Deserter

by Myers, Shannon

  I wrenched my arm free. “You hurt her! I saw the marks.”

  I expected him to look ashamed, but he surprised me with a laugh. “Oh, yeah? What makes you think those came from me? Your mother is clumsy and, unfortunately, her clumsiness made this happen.”

  I didn’t even stop to think as he turned away from me with a grin. I launched myself at him and began pummeling his large body with my fists. I felt invincible until he picked me up and threw me against the paneled wall in the entry way.

  The impact knocked the air from my lungs, and I struggled to take a breath. My old man knelt over my body, inhaling and exhaling like that bull from a Bugs Bunny cartoon I once saw.

  “It’s time for you to grow the fuck up. You wanna act like a man, I’ll treat you like one.” His fists began to connect with my body, but unlike mine, his hits were effective.

  Before I blacked out, I made a promise to myself that I would get us away from him. I would do whatever I needed to do to keep my mother safe.

  Chapter Three

  Jamie: 1980

  “You plannin’ on staying holed up in here all night again?” John looked up from one of his old man’s Playboy magazines with a smirk.

  “You stay holed up in here all the time and no one gives you shit,” I replied, without looking up from the latest issue of The Mighty Thor.

  I’d been aimlessly browsing at the comic book store next door when the headline jumped out at me.

  Thor must die… at the hands of his own father!

  I related to him there.

  My old man had been trying to kill me for the last six years. The only reason I hadn’t taken off yet was because if he was hitting me, he wasn’t hitting my mother.

  He’d get it in his head that I’d done something wrong and that was the end of it. There was no chance to plead my case before his fists were coming down on me. Something changed after that night. Because I stood up to him, I was his new favorite punching bag.

  After Ma lost the baby, she wandered around the house like a ghost, sometimes curling up in a ball on the floor and crying until her whole body would shake.

  Angel told me that she blamed herself for it and felt like if she would’ve stayed out of my old man’s way, the baby would’ve lived. He said she just needed time to grieve.

  I never admitted it, but I was relieved the baby hadn’t been born.

  It would’ve been one more person I had to try to keep safe. My old man didn’t deal well with loud noises or crying; he was constantly screaming at Ma to shut up when she had one of her spells. If it weren’t for me stepping in when he got like that, she would’ve taken the brunt of his rage.

  I couldn’t imagine what he would’ve done to an infant.

  He hadn’t just killed his own child that night; he’d killed something in her too and she hadn’t been the same since. The smiles she used to save for me and Angel disappeared, along with our evening prayer and Rosary.

  That first night back home, I’d limped in after my father beat the shit out of me and dropped the rosary necklace into her hand, thinking we’d pray for her health and recovery. She’d stared down at it for a few seconds before launching the beads into the wall with a cry.

  We never knelt at the altar again after that.

  In spite of it all, Ma still dragged herself out of bed in the morning and went to her typist job while my old man slept off last night’s activities on the couch. They hadn’t shared a bedroom since she returned home from the hospital.

  Every night, after kicking off her heels, she mixed orange juice with the vodka from my father’s liquor cabinet before drinking herself into a stupor.

  Somewhere over the last six years this had become our normal. I got used to making us TV dinners and sitting beside her on the couch, desperate for some sign that she was still in there.

  On Mondays, we watched Gunsmoke. Tuesdays, it was Happy Days. Wednesdays were devoted to Little House on the Prairie while Thursdays were spent with The Waltons.

  The shows changed over the years, but our routine didn’t. When I got sick of eating frozen meals, I taught myself to heat up canned soup on the stove and if I was feeling particularly ambitious, I made beans and franks.

  Ma would squeeze my hand and thank me when I set the tray in front of her, but other than that, our evenings were spent in silence in front of the television.

  As the years passed, my old man began staying at the clubhouse for longer periods of time, giving us the peace we’d craved for the last nine years. If he was on a run, Angel would come over and bring Jack in the Box tacos, breaking our food monotony.

  “Hey, Jamie. You in there?” John nudged my leg with the toe of his boot.

  I closed the comic. “Sorry, I spaced out for a second there. What’d you say?”

  He laughed and sank back down onto his bean bag. “I said that no one gives me shit because my old man owns the place.”

  “Well, I work for Phantom, that should count for something.” The tape player stopped, and I got up to stretch my legs and flip it to the other side.

  Phantom’s body shop had become my second home in the year and a half I’d been helping out. It started as a summer gig, but now I was here almost every day. He’d even given us free rein over the apartment above the shop as long as it was after hours.

  I wasn’t sure how much they knew about my old man, but neither one of them ever brought up the number of nights that I slept on the couch, unable to go home and watch Ma self-destruct.

  The intro to Pink Floyd’s The Show Must Go On filled the room and John lit up another joint with a contented sigh.

  When Phantom took off for church, John and I would get high in the apartment and rotate through his dad’s collection of tapes. Sometimes, we got lucky and found beer in the fridge. The best nights of my life were spent with him; laying on the worn bean bag chairs, drinking and smoking dope, while talking about life.

  “You think anymore about what we talked about?” He took a hit and passed it over to me.

