I was a hot, drunken mess, and my busy thoughts had given way to a flood of emotion that was gutting me.  I toughened up on myself and called an end to my pity party.  My Dad was still alive and would hold me again, and I was determined to keep him alive by hunting down the motherless bastards responsible for his wounds and pain and kill every single one of them.

The Dark Riders and the Russian mob learned of my Dad’s cunning and savagery the hard way - ‘just wait until these mutts got a load of his daughter’, I silently swore to myself.

It took me three tries to get my legs under me and hold myself up by clutching the Wurlitzer.  I studied the song titles as they blurred and came into random focus until I found the song I was looking for to pull myself out of the funk I was in;

‘Mambo Number Five’ by Lou Bega, the song that Dad and I danced to at my ninth birthday party, immortalized by the enlarged photo that lived inside the entrance in our home since that day, and will forever remain the happiest moment of my childhood.

I danced like I did when I was nine until I lost my balance and almost dropped the anisette bottle as I fell against the Wurlitzer.  Then I felt dizzy and sick, so I staggered behind the bar and threw up into the sink.  I rinsed it down and doing so tipped over the anisette bottle and spilled it all over Mike’s prep area.  I tried to clean it up but I’d cashed in all the exhaustion that I’d saved up since Tuesday morning and the more I tried to clean up the worse I made it.  So I finally scrawled ‘I’m sorry Mike’ on his order pad and hauled myself upstairs and flopped face down on the couch and passed out.

"Gangster's Girl"

Flashback: Made her bones ...

When Jessie and I walked into the club I announced to the room;

“Twice the cookies today, Mike!  In fact, cookies for everybody, my little girl just made her bones!”

The crew and the hang-arounds all cheered and applauded, and even some of the regulars clapped.  Leon, Patrick, and Cheech all came forward to kneel and hug Jessie and kiss her on both cheeks in the Italian way.  Then they ushered her to a chair at the crew table as Mike came out with a heaping plate of cookies and Jessie’s usual frosty glass of milk - Mike had taken to keeping a glass in the freezer for her so her milk was extra cold as the weather got warmer.

The guys waited until Jessie had her first sip of milk then begged her to tell the story.  With a milk moustache, Jessie began by saying that Morgan and her had been on the playground when Rickie had come up to them and said that horrible thing to Morgan that made her cry.

“What did the mutt say?” Cheech asked.

“Yeah, his exact words.” Patrick said.

Jessie looked at me standing at the counter, sipping a coffee, and I nodded, so she turned back to them and repeated word for word what Rickie had said to Morgan that made her cry.

Cheech made a fist and bit his knuckle and made a painful sound.

“The stronzo!” said Cheech.

“Infamia!” said Leon.

“Ach!  What a bum!” said Patrick, “What did you do?”

“I made a fist back here” Jessie demonstrated but putting her arm back and to her side and making a fist, “And I swung as hard as I could up like this.” she said as she pushed her fist up and in front of her, “Because he’s bigger than us.”

“And?” Cheech asked.

“Pow!  Right in the nose!” Jessie said, getting into the theatrics of telling the story.

“Was there blood?” Leon asked.

“Gallons!” Jessie said with feigned fierceness, “They had to take him to the hospital because it wouldn’t stop.”

The crew laughed.

“And!” I said loudly, “When she was pinched, she didn’t rat.”

More laughter.

“What did you tell the Principal when she tried to get you to talk?” I asked her.

“I went like this.” Jessie said, crossing her arms and making her angry face, “I’m not saying a god-damned word until my dad gets here.”

The crew was up on their feet again laughing and jostling her good-naturedly.  It was good to see Jessie basking in the adoration of the crew, knowing it was all in fun and seeing it as the rough acceptance of her adopted family.

When every one had settled down, and we all had a celebratory cookie, Jessie asked Cheech;

“What does “making bones” mean?”

“Ah, when some guy has to go because he’s nothing but trouble for the family, and another guy - you know - pushes his button, he turns into a pile of bones.  So when you do that, you ‘make your bones’.” he explained.

“Have you made your bones?” she asked Cheech.

