by Meg Jackson
“Okay, okay, I’m not saying I’m crazy about the idea either, honey, but you can’t blame her. Or him! Boys like girls! He followed her all the way from Vegas! I mean, does that sound like a guy who wants to throw Samantha away like a used Kleenex?”
“I don’t care what he wants to do with Samantha; he’s never going to have anything to do with her ever again!”
“Stop!” I finally said, my heart beating fast. The voices stopped. I tip-toed down the stairs, which was silly, since they obviously knew I was there, but I felt like I was an intruder in my own home, breaking and entering their conversation. “Please, just stop.”
Mom and Dad stared at me at the bottom of the stairs, mingled expressions of confusion and concern on their faces. I stared back, trying to look grown up, trying to look like I could handle it.
“Just…please, tell me. I…I need to know. I’m afraid, Daddy,” I said, stuttering over my words, making eye contact with my father. I needed him to know how important this was to me, that it wasn’t just some crush gone wrong. I knew that telling him I was afraid (which I was) was my best shot at getting him to talk. Daddy could never let me go around feeling scared. And this time, he knew, telling me that he would “take care of everything” wasn’t going to cut it.
I was too old for that now.
I think, now, when I look back on it, that moment was all about that one realization: I was too old for a lot of things. I was too old to be kept in the dark. I was too old to not take risks. I was too old to entrust my safety with just my parents. I was growing up. I was making my own mistakes. A look of sadness came over my father’s face as he seemed to contemplate all this. Then he nodded.
“You’re right, Samantha. You deserve to know what that was all about,” he said, glancing at my mother, who gave him an encouraging look.
“Come,” he said, gesturing to the living room. We filed in and sat down, Mom and Dad on the couch, me on the loveseat facing them. I twiddled my fingers in my lap. I wanted to hear, I didn’t want to hear.
It didn’t matter what I wanted anymore.
“Ten years ago…geeze, Samantha, you were eight. Ten years. How did…” Dad got a glassy look in his eyes, his sentence trailing off. Mom coughed, bringing him back on track. I knew that part of it was for show, just Dad stalling telling me the story. Dad sighed.
“Ten years ago, I was a police officer, just a regular cop. There was a fellow on the force with me, named Giordino. Danny Giordino. He was a good guy. We never talked much, weren’t close, but you know. Cops are family. He bought rounds at the bar. He had a wife, no kids. Young, same age as me. A whole world in front of him…”
Dad seemed to get lost in the story again, in his memories.
“He coulda been Sheriff, I guess,” he finally said after a long moment. Shaking his head as if to rid himself of the thought, he continued in a no-nonsense tone.
“We had some trouble back then with a group of bikers who’d rented out one of the hotels. Bad guys. This was in the 90’s, and there were all sorts of ATM scams, still are, but worse back then before we had the technology to stop some of them. These guys were stealing money left and right, credit card fraud, identity theft. Plus, they had something going on with a couple local dealers, slinging heroin.
Samantha, this was serious business. Serious, serious business. We waited for months to dig up enough dirt on them to put the leader away, if not the whole horde. But, you know, things just moved slowly. Trying to gather evidence, trying to make a case that would stick. These guys were as smart as they were bad.
But we got them, finally. We had enough to make it stick. We got re-enforcements to come up from Billings, got ready to swarm the hotel, take ‘em all down. But when we got there…
I don’t know how they left without anyone noticing. I mean, those bikes make a lot of noise, you’d think someone would have noticed. But no one did…the hotel was empty, Samantha. They’d cleared out. The only thing left? Two bodies. Dead bodies. One of them was one of their chicks, a worn-out looking gal, couldn’t have been much older than you. Poor thing was probably doomed from birth. Worst case of meth mouth I’ve ever seen.
And the other body was Danny Giordino. He was…I’ll just, I’ll never forget it. It’s one of those moments as a cop when you realize how…how dangerous it all is. You were so young, Samantha, and I saw that body, and I thought, what if I never see my little girl grow up?” Dad was welling up now; I felt like my heart was breaking.