  “What? Patching in? I don’t know, John. I’m trying to get away from my old man. Joining a club with him seems like a shit idea all around.” It was bad enough getting my ass kicked at home, but to have it happen in front of a band of bikers?

  Yeah, count me out.

  John was two years older and, unlike me, looked forward to graduation so he could join his old man in the club. Me? I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was an okay student, and I liked working on cars. I just didn’t know if it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  “C’mon, Jamie.” John sat up. “Where the hell else can you get that kind of cash right out of school? Wolverine’s fair too.”

  I agreed with him there. Wolverine took care of the bikers and, while he still scared the shit out of me at times, he lived and breathed by the club rules.

  “Is that what you want? To work in the body shop and do club shit?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I never really thought about doing anything else…” His voice trailed off as he stared up at the Farrah Fawcett poster hanging on the wall.

  “There’s nothing else you like doing that you could make a career out of?” I pushed.

  John tapped a thumb against his lower lip and nodded. “I really like shop class. I think if I had a choice, I’d wanna do construction or some shit like that. I don’t know how to say this, man, but Lou’s knocked up.”

  John had been dating Louisa since they started high school. I’d hung around her a few times and thought she was a sweet girl, but kids? Fuck, we weren’t ready for that.

  “That’s some heavy shit.” I didn’t know what else to say. John was a stand-up guy like his old man, so he’d do right by her and no one would convince him otherwise.

  “Yeah,” he agreed before taking another drag.

  “Is Louisa?” I began. “Is she doing okay with it?” Thoughts of my ma drifted into my mind, but I pushed them away.

  He shrugged. “She throws up a lot
and if she’s not doing that, she’s sleeping, but my ma said it’s to be expected.”

  I nodded. “How’d they take the news?”

  “Fine. Ma said she always knew we’d end up together while my old man ribbed me for not using a condom. Her parents were the ones that surprised me. I thought for sure her dad would have my balls, but he sat me down and talked to me like a man. Once he knew my intentions, we were good.”

  “And what are your intentions?”

  “I’m gonna fuckin’ marry her, obviously. I wanted to before I knocked her up and even more so now that she’s carrying my kid.” At my expression, he added, “C’mon, Jamie. She’s the only girl I’ve ever been with and the only one that can handle this lifestyle.”

  That was why he’d wanted to know if I was going to hang around all night. He had a life to get back to—a family that was just starting out.

  We sank back into silence, passing the joint back and forth as if our futures weren’t about to change in a big way. John was going to graduate in a few months before becoming a husband and father. Nights like this would be nonexistent.

  It was the only time that I wished we could stay kids.

  I slipped the comic book back into my backpack, having given up any pretense of reading it. “You know the price to patch in.”

  He nodded and sighed. “Yeah, I know. Blood of a known club enemy.”

  I hadn’t learned that fact until I was older. It made what I’d witnessed between my mother and Angel all the more confusing. Over the years, I’d even convinced myself that I hadn’t seen what I thought I did or maybe Wolverine had just changed the rules since my old man joined.

  “I overheard something today,” John said to Farrah. “I don’t know what to make of it, but I feel like it might change your mind on things.”

  I stretched with a yawn. “Oh, yeah? Lay it on me, man.”

  He took a deep breath before looking over at me. “Your old man fucked up… big time. I don’t know the specifics, man, but I think the club might take him out.”

  I bolted up off the beanbag, suddenly sober. “Where’d you hear this? Did they say when it would happen?”

  This was what I’d waited on for years. My chance to grab Ma and get the hell out of the desert.

  “I don’t know much. They called my old man this afternoon, and I only heard his side of the conversation, but he mentioned Whiplash multiple times. Whatever shit he got into is bad, Jamie. Like really bad.”

  I ran a hand across my face and nodded. “This is good for us—me and Ma, I mean. I can get her some help from all the brainwashing he did to her.”

  John hesitated. “Look, Jamie. You can’t let anyone know that I told you. My old man would have my ass. They have a timeline in place for dealing with him. You have to be cool until it’s handled, okay?”

  I didn’t want to wait for the club to take him out. I wanted to gas up the old wagon and pack a suitcase tonight. Finish what we started when she pulled me out of my bed in the middle of the night six years ago.

  * * *

  The house was dark when John dropped me off, which wasn’t surprising, considering it was after midnight. My old man was probably still out at the clubhouse and knowing Ma, she would’ve passed out not long after eight.

  I jammed the key into the lock and turned the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. I tried again, but it was like it was stuck. It took me throwing my shoulder into it until it finally gave, opening up about six inches.

  I’d have to remember to grab some oil from the shed for the hinges tomorrow. The carpet was squishy under my boots and I let out a soft curse. The window unit must’ve been leaking again. It’d be the third time in the last month that the damn thing had gone on the fritz.

  Just one more thing I’d have to take care of on my day off.

  I didn’t know if my mother had made it to bed or if she was still laid out on the couch, so I avoided turning on any lights until I got into the kitchen.

  I was starving. Lately it seemed that I was always hungry, no matter how much I ate. The fridge had been bare the last time I checked, but I held out hope that maybe Ma had made it to the supermarket.

