That doc was all right. He not only saved my face, but he probably saved my ass, too.
Not long after he stepped away from my bed, two detectives introduced themselves.
They explained that Amanda Jensen had given them a full statement, but they needed mine. They would prefer to have mine now, if I could. What they really wanted to say was, “Before you can get a chance to check your story with your date,” but they were polite about that.
I tried my best to ask where and how Amanda was. I honestly didn’t know what had happened to her after the fight had started, and my brain was still super foggy. One detective said, “She’s outside and wants to see you. We just need to go over a few things.”
“I need to speak to my lawyer first,” I mumbled. I’m not sure what it sounded like to them, but they apparently didn’t hear the word ‘lawyer’.
“We’re trying to get an idea of exactly what happened. Can you tell us what you saw?”
I decided to be vague but helpful. I spoke slowly through the drug-induced haze, attempting to enunciate so they could understand me. My lips were swollen and split, and my tongue felt so thick that I could barely speak. “A guy grabbed my date. I tried to stop him and another guy hit me in the head with something. Two other guys jumped in, and one had a knife. I don’t remember much more. If I remember, I’ll tell it to my lawyer.”
This time, they got it. The detective looked around to make sure no one was looking at him other than his partner, and he pulled up his sleeve. He had a USMC tattoo on his forearm. “As far as I’m concerned, you did a community service. Don’t say anything else until your lawyer shows up.”
And that was that. They left.
I had now been lucky twice in a row. First a cool doc, then a cool cop. The third thing that happened that was lucky was that asshole number one had pulled a knife on me. Without the knife, I was maybe looking at triple manslaughter charges. With the knife, it was a much better case for self-defense. The fourth lucky thing—yes, there was a lot of luck involved in this whole thing, trust me, I know—was that the newspaper wrote a headline that totally saved my ass. Now, as a soldier, I’m not a big fan of the liberal anti-war press, but in this case, a reporter named Kim Predham really did come through for me, big time.
If they had printed “Trained Killer Slaughters Three in Local Bar,” I might have gotten a cold needle in the arm or something. “Wounded War Hero Kills Three Defending Woman.” No shit. That was the headline. Amanda’s interview had really helped. She had been such a sympathetic victim, terrorized by a group of groping animals that might have raped her and killed her boyfriend—she said it, not me—had I not saved her and taken on three men, one of whom had a knife.
By the time I came out of the hospital a few days later, I had given no fewer than half a dozen interviews to reporters and been on the national news, with my left eye still being half closed and golf-ball-like. At the advice of the lawyer Amanda had found for me, who happened to be a retired JAG lawyer, I played the wounded warrior card and gave the interviews.
The day of my release, Amanda wheeled me out of the front of the hospital to a cheering crowd. I know—surreal. The cool part was that the police had gone from treating me like a suspect to treating me like a good guy, and they ‘escorted’ us back to Amanda’s house.
Amanda drove. It was a little awkward. My face was changing colors and I still had a wicked headache. In fact, everything hurt.
“Some date, huh?” I finally managed. It even hurt to talk.
“One I will never forget. How are you doing over there?” she asked. She really was about the sweetest person on the planet at that particular moment.
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’m good.” She paused. “I took a few days off. You know, I am a physical therapist. I’ll take very good care of you for the next couple of days, okay?”
“You didn’t have to do that. Look… You don’t owe me anything, right?”
I really didn’t want her feeling guilty—unless it would get me laid, I mean. Maybe I only half-meant that. I really didn’t want her feeling like it was her fault, and I told her.
“I can’t believe I picked that bar,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Oh, stop. How could you know? And besides, I was the one who wanted to stay. Wasn’t your fault. Wasn’t mine, either. Shit happens.”
She started crying. That caught me off guard. She had really been so great about everything. The only time I remembered her being upset was when she was screaming at the top of her lungs in the bar. She had been totally together with all the reporters, with the police, with the attorney that she’d found for me. Seriously, she’d been running the operation and taking care of everything. I guess it caught up with her in the car when it was over.
I reached out and held her right hand, and she said something about them almost killing me.
“Lots of people have almost killed me. That’s how we met in the first place. Remember?” We pulled into the parking lot in front of her townhouse and our police escort left us.
Then it hit me. We were at her place. “Um, Amanda? This is your place…?”
“You just noticed now?” she said, and looked at me with an evil grin. “I told you I was going to nurse you back to health.”
“I don’t have anything here,” I protested.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the key to my apartment. “When I went to get your clothes to leave the hospital, I picked up a few extra things for you. And I confess, I was very relieved when I let myself in and didn’t find a wife and four small children.”
“So you’re pretty much kidnapping me back to your house to take advantage of me in my weakened condition?” I asked with my usual sense of humor that’s only funny to me.
She cocked her head and made a serious face. “I have a spare bedroom.”
“The newspapers said I was your boyfriend,” I teased her.
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” she retorted. Sarcastic little thing.
I liked that.
