Sledge

by Jessie Cooke

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  He chuckled again. “Second thoughts about having me meet the family…again?”

  “No, baby. I just want you to myself.”

  He kissed the side of her face and said, “Soon, I promise. Let’s do this now while we’re here and get it over with, okay?”

  She curled her lip and he laughed again as he slipped an arm around her. He was dressed in blue jeans and his black boots and that sexy leather jacket. She’d told him to be himself today, and she was so happy to see that was exactly what he was doing. When they got up to the door he said:

  “By the way, I’m really sorry I was late. There was a pileup on the bridge and I sat there for a good half an hour. I would have called, but I left my phone at my mother’s house. I’m really sorry.”

  She hugged him again. “It’s okay. I knew you were coming.”

  “Thank you for not doubting me.” She felt him take a deep breath as they walked inside the house. Something about knowing how nervous he was, but that he was doing this for her anyway, was so sexy. God, she wanted to turn left and take him up the back stairs to the master bathroom and fuck his brains out right there in her sister’s fancy house. But instead, she took his jacket as he pulled it off, hung it on the coatrack and then took his hand and led him into the lion’s den. He smiled at all the faces staring at him from the formal dining table and said, “I want to apologize for keeping you all waiting. There was a wreck on the bridge and I didn’t have my phone with me to call. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Daria’s dad stood up and held out his hand. “It’s quite all right, Steve, we’re glad you could make it.”

  “It’s Sledge, Dad.” Everyone turned to look at Daria then. “He goes by Sledge.” Her mother was looking him over, staring at his white t-shirt, and the scars on his arms. She could just imagine what the snobby old woman and Liza would be saying about him later. She just hoped they had the good sense to be polite to his face.

  “Sledge then. Welcome.” Dan stood up and shook his hand as well. Sledge turned to her mother next and Daria said:

  “You remember my mother?”

  “Of course. Mrs. Ford, it’s nice to see you again.” Daria’s mother nodded. Daria was fuming. She narrowed her eyes at her before turning to Liza and saying:

  “And this is my sister, Liza. I’m not sure if you ever really met her the night of the wedding.”

  “I don’t think I had the pleasure. Hello, Liza.”

  “Hello…Sledge. Please have a seat. We’ll get dinner started.”

  Daria led him to the two empty seats on the far side of the table, next to the kids. She introduced her eight-year-old niece Clara and her six-year-old nephew Danny Jr., and then Liza rang a little bell to notify her staff they were ready for dinner. The soup was brought out first; it was lobster bisque and while they ate, Daria’s dad was the first to start the inquisition. “So, Sledge, I’m told you belong to a motorcycle club.” Daria furrowed her brow at her father, but Sledge didn’t seem to mind the question.

  “Yes, sir. I’m what’s called an enforcer…it’s kind of like a bodyguard position.”

  “I’m sorry,” her father said, “I hope you won’t think this is a rude question…but you understand, we worry about our daughter, even though she’s an adult…”

  “Dad, please.”

  “It’s okay,” Sledge said softly. “What did you want to ask, sir?”

  “Is your club an outlaw club?”

  Sledge smiled. “We own a gym and we own property and we do bodyguard services for one of the most competitive MMA teams in the US. We also own an auto shop and do custom work on cars and motorcycles. In short, sir, we earn our money the old-fashioned way, through hard work and free enterprise.”

  “MMA?” Daria’s mother said.

  “Mixed Martial Arts, mother,” Liza said. “You know, like that Wright boy got into…”

  “Jacob Wright?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “His brother is an attorney, though, right?” Daria’s dad said. Sledge looked at Daria and smiled as the family discussed Jacob, his brother Eli, and their father, whom none of them seemed to like. When there was a pause in the conversation Sledge said:

  “Jacob is one of our partners at the gym, and we do bodyguard services for him and his team when they’re in town.”

  “You know Jacob Wright?” Dan asked him.

