When Aiden walked back down the corridor to his cell the silent challenges from the doorways and the tables had stopped. He stepped into his cell and pulled the door shut behind him, threw the towel down in a lump on the floor and settled on his bunk and stared at a crack in the ceiling. It was deep and took him far away.
The thing about cowboys, Darlene had discovered, was that they were all pretty much the same guy. Once you got past the buckles and the blue jeans, the high-flying attitude and the down-home, folksy charm, they were all still little boys riding the rope barrel in the back yard. Dreamers. Not one of them could live a day in the real world without dreaming about the Big One, the big show, the big ride, the big payout, the big something that was going to make everything, well, bigger somehow. She’d seen them all. They’d amble into her parents’ café all bowlegged and casual, slump into a chair, tuck their hats underneath it and watch her work, heads tilted, eyes aglitter and just a touch of a smirk at the corner of their mouth. They’d give her the “yes, ma’ams” and “thank yous” their mamas had raised them to say, but she always felt their appraisal. It was like being the filly in the paddock.
She’d discovered soon enough that they were a randy bunch. They certainly knew how to ride and she liked that. She liked the sinewy toughness of them, the bandy-legged energy they brought to a bed, and she’d believed that she could just go on picking and choosing. But only the real cowboys. Nowadays kids from middle-class homes in big cities could get a college scholarship in bull riding. Kids who had never set foot on a ranch or a stirrup. Not them. Just cowboys, the ones from real working ranches. Cowboys had a thing about them. Cowboys were strong, resilient, hard and tough, but underneath that was a vein of gentleness, humour and honesty that got her every time. Every time. She adored the image of them bucking away on a barrel slung between ropes over a pad of straw in mama’s back yard, dreaming big and dreaming hard and believing in those dreams. The bottom line was, she supposed, she was a sucker for a dreamer in a cowboy hat.
When Joe Willie came along it was like her world tilted. Suddenly there was a real cowboy. You could feel it in him, this bristling kind of energy that drew you forward. When she saw him ride she saw that energy ignite and explode, as raw and powerful and beautiful as she imagined perfection to be. God, he was gorgeous when he rode. He was tall and lean and hard, and even though Darlene had never had much time for Indians, this Indian was a cowboy and the best damn rider she had ever seen. She’d never heard anyone talked about in such tones before. It was like men lost the top end of their voices when they mentioned Joe Willie Wolfchild, a name reserved for the deep and low end, the murmuring just this side of jealousy. When she finally met him at Calgary he’d shaken her hand and she felt a thrum of energy like a tight rein on a wild horse. He looked at her with those deep, dark Indian eyes and she was thrown, flailing for purchase, bucked right off in seconds. A rodeo man. A cowboy.
She went out of her way to charm him, giving up the others she kept on a string and devoting herself to him. The others complained like the little boys they were, but once they got wind of who their competition was they settled into a begrudging silence. It was amazing the effect he had on people, and Darlene found that the most powerful aphrodisiac of all. One name could throw people like she’d been thrown, and to be the woman at the side of such a man was more than she had ever dreamed for herself and more than she was willing to lose. So when she gave herself to him she gave him the full routine, coaxing him, teasing him, leading him to an expression of the body that the cowboy struggled with at first but then caught the rhythm of and rode. Sex with Joe Willie was like the storm of rodeo itself. She made sure of that.