Have you ever seen your father cry? It’s something most people would be a lot better off never seeing, I’d wager. I felt my own eyes filling with tears, saw my mother’s head hanging low, as we sat in silence.
“Two bodies. One cop, one woman. We couldn’t tell, from the way the bodies were splayed out, who’d shot who. We knew she didn’t shoot him. He might have shot her. We didn’t know. We didn’t know how he’d gotten there, either. He wasn’t on a call. He was a good cop, though. And I think…
Well, I’ll tell you what I think. I think he went there to try and save that little boy. See, the woman, she was shacked up with the leader of the group. Their president, so to speak. Tank Culver,” Dad said, his eyes now growing cold. The name shook me. I knew that was Boon’s father. I didn’t need Dad to finish the story; I had all the pieces now, could figure it out for myself. But I wanted to hear him tell it. Tell me. Make it make sense.
“Real name John Culver. Biker name Tank. He and this woman had a son. That young man,” Dad said, his tone growing darker with each word. “That young man you’ve been…fraternizing with. I recognized him. He couldn’t have been more than 12 at the time, but I recognized him. After Giordino, I studied all our surveillance for days. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I think Giordino went there to try and get her and the kid out before the place got raided. So they wouldn’t have to see…”
Dad trailed off. We sat in silence, the ticking clock the only noise. Finally, he sighed again.
“I know it’s not his fault, what happened to Giordino. I know that, Samantha. But he’s bad news. Boys like that, they grow up bad, and they only get worse. If he’s got half the piss and vinegar in his blood that his dad had…I think that’s who did it, by the way. I’m pretty sure, it was John Culver. Who else? That boy’s no good. I don’t want him in my city, I don’t want him in my block, I don’t want him near my daughter,” Dad said, finishing with a stare that turned my blood to ice.
I sat, turning the story around and around in my brain. I imagined Boon as a young boy, a pre-teen, on the back of his father’s bike, fleeing the scene of the crime. I imagined two bodies, pools of blood. I imagined my father standing over a dead cop. I imagined flashbulbs taking pictures. I imagined a woman.
“How awful,” I finally managed to squeak out. Mom nodded gravely.
“Your father has his reasons, Samantha.”
“I’m sorry I scared you, baby. I am. I…I lost my cool. I just saw his face and it all came swimming back. All that blood…and me with a little girl at home and…I just, I lost it. I know, I went about it the wrong way. That was wrong of me. But I need you to understand…”
“I do, Daddy. I understand. I…get it. But…but what if he’s not like his dad? What if he’s different?” I regretted the questions as soon as they left my mouth. Dad’s face grew cold again.
“I don’t want you to take that risk, Samantha. Now, you know my side, I don’t want you to go digging for his. I’m serious about this, Samantha, this is not up for negotiations. You are never to contact that boy again. If he knows what’s good for him, he’s halfway to Portland by now, anyway. Samantha, if you care about me at all, you’ll promise, right here and right now, that you’ll let this go. You’ll have a good summer and meet a nice local boy and go to school and forget all about him.”
Dad’s face was cement, a brick wall, impenetrable. He meant all of this from the bottom of his heart. I could tell that. From the way he was speaking, from the look in his eyes, this was serious business. W
hat could I do? I nodded.
“I promise, Dad,” I said, vaguely aware, in the back of my mind, that I was making a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
I didn’t exactly get sent to my room after that, but it was clear the BBQ was off and I needed time to think. I didn’t call Alicia and Becky right away. There was enough for me to process on my own, without calling in extra opinions.
Dad’s story made sense: it made sense that he would react so violently to seeing Boon. It made sense why he wanted me to steer clear of him. It made sense in so many ways. It also made sense for me to follow his order never to see Boon again: it was clear, now, that he really was up to no good, at least as far as his gang was concerned. A few puffs on a joint was one thing, but heroin? Identity theft? Those were serious, serious things. And I was fresh out of high school: I had no business getting involved in any of that.