“I refuse to answer on account that my testimony may incriminate me.” Cheech held up his hand like he was pleading the fifth like an American gangster, and we all laughed.

“Has my dad made his bones?” Jessie asked.

And there it was.

"Millennial Gangsters"

Flashback Friday: Going Crazy ...

  “You know what the worst part is?” Frankie said, peeling a blade of grass into thin strips, “There was a girl that moved into the house across the alley from me last winter.  Her name is Gina - Gina Marie.  I saw she was all alone in her backyard trying to build a snowman, so I went over there and helped her.  We built a huge snowman together - and it was beautiful.  Her mom was watching us through the kitchen window and smiling and she brought us out a carrot for his nose and an old hat to top him off, then invited me in for hot chocolate and cookies with Gina.  It was a great day.  I really liked her.”

Frankie paused, like he was trying not to feel what he was feeling.

“Then when Christmas break was over we went back to school and at first Gina was friendly to me, letting me walk her to school and home again.  But as time went on she started making excuses to not be around me.  I finally asked her what was going on and she said it was because I scared her.  She said I was dangerous and we couldn’t be friends.”

“She said I was dangerous, Denny.” Frankie said, his voice thick with barely contained emotion, “I would never have hurt her.  Not her.  Not for anything.”

I thought of Carrie then and knew how he felt - it would kill me if Carrie thought I might hurt her.

“So, yeah.” Frankie took a deep breath and let it out, “I think I’m a little crazy.  I scare girls when I just think I’m being funny.”

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the small white clouds that weren’t in the shape of anything other than clouds.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Frankie.  It must have hurt.” I said, “And I don’t think you’re crazy, but I know I am.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.  So I told him about the sparkly shit that eats my vision once in awhile, and the hollow, numb feeling of shrinking and growing at the same time, and how I don’t know how to talk to people.

“You do better than talking to people.” Frankie said, “You listen.  You actually listen to people when they tell you things.  When most people are in a conversation they’re just waiting for you to stop talking so they can tell their story.  Sometimes they even interrupt when you take a breath.  You actually stay still and let people finish what they’re saying.”

“What about the sparkly shit and the numb thing?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.” Frankie said, “Did you ever think it might be because your old man slaps you around all the time?  Like maybe it’s better to be numb than have to deal with that?”

I had never thought about it that way before and it sent goose bumps up my back.  I’d never figured that my dad slapping me around had an affect on me, but maybe it did.  Maybe it was having a huge affect on me.

Jimmy’s dad slapped him around too and his habit was to be slow and careful and that’s how it affected Jimmy; he was terrified of making a mistake and being beaten for it, so he was slow and careful about everything.  He was even slow and careful around his friends who wouldn’t be mad at him for taking risks and messing up.

Carrie was shy and quiet and tried to blend into the background because if she stood out she’d be picked on by her older siblings, and when she was picked on you could watch her fold into herself, trying to be smaller than she already was so she could go back to not being noticed.  It wasn’t until those moments of awareness sitting under the fir trees in Stanley park that I understood why Carrie was so happy that I pushed her on the swing that day that she held my hand as I walked her home; she knew I saw her and appreciated her as a person.

So maybe Frankie was right; that I disconnected from my body rather than feel anything, just like filling my head with a million stupid facts kept me from having meaningful conversations with people like I was doing with Frankie that day.  It was a revealing moment for me as I realized I couldn’t fix a problem I didn’t know I had and now that I knew, I couldn’t go back to not knowing.

I stood up and looked down at Frankie as I started to walk down to the rocky shore where the little crabs lived.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“Crazy.” I smiled, “Wanna come?”

"Little Gangsters"

The Cover-Up ...

M_ moved to the front of the Winnebago, so I moved toward the rear where the bedroom was.  I saw movement and the short barrel of a sawed-off twelve gauge sticking out from behind the half closed accordion door.

“Drop it!” I said, aiming at the thin vinyl of the retractable door where I knew I’d get a piece of him, “Come out slow and drop it.”

There was a silence, then;

“Okay.  Coming out slowly.” the second biker said, his rough voice deep and calm, “Just don’t shoot.”

