Tempted: The Numb MC

by Olivia Stephens

  “Rough night?” Todd asks, smirking.

  I think Todd imagines that I’m completely over Emerald, that all the men imagine it. They all think I let her go just as I let every other woman go I’ve ever been with. Just pushed her out of my life and out of my mind, just forgot about her the second she was gone. But then, they must know something or suspect something, because I haven’t had another woman since Emerald. Not even a quick fuck. Nothing. Even now, as I look across the desk at my brother, I’m sure I can see Emerald standing beside the door, smiling softly at me.

  “Huh?” I grunt, snapping back to reality when Todd barks something at me.

  “I said, are you alright, brother?”

  “I’m fine,” I murmur. “You here for a reason?”

  Todd holds his hands up. “Have I done something to offend you?” he asks.

  “No.” I shake my head, and even that causes it to pound. “No, I’m just hungover, is all.”

  A silence stretches between us, but it’s a silence only confined to my office. Elsewhere in the clubhouse, the men shout and laugh, glasses clink. I hear Chester, voice raspy, singing karaoke into a microphone as some of the men clap and cheer. Farther down, at the back of the clubhouse, the ring has been set up and two of the men pommel each other, their fists making slap noises on the other’s flesh. Then there’s a loud bang as someone goes down, and a cheer is thrown up.

  Finally, Todd says, “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  I squint at him. “Her? Who’s her?”

  Todd rolls his eyes. “Ethan, I’ve spent more time with you these past few weeks than I have at any other point in our lives.”

  “Shit,” I say, realizing it’s true. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Exactly. So do you really think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been acting? Don’t get me wrong. You haven’t dropped the slack on the jobs. You’ve been doing a hell of a job. But you’re tired. You’re not sleeping.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “No, not on its own. But what about the fact that you haven’t been with a woman since—you know?”

  “Yeah, and what about you? When all the men went to the—”

  “I’m seeing a woman. You know that.”

  Ah yes, Amy.

  “Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence you’ve started to act weird since that night. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that you’ve started to act weird since you left Emerald.”

  “Maybe it is a fucking coincidence,” I growl, leaning forward. I’m not even angry at Todd. I’m not even angry at myself or Emerald, not right now. I’m just angry at the whole damn world. “Maybe that’s exactly what it is and you’re reading into shit that isn’t there. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m the damn boss and it isn’t your goddamn place to question me, eh? Maybe that’s what’s happening here.”

  Todd backs away a little, fear flickering across his face, but he doesn’t get up and leave the room. He watches me for a few moments, and then he says quietly, “I could check on her, if you wanted. Just to make sure she’s okay.”

  “She’s not my concern anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but she’s definitely concerning you.”

  “I didn’t take you for a fucking pun artist, Todd.”

  “You’re angry,” Todd states flatly.

  “Well-fucking-done!” I snap, smashing my fist on the table.

  Todd pushes his chair back, so that he’s out of my range, but still he doesn’t stand up.

  “You’re my brother. My younger brother. I can still see the little kid, sad and terrified ’cause Dad died. Let me help you. Let me check on her. I won’t even let her see me.”

  “I thought you didn’t run my errands,” I spit bitterly.

  “This isn’t an errand. This is a favor.”

  I stretch my arms out and open and close my fingers, feel the ache in the hand which hit the table. Maybe it would be good to at least know how she’s doing. Maybe it would be help with the dreams. Maybe I’d be able to get some sleep.

  “Fine,” I say. “But don’t let her see you.”

  “I won’t.” Todd reaches into his pocket and takes out a wad of bills. “Onto business,” he goes on. “Here’s your share from last night’s job.”

  He tosses it across the desk and then leaves the office. I leave the bills untouched and watch him leave, already wishing he was back with news of Emerald.

  Chester and I sit in the corner booth. The other men stay at the far end of the bar, drinking quietly and shooting some pool. More of them are out, either in the Spring or in neighboring towns, spending their dough. I should be out with them, picking up women and grazing my fists, but I’m not in the mood. Lately, I’m never in the mood.

  “You loved this woman,” Chester says, keeping his voice quiet. The old man knows how important it is to never show weakness. The only reason I can talk to Chester about it is because he’s the most loyal man in the club. “You loved her and she hurt you.”

  “Maybe I did love her,” I reply, my voice just as low as his, if not as raspy. I sip my whiskey and he sips his. “Maybe I did, yeah, but I have a code, Chester. A goddamn code. And what’s a code worth if it isn’t unbreakable? What’s a code worth if you can just shrug and say, fuck it, oh well, let’s move on? No, a code is a code because you live and die by it. No drugs. None. Zero. If you want to do drugs, fine, but not near me, nowhere fucking near me.”

  “I know how much you hate drugs,” the old man says. “We all do. You’ve never taken a job that involved drugs, not once you became the leader, despite how much cash it might make.”

