“These two. My two front teeth,” he tapped the tip of his finger against them.
“Okay?” I looked down at my plate as if I was interested in the salad it contained.
I wasn’t. Not at all.
I wanted to stare at him and find an imperfection. He looked like a muscular version of David Beckham. I was having a difficult time not staring. I tried to center my mouth over my plate just in case I drooled. As he began to speak, he started laughing again. As soon he caught his breath he lowered his fork onto his plate and wiped his hands on the napkin neatly positioned on his thigh.
No matter what he says or does, stare at your plate, Karter. Do not fuck this up.
“I was riding behind my best friend. This cute girl crossed the street. I think I was twelve. It was summertime and she was wearing shorts and a cute tangerine colored top, but it was really her hair that caught my attention,” he paused and began lightly chuckling.
“Her hair?” I said without looking up.
“Yes. She had beautiful hair. Dark brown, similar to yours,” he paused.
“Fair enough,” I sighed.
Damn it, Karter. He’s going to get annoyed and you’ll never see him again. Settle down. Breathe. Just breathe.
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” he chuckled.
“So I stared at her as she crossed the street. My buddy yelling at me caused me to look back in his direction, but it was too late. I hit a telephone pole and my mouth smacked the handlebars. Knocked out my two front teeth. Well, it snapped them off. They’re fake,” he tapped them again with the tip of his finger.
I stared at my salad and counted the remaining pieces of chicken. Nine. I wondered how many it had when I started. As he began to speak again, I tried not to look up. After what appeared to be an eternity, I gave in and admired his dimples as he grinned.
“Nice,” I said as I took another precursory glance at his perfect smile.
I picked up my fork and stirred through my salad. As I attempted to find a cranberry, I wondered how old he thought I might be. He was obviously older than I was, and I didn’t care. I felt if we got to know each other a little more my age might not matter to him. If he became attracted to me, truly attracted to me, he wouldn’t care. If I didn’t offer, hopefully he wouldn’t ask. With his boyish smile and smooth skin, I guessed he was probably in his early thirties.
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
I looked up and smiled. His hands rested on the bottom of his chin. I glanced down at his plate. He had almost the same amount of salad as I did. I had been picking at my meal trying to make our lunch last as long as possible.
Maybe he enjoys this as much as I do.
“Mine didn’t knock out any teeth or leave any scars, but it broke my collar bone,” I paused and tapped my right shoulder.
“Continue,” he said softly.
His eyes all but demanded I stare into them, but I didn’t dare. Jak was dangerous, at least for me. Something about an older man attracted me much more than a younger, less experienced, less tactful boy. The difference between thirty-one and twenty-one was the difference between right and wrong. His size, strength, and handsome looks made me uncomfortably comfortable. As I thought of him lifting my bike into the back of the truck, I smiled and continued.
“I built a ramp out of plywood and two by fours. In hindsight, I should have used two by sixes. In life’s major fuck ups, there’s always a retrospective glance where remorse washes over us. Mine revealed a poor lumber choice. Anyway, I built a ramp outside of town by the river in a pasture. My friend had a Suburban, and I always wanted to jump a Suburban on my bike, so we pulled it along the front of the ramp,” I hesitated and shook my head at the thought of my failed jump.
“Wait a minute. A Suburban? Like a Chevy Suburban? The SUV?” he asked.
I nodded my head, “You got it.”
Were you jumping it sideways or lengthways?” he asked.
“Lengthways. Shit anyone could make it sideways,” I responded, half irritated he would think I was interested in the easy way out of anything.
“A Suburban’s eighteen feet four inches in length,” he chuckled.
“Probably. But you know what?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows, “What?”
“What’s scary is you know that. The length of a Suburban,” I laughed.
He looked somewhat embarrassed. I reminded myself to attempt keeping my mouth shut for the remainder of our lunch meeting. The fact he helped me get my bike to the Harley dealer and waited until I got it running was far more than I would have ever expected from a person passing by. One advantage of living in the Midwest, I suppose. The meal was my idea, and a last ditch effort to spend a little more time with him. Hopefully my charm and good looks would lure him into asking for my phone number.