  “Yes, he’s a good guy.” The staff suddenly appeared to remove the soup bowls. Dan waited until they finished and then he said:

  “His team is putting on a fight at Madison Square Garden next month. I’ve been calling everyone I know, trying to get tickets, but they’re completely sold out.”

  “Well, I can’t promise anything, but I could ask Jacob if he might be able to do anything…”

  “Oh my God! Would you?”

  “Dan!” Liza scolded. “You just met the guy, it’s a little too soon to be asking for favors.”

  Sledge chuckled. “It’s fine, really. I’ll talk to Jacob.”

  “Thank you.”

  The entree was brought out and while they ate, Sledge kept up his part of the conversation seamlessly. He was polite and personable and everything that her family hadn’t expected him to be. Daria was so damned proud of him that she could bust. After dinner was over, he even bonded with the kids. Clara introduced him to her cat, who seemed to love him, and Danny took him out back so he could see his new battery-operated motorcycle. Sledge was so patient with them and his interactions with them seemed so natural. Up to that moment, Daria had never seen him with a child and she’d never even thought about what kind of parent he might be…but his interactions with her niece and nephew practically made her uterus throb.

  Sledge stayed until almost ten o’clock while Daria alternated between being happy at how well he was getting along with her family and feeling like she was about to explode from the sexual tension that had been building up inside of her all evening. After he thanked everyone and said goodnight, she walked him to the door and when she was out of earshot of everyone she said, “You’re staying with me, right? I’ll head home right now.”

  He made a face and said, “I’m sorry, babe. I was going to stay at my mother’s tonight. There’s something I need to do for her. Can we meet for lunch tomorrow and go from there?”

  She frowned. “Okay…I just missed you, Sledge.”

  “I know, baby. I missed you too. I promise that there is nothing I’d rather do than head over to your apartment and ravish you. But there are just a couple of things I need to take care of first…okay?”

  She nodded. “Okay, but I can’t promise not to touch myself when I think about you tonight.”

  He laughed and said, “I can’t promise I won’t be out in the Bronx, doing the same.”

  He pulled her up against him again and they shared another passionate kiss. Daria loved kissing him, it was always so intense. “Thank you,” she said, when they broke the kiss.

  “For what? Masturbating to my carnal thoughts of you?”

  She giggled. “No, sorry, I changed the subject again. Thank you for this. You won them over, just like you did me.”

  “I’m sure they were just being polite,” he said, picking up his gloves and pulling them on.

  She laughed again. “No, sadly, they’re really not polite people. If they didn’t like you, they would have made that clear in some way. Not that I care what they think about most things, but it is nice for them to finally like someone that I brought home.”

  He grinned. “The last one you brought home, right?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Sledge tied on his bandanna and picked up his helmet. Before he put it on he said, “So when you come out to California, will you wear my patch and be my old lady?”

  She smiled. That was a sentence she never thought she’d hear…but it thrilled her to hear it. “I’d be honored,” she said.

  “Good,” he said, sliding the helmet on and flippi
ng up the visor. “Oh, by the way, have I told you yet that I love you?” She stared up at him in shock. She knew he cared about her, but she hadn’t expected to hear him say those three words just yet.

  “Um…no, you haven’t said that before.”

  He put the helmet down and took her hands. Looking down at her face he said, “You know that words aren’t my strong suit. I know normal people don’t just blurt it out like that. I’ve never said it to a woman before, except my mother. I’m sorry if I did it wrong.”

  Daria reached up and put her hands on either side of his face. “There is no wrong way to say I love you. I love you too.”

  “Really?”

  She laughed and nodded. “Really.” He kissed her again and she finally stepped back and watched him go, already looking forward to tomorrow and having him all to herself. Once he was out of sight, she headed back inside. She was as proud of her family for showing him such a good time as she was of him for being himself and winning them over…and she intended to tell them. Wouldn’t it be something if the kid from the Bronx was what finally brought them all together at last?