He eased himself out from behind the door, holding the butt of the sawed-off and pointing the barrels at the roof.

“I don’t know what your beef is friend.” he said, looking me in the eyes.

“Put the gun down.” I said, aiming my Walther at his centre mass.

“Setting it down on the counter.” he smiled, “Nice and sl …”

A sudden violent thud knocked the wind out of me as the tight air in the RV was shocked by thunder.  I actually felt the bullet from M_’s Taurus snap past my right shoulder before it hit the biker in the chest, knocking him back onto the bed in the back.  The shotgun clattered to the floor.

M_ had executed both bikers.

As Lennox and Ruben made it to the door beside M_ I rushed to the biker on the bed.  He was still alive but barely; his sternum was shattered and pulsing blood from dozens of burst veins in pulverized flesh.  He was choking, spitting up specks of blood, quivering.

“Why?” he gurgled.

“You killed D_.” I said, lifting his head.

“Dunno a D_” he gasped, then the light went out of his eyes.  I let his head drop and spun on M_

“Why did you shoot him?” I half shouted at him, covering the distance between us in three strides, wanting to smash him in the face, “He was putting the gun down.”

“They killed D_and Tracy.  They had to go.” M_ said, still holding his Taurus loosely in his hand.

“We could have questioned them.” I said, my anger with M_’s reckless attitude straining my voice, “We don’t even know if they did it.”

“Yeah, we do.” M_ smirked and pointed down at the first biker with the barrel of the Taurus.  I saw it then, tucked behind him in the cushions of the sofa – D_’s Arkansas Toothpick.  I suddenly felt tired and washed out – it finally hit me then that we were truly leaderless, but what hit me harder was that I no longer trusted M_.  The thought came to me that he could have dropped that ugly knife there when I wasn’t watching, and somewhere in there I felt my heart break.

“He was going for it when I shot him.” M_ said.

“We still could have questioned them.” I offered lamely, “Found out if there are others.”

M_slapped me on the back, “There’s always others, B_  It’s the nature of our business.  Right Ruben?”

I looked at Ruben still standing in the narrow stairwell of the Winnebago.  He looked unsettled as well, but whether it was from the lingering shock of losing D_ or if he too had his suspicions about M_, I had no idea.

“Yeah.” Ruben said, “There’s always others.”

"__&__"

The Winnebago ...

I heard the gag and gurgle and turned to see B_ falling to her knees, her hands still clutching her robe tight to her throat as she heaved up bile and foamy spit.  It had all been too much for her and she wasn’t lying when she said she felt sick.

I went to her and squatted down, steadying her with my hands as she vomited then dry heaved.  She was as small and light and frail as a baby bird, and I worried about the child resting in her belly.

“We need to get you home.” I told her gently once she stopped heaving.  I eased her up to her feet, her body still curled around her core.

“I feel sick.” she said.

“I know.” I said.  Then Betts was there, taking B_ from my arms.

“I’ll take her and stay with her.” Betts said, her cheeks still wet with tears, “I can’t be here either.”

We took Lennox’s car and drove out to Conkle road.  We’d all came strapped when we got M_’s call that his father’s home was engulfed and his parents were nowhere to be found.  M_was waiting in his Charger when we arrived and he waved us on to follow him.

Uncharacteristic of M_, he idled down Conkle road then turned right onto a dirt path that lead to a cluster of brush and twisted trees.  We both parked and we all got out.  M_ had drawn his Taurus and chambered a round.  We did the same.

“We go the rest of the way on foot.” M_ said, leading us further down the path.  There were motorcycle tracks in the sand.

“What’s down here?” I asked him.

“The men who killed D_ and Tracy.” he said.

“How did you know they were dead?” I asked, “They just found the bodies before you texted.”

“I was there just after the fire started.” Ma_ said, “I heard the Harley’s light up as they left the park.  That’s what woke me up.  D_’s place was already burning hot and there was no sign of him or Tracy.”

“You followed the bikers.”

“Yeah and I watched.  They’re in there.” M_ said, pointing through the bush.  I could see the corner of an old Winnebago.