by M. O'Keefe
“What the hell is going on, Joan? You’re freaking me out.”
“Good,” Joan said. “You should be freaking out. Everyone should be.”
“What are they doing at The Velvet Touch? Who is this Lagan guy?”
“Lagan is a self-proclaimed prophet or some shit. A nut job, basically. And he’s got this cult out in the woods, young girls, most of whom he rapes and beats and convinces he’s their lord and master.”
“Why…why are they meeting? Is it like a sex ring? Or prostitution?”
“No. God, no. Lagan doesn’t share his wives with anyone. He’s got a PhD in chemistry, and for years he’s been out in the woods cooking up meth and Molly.”
“What?”
“MDMA. A pure form of what used to be Ecstasy. Ring any bells?”
Annie stared at her blankly.
“Good God, you really lived in a cave. Drugs. He’s cooking up drugs. And now he’s going all international and bringing in small planes full of coke, and he’s getting the Skulls MC idiots to distribute for him into Florida and Georgia. But things are not going well between the three parties.”
Almost all of this was going over Annie’s head, but she got the gist that this was bad. Really bad.
“Who are the DEA after?”
“Lagan. Lagan is the one I want. He’s…he’s the devil.”
Annie was a little scared of Joan in that moment. Scared of the light in her eyes. Unholy and fanatic.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“You need to tell Ben that he has to cut ties with Max. No bullshit this time. He does not want to get pulled in with this shit. And frankly, it would be a good idea for him to move on.”
“Move on? Like leave?”
Joan nodded.
“He won’t…He can’t. He’s dying.”
“What?”
“Cancer.”
Joan rubbed her hands over her face for a long minute. “Shit. Dylan can’t get him to move—”
“Dylan’s there now, too.”
“What?” She dropped her hands. “You’re all there now? How the hell did that happen?”
“When I got back from Dylan’s after that night, Hoyt, my ex-husband, was there.”
Joan sat back, her arms braced straight against the table, her mouth dropped open. “Does that explain the eye?”
“Yeah, it explains the eye.”
Annie hadn’t told this story, and frankly, she didn’t know how to start. Or where to start. Nothing felt right in her mouth. It all seemed so stupidly dramatic. Previous to this one night, nothing in her life had much happened, and then suddenly it was as if she’d landed in a soap opera. And now the soap opera had a motorcycle club and a drug-dealing child rapist and—
“I shot him.”
The words exploded in the room. No one reacted. No one probably even heard her, but it seemed like she’d screamed it, and she felt the aftershock with her whole body.
“That sounds so crazy when I say it out loud. I shot him.” She lifted her coffee cup but it was empty. Probably for the best; her hands were shaking so hard, she’d spill it everywhere. “I haven’t talked about it with anyone who wasn’t a cop or actually there…”
Joan cupped her hand over hers, lowering the mug to the table. Annie had shocked her, and for some reason, that shocked Annie all over again.
“You need to start from the beginning.”
Which beginning? Where did Annie McKay start? That farm in Oklahoma? Or in the trailer? Was it a choice she could make? Could she choose her own starting point? Because if she could, she’d pick the trailer. She’d pick the freedom of choice, even with its rough edges.
“Okay, clearly you need a drink,” Joan said. “Like a real one.”
“Here? Do they serve liquor?”
“Not officially.”
Joan looked up and caught the waitress’s eye. “A bottle,” she mouthed, and the waitress nodded and brought over more coffee, filling the mugs only halfway this time, and then from her apron, she slipped Joan a small bottle of whiskey.
“Thanks,” Joan said. “Add it to my bill.”
“Joy.”
Joan poured a shot of whiskey into their coffees and then tucked the bottle beside her next to the wall.
“Now, tell me what happened.”
—
An hour, a piece of lemon meringue pie, and another shot of whiskey later, the story was out. Every violent and surreal inch of it.
“Holy shit, Annie,” Joan said. “You okay?”
“Sometimes more than others.”
“And Dylan?”
“We’re…I think we’re figuring things out.” That seemed like a very adult thing to say. Utterly accurate, without revealing how little she understood about what was happening between her and Dylan.
“And what about that shit-box Phil?”
“I haven’t seen him.” She ran the side of her fork across the plate to get the last of the meringue. Joan had been right—the pie was awesome. And she stress-ate the whole damn thing. “Or Tiffany.”
“Fucking Tiffany,” Joan breathed, pouring more whiskey in her cup. There was no coffee now; she was just drinking shots out of a coffee cup.
Silent, Annie pushed the empty plate away.
“You’re not jumping to her defense?” Joan asked.
Annie shrugged. “He would have killed me,” she said. “And even if she didn’t think that would happen, she knew he’d beat the shit out of me and she didn’t do anything to stop it. She might have even pointed the way to my trailer, I don’t know.”
Annie got up from the booth, suddenly tired of thinking and talking about her life. There was only so much reflection a girl could take. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
In the restroom she splashed water on her face and checked her messages; still nothing from Dylan.
His silence seemed ominous.
When she went back out to the booth, it was empty. There was a twenty-dollar bill on the table next to a note scrawled across her paper placemat.
