The Italian: A Mountain Man Romance

by Hazel Parker

  I was far from pleasure at the moment, which sucked considering how close I was to pleasure before the Earth shattered around me. Molly was on my mind no matter how often I tried to erase her. I couldn’t even lie and say she was getting under my skin. She was already there. I could barely think around her let alone think about her. What the hell had she done to me? If she were anyone else, I would have drank, smoked, and moved on to another one. But instead I was walking around aimless, confused and hurt. I was hurt, which was saying something since I rarely cared about anyone but myself. It was the kind I wanted to dull – to numb. My brain whispered of the high I could get with a little meth. Just enough to knock the edge off the pain.

  You know how some people can read for hours? Or how some people can get lost in their craft no matter how long they’ve been doing it? That was how bike engines were for me. Life could be going to hell on a grease pole, but if my hands were in the belly of a bike, things didn’t seem as bad. Fixing a bike was akin to fixing my life. It let me feel like I was in control. It was one of the only things I was good at – aside from getting into trouble.

  My hands and feet took me there on autopilot. One minute I was in my bedroom, devastated, and the next I was in the garage, sitting amongst the smoky fumes of an exhaust and tools to fix the problem. All my problems were drowned out with the clank of metal on metal as my wrench worked and the background noise of the radio playing whatever was popular. The tool was in my hand now, twisting from left to right and I lost myself in the motion.

  The pain was right there, bubbling just under the surface and feeling a little too real. A little too raw and a little too familiar. Heartbreak. Unsuspecting pain.

  *****

  I saw the men standing around the living room with somber looks. I saw them drinking to his honor and my mom trying to wipe her tears inconspicuously on the couch, but it still didn’t feel real. It hadn’t felt real when they told us my father was gunned down in a meeting to discuss a neutrality clause to promote peace, or when we stood over the closed black casket with our emblem carved into the smooth marble in white. None of that had felt real. Not seeing my brother stoically throwing a rose petal into the ground, the packed memorial, the stories so many people told about my dad and how he touched their lives. The pats of sympathy people gave me didn’t feel real, and neither did the piles of food people left at our house. It wasn’t real. In my head, I could explain it all away.

  I was so good at explaining it all away, but I couldn’t explain away the bike in the garage sitting under a thick layer of dust.

  “Always keep your bike clean, Ethan. You can judge a man by the quality of his bike.”

  There was dust on it. Thick, though in reality it hadn’t been sitting by itself for many days. It was dirty. Dusty and not shining – very unlike the way the man I knew would have left it.

  “Always keep your bike clean.”

  Dust was real.

  Why wasn’t he keeping it clean? It was like a loud speaker screamed inside of me, “He’s not here.” It was so loud it shook the walls I’d built around me and broke me. I crumbled like the walls around me, hard, to the ground in the garage, into a heap of bones. The coldness of the cement barely registering as the coldness of his death, my loss, settled in.

  I didn’t know how long I lay there. No one came by, no one asked what was wrong, and no one cared. When I finally stood, I stood on the brink of something I couldn't describe. The weight of everything seemed to press down on my shoulders and I struggled to take even a single step forward. It was too much. All of it. And somehow, I kept moving. But every step cost me. The darkness grew darker; the pain grew sharper; all of it seemed to only grow in strength and I began to wonder if things could ever get better.

  But I never said a word. Sometimes I wondered if that smile, the horribly fake smile, was ever seen through. No one noticed the sad broken look in my eyes. The true depth of my then bluer than blue eyes. There was no light to me. Only ice. But no one noticed.

  Everyone though I was doing so well. I hadn’t cried, I wasn’t moping, and according to everyone else, I was acting like my regular self, but I was barely eating and I wasn’t sleeping. I stayed up to the crack of dawn every night until my body couldn’t hold out any longer. I heard my mother crying in her sleep and my brother sneaking out. I had plenty of time to think. Not sleeping helped me realize I was alone. There was no one left to stop me from getting into trouble – no one left to demand better of me. There was nothing left to feel. All I could feel was my brokenness. I wondered if I would ever feel anything else. That question led me to parties, bars, and late night bingeing. It led me to try 100 proof alcohol, weed, and eventually meth.

  Only then did I feel for once like I could fly. For the first time in a long time, I was flying instead of sinking to death from a darkness that wouldn’t let go. I didn’t feel so cold. There was heat inside me. I had energy and I could sleep. I could sleep for hours instead of thirty minutes. I had an appetite and could laugh. I could see the light of day and, for a time, I was no longer alone.

  But it never lasted. It never does. It eventually went away and the darkness clouded my eyes again, seemingly darker than it was before. The cold felt more biting than I remembered and I was drowning under something I couldn’t name. I needed more. I couldn’t bear the darkness and I drowned in all that meth could provide. One frat party I snuck into gave me powder, and somehow that powder held power over me.

  *****

  For just a moment, the same coldness blew threats on my heart and I thought about how wonderful it felt to ignore it before. When I was sixteen, it seemed so magical and simple. But now I was a man. Thirty-three years old and in control. I couldn’t and wouldn’t go back. I stood, and without thinking, threw my wrench across the room. It left my hands, hitting the wall and the ground with enough noise to be satisfying.