“I’m full of useless information,” he smiled.
“Okay. So, down the ramp as fast as I could go and I hauled ass up the other side. As soon as my front tire got to the top of the ramp, I heard a snap. The ramp collapsed. Fucking two by fours couldn’t hold that much downforce. My bike shot in the air like a rocket, flipped half way over, and I landed on my head and shoulders. My right clavicle ended up cracked. It hurt like hell,” I looked down and began to pick at my salad again.
“How far did you make it?” he laughed.
I looked up from my salad and smiled, “Half way.”
“Not bad,” he grinned.
I sat staring at my salad, relieved he didn’t ask when it happened or how old I was. Had he, I would have felt a need to tell a lie. I really wanted to see him again, and I didn’t want my age to come into play. Luckily, I just turned twenty-one years old and was able to legally go into bars and clubs. If we would have met six weeks prior and he invited me out to a club, I couldn’t have gone. Thank God for the treatment program keeping me off the streets.
“So, how old…”
“Excuse me?” I stammered, not quite hearing the end of his question.
“Your age,” he rubbed his chin and appeared to look through me.
Son of a fucking bitch, seriously? I’m twenty-one and I think you’re gorgeous, interesting, sexy and for some fucking reason you make me comfortable. I don’t care how old you are and I want you to take off your clothes.
At least your shirt.
“How old were you when it happened?”
“Huh?”
“When you broke your clavicle?”
“Oh, twelve. I think I was twelve,” I lied.
He nodded his head and looked down at his plate. He picked up his fork and stirred through his salad. Slowly he looked up. As our eyes made contact, he smiled.
Fuck, dude. Please don’t ask me how long ago it was.
“I’ve got to be honest,” he sighed.
About what?
Fuck, can’t we just enjoy this?
You’re married, aren’t you?
“I’ve been picking through my lettuce for an hour. I really don’t want this to end. I haven’t had this much fun in years. Not to sound like one of life’s inexperienced assholes slinging cliché remarks, but…” he paused and stared into my eyes.
Thank fucking God.
“I’ve never felt such an immediate interest in someone before,” he smiled, revealing his dimples.
I want you to pick me up and hold me off the floor so my legs dangle.
“That’s not too cliché. Kind of, but not bad,” I smiled.
Jesus, Karter. Tell him how you feel.
“Well it’s true. Karter, you interest me. Let’s do this again,” he sighed.
“I want you to pick me up and let my legs dangle.”
“Say again?” his scrunched his brow and looked confused.
Did I actually say that? Like out loud?
I sat and did my best to act like I didn’t hear him.
“Did you say you wanted me to pick you up?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled, “Maybe.”
“Wel
l, we’ve made great progress for five hours,” he said as he stood from his seat.
“How so?”
Seeing him stand over me was intimidating and comforting both. He was built like an athlete. Not huge like a pro football player, but extremely muscular and physically fit in appearance. His chest was massive and the muscles in his arms flexed every time he moved them. As he walked around the table I sat and stared.
“Well, five hours ago you told me you were going to beat my ass. Now you want me to pick you up from the floor and let your legs dangle. I’d say that’s pretty good progress. Are you going to stand up?”
I felt hypnotized. I stood from my seat. As he hugged me, he lifted me from my feet with ease. My legs dangling and my feet six inches from the floor, I buried my face against his shoulder and my chest pressed to his. Having known Jak all of five hours, and seeing where my mind had allowed me to comfortably go, I wondered what changes a little more time would bring. I lifted my head from his shoulder and positioned my mouth a few inches from his ear.
“So you want my number?” I whispered.
“Reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone. Type your name and number into it, Karter,” he responded.
I immediately shoved my hand deeply into his pocket.
Yeah, this man is going to be trouble for me.
Big trouble.
