Just a City Boy (Midnight Train Series)

by V. L. Holt

  Zack listened to her sing and banter with the crowd, and all too soon, her gig was over. He still had another couple hours before his replacement was supposed to spell him. Someone named Harley.

  He heard her thank the crowd to riotous clapping and he couldn’t help but smile. That’s kind of how she was…bringing smiles and joy to everyone around her, except maybe gangbangers. Speaking of gangbangers, he heard the sound of rising chaos coming from the audience. He made his way through the tables and chairs, legs and arms, bodies, and found the source of the raucous noise.

  One of the guys from the loud group was shoving another one. They were exchanging profanities and it wouldn’t be long before they exchanged punches as well. He forced his way through the ring of people, and stood between them.

  “That’s enough, enough!” he said loud enough to get everyone’s attention. He grabbed shirt fronts with both hands, keeping them out of reach of each other. “Take yourselves outside. You can finish this fifty feet from the entrance,” he said. They pushed and yanked at his hands and wrists, but he had them tight. “Or you can do this the hard way and make me earn my first paycheck. I may or may not call the police for backup,” he shouted when they began yelling. He gave them each a hard pull that rocked their heads a bit. “You were just leaving, right?” he asked them.

  They nodded, cowed by his strength and convinced he meant what he said.

  He let them go but walked between them, satisfied they were calm enough not to cause any more trouble inside. He didn’t care what they did outside the building. He escorted them out, and once the cool night air hit his face, he realized he’d been sweating profusely. The air felt great on his skin so he calmed down for a minute.

  He felt a hand on his arm again.

  He twisted, ready for trouble.

  Lauren saw his face and backed away, startled. Her heel caught on one of the rubber mats at the entrance and she began to fall backwards. It was a bad angle, but he jumped forward, trying to catch her before she hit the ground. He grabbed her hand, but the laws of physics were insurmountable and they both ended up on the hard floor where she banged the back of her head. He lay on top of her, worried she had a concussion.

  He scrambled off and put his hand beneath her head. Her eyes fluttered at him.

  “Hey, did you black out?” he asked in his soft voice.

  “No, I just see stars,” she said, trying to blink them away.

  He brought her up with a muscled arm under her shoulders.

  “Here, sit up a bit,” he said. By then, Matt was bringing a towel and glass of water, and Kipper had come up to them too. Surrounding customers saw that she was mostly okay and wandered back to their tables. Kipper squatted down.

  “You know how to make an exit, don’t you?” Kipper asked her playfully. Even so, Zack could see concern etching her face. He could tell she was a mother by the way she inspected Lauren’s head. “Okay, how many fingers am I holding up?” Kipper asked Lauren.

  Lauren blushed and pushed her hand away. “I’m fine, y’all just let me up,” she complained.

  Kipper helped Zack pull her up to her feet.

  “I guess that’s what I get for wearing fancy shoes tonight,” she said and twisted this way and that to try and brush dirt off the back of her dress.

  Zack stepped back, suddenly feeling awkward at her nearness and watching her hands move over her body in places he could only dream about.

  Kipper helped her straighten her dress straps and tuck and primp until she looked good as new.

  “Thanks sugar, you can get back to waitin’ tables,” Lauren told her with a smile. Then she turned to him. “Well Zackory, it seems like you are still trying to get me to the hospital,” she told him flippantly. Zack cringed. He knew she was joking, or at least, he thought she was joking.

  He smiled at her.

  “I promise you I’m not,” he said. He grabbed the back of his neck and kind of shrugged at her.

  She curled a lock of hair around her finger and brought it to her lips absently. Her left foot rotated on its toe as she continued to stare at him.

  “You uh,” he paused and looked over at the stage area. “Sounded really good out there. Makes me wish I’d stayed at Jack’s the other night,” he said.

  Lauren put a hand out to him. She touched his arm lightly.

  “You did what you had to do. Are you okay here?” she kind of changed the subject and gestured around Lonely Nights. “You know,” she raised her eyebrows. “The lights are low, crowd of people…”she looked around. Zack thought she was trying to see the room through his eyes.

  He looked too, noticing little things like the sounds of chairs scraping across polished cement, the hum of people talking, clinking glasses and piano music. It was a normal place.

  He hated himself at that moment and shut down.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said coldly and turned away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mama always told me I wore my heart on my sleeve. When Zack turned his back on me, I was afraid my heart would slip off my sleeve and hit the floor with a loud splat. Thankfully, Kipper was gone, Matt was back at the bar and no one could see my eyes fill up with tears. Tears were a No-No. They could mess up your mascara in the blink of an eye.

  I was so stupid! Strays and crazies, I muttered to myself and stalked to my dressing room to change and get ready to go home.

  My dressing room was really just a broom closet minus the brooms. Brenda said she wished she could go all out for the entertainers, but she was still trying to get in the black. So my room was tiny and didn’t get heated or cooled. It started out with a bare bulb and a chain pull and cement block walls. I spent two weeks getting it perfect. It was my first dressing room as a performer; I was going to make it special. I tacked fabric on the walls, found a pretty shade to snap on the bulb, brought in a tiny escritoire desk to hold my makeup and brushes and turned an old stool into a plush seat with fringe. Thankfully there was an outlet in it too, so I could plug in a curling iron and a little desk lamp to make it even more cozy. I had a coatrack that doubled as a place to hang dresses. With my teapot and a single teacup and saucer, it was the sweetest spot. I could daydream in here about making it big.