Be careful.
That was it.
Annie looked around and caught sight of their waitress outside, standing beside a little blue sedan. The light was reflecting off the windshield, so Annie couldn’t see clearly, but she thought it was Joan in the driver’s seat.
A woman’s hand reached up out of the window and grabbed the waitress’s apron, clenching it in her fist. The waitress stumbled as she was pulled forward, bracing one hand against the roof of the car, and then, she bent down and the driver leaned forward—definitely Joan. And the two kissed.
It wasn’t friendly. Or see you later. Or thanks for the pie.
Like one of them was leaving and never coming back, that’s how they kissed.
The waitress grabbed the back of Joan’s head, knocking off the hat. Annie could see them clenching at each other with white knuckles, and then as quickly as it started, it ended. The waitress stood up. Joan reached for her, but she stepped away again. And then she turned, head down, and walked back to the restaurant.
After a long moment, Joan drove off.
Annie stood beside the table like she’d been turned to stone and the waitress came back. Her eyes hard despite the tears clinging to her lashes.
“Your friend is an asshole,” she muttered, grabbing up the twenty on the table.
“I know.”
“And,” she said, her eyes wide and livid, “she’s gonna get herself killed.”
That was what Annie was afraid of.
DYLAN
Don’t worry.
That’s what her text said.
“Don’t worry,” I muttered, and knocked on Annie’s door again. She’d sent that text almost three hours ago and I was really trying not to worry.
“Jesus, Dylan, you’re going to wake the whole goddamn place.”
It was Pops, walking up the dirt track from the laundry to his camper. He had a plastic hamper in his hands, half full of white tee shirts, all in a he
ap.
Weird—I’d never seen my dad do laundry before. I’d never seen him do anything for himself before. Mom cared for him like he was a baby.
“Have you seen Annie?” I asked.
“She left early this morning,” he said, still walking toward his trailer. I had no choice but to follow.
“You talked to her?”
“I gave her the keys to my truck because she wanted to run some errands.”
That was the same thing she told me. Errands in Cherokee. There was nothing inherently threatening or worrisome about any of that. At all.
But I couldn’t stop being worried.
“She told me you saw Max last night.”
“Yeah. He’s back.”
“How is he?”
The wind whistled through the park. “Same old Max,” I said.
I braced myself for Pops to ask more. Part of me wished he would so I could take this simmering tension and anxiety out on him, but he was silent on the subject of Max.
“You gonna go looking for Annie?” Pops asked.
“Nope.” I took a deep breath. Don’t worry, she’d said. I know what I want, she’d said. I’m a grown woman, she’d said.
So, I was going to trust her. And try not to worry.
“We’re gonna need some parts for her car,” Pops said as he walked on. “I figure you can handle that.”
“I don’t own an auto parts store. I run a garage that builds high-performance race car engines. I have fourteen patents, Pops.”
“You’re too important to have one of your guys pick up spark plugs? I guess we can just ask her to buy her own parts. Annie seems like she’s got plenty of cash—”
“What does she need?” I sighed.
“Timing belt’s shot. Battery is on its last legs. Some spark plugs. All new filters.”
He kept talking, but I was distracted by some kind of amazing smell coming out of the little brick oven he had built on the corner of the cement pad.
“What are you making?” I asked.
“Go look.”
I peeked inside the top of the oven and saw cornbread in a cast-iron skillet.
The sight sent a wave of memory through me. Mom’s cornbread every Sunday, whether she was sober or not. Burnt tongue. Scorched fingertips. Fighting Max and Pops for the last piece.
“I fried up the chilies and put them in there.” Pops put his laundry down next to the parts for Annie’s transmission. “I made some for Annie last time—she liked it a lot.”
There were very few happy times for the family, but Sundays were one of them.
“Mom died, you know.” It was mean. And I was trying. “That’s where Max was, visiting her grave.”
“Yeah. I know. Louisa called me.”
“She called me, too. Three weeks after the funeral.”
“Louisa never much liked us, did she?” Dad’s smile made my stomach turn.
“She told me Mom had been dating a guy. Nice guy, owned a convenience store outside of—”
“Don’t do that. You want to hurt me, fine. Do your best. But don’t come at me like a pussy.”
My head snapped back. “Pussy?”
Pops just stared at me. Until, suddenly, he said, “I’m sorry.”
I had no real proof, but my gut insisted that was the first time I’d ever heard an apology from that man’s mouth.
“Yeah?” I asked. “For what, exactly?”
“For everything.”
“Now who is the pussy?”
Pops chewed on the inside of his lip. “The shit that happened to you in jail. The retaliation with the Rotten Bastards. You weren’t a part of the Skulls. You didn’t deserve that. And I asked you—”
He cleared his throat and started pulling out those white shirts.
“It was my choice, too,” I said. “You got plenty of stuff to feel guilty about, but that was my call.”
“You were just a kid.”
I watched him make a hash of folding his shirts. “No one is a kid for long growing up with you and Mom.”
His lips went tight; I’d made a direct hit. And I couldn’t lie—it felt good to get a reaction. It felt good to hurt the guy.
“I deserve that. It…wasn’t a good way for any kid to grow up.”
