by A. J. Downey
You can’t know how sorry I am that I killed you. I struggle with it every day. I hope wherever you are, you’ve forgiven me as much as you’ve found forgiveness. Despite it all, you are much loved and in a lot of ways missed by the people you left behind.
I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll end this here.
Marcie.
Blue held out a paper towel to me and I took it and wiped my tears and blew my nose. I honestly didn’t know what any of this served but hoped that in some way, me putting the words I did to the page helped, as awkward as it was.
“Let me show you how to fold it,” he said, and we sat quietly, for several minutes while I followed his careful instruction, fold by fold, to make a beautiful floating paper lantern.
21
Dragon…
The memorial had been a bittersweet one, a lot of tears, some smiles, and some finally letting go. It dawned on me why Doc may have wanted to work instead of be there and I’d felt bad about it the entire ride home. I should have asked him, should have called and checked in on him, should have really tried to connect with my best friend…
Woulda, shoulda, coulda… It was hittin’ me in the face with all of the force of a sledgehammer as I stood in the doorway of his room.
He could have been asleep, lyin’ there flat on his back, one arm at his side, the other folded over his chest, proudly displaying his cut. The fingertips of that hand were touching the smaller Sacred Heart patch on his breast. The other arm had an IV leading into the crook of his arm and I’d seen enough dead men in my time to know.
You didn’t get to be that color when you were still breathin’, the blood was still flowin’.
“Jesus Christ, Doc…” I murmured, and only snapped-to when I heard one of the women – no, my woman ‒ laughing as she came up the hall. I turned but it was too late, she’d seen past me into the room, her blue eyes gone wide. I stopped her, just barely, from yelling out.
“Don’t. They don’t need to see this.” The frozen gears in my mind cracked off their ice coating and started to turn.
“What do we do?” she asked.
I scrapped my bottom lip between my teeth while I calculated things. Cops would investigate, they had to when there was a dead body. That meant they’d take the box of letters sittin’ on the bed beside him into evidence, and who knew when or if we’d ever get ‘em back.
“I need you to do something for me, for Doc…”
Her brows crushed down into a frown and she was shaking. I doubted she’d ever seen a freshly-dead body in her life and I was sorry she was seeing this, now. I went into the room and returned with the box of letters.
“Dragon, that’s illegal!” she hissed when I thrust them into her hands.
“Some things, like this, it ain’t about what’s legal, it’s about doin’ what’s right,” I declared. “Please,” I begged her. “Cops get a hold of those, we may never get ‘em back, and he wrote them for the people on the envelopes. It ain’t law enforcement’s business.”
Her expression crumbled as she thought about it and she nodded. I kissed her quickly, relief washing through me, and whispered, “Now, go home. Anybody asks you, you had a good weekend, took yourself home, and I called you when you got there with the news. You never saw this, baby.”
“Oh, god,” she murmured harshly. “You mean I have to get past all those people out there with their friend…” She trailed off and looked past me at Doc, her eyes gathering tears on her lashes like stars and I wanted to break down, myself… but I couldn’t. If ever there was a time to toughen up and bootstrap my way through somethin’, this was it.
“I’ll come by later for the box. Go, baby… please. Go out the back if you have to, the long way around the building.”
“Good idea,” she murmured, her voice a little hollow as her shellshock set in. “How can you think like that at a time like this?”
I grimaced on the inside but kept my face stone on the outside as I thought one word: practice.
Outwardly, I ignored her question and turned her gently towards the back door.
“I’ll call you as soon as I can,” I murmured.
“Okay, and, …Dragon?” She turned, and her eyes were so sincere, so pain-filled on my behalf when she said, “I’m so sorry about your friend…”
It bent me damn near to breaking, but I wouldn’t and couldn’t break. Not with the whole of the club out there depending on me holding my shit together.
She disappeared out the back door and I squared my shoulders and pulled out my phone. I called my Vice President.