“You’re a mustang, girl,” he told her, after that first time, and she gave him the untamed, dangerous and free routine every time after. She let him explore her body in whatever way he chose, for however long he chose. And the truth was, he was a wild one himself, and Darlene loved the taut feel of his body, the sinewy, coiled strength of him, the harnessed violence he saved for bulls in the clutch and push and heave of him. He knew how to control his body better than any man she’d ever met, and even though that body was supposed to be broken up pretty badly, there wasn’t a doubt in Darlene’s mind that he’d walk out and mount up again. She’d make sure of that. She’d make damn sure of that. He’d ride and be a champion and she’d be the woman that made it all happen. Not his frigid bitch of a mother. Johanna had refused to let her visit him in the hospital. Family only, she’d been told, like the past four years hadn’t existed, like she hadn’t been a fixture on the family scene all that time. But she’d show her. Darlene would play it to the max. She’d show his mother how much she cared, how loyal she was, how loving, attentive, supportive and all the other sickly-sweet adjectives they could dream up for one hell of a woman. She’d be there with all the love and adoration and grit and gumption needed to coax that body back. She’d use the physical connection they had to cajole the muscle and sinew back onto a horse and they would continue their ride to the top of the world. Together. Joe Willie was the Big One and she intended to keep him.
“I invested way too much in this already,” she said to herself as she turned onto the Wolfchild property. “Way, way too much.”
The house was pretty much what Golec expected. From what Claire had told him, Eric Bennett kept up a good front. Big-shot account executive. Salesman really, but these days salesman needed the push of a fancier title. Golec’s dad had sold cars all his life and he’d proudly called himself a salesman. Back then, an honest job with honest effort at maintaining it was all a man like his dad needed. Screw the title. Selling cars earned a good life for him and his family, and if the salesman turned out to be the owner of the largest dealership in the area, well, so much the better. Up until the day he’d retired, he’d called himself a salesman, and maybe it was that inherent humility that allowed him to remain grounded; simple, directed, a family man. They’d always had the best, but the salesman taught his children, Golec and his sister, that a simple need met was far more fulfilling than a grandiose desire purchased.
Golec smiled. His old man would never have stooped for this display, this architectural fawning for attention. The size of it far exceeded the needs of the three people who lived there, and it sat on a corner lot like some bloated aristocrat demanding to be noticed. It was actually a fucking ugly house when you got right down to it. Pastel. Golec hated pastel. The gleeful coral siding was the antithesis of the atmosphere inside. He found himself growing angry at Eric Bennett. Claire Hartley was a small woman and he’d beaten her like a rented mule. He was a big man too from her description, and there was a part of him that relished the private thought that maybe a quick judgment in the alley would be far better punishment than the rendering of a court. Yes, he thought, looking at the house and waiting for the car bearing Claire Hartley and the social worker, drag the lump outside by the hair and administer justice, fair and fast. It was entertaining to imagine, but he had far too much respect for his position to do it. In fact, the whole reason he was here was to let the asshole slip off the legal hook if he would go for it. Golec knew he would. Any guy who lived in a house like this would take the easy route. Golec was willing to bet on it.
Johanna had never much cared for soft women. It wasn’t an overt feminine softness that rankled her, because a girl couldn’t help but be a girl sometimes. What bothered her more was women with elastic characters, the ones who had never found a moral ground to stand on, never found a principled territory to defend and consequently never found a woman to be. Women like Darlene. She’d never liked Darlene. If the girl would just allow herself to be beautiful, she would be. She had all the attributes: tall, tanned, blonde, with a lean body and dark brown eyes that gave her a perpetual little-girl look. But Darlene was one of those people who absolutely needed the esteem of others to feel it in herself. It meant she had the potential to switch allegiances at any time, and it was this more than anything that grated Johanna. Loyalty was
a trait she took very seriously. You found it in yourself first, found the courage to stay true to yourself through anything, and then, only then, did you become able to stay true to the people in your life. She’d learned that lesson early, been encouraged to it by her people, and the Sioux were a people who lived in staunch loyalty. Darlene had none of that. The girl sought definition but she looked for it in others’ eyes first. Her loyalty was to the belief that something outside herself could shape her world and herself. Johanna had always mistrusted her because of that.
“Darlene,” she said amiably as the girl stepped from her pickup truck. “You’re out and about early.”
“Up with the chickens,” Darlene said.
“Sensible.”
“Yeah. That’s me, though.”
Johanna smirked. “Yes. That’s always been my first thought.”
“Where is he?”
