by Amber Burns
“How do you plea?” The judge asked without looking up at me.
“Not guilty,” was my answer, because of course, I was not guilty.
The judge looked up at me with a critical eye, “Says here you are a service man? A wounded veteran?”
“Yessir,” I met his gaze without any sort of hesitation. I knew I was innocent, “Served two tours in Iraq and the last one ended my career with the Army.”
“I would like to know the outcome of the trial that comes after this,” he taped the gavel. “Bail set for two thousand.”
I grimace and was moved along the line. My bail was set, but I was sure that I would probably be stuck, because I sure as shit didn’t have the money. I was taken back to the cell that I had spent the night in, and I expected to sit there until my trial date.
I tried to not think about what would happen from there. But it’s was near lunch, and I could only imagine that with her work, Madison’s had found out by now. I rubbed at my face as I tried to figure out her reaction to it. It was hard to guess. I wouldn’t know until I talked to her and the not knowing just tore me up. I spent the remainder of my day letting the worry eat me. At six a guard came to get me.
“Somebody made bail,” he said simply and walked me to collect my shit. The progress was slow going even though the only ‘weapon’ I had on me was a small pocket knife.
I walked out of the holding part of the jail. To my surprise I found Teddy and Wilson waiting on me, both dressed in suits and looking less dirty biker and more like prepared adults. I stood just outside the door that had released me from jail, just standing there staring at them.
“Who the fuck are you guys?” I chirped.
“Funny,” Wilson growled at me as he adjusted his suit coat, it looked a little tight on him and didn’t really make him look like a businessman. He looked like an adult that might have his shit together, might being the keyword. “C’mon let's get out of here so we can talk business.”
“I don’t want to ride bitch,” I complained, and I heard chuckles from behind me. I imagined that Jimmy probably didn’t have the same experience I did. I eyed them both as I followed them out of the jailhouse. “Where’s Jimmy?”
“Jimmy bailed himself out,” Teddy said without venom. “If he knows what’s good for him, and he’s smart, he’ll stay away from the bar for a while.”
They led me to a car, which surprised the shit out of me. It was a late model town car.
“Whose car is this?” I realized both of them were older, but I didn’t expect them to drive around grandpa cars.
“You call me old, you bastard,” Wilson snarled at me. “And I will bust your ass so hard you won’t know what hit you!”
He closed the distance like he was going to do just that. I raised my hands up like I was under arrest again and that seemed to placate him enough. We loaded up, and I waited until they were both settled before I let my anger get the best of me.
“So, which one of you assholes decided to set me up?”
“Neither of us,” Teddy said as he glanced over a shoulder at me. “It doesn’t benefit the club at all to set up one of its members.”
“Really? Because the night I go to follow Jimmy out to do his meth pick up, there’s a shit ton of cops that roll in,” I didn’t keep the sarcasm from my tone. “This is after you,” I gestured towards Wilson. “Arrange it so I can follow him. Tell me how that doesn’t sound fucked up?”
“I’ll give that to ya,” Wilson said lightly. “I set up a cheap car without a plate so in the event something went down it wouldn’t be traced back to the club more than it already would be, considering two members were caught in a meth lab.” He grumbled and looked to Teddy, “The kid is going to have to be out, and we will be shutting down all illegal activity for the next six months. Shit’ll be tight.” Teddy nodded, listening intently. “We’ll have to pool our funds to make sure this jackass doesn’t get pinned with something he wasn’t involved in.”
“Done,” Teddy answered without hesitation. “I’ll get on the phone with the attorneys in town and see if I can’t find one that’ll cut us a deal.”
I listened to them talk, leaning back against the seat and letting the weariness and lack of sleep catch up with me. My phone was clutched in my hand. I assumed the police must have turned it off after they searched through it for any sort of pertinent information for the case they were going to build against me. I was sure my terrible attempts at sexting were looked through with amusement.
I knew that the slim black device held nothing but bad news for me. Did Madi know? Her reaction was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to see. She didn’t strike me as the type to get violently angry, she seemed meek at most points, and while I didn’t want to take advantage of that, I was worried how she would take this. I knew she would probably feel betrayed after the way I talked up the club and swore there was nothing illegal that we did. I swallowed and decided the best route was to take it like a man. I ripped the fucking band-aid off and turned my phone on. After a slow bootup, I was notified that I had six text messages and a voice mail. I started with the text messages, figuring they would be the easiest to handle.
A simple one from Wilson was received at eleven pm, ‘Check in.’ He probably got worried when I didn’t show up back at the bar.
The rest were from Madi.
At ten-thirty pm, I got a sweet ‘Good night. I’ll miss waking up to you.’ with a little heart symbol. My chest started to hurt.
At seven thirty, she sent me a ‘Good morning,’ with a smiley face included.