But then…he must have been so young then. He couldn’t really have had anything to do with all that. And was it really fair to judge the son by the sins of the father? He’d found me, come all that way, just to see me…didn’t that say something about him? He hadn’t needed to do all that: he could have just forgotten all about me, about our time together. It didn’t mean that he was a great guy, per say, but it meant something, right?
I paced my room, hands in fists. Suddenly, I remembered what Boon had slipped into my palm; I’d forgotten all about it. I dug my fingers into my pocket. It was small, square…pulling it out, I saw that it was a matchbox. Gateway Inn, it read on the front. So I knew where he was staying now. Whatever good that did me. It does you no good at all, because you’re not going to see him, I thought with one part of my brain.
Now you know where he is, you can see him, ask him, thought another part. I groaned and threw the matchbook on the bed. I texted Alicia and Becky, asking them to log back on to Skype. In seconds, we were in another video call.
I told them the story my father had told me. I watched their faces anxiously, making note of every expression and reaction. Becky had her eyes narrowed, following the story with concern. Alicia was leaning forward, wide-eyed, hanging on every word. When I finished, no one said anything for a long while.
“So…I mean, what do I do?” I finally asked, dying to hear their opinions.
“Go see him tonight,” Alicia said, nodding as though there could be no argument. I looked at Becky through the computer. She was biting her lip. I’d expected her to jump in immediately with “no way” or “don’t even think about it” and was surprised at her silence.
“Beck?” I questioned, prompting her.
“I don’t know, honest, I don’t. I mean, the sane part of me says Alicia is a moron and you should stay as far away from him as possible but…I mean, you’re kind of right. It’s not really fair to judge him by his dad, and if that’s all your dad is doing…I mean…I have my reservations about this whole thing, but, like, if I really thought he was a worthless asshole, I would never have let us go to that bar in the first place. There’s something good about him, at least.”
“Plus, I mean, don’t you remember when his friends were talking? They were saying that he and his dad were on the outs…remember? Remember his face after he talked to his dad? He wasn’t happy,” Alicia said.
“How can you even remember that? You were high as a kite,” Becky said to Alicia, who promptly rolled her eyes.
“C’mon guys, you know I’m not as dumb as I look,” she said. She was right; for someone who acted ditsy a lot of the time, Alicia was actually really smart, and she had remembered that moment when even I’d forgotten about it.
“Well, I mean, that’s true, he did look…I mean, but why are we even talking about this? My parents probably won’t ever let me leave the house again, and I’m definitely not going anywhere tonight,” I said, realizing that we could discuss it until the end of time and Boon would probably still be gone in the morning.
“Call him, ask him to stay, just for a while,” Alicia said. “Do it now!”
Becky nodded, not quite convinced but clearly willing to support me.
“If it’s what you want, Samantha, you have to. We’ll stay on the computer with you while you do it, if you want.”
I reached for my phone, hand shaking. I pulled up the texts Boon had sent me and called the number that sent them. There was no ringtone, it went straight to voicemail. And it wasn’t even his voice on the message, just an automated voice. He could have been using a burner phone for all I knew. I hung up, shaking my head.
“It’s off,” I said.
“Text him,” Alicia pressed, excitement in her voice.
“Well, what do I say? ‘Sorry my dad tried to shoot you, why don’t you sit around for a few days until I’m allowed outside’?”
“Just…well, I mean, just say, like ‘please don’t leave yet’. Tell him you want to talk,” Becky suggested. I tapped the message out quickly, not wanting to give it another second to doubt myself.
The message sent, I put my phone down. Looking back up at my friends’ faces, I was at a loss.
“Well, what now?”
“Now…just wait,” Alicia said, shrugging. Great, my favorite thing, waiting, I thought, irritated and nervous. What if he never turned his phone back on? What if he did, and saw the message, and didn’t respond? What if he did?
Two hours later, he hadn’t texted me back. An hour later, my phone buzzed. My heart leapt up to my teeth. I closed my eyes as I picked it up:
Any news?