  28

  Sledge was walking up East 129th Street, in the dark. It was a bad idea in this neighborhood of the Bronx to be out at night, walking…but he’d had a message on his phone when he got back to his mother’s and stepfather’s home in Brooklyn, telling him that he might be able to find what he’d been looking for there. Something about seeing Trucker again a few weeks ago had triggered a need in him…an aching, driving need…to find his brother. His brother Bobby wasn’t an addict…at least as far as he knew. In all honesty, he could be anything by now, or even dead. Sledge hadn’t seen him in fifteen years.

  Trucker’s homelessness was what had reminded Sledge of Bobby. That last time he saw him, his brother had been living on the streets and panhandling for money. His mother had spotted him first. It used to break Sledge’s heart how she searched the faces of every homeless person she saw, hoping to find her son in one of them. That day, she did. She’d been so happy. Her face had lit up like a candle, but when they got across the street to him, he looked at them both with no sign of recognition on his face. Sledge’s mom told Bobby who she was, who Sledge was, and even who he was. She invited him to come back to their house and have lunch. All the while, Bobby had sat there staring at her like he’d never seen her before in his life. He never spoke a word to either of them and he seemed relieved when they finally left him alone. Sledge wasn’t sure now if he was being selfish, trying to find him again. Bobby’s world was on the streets now…and Sledge actually respected that, and even kind of understood it. But he would like to at least try to make contact with him while he was on the East Coast. Who knew? Maybe something about him would trigger his brother’s memory.

  When he decided he was going to look for Bobby, he called Hunter, one of the Southside Skulls from Boston, and also a bounty hunter and private eye. He didn’t have a lot of information on his brother, and a mentally ill man living off the grid, on the streets wasn’t going to be easy to find. Sledge hadn’t had any pictures of his brother that weren’t twenty years old, and the best he could do was to give Hunter a basic description of what he remembered. His brother would be thirty-seven years old now, probably about Sledge’s general height. He used to have blond hair but that might have changed. He did have brown eyes and most distinguishing of all, a huge scar that ran from just underneath his hairline all the way down the right side of his face to his chin. Sledge hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up over Hunter’s message, but he didn’t want to miss out on finding his brother because he was skeptical either. Hunter said Bobby was living in a tent city on East 129th Street. Sledge didn’t know how anyone would have that information to give to Hunter…but hey, that was why Hunter was the PI and he wasn’t. Hunter told him he’d be in New York in the a.m., but Sledge was too impatient to wait. He’d gone looking for his brother himself.

  He found the general area that Hunter had been talking about, the tent city It was a mishmash of real tents, pup tents, tarps, old cars, and makeshift tents constructed with just about any type of material you could think of. It was late, and some of the tents looked to be full already. He didn’t want to get his mother’s hopes up, just in case, so he’d given her some excuse about running an errand, and he’d gone out to search. He left his bike in a garage on 128th Street. He was willing to risk life and limb, but not his new chrome ape-hangers.

  He walked along, shining his light here and there, getting cussed at, whistled at, propositioned, and one guy even pulled a knife on him. It was a butter knife, though, and Sledge was lucky to have gotten out alive since he laughed at the guy and just kept on moving. He’d been searching for over an hour when he saw a man balled up on top of a sleeping bag underneath a tarp that had been draped over two upright logs. He was holding onto his knees, rocking back and forth and staring at a spot on the wall of graffiti behind him. Sledge shone his light on the man. It was hard to tell what color his skin was. It was hidden behind a layer of grime, and maybe a dark tan from overexposure to the sun. What had caught Sledge’s eye, though, was the shirt the man was wearing. He knew it was a long shot to think Bobby was still as obsessed with Metallica as he had been when they were kids, but like everything else, it was a shot. He shone the flashlight directly into the man’s face and he could just barely make out the scar. The man’s eyes met his…and fifteen years faded away. He was looking into the brown eyes of his brother.