  Someday, I thought, a music producer was going to stop in after seeing my YouTube cover videos and hear me in real life. He’d whip out a contract and all my financial worries would be over!

  It was a nice dream, and I cuddled in it like a silk kimono while I licked my wounds.

  Zack Daniels was like that mangy old dog I tried to rescue when I was nine. He had a bad foot, limped on it like it had a thorn in it or something. I remembered that fable about the mouse pulling the thorn out of the lion’s paw and then they became best friends. I tried to coax the dog to come to me with my half-eaten bologna sandwich, and when he got close enough for me to look at his foot, he took a chunk out of my arm. Thank goodness my daddy was home to rush me to the hospital where they stitched me up. All I wanted to do was help that dumb old dog, and he attacked me.

  I mindlessly stroked the faded scar on the inside of my arm while I sat slumped on my pretty little stool. Tonight’s songs had gone great. I needed to let Andy know he was perfect and not to second guess himself all the time. He was Jack’s partner, the waiter Jack at Jack’s place…no relation. Those two had fights every other weekend, stemming from insecurities and old wounds. I couldn’t fix anything, but I loved them both and always hoped for the best.

  I tidied up my little space and turned out the lights.

  I fussed with the doorknob to get the door to stick shut, just another hiccup in my otherwise perfect dressing room, and when I turned Harley was standing right there, large and looming since he blocked the light in the hall.

  “Hey Harley, how are you tonight?” I asked him smoothly. I tried to walk around him but he stepped into my path.

  “I’m great. How’s my girl?” he asked me in a gravelly voice.

  “Harley, I’m not your girl.
Now move, I need to get home and see if Ray,” I stopped myself. Harley did not need to know I was kicking Ray out. Ray had been my last bastion against Harley’s unwanted advances. “If Ray kept my supper warm,” I said finally.

  I pushed against the wall that was Harley’s chest until he reluctantly moved aside.

  “Thank you, doll,” I said in my honey voice. “Have you met the new guy?” I asked him, trying to deflect his interest in my activities.

  “Yeah I met him, why?” Harley asked. He leaned against the wall and stared at me with coal black eyes and bushy brows. His long hair was tied back into a low ponytail. He reeked of cheap cologne and stale cigarette smoke.

  “I was going to introduce you if you hadn’t met him, is all,” I said and began walking away. The hallway was feeling claustrophobic, not to mention smelly.

  I could feel Harley’s eyes on my butt. I was grateful I’d brought my tennis shoes. They wouldn’t create the false impression of tight calves like my stilettos did. While I thought about it, I was glad Harley had missed my entire act. It was a small mercy, probably a gift of scheduling genius by Brenda. I had complained to her about Harley’s relentless pursuit. I made a mental note to send her a thank you card. I had found over the years that people just liked to be appreciated.

  Even Harley. The problem with people like Harley was that they couldn’t take hints, didn’t respect personal space, and nothing you did was ever good enough.

  I looked around for Zack. As much as the little girl in me wanted to help him out and rescue him from himself, he had hurt my feelings, and I was feeling a little like a wounded duck myself. I wanted to avoid him, so I was glad when Harley didn’t need an introduction. I didn’t see him anywhere. I turned to look at Harley who had followed me almost to the entrance.

  “Well Harley, have a great night. See you around,” I told him. I was raised to be polite, even to people I didn’t like.

  He winked at me and gave me a once over that made my skin crawl. I really couldn’t see how Brenda could be so off the mark with this one guy. Everyone else she hired was wonderful.

  Maybe my problem was that I just hadn’t bothered to get Harley’s story. Maybe I should try harder to be nice and find out a little more about his life. Maybe if I had his story I could be more compassionate and understanding.

  Mulling over these thoughts I didn’t see the couple of guys that fell into step behind me until a few minutes had passed. Yes, it was 1am on a dark street in downtown Detroit, but this wasn’t usually a problem. The streetlights were all on, and the sidewalks and storefronts were well kept. It was a nice little stretch between here and my stop.

  The problem with stalkers was that they always wanted to intimidate and overpower. I put my hand in my purse and stroked my insurance. I really hated violence, but if I had to choose violence inflicted upon my person or I inflicting violence upon another…well there was no contest. Daddy didn’t raise no shrinking violet. The first half of my life taking care of hurt animals was due in part to the fact that I hurt them myself, before I learned to be more careful when I was holding a frog with a soft middle, or a kitten with a cute little handle for a tail. I wasn’t a princess back in those days. I believe the term they used lovingly to refer to me was ‘holy terror’.

  I stopped and turned suddenly, with my hand buried in my purse. I looked at the men straight on.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” I asked them calmly.

  They weren’t expecting me to confront them. But then again, guys like them never did. I watched their faces under the light of the streetlamp as they followed the line of my arm down into my bag, my hand obscured. They had no way of knowing what I held.