“Pops, what’re you callin’ me for?” he answered, laughing.
“Grab Data and Trig. Meet me by Doc’s room,” I ordered.
The laughter died and my Vice President replaced my boy in half a heartbeat.
“On our way.”
The phone went dead in my ear and I took a second and leaned heavily on the doorjamb leading into Doc’s room, staring at my friend, a war of emotions going on inside, that most? Most, I didn’t even have names for.
It was gonna be a long night.
“It’s not unusual,” the deputy said, his little notepad in his hand, pen poised over the paper, even though he wasn’t looking at it, he was lookin’ at me. “Less than half of all suicides leave a note.”
I nodded and put my hands on my hips, bowing my head and trying not to smack the shit out of this kid. He was speakin’ so nonchalantly, like it weren’t my best fuckin’ friend bein’ zipped into a fuckin’ body bag just feet in front of me.
“How long until we can have him back?”
“You’ve been through this before, I reckon,” the deputy said and I gritted my teeth.
“Can’t say that I have,” I said coldly.
“Hey, Dad,” Dray called and I looked over. I gave a nod and said, “Excuse me,” and moved that way. Trigger smoothly taking my place in front of the deputy. He was better at dealing with a LEO’s bullshit, especially when it came to somethin’ strikin’ such a nerve in me.
I leaned against the wall facin’ my son and his dark eyes that so mirrored my own searched my face. His jaw tightened and he gave a nod, his hand coming up and gripping the sleeve of my jacket at my shoulder and I took the silent strength he offered because I wasn’t doin’ good. I wasn’t okay. I was shook, hardcore, right to my core. I was angry, at Doc, at myself, at the Deputy, at the universe for dealing us such a shit hand…
Did it really? That voice of self-doubt reared up, followed quickly by its kissing cousin, derision… Or is this just Karma back to bite you?
It was weighing on me heavy as they wheeled Doc out the back door to the medical examiner’s rig waiting on the track.
“You good to address our people, or you want I should do it?” Dray asked, his expression as grim as mine as we watched them load him into the back of the nondescript Ford Econoline van.
“What kind of leader would I be to leave my people to suffer in the face of my own?” I asked him.
And without missing, a beat my boy answered.
“A human one, who just lost his best friend.”
I cracked then, tears welling up hot and fierce, and for the first time in a long time, I eased part of my burden down. I looked back at my boy and asked, “Can you talk to ‘em, please?”
“Yeah, Pops. Come on, let’s go.”
22
Marcie…
I heard him roll up, the gravel crunching beneath his bike’s tires, his engine revving and chugging as he’d worked his way up the driveway. He sat, letting his bike idle as I watched him through the kitchen window. He looked some kind of broken, sitting there astride his motorcycle, his hands resting on the tank, his shoulders hunched. I could see his heart was fractured and aching and an echoing fractured ache went out from mine to his in a silent plea for him to come into the house.
It was one he must have heard, since he heeled down the stand and leaned his bike over onto it. He got up with the weight of the world on his leather-
clad shoulders and I opened the door before one of his booted feet could even touch the bottom step. He looked up sharply, his eyes narrowing, and I leaned against the doorframe and held a hand out to him. He took the two steps up and reached out and took it, and I almost reeled him in the rest of the way.
It was like he needed my touch, my help, to traverse those final steps to reach what was sitting at my little kitchen table. He stopped just inside the door and stared at it for a long time, a mix of emotions crossing his face, flickering through those coal-dark eyes and I knew the fire that was eating him up from the inside. I drew him carefully into the house, further, where he dropped like a stone into the chair that was pulled out. He stared at that wooden box, envelopes with names leaning against the back, sticking over the top, and he leaned forward, his eyes fixed on it. He braced his leather-clad forearms on his knees, bowed his head and the dam broke.
He wept, and it was all I could do to be the rock he needed as he was battered by the storm.
