by A. J. Thomas
The man looming over her desk was huge, both tall and muscle-bound, covered in dark tattoos and black leather. He wore a leather vest but no shirt under it, and it was decorated with a half-dozen patches. His tattoos, however, stood out the most. Every inch of visible skin was covered in tattoos. Some were seemingly random shapes, others artistically rendered naked women. Nate could make out compasses, sailboats, skeletal hands, and roses. There were tattoos on his head, his neck, and his face. Even his hands were covered in ink.
“Rough around the edges?” he asked, chuckling.
“His son lost his leg, his career, and almost his life,” Angelica reminded him.
Nate sighed and nodded. It couldn’t hurt to at least meet with them both, assess what their options might be, and give them a push in the right direction. He didn’t have anything beyond his personal cell phone, his laptop, and his own savings to fall back on to cover expenses, but he could handle a workers’ compensation claim for a hell of a lot less than ten thousand dollars. “I’ll see if I can help them,” he promised.
Angelica beamed and hugged him again. “Wait here a minute,” she said confidently. “I’ll call and set up a meeting.”
THE REHABILITATION wing of Houston Methodist was loud and full of people, even though it was nearly six by the time Nate managed to get through downtown traffic. Nurses helped patients walk through the halls, and every room seemed to be filled with visitors. The door to room 304 was ajar, and Nate paused to listen to the driving guitar rhythm of an old heavy metal song playing on a speaker that didn’t come close to doing it justice. The music was more than a little out of place in East Texas, but it still made him smile. When he’d escaped for college, the clubs he’d gravitated toward when he wasn’t studying were always playing heavy metal. It had been five years, but he’d know the chorus of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” anywhere.
He knocked, even though the door was open. A moment later, the big man from the office security camera pulled the door open and frantically gestured for him to be quiet. He was even bigger in person, towering over Nate’s six-foot height and easily outweighing him by fifty pounds.
“He’s exhausted,” the man whispered. “Just fell asleep.”
Nate nodded and glanced at the bed. He froze, gaping at the young man lying there. He had soft brown hair, streaked blond from long days in the sun. His hair seemed to want to curl in the humidity, and those half curls hung down low enough to frame his cheekbones and sharply angled nose. Despite being asleep, he had dark circles under his eyes.
Across his lap was an open sketchbook with a fabulously detailed drawing of a seashell filling the entire page. The drawing might have passed for a photograph, if the entire thing were finished, but the bottom corner was only partly colored in. He’d fallen asleep with a dark blue colored pencil still clutched in his hand.
“That’s beautiful,” Nate said to himself, keeping his gaze fixed on the sketchbook rather than the silhouette of the young man’s lower body beneath the blanket.
His right leg was obviously in some kind of contraption to keep it still, surrounded by a huge bulk of bandages and splints. His left leg looked normal to the knee, but then the blanket fell abruptly, nothing at all where his shin and foot should have been.
“He’s talented,” the giant replied, beaming. “He can draw damn near anything, but when he gets his hands on real skin…. It’s fucking magical.”
“He’s an artist? A tattoo artist? I thought he was an engineer?”
“Nope. Well, maybe. Uh. You’re the one Miss Vasquez said was coming, right? From Mercer, Delany, and Goodman?”
“I’m Nathan Delany,” he said, knowing it wasn’t quite an answer to the man’s question. “Angelica was worried when the Mercer, Delany, and Goodman terms didn’t work for you, so she talked to me about the case. I’ve got a bit more freedom to pick and choose my clients, so she thought I might be able to help. Would you like to go get a cup of coffee and discuss the details? Or we could try to be quiet until he wakes up. I’ll need to talk to him anyway, so it’s no trouble to wait.”
“As long as the music’s on, we should be able to talk in here. White noise helps drown out the sounds from the hall. Henry Sterner,” the man introduced himself, offering his massive hand. “But folks call me Hawk.”