  When I flipped the light switch, I damn near came out of my skin. My old man sat at the peninsula with his head resting against the laminate countertop.

  I watched him warily as I made my way over to the refrigerator, keeping the peninsula between us. The bastard was fond of ambushing me the second I turned my back.

  “You okay?” I finally asked when he didn’t come after me or give any indication that he was still kicking.

  His shoulders shook with a sob as he slowly looked up at me as if just realizing I was there. “This was your fault,” he growled.

  I cracked my neck from side to side, knowing what was coming. “Yeah?” I bit out. “What isn’t my fault, old man?”

  He went to stand up but stumbled back into the chair with another sob. When he swiped at the tears on his face, I froze. His knuckles were split open, with scratches running up onto his forearms.

  “What happened to you?” When he didn’t answer, I went over and yanked him up out of the wooden chair. “I asked you a question, goddammit!”

  The scent of liquor clung to him, along with something else. Something unfamiliar. I looked down and noticed the blood on his t-shirt and tightened my hold on him.

  Dread coiled in my stomach, souring the beer and making me want to retch. In the last few months, I’d shot up, finally surpassing him in height and weight. If we were about to go toe to toe, and I had a sinking feeling that we were, then I might stand a chance.

  “What’d you do, old man?” I asked again.

  He stumbled out of my grasp and fell against the peninsula with a low groan. “I had to do it, James.”

  “What the hell did you do?” My voice was louder this time. I’d never talked back to him or raised my voice, even when everything in me had begged for it. He unsteadily shuffled back before remembering the dynamic and exploding in anger.

  He jabbed a finger in my direction. “I did what I should’ve done a long time ago! You and Mary were always conspiring against me and covering up your deceit. I should’ve known that you had a hand in what happened that night. She told me how she loaded you up and took you to that motel; said she’d decided to leave me for good.”

  Spit flew from his mouth as he talked, landing dangerously close to me as he moved forward. “Maybe I smacked her around before, but I treated her like a goddamned queen after she lost the baby. And then tonight I find out that the bastard wasn’t even mine! She’d been fuckin’ somebody behind my back and as soon as I find out who that was, I’ll deal with them.”

  I’d often wondered what the relationship was between Angel and my mother and my old man had just cleared up a lot of confusion for me. She’d been a wreck that night, not just because she was losing the baby, but because of who that baby’s father was.

  It was why she’d kept apologizing to him.

  Wolverine had been wrong. Ma hadn’t been helping my old man earn his patch, she’d been trying to get herself out of a loveless, abusive marriage. I couldn’t blame her; Angel was everything that my old man wasn’t.

  “Where is she, you son-of-a-bitch?” My hands had started to shake, but I wasn’t backing down now; not when my ma needed me.

  “No one leaves me, James. No one can ever leave me,” he wept before dropping back into the chair with a thud.

  “Ma!” I called, pushing open the door to the kitchen. When she didn’t respond, I ran down the hall to her bedroom only to find the room empty and the bed still made up.

  The sick feeling in my gut intensified as I went from room to room, calling her name.

  I didn’t believe it—she’d left him.

  With that thought, I realized there was still one room I hadn’t checked. I raced back into the living room and flipped on the lamp beside the couch before crying out in horror.

  I wasn’t sure how I’d missed the copper sm
ell that hung in the air before. The carpet wasn’t soaked from the window unit. It was soaked with my mother’s blood.

  The reason the door hadn’t opened had nothing to do with the hinges and everything to do with the fact that she’d been propped up against it. She was now wedged against the wall.

  Her blonde hair was streaked with red and her lifeless eyes stared right through me to whatever lay beyond. The scarf she’d worn to work was embedded in her throat and everywhere I looked, I saw blood. I dropped to my knees and cradled her body in my arms, rocking her like Angel had done in that motel bathroom six years before.

  “Ma,” I wailed. “Ma, I’m so sorry!” Her blood clung to my clothing and hands, but I wasn’t letting go. I wasn’t leaving her alone right now.

  We’d been close. The club was going to take care of Donald and that would’ve been it. Home free.

  My sobs eventually tapered off, only to be replaced with rage. The edges of my vision went red and something snapped within me.

  I gently laid Ma back on the carpet before throwing open the door to the kitchen to see that my old man was still slumped over in his chair.

  He didn’t even have a chance to react before I yanked him up by the collar of his t-shirt and threw that first punch. It landed solidly against his jaw and sent him sprawling back out of my grasp and onto the carpet.

  “You!” I roared. “You killed her! You’ve wanted someone to fight this entire time. Well, fight me!”

  He scrambled to get his feet underneath him as I leaned over, managing to land several blows to my chest and neck. The adrenaline in my veins kept me from feeling any of it. I put my knee on his chest to keep him from getting back up and unleashed all of my pent-up anger.

  I hit him for coming home from Vietnam.

  I hit him for buying that goddamn motorcycle and forcing us to rely on charity from the church just to get by.

  I hit him for ever laying a finger on the sweetest woman I’d ever known and turning her into a shell of the person she’d been before.

  I hit him for the half-sibling I’d never gotten to meet.