  “Exactly. So you see. I shouldn’t even be thinking about her.”

  “I had a wife once, Ethan,” Chester whispers, his voice thick with whiskey and old age and pain.

  “You did?” I ask.

  “Yes, back in Ireland. I was a twenty-year-old kid and I fell deep in love with a woman five years older than me. She was a nurse and I wasn’t much of anything.” His eyes water, glass over, and I know he’s seeing her right now. “Sammy, her name was, and she was like an angel to me. I worshipped her. I kissed her feet and I kissed her calves and I kissed her legs.” He coughs out a grim laugh. He goes to sip his whiskey, but it’s empty. I take his glass and pour him another. He nods his thanks and takes a long sip before going on.

  “I started getting work outlawing, helping some of the Irish men who weren’t too happy about the British get a foothold. Guns, explosives, that sort of thing. Sammy had a code, too, you know. She begged me to stop. She begged me to become a normal man, a hardworking man. But I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t. There was too much money in it.

  “One day, one of the explosives I was carrying went off. I managed to throw it away from me, but it still scarred me bad.” He lifts up his leather and his shirt and shows me his belly, which I’ve never seen before. The skin is scaly and bubbly, a thick burn scar. “That was it for her. Sammy couldn’t take it. I came home one day and she wasn’t there.”

  He pauses, and I think. But I can’t make sense of it. “What’s the point, old man, or are you just talking?”

  “No, because four years later, Sammy sent me a letter. She missed me, the letter said, and she wanted to see me. So we met in a hotel, had the best two nights you can imagine. Afterward, she asked me if I was still an outlaw. Yes, I told her, I was. I asked if she could be with me. And, just like that, she said that, yes, being with me was more important than her code. Do you see? There was no big moment where she changed her mind. She just did. Over time. What I’m trying to tell you, son, is that maybe in time you’ll learn to change your code. Maybe you’ll be able to forgive—”

  “It’s a nice story,” I interrupt, “but it might as well be a fairytale. Time won’t make me let this go. I’m sorry, Chester, but your wife’s code wasn’t as strong as mine. I won’t be with a goddamn druggie. I won’t.”

  Chester shrugs and drains his whiskey in one gulp.

  I stand up and make to leav
e. I stop when I’m at the edge of the table. “Chester, what happened to Sammy?”

  His eye twinkles, and then he lets out choking guffaw. When he’s done, he wipes a tear from his wrinkled cheek. “She left me six months later. The outlaw life was too much for her. I didn’t think that would help my point, though.”

  I smile and leave him, his chuckling resounding through the clubhouse, following me to my office.

  As I walk, dozens of men nod and murmur, “Boss, boss, boss.”

  When I’m back in the office, Chester’s story gets me thinking, but not in the way he intended. It only solidifies what I’ve always thought: marriage and outlawing don’t mix. How can you have a wife, or even a girlfriend, when bullets are whizzing past your head and your life is always two steps from hell? How can you stay as hard as you need to when you’ve been made soft by a woman’s touch?

  But even with these thoughts, even with my certainty, when I sleep that night, I dream of Emerald.

  “I’ve checked on her,” Todd says, poking his head around my office door. “You should see the car she’s driving, man. A beat-up old thing, barely looks like it can move.”

  “Yeah?” I say, trying to sound as disinterested as I can, like I haven’t been thinking about this for the last three days.

  Todd sits in his usual seat in the office, opposite me. It’s mid-afternoon; the clubhouse is empty apart from me, Todd, Chester, and a few of the pledges. Everyone else is busy with minor jobs, small protection jobs that don’t require my presence.

  He looks me directly in the eyes, his eyes mirror images of mine. In the blue of them I can see myself, miniature, and I look lost. I look how I imagine Chester looked when he came home one night to find that his wife was gone. I look like a man on the brink of madness. I look like hell. Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see in my brother’s eyes.

  “Well?” I say, when Todd doesn’t talk.

  He chews his cheek, and then lets out a long sigh. “It isn’t good,” he mutters. “I went by the restaurant, and she was—”

  “Wait, what?” I interject. “What the hell? Why is she working there?”

  “Debt?” Todd offers. “But I don’t get it. You paid her well for those paintings, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, thinking. “Damn well.”

  Then it hits me, just as it hits Todd; I see it in his face. We both say, at the same time: “Rehab.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “She had to pay off Amy’s rehab, and then there were her bills; she mentioned them in passing to me once. She must still have some left over, but after all that—”

  “She’s playing it safe?”

  “Yeah.” I nod.

  “Well, I went by there, and she was there, and that bastard Geno was screaming at her—right in her face in front of everybody. She didn’t do anything, Ethan. Just stood there and let the fat fuck scream at her. So then I went to the art gallery, and the woman behind the desk told me Emerald hasn’t submitted any new pieces, even though you bought all the ones she had there already.”