Nate grinned. “Metallica for white noise? That is actually really cool. My own parents would have tortured me with silence or classical if I were stuck in here. Nice to meet you. The offer for coffee still stands, if you’d like me to bring you some?”
“He’s already having trouble sitting still—coffee ain’t going to help,” the guy in the bed said without opening his eyes. “You don’t have to be quiet, I’m awake. Lucid, not so much. But awake.”
“The doctor said that last dose of pain medication would knock you out,” Hawk grumbled.
“She also said it’d take the pain away. She lied.” He chuckled and opened his eyes. They were a golden brown that almost matched his hair, with darker flecks that made his eyes sparkle like topaz. Nate had never imagined that dusky brown hair and golden eyes could be so striking, but for a moment all he could do was stare, stunned by the combination. He looked as though he’d been through hell, but the exhaustion, pain, and fatigue didn’t diminish the fact that he was damn good-looking.
He watched Nate, his expression puzzled. “Am I hallucinating, or is there a GQ model in my room?” He glanced between them with a sleepy, glazed expression, then closed his eyes again.
“Sorry,” Hawk muttered, rubbing his tattoo-covered temple. “This is Sean. He’s a little….”
“High as a kite?” Nate suggested, smirking.
“And then some,” Hawk said, managing a laugh.
“If the most offensive drug-induced thing he’s got to say is a compliment, I certainly don’t mind.” He set his briefcase down and pulled out a fresh legal pad and a pen. “Let’s sit down—you can tell me all about it.”
He offered Hawk the vinyl chair and took the rolling stool for himself.
Movement from the bed drew his attention. Sean was tapping his colored pencil on the side of the notebook and humming quietly.
Nate recognized the melody, laughing as his brain filled in the missing lyrics. “Blister in the Sun,” Nate said, smiling.
Sean pointed the blue pencil at him.
Hawk looked like he might ask for an explanation, then shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve got no clue what that’s about.”
“The Violent Femmes song, Hawk,” Sean explained.
“I wasn’t quoting it when I said you were stoned. I was quoting ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John. Although I’m surprised someone who’s got Metallica’s Black Album playing on repeat recognizes The Violent Femmes.”
Sean looked up at him, grinning wildly. “I wouldn’t expect a cowboy in a suit to recognize Metallica.”
“It counts as classic rock,” Nate insisted, inexplicably happy when Sean laughed. Then Sean’s head rolled to the side a little, his eyes closed and still. “Guess we can argue about that later.” He turned his attention back to Hawk and clicked his pen.
“The accident was eight weeks ago,” Hawk began. “I can’t believe it’s been that long. It seems like the whole world’s standing still.”
“Let’s start at the very beginning,” Nate said, urging him on. “What’s your son’s full name?”
“Sean… uh, Wilkinson. And he ain’t mine.”
Nate made a note of his full name. “Stepson? Foster child?” he asked, running through the options.
“I dated his mom for a few years. She’s a sweet lady, but it didn’t work out. The guy she’s with now… him and Sean don’t get along. He kicked the kid out when he was twelve. He didn’t know where else to go, so he came back to me. I called his mom up and told her he was welcome to stay until things quieted down… but….”
“Ten years and things haven’t quieted down?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Hawk.” Nate tried his
best to look sympathetic. “If I’m going to help him, I need to know everything there is to know about him. If this goes to trial, I need to know the good and bad. I assure you, anything you two tell me will be held in confidence.”
“Joe didn’t want a gay kid in his home,” Hawk finally came out with it. He seemed to grow several inches just by sitting up straight. His smile was gone, replaced with a guarded look that Nate wasn’t quite sure how to read.
“He was kicked out of his home because he’s gay? At twelve?” Nate asked, feeling sick.
“Joe’s house.” Sean’s voice was weak this time, as if he was speaking through a dream. “Not mine. Never mine. I was almost thirteen.”
Hawk’s glare was fixed on Nate, his expression caught somewhere between anger and uncertainty. Hawk was watching him, but he looked so tightly wound he looked like he might snap regardless of how Nate responded.