It was just after nine am that I got the next one, ‘Getting kind of worried. Usually, you’re blowing up my phone. Are you okay?’ I was attached to this girl, I didn’t try to harass her, but I wanted her to know how much she was on my mind. I didn’t leave her hanging.
‘You were arrested? Please, tell me this is a joke,’ was the last one and from her, I could feel my heart sliding into my stomach.
The last text message that I read was from Jimmy, ‘I’m gonna fuck you up when I see you.’ I snorted and shook my head.
“Jimmy’s going to be after me now.”
“While I don’t doubt you could take the kid,” Wilson said without looking back at me. “I will make sure I put him in his place.”
“Let me do it,” Teddy started to argue. “I can handle Jimmy.”
“No,” I heard Wilson snap in response. “If you would have listened to Redding in the first place we wouldn’t be out the money it’s going to cost to get his ass out of the fire,” he growled in a low tone. “Instead of listening to his gut and taking his word with some consideration, you pitched a fit like a bitch. You should consider yourself lucky I’m not making you scrub toilets with your toothbrush.”
They went back and forth like that for a little while, I rolled my eyes. I tuned them out and decided to hazard the voice mail. I held my phone to my ear and waited for the final verdict.
“I thought you said that you didn’t do anything illegal, Sid,” her voice sounded choked. I closed my eyes and brought a hand to my forehead so that the other two men in the car wouldn’t see any of the emotions I was feeling. “How could this happen?” It was clear she was talking to herself. “I want my key back.” The message ended, she sounded broke, and I felt it.
I’m such an ass.
I dropped my phone in my lap and tried my best not to let the emotions choke me. My throat burned and I clenched my eyes closed, trying not to cry. I definitely didn’t want to cry in front of these bastards. I feel the car turn, and we’re parked in the lot that was in front of the bar. Teddy and Wilson got out, and I stayed in the back of the grandpa car, trying to pull my shit together.
Teddy lingered by the car, I noticed when I got out and tried to wipe my cheeks so that it didn’t look like I was wiping away tears. He gave me a look like he had an idea what I had been doing.
“Let it blow over, show her you’re innocent,” he said softly. “She’ll forgive you.”
>
I followed him across the street, and we started towards the bar door when I saw my bike. There was a bag on the seat, and I knew without a doubt that she had packed up all my things. I was going to be cut out because of this. It tore me up, and I didn’t bother going to the bar. I picked up the bag and shoved it into the closest saddlebag. I picked up my helmet and sat on my bike. I was tired, and now all I wanted to do is fall in my bed to dwell on the end of that one slice of heaven.
“You’re gonna go?” Teddy called out to me.
I gave him a nod, put my helmet on and kicked my bike to life. I needed to get out of there, I didn’t want to be emotional in front of anyone.
19
I spent the majority of the day in bed. Only getting up when I needed to and taking my pills when it was time to. As soon as what was necessary was done, I flopped back on my bed. The mattress was too firm and was nowhere near as comfortable as Madi’s bed. Her sweet scent wasn’t anywhere, I couldn’t even smell her on me. The only thing I could smell from my sheets was my own stink and the lingering smell of motor oil. The smell of oil never seemed to leave me.
In a short amount of time, I had managed to get things going good for me. I had a girl that took a good portion of my attention. Our exchanges were easy, and after she had got used to me, she opened up like a flower. The shyness that had stilted her when I first spoke to her went away after our lunch, and I enjoyed every little conversation we had. Her voice was soft, and it warmed me just to hear her speak. There was no one here, but me. There was no conversation going on in the tiny apartment I called home. It was just me in there, laid out across my bed dwelling on the noise in my own head; by myself. I didn’t have the soft feel of her body against me, the light snore of hers to occupy the room.
I was alone. Really, I hadn’t been alone since Teddy picked me up from the bar. I made the effort to keep myself surrounded with people to keep myself distracted. The idea of people now seemed stifling. I didn’t want to go to the bar, I didn’t want, or care, to find out what happened to Jimmy. I didn’t want to face Teddy’s concern. Would he apologize for the shit he gave me when I first mentioned my concerns to them? Did I care?
Part of the problem with being alone is that there was nothing to distract me. There was nothing to keep me out of my head. I had stopped taking the antidepressants and antianxiety pills, medication that had been prescribed with the worry of PTSD. It had been a long time since I actually thought about what happened in Iraq. I spent the majority of my time in the desert working on any vehicle that was put in front of me, and I had duty like everyone else. My job had been easy and I very rarely had to fire my gun for anything other than practice. I had been tapped to drive in the caravan that would carry supplies out from the base to the village that was closest. The IED didn’t even blow under the truck I was driving. It had hit the truck that had been rolling ahead of mine, killing three of the soldiers within and crippling the others that were lucky enough to survive. The guy that rode shotgun with me had the same kind of burns that I had, though the distance from the blast made them a little less severe.