“Darlene …”
“Look, Johanna,” Darlene said, “I don’t care what you think of me right now. I never really did. But I’m Joe Willie’s woman. I been that for four years now and right now he needs me and I mean to see him.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does he need to see you?”
“Jesus,” Darlene said disgustedly. “Because he’s a man, that’s why.”
“That’s your huge rationale?”
“Yeah,” Darlene said. “He’s a man and I’m a woman and I figure that’s what he needs right now more than anything. A woman to make him feel like a man, not a little boy with a boo-boo on his knee.”
“Darlene, Joe Willie’s survived a major injury. He’s lucky to be mobile at all.”
“Yeah. I know that, because you told me. But you won’t let me see for myself. Won’t give me a chance to be there for him. But I’m here now and I will see him, I will be there for him now.”
Johanna couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Not because her man was infirmed but more because Darlene had never grown beyond a girl’s idea of womanhood. She played at being a woman like a girl with a dollhouse, every move imagined in the security of dreams and hopes and wishes. But life occurred beyond the cheerful placing of furniture and people, and a woman needed more than imaginings to shape a home and a family.
“Okay,” Johanna said. “But let me tell you not to expect what you’ve come to expect from Joe Willie. The injury has changed him. A lot.”
“I can deal with that,” Darlene said.
“I hope so, Darlene. Because you and I and all of us are going to have to find a way to cut through the silence he’s fallen into. We haven’t yet. None of us. So I don’t hold out a lot of hope in you getting much of a response.”
“We’ve been together a different way.”
“God,” Johanna said. “Please don’t tell me that you’re going to rely on sweat and passion, or the memory of a real good time.”
“It was more than that.”
“Was it really?”
“Yes.”
Johanna eyed her with a steely look, and Darlene shifted her feet under the weight of it. “I can’t imagine,” she said.
“No. You couldn’t,” Darlene said and flounced past her into the house.
“So you here because of a rat?” Julius asked.
“Yeah,” Aiden said, studying the cards he’d been dealt.
“This rat got a name?”
“Cort Lehane.” Aiden fairly spat the words.
“Kinda name is Cort?” one of the other boys asked.
“Name of the dead, motherfucker,” Julius said.
Aiden looked up at him over his cards and Julius grinned. They were sitting at the middle table in the corridor. It was reserved for the big boys, the ones who ran things, the ones with the power in the cellblock. Julius studied him, and Aiden met his look casually.
“Kinda shit you down on, man?” Julius asked.
“Conspiracy,” Aiden said.
“What the hell is that?”
“We were planning a score. A store. He went ahead and tried to pull it himself, got shot and spilled the beans, put it all on me.”
“Shot, huh?”
“Yeah. I left the piece with him and he went all crazy and tried to do it himself. Guess he fired at the cops and they shot him.”
“Damn. So he dimed you and you in here and he’s walkin’ around out there?”
“That’s about it.” Aiden threw his cards down on the table and lit himself a cigarette. Claire had sent money to him and he’d gotten what he’d needed. The others looked at him and he tossed the pack on the table. Everyone lit up.
“Lehane? White?” Julius asked.
“Yeah. Very.”
They all laughed.
“Who he trip with?”
“Nobody. It’s what I liked about him in the beginning.”
Julius nodded. “How much time you lookin’ at?”
“Maybe two years.”
“Damn. And this Lehane? How much he get?”
“Who knows.”
“But he’ll go down for some. He’ll come here before he gets shipped out to the main joint.”
There was silence at the table as everyone focused on the words. “Yeah,” Aiden said. “I suppose he’d have to.”
“Then you know what you got to do.”
“Even up,” Aiden said.
“Damn right,” Julius said. “Blood for blood.”
“I didn’t get shot, he did.”
Julius smirked and shrugged his big shoulders. “Don’t got to be no real blood. He cut you off from your own, your moms, your family, your blood. He took that away from you. You got to settle up.”