Chapter Six
Healing
So one might think, “Isn’t this all a little fast? You went from your first date to staying at her place?” I know. It sounds nuts. But here was the thing… By the time we’d had our first date, I felt like I had known Amanda for years, and the date itself, prior to being almost killed, had been the most fun I’d ever had. Truth be told, she had been enjoying herself as much as I had. That was not me being cocky. She’d actually told me that. That was, right up to the part where Dental-Boy grabbed her boob and started the small riot. In any event, she took me back to her place to make sure I didn’t die or something. And I couldn’t have been happier.
The first day was spent with her running around making icepacks and freezing my head. It helped. By early evening, it almost looked like a human’s again, albeit in Technicolor. My black eyes looked nice against my purple forehead with red blotches, along with a black, blue and purple cheek. I looked worse than I felt, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. She was actually starting to dig me, which was bizarre, considering that I was so scary-looking I could haunt houses.
I feigned extreme pain and enjoyed every second of her nursing skills. I refused the painkillers because I am extremely macho and because it didn’t really hurt too badly. And because I would have rather be able to drink. Amanda gave up trying to give me Percocet and instead, at my urging, she opened a bottle of red wine. It was an exquisite Italian brunello di Montalcino. And no one should make fun. Even macho Army types can enjoy wine. I’d taken several of my leaves in Italy and France, where I had acquired a taste for wine and never looked back. It was only out of lack of options that I would drink beer—or anything else.
Amanda was surprised and impressed at my knowledge of wine, but the truth was, when a person is in the service, they have hours of boredom interrupted by moments of terror. A buddy of mine, a colonel, was a sommelier. Who cou
ld even believe that? A combat hardened bad-ass, who, when he retired from the service, could work at any top restaurant in the world. Col. Cantor and I had become friendly, which was a little unusual for an NCO and brass, but our love of wine surpassed our strict observation of formality. One month I was killing people and blowing things up, the next I was sipping wine in a stunning vineyard, discussing terroir and tannins with the colonel. His passion was contagious, and pretty soon I was on my own path toward wine snobbery.
We’d used our time off to travel to vineyards and taste wines from all over the world. The wine region in Tuscany where the hilltop town of Montalcino is located might be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The fact that Amanda owned a bottle of brunello di Montalcino, such amazing wine, gave her extra brownie points.
We split the bottle, which was a good idea, because I could ‘sip’ much better than I could drink, since my face was still rather alien-like. She ended up getting slightly buzzed and very philosophical, then downright mushy.
When she leaned over and kissed me, I knew I had a real special woman. I wouldn’t have kissed me, that was for sure. I’m not sure how she was even looking at me, never mind touching me, but she was, and I kissed her back as best as my busted lips would allow.
Well, I guess she had a pretty good buzz on, because she kept making out with me, even though I looked like roadkill. We’re talking Scaryville. But she was evidently much less shallow than I am.
One thing led to another—maybe it was called guilt—and she undressed me then undressed herself. And oh my. Unlike me, she hadn’t gotten her ass kicked, and her ass was perfect. So were her teeth. I think I might have mentioned them earlier. So there I was, naked on her couch, watching her undress until she was naked and just standing there wearing only a smile. My heart skipped a beat, probably because of all the blood had been rerouted somewhere else. I think I decided to marry her at that particular second. She then began doing things that I hadn’t experienced in several years. Years… Believe that?
“Your heart is beating pretty fast,” she said softly, putting her head on my chest when it was finished.
“I am pretty sure I just had a minor heart attack,” I explained.
“I think you’ll live. You’re pretty tough.”
“Was that a physical therapy technique?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, and although I couldn’t see her face, I could feel her smiling.
“How come I didn’t get that when I was going for PT at the rehab center?”
“Your healthcare coverage was lousy. This is an out-of-office visit and it’s treated differently.” She laughed. “By the way, you owe me twenty bucks for the co-pay.”
“Twenty bucks? Hell, let’s plan for two hundred a week.”
“Nice try,” she said.
We remained cuddled up naked on the couch, just enjoying each other for a while, until Amanda decided it was time for round two. Even in my weakened, battered condition, I was enthusiastic about trying again.
She climbed on top of me, straddling my hips, and began moving slowly. I’m not sure how long it had been for her, but it had been forever for me, and I didn’t last very long. Luckily, she didn’t either.
I think I was in a deep sleep in about thirty seconds. It was the best nap I’d ever had. Because I am a gentleman, I have spared the details of the rest of that day—and evening and next morning. But suffice it to say I was hooked and so was she. Things seemed like they were going perfectly.
Chapter Seven
Now What?
After three solids days of bedroom antics that were designed to either cure me or kill me, Amanda had to go back to work. She gave me keys and told me she would be home around six. Home. I loved the sound of that.
When she left for work that morning, it felt like we had been married for ten years—except I’m guessing that couples who were married for ten years didn’t try to do it in every room of the house, on every piece of furniture and on the floor and in the shower. My right shoulder occasionally reminded me that three swamp rats had tried to kill me and my face was still sore and bruised, but Amanda made me forget about anything that hurt every time she took off her clothes. I’m not bragging. In fact, I’d come right out and say that she was definitely better at the whole screwing thing than I was. That woman was amazing. I was already madly in love with her, even though, admittedly, I hardly even knew her. Oh well…I had taken a lot more risks than that.