  I wanted to hate her. I hated that bitch so much. Why did she make me feel like that? How did I let her get so close? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? I didn’t want to miss her.

  Was this love? If this is what love felt like, I didn’t want anything to do with it.

  Chapter 10

  Molly

  I hadn’t kept my word and I wanted to do that, so after the horror of being kicked out of Ethan’s apartment, I drove to see my dad.

  Paulie met me out front instead of the guard that was there before.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he said just before he opened my door. When he saw my face, he instantly knew I was upset. He bent down and grabbed my hand. “Hey, you okay?”

  I really didn’t want to talk about it, but there was something about a person genuinely asking if you’re okay, something about someone knowing you aren’t okay and reaching out to help you feel better. I could feel the tears fighting to pour out. My bottom lip trembled but I shook my head no.

  “No. I don’t need to talk.”

  “You don’t need to or you don’t want to?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “It does, love,” he said, leaning forward to caress my cheek

  It felt too familiar, too much like easy temptation, and wrong. Just wrong. His hand was warm and smooth, with the right amount of callouses, and completely wrong. Just wrong. That was not the hand I wanted to have touch me, caress me, comfort me, and while I was thinking, he was leaning closer. I came to see him inches from my face, from my lips, and I recoiled in disgust, jumping back.

  “What’s wrong, Mols?”

  I thought to say I don’t want this, but I didn’t want to start a fight, so instead I said, “I need to see my father,” trying to exit the car and push past the hulk of a man.

  “So,” he said, pushing me back to be seated. “He’ll still be there. We need to talk.”

  I sighed deeply and rubbed the headache I was beginning to feel from my eyebrows.

  “What about, Paul Mathers?”

  “Wow, Molly Karin. We dropping governments? It must be serious.
”

  “It must be,” I said with attitude. “You keeping me here.”

  He sighed and rubbed the scruff on his face. “Look, Mols. I just… I mean… I think—”

  “Cat got your tongue?” I said, attempting to lighten the mood.

  “Something like that,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head.

  “Well nothing you have to say should be that hard. So try again.”

  “I just think we should talk. Last time we talked, it didn’t go so well and I just, I don’t know, Molly. I didn’t like how we ended. I want us to be the way we were. You know?”

  Not really. No, I didn’t know. How could we be like we were? What was there to salvage? Did he really want us to be what we were when we were teenagers and somehow convinced we could have a happy life together? When we were too naïve to understand that love and war couldn’t go together.

  “Paulie, we’re not those people anymore,” I said, touching his hand and trying to let him down as gently as possible. “I don’t like how we ended either. So let’s start over. I changed my life – for the better. And I’m happy. You’re happy and I’m glad you’re happy. Can’t that be good enough?” I said, smiling.

  He smiled a weak smile and patted my hand. “For now.” A small beat of silence passed between us before he stood from his crouch and helped me from my car. “Let’s go see your old man.”

  “Yeah, let’s,” I said, sliding my arm into his.

  My dad looked much better. His skin was no longer pigmented with so many bruises. He filled out his jacket and he looked every bit the king he thought he was – the king of the Skulls. What did that make him? The Grim Reaper? I couldn’t know and in all the years I’d known him and been estranged from him, he’d always carried himself that way, even when there was only two people to lord over.

  He sat at the table with a can of beer, slouching in his chair.

  “Are you supposed to be drinking, dad?” He looked better, but the truth was I didn’t know about his internal injuries. More than likely, he shouldn’t be drinking.

  “Maybe,” he said, taking an apologetic sip.

  “What did your doctor say?”

  “What she doesn’t know won’t kill her, will it?” he said, raising his can as if giving a toast. “Now, how’s my daughter?” he asked. He sounded so sincere. All that was missing was him opening his arms for a hug. How I was feeling, I might have taken the hug. That was how vulnerable I was. I would have gone against every instinct from childhood and survival and hugged. Every daughter wanted comfort from their dad, right?

  I decided to go for something less emotional, something more like what we were: distant relatives. “Not too hot, dad.”

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked, sipping his can of beer.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “I understand. Want something to drink?”

  “Yeah,” I said as he nodded to Paulie.

  He pulled a can of grape Fanta from the refrigerator. I smiled a half smile and took the cool can from his hands.

  “I guess not much has changed,” he said, smiling as I ticked back the metal can top and heard the hiss of carbonation.

  “So, got anything to tell me?” dad said smugly, sipping his beer.

  “About what?” I said, dreading his answer.

  “About Ethan, of course.” He smiled, and it would have been alarming if I didn’t know he was like a snake. He would strike when it looked like he was the most disarming.

  I opened my mouth and closed it. Did I really want to know?