I scrambled forward, kneeling on my kitchen floor in front of him, and put my arms around him. His arms went around me as he leaned heavily, brokenly, against me and sobbed, these great, broken, heaving sobs that wracked his whole body and shook us both. I felt my own tears spring to my eyes as I hurt for him and I held him tight and lied to him.
“It’s alright, it’s all right now, you just let it out, I’m right here. I’ve got you, baby. I won’t let you fall.”
I lied, because it wasn’t all right, it wasn’t okay, and this poor man… hadn’t he already lost so much?
He held onto me as if I were the last thing left to him and I held onto him as tightly as I could as if to say, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere any time soon… because what else could I do?
We sat at the table, side by side, two steaming mugs of coffee cooling in front of us, the box with its contents sitting just beyond our drinks looking almost expectant. There were two envelopes out of the mess, one in front of Dragon, and one, complete with my name on it, in front of me…
Of course, he’d spelled Marcie wrong, the cursive script which was almost way too nice for a doctor spelling it M-A-R-C-Y, but then again we hadn’t known each other at all. We’d only just met, the one time, two days ago. It made me wonder what he could possibly have to say to me. I lifted my gaze from that unremarkable cream envelope and looked at Dragon who was staring at his.
“I should probably get back to the club,” he said.
“They waitin’ for you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Naw, they’ve all gone home.”
I frowned. “Then why go back, if no one’s waitin’ for you? Why on earth spend the night alone in that awfully big place, all by yourself just after something like this? No,” I shook my head. “I won’t have it. You’re stayin’ right here with me.”
“I couldn’t impose…” he said with a sad smile, and I shook my head harder.
“You ain’t, and I won’t hear nothin’ of it. You’re here now, with me, and it’s gonna stay that way, so you might as well get comfortable.”
“Jesus, you’re bossy, woman.”
“You’re damn right I am,” I said and took a resolute sip of my coffee. Of course, I couldn’t make him stay if he didn’t want to, so here was to hopin’ the man would see sense and that he would stay.
“All right, all right, calm your tits. I’ll stay with you, Sugar. Truth be told, I think I need to. Only…”
I raised an eyebrow. “Only?”
“You got anything stronger ‘n coffee?”
“Like?”
“Tequila would be welcome.”
“I think I got a bottle in the back of my liquor cabinet. Can’t promise it’s any good, though. No idea what brand it is. I don’t drink the stuff.”
“Right now, I don’t much care, Sugar. I just want to lean on my old friend to deal with the loss of my best one.”
His words made fresh tears spring to my eyes and I sniffed, cleared my throat, and stood up saying, “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
I went into the liquor cabinet in the dining room and came back with the unopened, lone bottle of tequila from the back. I didn’t even know where it came from. I set it on the table beside Dragon and set a bottle of my favorite Kentucky bourbon beside my coffee mug. I went for a glass for him, because unlike bourbon, I didn’t think tequila went good in coffee.
When I turned around, he had the bottle out in front of him, peering through his readers at it.
“This ain’t bad stuff, you sure you want to open it?”
“I’m sure. If ever there was an occasion…” I set the glass by his hand and he nodded.
“If ever there were, at that,” he agreed.
I uncapped my bottle and added a splash of bourbon to my coffee. Meanwhile, Dragon poured a healthy measure of tequila into the glass I’d brought him. He looked at it, sighed, and said, “This is a damn shame,” and downed the contents of his first pour.
I couldn’t tell if he meant about his friend or the alcohol, and it didn’t really seem appropriate to ask, so I didn’t. I sat back in my seat and he patted the top of his chaps-clad knee. I put my feet up and crossed them at the ankle. He smoothed a warm, rough hand along my skin, the top of my foot, along the top of my ankle, as high as he could go along my shin before my jeans stopped him, and back down. Back and forth, touching me as if I was his worry stone, and maybe, right now, I was.