After she left, I showered, dressed and decided to go walk around the neighborhood and grab some coffee. It still felt strange to me to be a civilian. I had spent my entire adult life in the military and had always been sure I would retire a sergeant major after twenty-five or thirty years. It was all I’d ever wanted to do. Now, because of the injury, I was out of the military forever and had zero idea what I was going to do with my life.
Amanda had made enough of an impact that I was pretty sure I could stay in Twin Oaks, North Carolina for the rest of my life, assuming she would keep me around. But I had no idea what I would do for a job. The types of things I was trained for and good at were not things that had much use in civilian life. Unless, maybe, I’d lived in a really bad neighborhood—like Kandahar or Fallujah.
I found a trendy coffee shop and ordered a cup of coffee. When I went into the Army, I could go into a coffee shop in the morning, still half asleep, and grunt “coffee…regular,” and somebody would hand me a cup of joe with milk and sugar in it. It cost less than a buck and took less than twenty seconds. Somewhere over the past ten years or so, somebody changed the English language and how we dealt with a cup of joe.
As I stood listening to the people in front of me in line ordering, I began to tense up. I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I spoke English, Pashtun, Farsi and a smattering of some other tribal dialects. In Afghanistan, I could simply say qahwa in Pashto and some guy would hand me coffee.
When the guy in front of me ordered a ‘vente skim caramel macchiato, extra foamy with an extra shot,’ I froze in panic. He walked away to another part of the coffee counter where people apparently picked up their orders and left me standing there facing a very young woman with a nose piercing. The nose thing had me as weirded out as the coffee. When did American girls start emulating Calcutta? Man, was I out of touch with the new, improved America.
She welcomed me, gave me a huge fake smile and asked me what I would like. Not knowing what else to say, I said, “Coffee.” It took a while and I pissed off the people behind me, big time. In the end, I paid a couple of dollars for a black coffee and was guided to the ‘fixings bar’ like I was going to make a cheeseburger or something. Holy shit. I’d just wanted a cup of java.
I bought a paper and sat at a very small table in cramped quarters. I was reading about the fighting going on in the Middle East when I felt eyes on me. I looked up and realized a cop had sat down at the table next to me.
I gave him a polite chin nod and a grunted, “Morning,” and went back to reading, but he was still looking at me. My face was no longer Elephant-Man-like, but I was still black and blue and swollen in a few spots, with some fine tape on my cheek over the purple part. I had also opted for a very high and tight military flat-top before donning my dress uniform on date-night, so it wasn’t like I exactly melted into the landscape.
Recognizing my busted face, he asked, “You the soldier I was reading about last week?”
“Yeah. That would be me.” I stuck out my hand and said, “Cory Walker.” As we shook hands, pain shot from his grip up to my bad shoulder. My smile probably looked like a grimace.
“Nice to meet you, Cory. John McBride. I followed your story for a few days. I was a ground-pounder myself back in the first Gulf War. Glad you made it through okay.”
“Thanks. For a few days, I thought I was going to end up in jail. Actually, I should back that up. I originally thought I was going to end up in the morgue but landed in the hospital instead.”
We bonded over my cup of coffee
and his grande soy mocha bullshit. I asked him about being a cop. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Maybe law enforcement would be interesting enough to keep me from getting bored. As a ‘disabled vet’, I would get bumped up on any civil service list, which meant my chances of getting hired were very good.
After twenty minutes of listening to his career, I decided I would rather work at a car wash. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an interesting job that was personally rewarding or anything like that. It was just the amount of bureaucratic bullshit and paper shuffling that seemed unacceptable. Where I came from, we had a specific mission, we hit our target and we split. After I listened to him explaining the limitations placed on law enforcement personnel, I had to wonder if the American judges were Al Qaeda. Hell, the cops couldn’t even search a car without asking for permission. It would be way too frustrating for me, and I told him so.
We talked about working for the FBI, CIA, DEA, or NSA—even Border Patrol, which was currently hiring lots of former military. By the time he left to go back to work, I had decided I couldn’t be a cop, but maybe I could use my years of military experience in some other branch of government service. The biggest question would be whether I could stay in Twin Oaks if I signed on with one of those outfits. Amanda probably wouldn’t want to move for a guy she’d just met, and I didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind. I left the coffee shop to walk and ponder the universe and my place in it.
Chapter Eight
My Crazy New Idea
After what seemed like a twenty-mile walk, I’d come to several conclusions. I was in love with a woman I had just met, I couldn’t sleep most nights because I was still in combat-mode most of the time and I couldn’t help but feel guilty and worried about my guys back in the sand box. There was a lot to ponder. One thing I did know for sure. I needed to spend as much time as I could with Amanda and preferably some place very quiet, where I could allow my brain to return to whatever was considered ‘normal’. And that, I knew, would take some effort.
Blood from a Stone Page 3