Aiden nodded. He didn’t care so much about the jail. He could handle that. But it was the taking away, the removal of freedom, the excising of his life for something that he’d only ever talked about that stung bitterly, and when he let himself feel it there were a hundred other cuts and bruises that seeped in until he sneered at the acidic taste of it. When he looked at Julius again there was an edge to his eyes that the other boy acknowledged with a firm nod and a raised fist to the chest.
“And if you don’t settle it,” Julius said, “if you don’t put a beating on that rat, I’ll put one on you. Word.”
“Count on it,” Aiden said.
“Don’t got to,” Julius said. “But you do.”
Aiden looked around the table. The others all had the same level, matter-of-fact look. He felt worlds away from what he knew but at the same time felt connected to the vile brew in his belly, the patient, feral look of his new friends and the cold, dank, algae-coloured world of the cellblock. He looked around him and saw dozens of boys lounging along the bars on the upper tier, leaning on the doors of their cells or leaned in with their heads down huddled up close to the telephones, their shoulders hunched up around them like that space, that mere ten inches of world was all the privacy they had anymore. They were all cut off. They had all been bloodied in some fashion and they all bore the pain of those festering wounds here in the clang and crash of steel on steel. He fit here. He gathered the cards from the table in a long, sweeping grab, cradled them in his hands, packed them all in one firm, even lump and slapped them down on the table in front of the boy to his left, looked at all of them one more time with that flat, even stare.
“Deal,” he said.
The first thing she saw was the empty sleeve. She stood in the doorway watching him examine himself in the mirror, catching him so totally immersed that he didn’t see her standing there. Darlene barely breathed. Across the room Joe Willie sat at the edge of his bed running his right hand slowly across his torso, from his ribs, along the line of his chest, then upwards, left, toward the shoulder. Or where the shoulder used to be. Darlene stared hard at the slackness of the sleeve there. He’d always worn his shirts tight to the body as though he wanted to always feel the taut strength of himself, using the cloth like a second skin to gather muscle and sinew into a compact, coiled spring of force. This shirt hung in draped flaps
of material off the left side of his neck. She watched as the hand moved across the ridge of collarbone, halting for a second while he scrunched his eyes tight together before inching slowly, spiderlike, to the flat of the shoulder. Joe Willie dropped his head to his chest. It hung like the head of a saint in penitence while the tips of his fingers moved along the shoulder, probing, pushing, pressing until at the cliff of the arm they stopped and she saw him grimace. He pushed downward with his palm. Darlene put a hand to her mouth when she saw the cloth compress flat to the touch. His shoulders trembled as his hand made the journey to the elbow, and she watched a hard scowl tear at the corners of his mouth. The fingers clenched about the elbow joint while his thumb traced a light line along the absent bicep before nestling into the crook of the joint. He grabbed it. Hard. She saw the force of him in the tendons of his right hand and the arm shook as he squeezed as though trying to move muscle from the good arm to the empty sleeve of the other by sheer force of will. Joe Willie’s face was pressed together at every angle, and as she looked at him Darlene realized that she was looking at the face of rage stoked by an unbelievable sorrow. It scared her.
When Joe Willie slid the material of the shirt up along the narrow, withered arm, exposing it to the air and to her, Darlene was shocked. It was like the arms of kids in the starvation commercials, nothing but bone and skin and a sick jut of angles. There was no trace of the long ropes of muscle that had held her, lifted her, only a thin, withered, ugly stick. Ugly. Darlene saw Joe Willie’s eyes open as he grabbed his left hand. He lifted the forearm and it rose slack and lifeless. As he turned it over so the palm faced up, Darlene saw hatred in his eyes, a look hard and cold and bitter all at one time. The arm was ugly and she couldn’t stand the thought of touching it, or having it touch her. She backed slowly through the door. The movement alerted him and his eyes flicked up to the mirror. She could only stare.
“Darlene,” he said, quickly rolling the sleeve back down.
“Joe Willie, I …”
“Where you been, darlin’?”
Dream Wheels Page 12