  The biggest one stepped closer.

  “Maybe you can,” he said with a sly smile.

  “You’d best stop right there, John,” I called him out.

  He looked confused.

  “You don’t know what my hand is holding right now, do you John?” I asked him. “Could be a can of mace, right? You ever had mace sprayed in your eyes? Well I have. My daddy made me try it when I was sixteen, so I knew what kind of power it had to disable an attacker,” I told the big man. I could tell he was wondering why I called him John. I would get to that eventually.

  “Could be a cell phone. I could have dialed 911 already, as soon as I noticed you two misfits following me about twenty steps back. I could be stalling right now, to give the cops time to come arrest you for bothering a helpless woman on the street in the dark of night,” I said, eyeing them both with an icy stare. My mama had that look down cold. I learned from the best.

  “But John, what you must be asking yourself right about now is why in the hell is this little woman in the green dress calling you John over and over again? You don’t know her from Adam, do you?” I was on a roll now. “The thing is, John Boy, I could also be holding a gun. A big gun. And if I was holding a gun, and I felt threatened, and my daddy taught me how to use a gun, including how to unlatch the safety by touch alone, and not just by sight, in conditions of extreme duress, then I just might aim that big gun at you,” and then I looked at the other man too, who had slowly brought both his hands to where I could see them without looking like he was surrendering. “And if I were to get spooked, all asudden like, then I might shoot you and your friend. And then when the cops came by to find out what all the fuss was about, I wouldn’t know your names, and the cops wouldn’t know your names, and you’d be down to the morgue with a tag on your big toe that said ‘John Doe’. So if I was you, I’d just keep walking, because really boys. You don’t know what my little hand is wrapped around and I really don’t want to show you. I abhor violence,” I said. All this time my hand was in my purse, holding my insurance like it was the gateway between me and the pearly gates, and it was, and silently praying that I wouldn’t have to use it.

  The men stepped away from me, and decided they had business on the other side of town. I called after them, “Y’all have a good night now, hear?”

  The smaller one waved at me and I waved back. Mama taught me to be polite to everyone, not just my friends, after all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zack eased back into the shadows, satisfied that the two punks following Lauren had changed their minds about her. Whatever she said to them, they left in haste. What was it about her and danger and that mouth? She’d done the same thing with the Mickey Cobras…talked them out of accosting her…that she’d done with him too.

  He had to smile as he continued to follow her. She could talk the hind leg off a mule. His grandmother used to say that about her husband, Granddad. Granddad was the kind of man that never met a stranger. Zack himself took after his grandmother. He preferred to listen rather than talk, observe rather than comment. The other phrase his grandmother used was: it’s better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Zack marveled that he would be drawn to a woman so unlike his grandmother and himself. Lauren was the kind of woman who spoke first, thought later. She had no filter, wasted no time, spoke her mind and let no one wonder what she was thinking. It was the kind of quality that normally would grate on his nerves, yet it suited Lauren the woman to be that way. Her conversation was as fresh as the smell of her shampoo.

  Her ideas and intuition were wildly untamed like her brown curly hair, but her sweet disposition drew people to her like moths to a flashlight. When he had first stared at her performing, he noticed the crowd, the entire mass of them pulsing in time with her music. She seemed to draw their curiosity and wonder and affection, as effectively as reeling in a fish.

  Well, he’d been well and truly caught, that was for sure.

  She caught her train, and he returned to his little room at the hostel.

  He had work to do. The hostel boasted an all-night business room where he could surf the internet or use a printer or whatever.

  It’d been two days since he’d almost changed his life irrevocably for the worse. What if he’d accidentally shot her? What if he’d been cau
ght? There were too many horrific ‘what-ifs’ to contemplate. He thanked the Lord for the fiftieth time that things had not gone the way he’d set out to do them while in his panic-stricken mind.

  Now that he was feeling a bit more rational, he realized there were steps he needed to take. Today had been a good headache day, meaning he’d only had a couple. But if he were to chart out his headache history, he knew there would be between five and ten on any given day. The headaches coupled with those feelings of panic and fear was getting to be debilitating.

  He knew he was lucky as sin to have gotten this job at Lonely Nights. He had references, but they weren’t the kind of references you really wanted people to check. Parole officer from when he’d done his time and had to check in for a couple years afterwards. A police officer that had befriended him when he was a troubled youth. He was thankful he had them and that they continued to speak to him, but he was not proud of that part of his life. If he could do it over…best not to think of those things though.

  In the business room he began searching out his symptoms. He knew all about PTSD symptoms, but he didn’t think the headaches were necessarily part of it. Forty minutes into his searching he found an article by an Army doctor linking headaches to PTSD and low stress situations. Intrigued, he read on. The doctor was asserting that returning from combat zones to calm, unregulated schedules in safe zones created internal stress often exhibited by intense headaches and other traditional PTSD symptoms such as rapid pulse and shallow breathing.

  Zack’s shoulders slumped as he recognized those symptoms in himself. While the article wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, the doctor’s treatment for it was. He suggested a six week regimen under his care that required a battery of treatments and a rigorously scheduled routine.