It was just Alicia. I sighed, both relieved and disappointed. I responded quickly, then threw my phone to the side and returned to what I’d been doing for the last three hours: pacing around my room, trying to read magazines, flipping through TV channels. It was pure torture. It was a million times worse than taking the SATs, a billion times worse than waiting for college acceptance letters.
I lay in bed, hands behind my head, trying to think of everything and nothing at the same time. At some point, much to my own surprise, I fell asleep. As I slept, I dreamt, one of the strangest dreams of my life.
In the dream, I was riding a motorcycle through a huge suburban town: it wasn’t Missoula, though I suppose it could have been. It wasn’t, really, anywhere. I had my arms clutched around the man driving the motorcycle, my cheek pressed against his back. I didn’t know where we were going, who it was.
I knew it was a cop, from the hat he was wearing and the blue uniform. I could feel his muscles, tense and strong, under his clothing as my hands roamed across his torso. I could have sworn, once I woke up, that I could really feel the way the bike hummed and shook underneath me. As we drove on, the suburbs dropped away, turning to wide, flat desert.
“Where are we going?” I remember asking in the dream. I looked down; I was suddenly naked, the hot leather of the seat pressing and buzzing against my clit, my thighs shaking, my slit wet. The driver turned to me. It was, of course, Boon. Who else could it have been?
In that special way that dreams have of making no sense and total sense at the same time, he turned all the way in his seat but still managed to keep the bike running down the long, straight road. He was still wearing the cop’s hat but was otherwise naked, as well. Even in a dream, I could recreate every inch of his toned, hot body. My hands flew to his chest, tracing the two guns tattooed on his pectorals. I leaned forward, feeling his flesh under my lips as my hands traced down, down, his long, triangular torso, lower, lower…
And then his hands were on my arms, gripping me tightly, almost too tightly, as he pulled me upwards, our eyes meeting in a moment of singular intensity.
“The cliff,” he said, releasing one of my arms to cup my face and draw me close to him, our lips growing nearer and nearer. The dream slowed down, but the bike didn’t, and I saw, over his shoulder, the horizon suddenly falling away as the road ran off into nowhere: we were, indeed, approaching a cliff, and would soon drive right off it.
Even as I saw this, my lips were drawing close to Boon’s, tantalizingly
slowly, my dream-self crying out in anticipation, until we met, mouths parted, and the sky broke open into forty million pieces and the bike ran off the cliff and we were falling together, tongues entwined, flesh dancing, tumbling down and down into the abyss…
I woke to a sound that could almost have been rain: plink. Plink. Plink.
I rose to my elbows, shaking my head, lost in a post-nap fugue. I felt sweaty, clammy, and uncomfortable: I’d fallen asleep in my tank top and shorts but still felt like I was overheating in my bed. The noise continued, and I realized it was coming from my window. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Getting up to investigate, I saw what was causing the noise: tiny rocks hitting my window. My heart skipped a beat. Legends tell of boys performing such strange rituals in the hope of attaining the favor of a lady…Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
“Samantha! Get your ass up!”
Nope. Alicia, wherefore art thou Alicia.
“Holy shit, Alicia, we’re supposed to be sneaky here,” came Becky’s voice in a loud whisper. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I threw the window open. They were standing on my lawn, hands full of pebbles, and both looked up at me as I popped my head out.
“Guys, you could have just texted me,” I said in a stage whisper, not wanting my parents to hear.
“Go get it,” Alicia said, making a shooing gesture at Becky, who promptly ran from the lawn towards the street.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked, leaning forward further to try and see where Becky was going.
“Jailbreak, baby,” Alicia said. “We’re going to get your man!”
“Shhh! Oh my God, no, I can’t! And why are you screaming? My parents will hear!” I called out, trying to be loud enough for Alicia to hear me while still being quiet enough for my parents not to. Suddenly, Becky’s shadow fell across the lawn, accompanied by…something else. She reappeared, clearly struggling, carrying a huge ladder. I hit my forehead with my palm.