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  “You’ve been watching me?” he said in a squeaky voice, mocking me before laughing. “Come on, baby girl. You went to school. You’ve got to have some brains in that head. What do you think?” His face turned serious and I knew that he was no longer into playing with my emotions. “Yes! We’ve been watching you. Duh. We never stopped. You’re my daughter. You think I don’t know where my child is and who and what she’s doing?” He smiled sadistically at his double entendre. “I know who’s been sharing your bed, and since you’ve finally done right by us and come home, you can tell me anything he’s shared.”

  “What?” I asked, horrified that he thought I would ever be his spy.

  “You’ve been sleeping with the enemy, Molly,” he said like he was speaking to a child. “Obviously you’ve seen the error of your ways or the inevitable happened and you realized that you two could never work. I don’t care which one it was, but since you’ve come to your senses, the least you could do is tell us anything he might have said.”

  “What makes you think I would do that?” I asked, disturbed by his perspective of what had just happened. “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Yes. You could. You still haven’t learned anything, Molly girl,” he said. If anyone else had said it, it might have sounded endearing. “Remember what I told you? Family is about loyalty. That’s what makes the Skulls stronger, bigger, and better than that little crew pretending to be worthy of the word Bandits. Loyalty,” he said, pronouncing every syllable of the word. “That’s what makes me think you’ll tell me. Do you still know nothing of the word?”

  The tears I tried to keep in started leaking from my eyes as he continued. He looked on with a bored and uninterested stare. “It’s been ten years and you’re still that same, little girl. I thought by now you would have learned.”

  “I’m not telling you anything Ethan said to me. He didn’t tell me a single thing about his crew, but even if he had, I wouldn’t tell you anything.”

  “What about loyalty?” he said, slamming his hands on the table and standing.

  “What about it? You don’t know anything about loyalty. You only know how to look out for yourself. I’m standing here with a broken heart and it would have been nice to have your support. Instead you tell me I’m nothing if I don’t give you what you want?” I asked, coming to the realization I should have known from the beginning. “You still haven’t changed. You cheated on mom. You pushed me to do that job even though you knew I wasn’t ready!”

  “You’re still talking about that shit ten years later?”

  I kept talking as if I hadn’t heard his outburst. “You pushed me to do that job even though you know I wasn’t ready and now you’re trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do. Again! You’re never going to change, are you?”

  Just saying it out loud hurt. I thought that at least I could have my dad. I convinced myself we could have repaired whatever happened and that at least, at the very least, I might have lost the guy but got my family back. But that was not the case either. I turned to see Paulie and realized he was still hoping I’d change my mind. But goodbye to my dad was goodbye to him, because Paulie would never leave the Skulls.

  “You kicked mom out and had everyone convinced she was some kind of whore who deserved to live on the streets than be with us. You convinced everyone but me. I wondered if I had made a mistake in staying with you and I was right. I should have left with her. You were never any good for us. You’re a poison. You kill everything around you and one day, all that poison’s going to kill you too.”

  I looked at his smug face and the words flew out without any thought. I knew the instant they made their mark.

  “Goodbye, dad,” I said, walking out the door for good.

  Chapter 11

  Ethan

  I sat on my bike in front of Flagstaff Assisted Living. It looked so happy, with bright colors and smiling faces on their logo. It was the biggest lie I’d ever seen. I could feel the coldness coming from the inside. If I didn’t know better, I might have believed them. I knew the kind of horrors that were behind those doors.

  This wasn’t my first time visiting my mother, but I didn’t make a habit of visiting. She had another son with the exact same face. I doubted she noticed the difference. The few times I visited were early on when she first checked herself in. She’d
been strong still, and aware of where she was then. She’d been conscious enough to know she needed help and strong enough to know she didn’t want to break the club by asking us to look after her. So she’d checked herself in, packed her own clothes, signed away her rights and power of attorney to the home, and moved in. She hadn’t even told us about it until she was already there.

  She didn’t like it and often joked about it – the wacky routines and personalities some of the other residents. There was one woman who was suspicious everyone was trying to steal her lucky dollar.

  Mom liked the Jell-O and didn’t mind too much the schedule they pushed on her. She said she got more sleep than she ever did when she was in the club house. It was true, the club house was known for playing loud music well into the night. She used to joke with me when she first came in, pretended that she didn’t know who I was and then, when my face changed, would laugh. She’d done it more than once. I did not find it funny. Not in the least.

  Aging was the gift that kept on giving – kept on taking. I watched my mom sitting on the bench in the middle of the garden. She held a bag full of bread crumbs. She threw the bread out, sprinkling the crumbs a short distance from her feet to the birds there.

  I could see the years on her face. It was strange to see an older version of the woman who birthed me. I could see the woman who’d told me to stand when I fell off my bike and was bleeding, the woman who’d refused to dress Evan and I alike. She’d let us have our own personalities and had told my dad to shush when he got onto my ass about causing trouble. I could recall with fondness the younger version of myself laughing while Evan pouted because he wanted to be older. He’d figured out he couldn’t change that and had lorded it over me that he was taller. She’d found me pouting about it in my room and had comforted me like she’d comforted him. She hadn’t poked me and told me to be a man; she hadn’t minded letting me cry if I needed to.