“Talk to me, love,” I murmured.
He tipped his head back and let out a gusty sigh, staring at my kitchen ceiling as the daylight began to die. He shook his head gently, sniffed back more tears and cleared his throat.
“I wasn’t always good to Doc,” he said, finally. “He came to the club by way of a real bad gambling addiction. One I enabled, to a point, to get him in our debt in case we needed medical care off the books. It was all business at first, but Doc… Doc surprised me.”
I smiled and I knew it held an edge of sadness, when I really meant for it to be encouraging.
He told me all about his and Doc’s long history. It was an amazing story made better when Doc met Chandra. Chandra’s tragic end made my heart ache for Doc and the rest of the club, and put certain things in perspective.
“Sounds like Doc’s been hurtin’ for a real long time,” I murmured.
Dragon nodded and wiped his eyes, “I’m so pissed one minute, but it’s like I can’t stay angry the next, you know? Doc never had any kids of his own, Chandra’s kids turned their back when she died. After my Tilly… I had Dray, the club, I had Doc to hold me together, and I’m tellin’ you, babe, I feel like I failed him.”
I shook my head, “I don’t think so, honey. I think he was just hurting… Then again, he’s left letters to all of you, which tells me he loved you all so very much. Maybe it’s a bit early to open that up and read it, but…”
“No, you’re right. I should,” he said, and picked up his readers from off the table.
“Would you like a little privacy?” I asked quietly.
He nodded. “For this? Yeah.”
“Go on in the living room, use the reading lamp and my chair.” I picked up my letter and stood, bending and kissing him softly. “When you’re ready, you come on to bed.”
He nodded and sniffed and poured himself some more tequila, capping the bottle. I went down the hall and I heard him click on the lamp in the living room. I set my letter on the nightstand and turned on the lamp in my bedroom. I made sure I had a pair of reading glasses in here and set about getting ready for bed myself. That done, and with nothing left to do, I piled pillows behind my back, sat myself up with the blankets in my lap, and plucked the expensive-feeling envelope off of the night table.
He’d sealed the cream paper with crimson wax, the club’s Sacred Heart raised in the wax. He’d taken time and care with each one of these, and it was time to find out what he had to say to me.
I carefully lifted the wax seal and let out a breath I’d been holding. It was so pretty,
I hadn’t wanted to crack it, or break it. I slipped my glasses onto my face and slid the single sheet of thick, matching cream paper out of the sturdy envelope.
Dear Marcy,
I’m sure you’re wondering ‘what the hell’ and I’m real sorry about ruining your weekend, but after seeing you and him at the fire last night… well, I knew it was time. I knew my boy D. had found someone to take care of him and watch his ass, and that I could go.
I just wanted to say thank you for being that person for him. Thank you, and honestly, woman, no hard feelings about Cell. You didn’t do anything wrong and you need to stop carrying that guilt around. I know I don’t have the right to ask, but if you could do me a favor and make sure Dragon doesn’t carry any guilt around about me, I’d be mighty grateful. I wish I could have gotten to know you better, but I feel like I got a pretty solid feel for you.
You’re a good woman, and Dragon’s a good man.
I miss my woman. Life ain’t the same without her, and it’s just not a life worth living any more. I’m sure Dragon will let you know all about it, but as of now, I’m about all wrote out. You’re my last letter, but probably the most important.
Look after him for me, since I can’t be there.
All the love I got left,
Doc
I lowered the letter to my lap, tears streaming down my face at the unfairness of it all. I set it, and my glasses, aside on the table and slid down in my bed. I lay there, alone, thinking, and hoping that Dragon would come to bed soon.
23
Dragon…
I sat in the chair Marcie had indicated and had pulled the cord on the stained glass lamp above my head. I set the glass of tequila aside after one more fortifying sip and sighed, heavy and broken. I swallowed hard and raised the envelope, stained with my name on its front in Doc’s spider-silk cursive.