They were groups, they offered support in the form of a bunch of men and women that had been wounded. We all struggled to figure out a way to get back into life, to let go of what had been taken away from us and go back into normal society. Sometimes it was just a bunch of men and women staring each other, doped up on the drugs that they took that was supposed to help them forget what had put them there. It was supposed to help them cope, but more often than not they decided they would have been better off biting it. So they would take the matter into their own hands, for relief from the pain.
It had been what I was considering when I first met Teddy. Chewing on the nine millimeter that I kept in the closet and pulling the trigger to get relief from the pain and the noise in my head. When it was quiet in my room, and I wasn’t numbed by alcohol, I could still hear the noise of the IED exploding and the ripping of metal.
I thought that I was over this. I thought that the roar of my bike’s engine had drowned out the sound of the explosion. The pain was something I was told I’d live with the rest of my life. But, the noise and the smell of death was something that had been replaced by wind whipping in my ears and smell of the road. And all of that had been replaced in a short amount of time by the sound and feel of a girl.
I hadn’t been kidding when I told her I loved her, even though I had jumped the gun. I knew she felt something for me. If it wasn’t love, it was close to coming to it. With that gone, how was I supposed to cope now?
20
I found a dusty bottle of whiskey in one of the cabinets in the kitchen. I hadn’t drank seriously since I joined the Brotherhood, save a beer here and there. Now, I forged through my bare apartment for any alcohol that had survived the last few years of being in the Brotherhood. I needed to be numb.
I had no idea how many days it had been since I was out, how long it had been since Wilson and Teddy had bailed me out. I didn’t know if it was night or day. I didn’t care. A knock on my door didn’t get my attention either, I had turned off my phone and hadn’t bothered to check in. I wasn’t going anywhere, so they didn’t have to worry about me skipping bail. Needless to say, I didn’t answer the door. Unfortunately, I forgot about the spare key I had given Teddy. I watched my front door open, and the big man came in; Wilson was right behind him. I hadn’t even heard their bikes, even though I had been just dwelling on the quiet of my room.
“You dead in there?” Wilson called when he saw me looking.
“Not yet,” I grumbled and rolled onto my back. “Give me a couple of days, and I might be,” I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head. “Fuck off,” I really didn’t want to see either of them.
“That’s not going to happen,” Wilson growled as he came into my apartment and thundered into my bedroom without asking permission. “We’re not going to let you do stupid shit because some bitch dumped you for being stupid.”
I was up before my brain even caught up with what he said, and I was in his face.
“Madi,” I growled. “Is not a bitch.” I felt like I was ready to throw down for this, the alcohol was really messing with my frame of thought. “Say it again, old man,” I hissed at him. “Let’s see how that goes.”
His face went red, and I could see him sizing me up, trying to figure out whether or not he could take me.
“Sit your ass down,” he growled back at me. “Ain’t no sense in trying to try to uphold her honor if she’s not here to see it or if she’s not with you.”
I waited to see if he was going to give me a reason to punch him. I wasn’t happy to see either of them.
“It’s been a few days,” Teddy said as he came to join Wilson in my bedroom. “I understand your reason to be down and out, but not this far gone.” He looked at me even though I was still glaring at Wilson. “You’re back on the edge and because of what? A woman?”
I sat heavily on my bed, all I wanted was to be alone.
“I’m not contemplating the flavor of my gun,” I assured him. I cupped my face in my hands, trying to cover the view of any sort of emotion that I had been feeling bleed through. I wanted to be alone and numb. Them coming in and bringing up Madi wasn’t going to help my issues. “I just need time to be alone,” I grumbled.
“We’re not going to give you any more time,” Wilson snapped. “You’ve had two days. That’s enough.”
I growled at him and pulled my hands away from my face, “When was the last time you had a serious relationship, old man? Are you married? You don’t know me, you don’t have the right to tell me to get over a woman I was in a relationship with that got broke off because of something I was doing for you. You have some serious balls to come in here and tell me to get over it like you know how I felt. I’ve made enough sacrifices for you assholes. Don’t come lookin’ for me to make more.”
“Not what we’re here for,” Wilson snipped, moving to lean against one of the bare walls of my bedroom.<
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“We’re here to help build your case for you,” Teddy folded his thick arms over his gut and glared at me. “We all know you’re innocent and why you were there. Making a case shouldn’t be too hard. Have you contacted the VA to learn about the state of your benefits?”
I shrugged because as of right then I didn’t care. I had already gotten paid for the month, why should I fret over something that wouldn’t affect me until the first?
“Let’s say,” he sat next to me as he spoke. “We prove your innocence. If that girl is as tore up about this as you are, maybe she’ll see that she was wrong to drop you like the sack of shit you are.”
I grimaced at him, “Do you think Doris would give you a second chance?”
He looked away, the pain of his failed marriage apparent on his face. Teddy knew how I felt. I didn’t doubt this man cared for the woman that left him. And I’m sure that me pointing out his failed relationship was enough to give him insight on how I felt.