  Hearing this is like being punched repeatedly in the face. I’ve made her miserable, I think. But then: No, she made herself miserable.

  “There’s something else, too,” Todd says.

  “What?” I demand, my voice rising as image upon image of Emerald in pain stacks high in my mind.

  “I saw Jubilee hanging around the restaurant. I’m sure it was her, even though she’s looking pretty weird these days. She’s shaved the sides of her head. She has this one long braid starting at her forehead and going all the way down her back, and it’s dyed pink. But she’s as thin and crazy-looking as ever. She was wearing a goddamn suit.”

  “It was her?” I breathe, my voice weak. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” Todd says. “And I think I saw her outside the art gallery, too. That’s weird, isn’t it? Hanging around places where she might see Emerald?”

  “It’s more than weird, brother,” I growl. “It’s absolutely insane.”

  Then Todd says what we’re both thinking: “What if Jubilee is stalking Emerald?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Emerald

  I remember reading about pathetic fallacy in school and thinking it sounded silly, it could never happen in real life. How could weather—or a tree, or anything like that—imitate somebody’s mood? How could it represent how somebody felt? It was nonsense. But as the weather grows colder—California cold, anyhow—the rain more frequent—California frequent, anyhow—and the days shorter, my mood gets worse and worse. The worst part is that I’m not just sinking into a pit of despair. I’m digging a pit of despair for myself.

  I just can’t stop thinking about it. The despair doesn’t spring from the fact that I’ve lost Ethan, though that stabs at me like a knife, digs right deep into my chest and twists. It’s that I have absolute no memory of doing it, none at all. I’ve never taken drugs, not once, in my entire life. I’m probably the only Jackson who can say that. I’ve never taken drugs and yet I lost the man I adored because of drugs. No matter how many times I turn it over in my mind, it doesn’t make sense.

  I’ve paid off Amy’s rehab bills, our rent and utility bills, and money Amy owed to a dealer—which she only told me about two weeks ago and was a rather large sum—and I’m left with about eight grand. A fair amount of cash, sure, but not enough to retire on. So I go back to work.

  But I’ve never taken drugs in my life! I roar at night, in my mind. I’ve never touched a single drug!

  But I can’t deny the track marks. They’ve healed over, scabbed, and scarred, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. There were track marks in my arms. Drugs were in my system. I was high.

  But I didn’t take them!

  Sometimes, in the evenings, I sit on the edge of the bed with my eyes closed, retracing that night, trying to figure out what exactly happened. I see the meal clearly, see Amy and Todd leave together, see Ethan smiling and asking me to come to the coast. I hear him describing the stars and I feel his body pressed against mine on the boat. I feel our sex. I feel it all.

  But I don’t see, feel, hear, smell, or taste a single thing that makes me think I took those drugs. I just can’t accept it. It doesn’t make any sense. Where did I get them? If I don’t remember taking them—which I don’t—surely I would remember buying them, or finding them? They can’t have been on Ethan’s boat, not Ethan, who would never touch a drug. But there’s always the problem that we were in the middle of the water, in the harbor, sure, but still in the water, at night, a chilly autumn night.

  So I sit on the edge of my bed, night after night, going over and over the events of that night, trying to find an explanation.

  And it’s not like Ethan will even help, I think bitterly, tonight, sitting on the edge of the bed as I often do.

  From next door, in Amy’s bedroom, I hear music blaring. She’s much, much better now. She’s doing fantastic, in fact. She’s clean, happy, and marching forward into a new life—all whilst I’m locked on one particularly bad night that happened weeks ago.

  No, Ethan won’t even talk to me, I think, my voice a growl in my head.

  I phoned him an embarrassing number of times during the first few days, but he wouldn’t answer. I texted him, but he wouldn’t respond. I went to the clubhouse, but I was told he wasn’t there. In the end, I stopped, holding onto what dignity I was able to salvage, and retreating.

  I think I would be able to move on, I really do, if I just had an explanation. That’s all I want. Just to know. Just to be able to think: Okay, that’s that, that’s how it happened, time to move on. But I can’t have closure if I’m not even sure what happened, can I? I can’t have closure if I’m sure I’m innocent.

  After about an hour of retracing the night and finding nothing new, I get up and go to Amy’s room. When I knock, she sings, “Come in,” her voice chirpy.

  She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, just as I was, but she’s not wallowing in the past or growing
dark and brooding. Her foot is propped up on a stool and she’s painting her nails. Her face is full of color and her tongue sticks between her teeth. She tries to paint her little toenail, but she slips and smears her toe instead.

  “Heck,” she grunts.

  I smile, despite everything. Because I have my sister back, and that’s something to smile about.

  I go to her and sit on the floor, just to the side of the stool. Then I take the brush from her hand and paint her toes for her.

  “I can do it, you know,” she giggles.