“That must have been difficult. Especially since foster homes and shelters are a dangerous place for any kid that young, let alone one who’s homosexual. It was awfully kind of you,” Nate said to Hawk, keeping his tone easygoing, “to take him in.”
Hawk deflated, the barely controlled rage in his eyes vanishing instantly. “Me and his mom were together for six years. I put clothes on his back from the time he was little, so it wasn’t like it was anything new,” Hawk insisted. “Besides, he’s more than earned his keep.”
“Earned his keep?” Nate wasn’t sure he wanted to know where this story was going.
“I do tats,” Sean whispered, nudging the sketchbook. “Hawk got mad when I decided to play with the new black-light inks, but other than that, he’s never complained about my work.”
“I told you I don’t trust that shit,” Hawk growled toward the bed. “It hasn’t been around long enough for me to believe it’s safe.”
“They’re safe, Hawk. Just because you can’t pronounce the ultraviolet additives doesn’t mean they’re dangerous.”
“Yeah, right. Mr. Chemistry Degree is convinced the ultraviolet ink is safe, but folks said the same thing about all those artificial sweeteners, didn’t they? And now you hear about that shit causing cancer and migraines and everything else.”
“What you hear is bullshit. They’re also safe,” Sean whispered.
Hawk huffed and folded his massive arms across his chest. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because the pigments look like crap in natural light, and they fade so fast our customers would be pissed.”
Sean chuckled, and the sound turned into a deep groan.
Nate glanced between them again. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”
“Sean works in my place, Hawk’s Tattoos. He worked for me for the last seven years, through high school and then college. Each summer after his freshman year, he did the Confederated Petroleum and Gas internship, but during the school year he was always in the shop when he wasn’t studying. And he’s convinced black-light tattoos are the bee’s knees, but I’m still not going to let him put that shit in his skin.”
“Why would you want a black-light tattoo?” Nate asked, torn between being curious and freaked out.
Hawk nodded dramatically. “That’s what I said. You don’t drop money on ink you can only show off in a nightclub. Outside a club, they look like shit.”
“Seriously? Everybody would want one, if other artists trusted those of us with chemistry degrees and gave the inks a try.” Sean laughed, but it turned into a pained grimace.
Nate glanced at Sean, surprised. “You’ve got degrees in engineering and chemistry?” he asked before he noticed Sean’s eyes were closed again. Even with those gorgeous eyes closed, Sean was beautiful. He was also intelligent, charming, and gay. Nate let his gaze travel down the silhouette of Sean’s body beneath the blanket, but the bulk around his right leg and the stump where his left leg ended were a cold reminder that, gay or straight, Sean needed help to navigate the legal side of a major life crisis. Nate was supposed to be acting like a professional.
“He slip in and out a lot?” Nate asked.
After a moment, when it was obvious Sean had fallen asleep again, Hawk nodded. “It’s the drugs. But yes, he’s got degrees in chemistry and petroleum engineering. Geology’s in there, too, but he just minored in it. He might as well have picked up a math major, for all the classes he had to take. He’s always been a smart kid.”
“Was he working for Confederated when he got hurt?”
“Yes, if you can call the three whole days he was employed ‘working.’ CPG had him on a well-stimulating ship. He helped rebuild the whole damn system during the last two summers, and he was excited to finally be out there full-time.”
“He was on a ship? Assigned to a ship? What was the name of it?” Nate scribbled a note quickly.
“He was aboard the Republic Sea. They take it around to different oil rigs and attach a hose and cables to the oil well, then pump tons of seawater down into it so they can fracture the bedrock. All the oil comes out of the rock and floats up on top of the water inside, so they can pump it out easy as pie.”
“Just to clarify,” Nate said, writing frantically, “he was a member of the crew of a ship called the Republic Sea? Working for CPG? Confederated Petroleum and Gas?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Does it matter?”