  “Bobby?” The man pulled his bushy eyebrows together. They were peppered with gray and so was the brown hair that hung in greasy strands to his shoulders. He had facial hair, but rather than a full beard and mustache, it was stuck to his face in patches. “Bobby, is that you? It’s Steve…” He didn’t expect his brother to remember him. Between the brain damage, the fifteen years that had passed between them, and whatever substances Bobby had undoubtedly used to survive out here, it was unlikely.

  “Stevie?” Sledge smiled. That was what Bobby always called him.

  “Yeah, man, it’s me.”

  “Fuck, you’re all grown up.”

  Sledge chuckled and knelt down next to his brother. “Yeah, that happens. Bobby, how are you?”

  Bobby smiled. He was missing most of his teeth. “I’m good.” Sledge couldn’t imagine that anything about the way his brother lived could be good.

  “Bobby, do you want to go get something to eat with me?”

  His brown eyes lit up. “Eat?”

  “Yeah, you want to get some dinner?” Sledge looked at his watch. “Or breakfast, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Let’s eat.”

  Sledge helped Bobby up, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the way his brother smelled. They walked, slowly, down 129th Street. Bobby would stop every so often and say hello to another homeless person, or a dog, or once…a squirrel. They walked for about a mile before coming upon an all-night diner. As soon as they walked in, though, the waitress in the dull gray uniform made a face and looked at Bobby like he was an animal that had just wandered in off the streets. “Here, buddy, have a seat,” Sledge told him, guiding him into a booth near the door. “I’ll be right back.” He went over to where the waitress was behind the counter. There were only two other people in the diner, an old man in a bowler hat and a woman that looked like maybe she was a working girl. Neither of them even looked up at him when he approached the counter and said, “Excuse me.”

  “Yes?” The waitress looked at him and then her eyes flicked back over to Bobby.

  “That’s my brother. I haven’t seen him in fifteen years. He’s mentally ill, but harmless. I know he smells bad, and I’m sorry about that. I promise to leave you a handsome tip if you bring him whatever he wants off the menu and make him feel welcome.”

  She looked at his brother again and then at him. The edges of her mouth almost curled into a smile as she said, “We serve everyone here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sledge went back over and sat down across from
his brother. The waitress was there in an instant with the coffee pot and two menus. “You want some coffee, Bobby?”

  “Sure.” The waitress filled their cups and left them to look at the menu. When she was gone Sledge said:

  “Pick out whatever you want, Bobby.”

  His brother smiled. “Mom made pancakes,” he said.

  Sledge felt a thick lump forming in his throat. He swallowed around it and said, “Yes, she made the best pancakes.”

  “She made Mickey Mouse.” Sledge smiled again. He’d forgotten about his mother’s Mickey Mouse pancakes.

  “She sure did, with chocolate chips.” Bobby smiled and nodded. “Is that what you want, Bobby? You want pancakes?”

  He nodded again and said, “With chocolate chips.”

  When the waitress came back over Sledge said, “We’d like two orders of your chocolate chip pancakes please, with bacon and the works.”

  “Mickey Mouse,” Bobby said.

  “Oh, Bobby, I’m not sure they can make those.”

  His brother looked up at the waitress. Sledge was already impressed with her for not wrinkling her nose at Bobby’s stench but when he said, “Are you a mother?” the woman smiled, an actual smile, and said, “Yes. I have two little boys.”

  “Our mom had three boys. Can you make Mickey Mouse pancakes?”

  She smiled again and even winked at him. “Can I make Mickey Mouse pancakes? Does a bear…you know…in the woods?” Bobby laughed and clapped his hands together as the waitress left the table. Sledge was overwhelmed with emotion. He couldn’t begin to imagine what had possessed him to be so incredibly selfish that his brother, who was about as mature as a seven-year-old, was living alone on the streets for the past fifteen years, and Sledge hadn’t even bothered to look for him. When Bobby looked up at him and said, “It’s good to see you, Stevie,” his heart completely broke and for the first time in twenty years, tears filled his eyes.