“You’re too late with this, Pops. I don’t give a shit about your regret. Or your apologies.”
Pops nodded like he knew that. And he probably did.
“Then why are you still here?” Pops asked.
“Because Annie is. Because you haven’t ruined her life yet and she thinks she needs to take care of you.” That wasn’t it. Not all of it. When Max told me to leave last night I said no. And I meant it. Well, the kid in me meant it. But the truth was, it wasn’t just Annie keeping us here. I had my own lead-filled baggage keeping me from moving.
“Well, I’ll die just as fast as I can,” he said.
“It’s not fucking soon enough, Dad,” I said and stomped away, and then suddenly I was turning around and heading right back toward him. The tide in my chest pushing me back.
“The childhood shit, even jail, I don’t care anymore,” I said. “I survived. It’s over. The thing I want to know is where were you when I got out? Max turned his back on me and you just vanished. You vanished—”
“Because that was the only chance you had that you wouldn’t end up back in jail or killed by some Bastard wannabe trying to get his patch.”
“And what about after the crash, Pops?” I spat. “After I almost died. I was in that hospital for two months and I heard nothing from you. Nothing from Max. You gonna tell me you didn’t know about it?”
“No,” Pops whispered. “We knew.”
Something shattered. Something very small but very real shattered. The last of my hope that they hadn’t known. That the only reason they were never there was because they didn’t know I’d been hurt. Nearly killed.
But they knew.
And it fucking hurt.
“So? Where the hell were you? When the skin came off my feet and the plastic surgeon said they did everything they could for my face and it hurt so bad I screamed. And I was all alone. All those sponsors, all those women, all those hotshots who said they loved me. Everyone fucking left me. Where were you then?”
“You had that Miguel, his whole family—”
“They weren’t you!” I yelled.
Pops’s lips twisted, his dark eyes dry as a bone. “I’m sorry, Dylan,” he said.
“Oh.” Sarcasm was dripping off my words. Off my body. Like an oil I couldn’t stop secreting. “You’re sorry. Well, then. You’re forgiven.”
“Dylan?” It was Annie’s soft, quiet voice, and both Pops and I stiffened and turned toward her. Like we’d been caught burying a dead body. Or maybe exhuming it. Dragging it around, rotting and awful. Numb to the stink.
I was embarrassed by this. By this sudden desire I had to sift through this crap again. To try to make my case with a man who didn’t give a shit. Not when it mattered. Not when I needed him to care.
Of all my secrets, of all the things I never showed her, this seemed like the worst. The darkest. That thing I was most ashamed of. So ashamed I didn’t even think about it anymore. Now I was nauseous and wanted a shower.
Killing a man—I felt nothing about it anymore.
But this thing with Pops, wanting him somehow to make right a past he was barely a part of, it was a combustion engine waiting for a spark.
Behind me Pops cleared his throat, or choked. Something. And I jerked out of my fugue state.
“You’re back,” I said, stepping toward Annie. She nodded and approached us slowly, her eyes darting from me to Pops over my shoulder.
There was the sizzling sound of a fire being doused and a waft of acrid smoke.
“Here.” The cast-iron pan thumped down on the picnic table, dropped by one of Pops’s hands wrapped in one of his clean white shirts. “I made this for you,” he said, and then he took his shirt, now gray and black in places with ash, and h
is basket and went inside his trailer.
I stared down hard at that cornbread, amazed that Pops’s hands made it. And that it looked exactly the way I remembered.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her reach for me and I stepped back. Just a little. I was reminded of how I’d hated being touched after the accident. The only sensation my fucked-up nerves registered was pain. It took the better part of a year for that to change, and suddenly the sensation was back.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Okay. I looked up at the blue sky above us. The sky on my mountain was framed by the tops of trees. Lots of them. And I missed those trees. There was nothing here. Nothing but big blue sky.
“I’ve never said any of that,” I told her. I felt like she’d seen into some dark crawl space inside of me. A place not even I went to. “Not ever.”
“Do you feel better?” she asked. I could tell by her voice that she wanted it to be true. That by letting those words out I’d lanced the wound or some shit. Cleared out the poison.
The world didn’t work that way, but I didn’t have it in me to tell her.
“How was town?” I changed the subject.
At her silence I looked up and found her staring at Ben’s closed door. She’d gotten a sunburn yesterday and her cheeks were pink beneath her freckles.
“Annie?”
“We need to talk.”
ANNIE
They sat in her trailer. The chipped Formica table and a loaded silence between them. Annie had repeated everything Joan had told her, without much explanation or reason. Largely because she had no idea how to frame everything. Half the words coming out of her mouth felt like code.
“Dylan?” she asked, the silence having extended to some kind of breaking point.
“So, it wasn’t errands?” he asked.
“That’s what you’re worried about? Didn’t you hear the part about the cult and the club running drugs?”
“Yes, Annie, and I’m worried about everything. But right now I’m trying to figure out how much you knew before you went to meet Joan.”
“I didn’t know any of this,” she said. “I mean, I knew she was DEA but I had no idea about the cult or any…” She had a dim memory of the night she went to the strip club.