He took a few more notes and wished he’d done more research before rushing to the hospital. “It matters. From what I remember of maritime law, I thought Sean would be able to recover for his injury under the Longshoreman’s Act.”
Hawk nodded. “That’s what the first guy, Tillman, said.”
“But if he was on a vessel,” Nate continued, “if he was part of the crew, he wouldn’t have legal status as a longshoreman, but as a seaman. Which means he’s covered under a different law altogether.” He tapped his pen on the legal pad, trying to remember a random day from his maritime law class years before. “The Jones Act,” he explained, “allows seamen to sue their employers directly for injuries sustained on the job. And it lowers the burden of proof substantially.”
One of his old professors, a defense attorney who’d made a fortune working at the behest of insurance companies, hated the law because the claims brought under it were almost impossible to defend against. Under normal personal injury law, someone could recover damages only if they could prove their injury was caused by the other side’s negligence. But a company facing a lawsuit under the Jones Act was essentially screwed, because the seaman only had to prove some act of negligence on the part of the employer had contributed to their injury.
“Has the company offered a settlement?” he asked, still taking notes and trying to remember the exact details of the law.
“They keep sending someone by every couple of days, checking on him and offering to write a check so long as he signs a thingy saying he won’t take them to court. They’ve offered a lot of money, probably enough to cover the bills he’s racked up over the last two months, but….”
“But?”
“It’s not fair. He worked his ass off going to school,” Hawk explained. “I couldn’t afford to help him with tuition, or much of anything besides keeping him fed and keeping a roof over his head. He worked all the time, but he still had to take out student loans. He graduated with honors, literally at the top of his class. But that’s not going to matter if he can’t work on an oil rig again. And he’s never going to be able to go back out there. The boys out on those rigs are climbing ladders, they’re up and down towers and equipment all the time. Working an oil field on land might be possible down the road, but even then there’s no guarantee. He’s going to be stuck paying for those student loans when he can’t do the job he took out the loans to get. Far as I can see, that means he’s going to be lucky to scrape by with disability and stuff. He can always work in the shop, once I figure out a ramp and lower the counters down, but… it’s just unfair.”
Nate nodded. “Tell me what happened on the oil rig.”
Hawk shrugged and folded his hands in his l
ap. “From what I’ve heard, what Sean’s told me, something went wrong with the ship. The thrusters or something failed, and they had to use an emergency shutoff thing to detach the hose and cables from the wellhead. It didn’t work. One of the cables pinned him against a guardrail, and….” He took a deep breath and shuddered, squeezing his eyes closed. “The cable was still attached to the ship—it was the only thing keeping it attached to the oil rig—and it was big. Weighed tons. The ship was tossed around in the current, and the cable shifted back and forth while he was pinned underneath it. It sawed through his left leg, eventually. It almost severed the right one.”
Nate froze, his grip on the pen tightening until the flimsy plastic barrel bent under the strain. “His leg wasn’t amputated in the hospital?”
“They took about two more inches off, because the bone and tissue were shredded. He nearly bled to death right there, and when they got a medevac helicopter out there they didn’t think he’d make it back to shore. But he held on. He needed a lot of blood and two surgeries on his left leg. The first one to cut off the damaged bits and the second because of an infection. They’ve done four surgeries so far trying to save the other leg. The doctors are pretty sure he’ll be able to keep it, but between putting the bone back together and the pins and skin grafts and everything, it’s slow going. They’re waiting until he’s healed from the last surgery before he can start physical therapy to get that leg back into shape, and that’ll have to happen long before he can think about a prosthetic. And through all that, those bastards from CPG have been coming in here, pushing him to sign stuff, and promising they’ll take care of him so long as he agrees to whatever they want.”
Nate recorded Hawk’s account of the accident as passively as he could. Listening to a description of Sean’s injuries was hard, and he needed to show Hawk he was a professional. But CPG had obviously done their own investigation, and the fact that they were hounding Sean to release them from liability before Sean had even gotten a final tally of his medical bills was infuriating.