JAK. A short marriage early in my military career didn’t prohibit me from trusting women, but it had prevented me from actively pursuing them afterward. Due to long periods of time away from home during deployments, to be a wife of a Navy SEAL was difficult and required an extremely independent woman. Although I believed her to be capable of loyalty during my time away, I was incorrect.
A surprise visit to the United States ended up being just that. A big surprise. Her repeated attempts to lure me away from the home as soon as I had arrived raised doubt, but the breathing I heard from our bedroom was the dead giveaway. After pulling him from the closet and beating him senseless, I left. Feeling foolish for having made the decision to allow myself to feel emotion in the first place, I promptly filed for a divorce. Incapable of devoting one hundred percent mentally and emotionally to the SEAL missions which immediately followed convinced me a Navy SEAL had no business in any form of relationship or feeling any degree of attachment to a woman whatsoever.
I should have listened when they warned me.
If your SEAL Team wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.
With the military now behind me and feeling as if my emotional nerve endings were exposed to Karter, I could see no real risk. If things between us did not work out, I only subjected myself to harm. Proceeding along this path with her did not place the military, my teammates, or the mission at risk - only me. My emotional progress was instrumental to my success as a civilian. Beginning my new life in a different city and including a woman and the associated emotions would be typical. Naturally, we migrate toward members of the opposite sex. Seeking what we are unable to achieve alone, we hope for compassion, understanding, loyalty, and love.
I found it to be extremely rewarding being in Karter’s presence. Something about her allowed me to immediately become relaxed. I felt comfortable with her. I was warned in my briefing prior to retirement I may feel depressed and uneasy, and to seek mental health at the Veteran’s Administration if necessary. With Karter, my feeling was the exact opposite. I felt different than I had ever felt in the presence of anyone. In actuality, she scared me.
Graduating high school and immediately spending more than twenty years in the military left me no time to live a common life or deal with typical emotions. To become effective in combat, a SEAL must be able to turn off emotional attachments. Therefore, I had zero experience in feeling emotion and acting upon it. My entire military career was spent without sentiment. I had been a stone-faced killer for almost two decades. To think a person could change from being a trained killer on Friday to compassionate civilian on Monday would be ludicrous.
Based on my lack of experience on allowing myself to feel or act upon emotions, I now felt as if I was now a thirty-eight year old high school kid. I couldn’t decide if Karter was filling a void as an individual or by the mere design of simply being a woman. Would I have been attracted to any woman who exposed herself to me, or was Karter truly special? Finding the answer on an absolute level would be impossible. I knew one thing for certain; Karter caused me to feel emotion. As I stood beside the running track at a local high school, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t the three miles I had run which had me breathless.
It was Karter’s absence.
I didn’t want to see her.
I felt I needed to.
Not necessarily feeling uneasy, but feeling differently than I was accustomed to, I recalled my discussion with Commander Warrenson on my last day in the Navy.
“For the last twenty years, you’ve been told what to do - when to eat, what to eat, where to go and where not to go. You’ve lived your respective life against the clock; one split-second separates life from death on a mission. You’re no longer on a mission. Kennedy. My best advice is this; enjoy doing whatever you want whenever you want. Open up emotionally, and allow yourself to feel. You’re going to be free when you leave here, and you’ve paid a high price for it. Enjoy it.”
Instinctively I glanced at my watch.
He shook his head and did his best to smile.
“Here in about two minutes, you’ll no longer be Kennedy. You’ll leave here as Jak,” he looked up at the clock on the wall.
As the minute hand snapped into position, he smiled, “Lose your watch and enjoy life, Jak.”
I stretched my legs and began walking to the small maintenance building between the track and the school. As soon as I arrived in town, I looked for a private place to run. The new high school north of the city seemed a logical place, as it was somewhat secluded and school was out for the summer. In my initial survey of the facility, an elderly maintenance man approached me on a golf cart. Although his black skin made it difficult at first, my attentive nature allowed me to notice the outline of a tattoo on his forearm - an eagle, globe, and anchor. He was a former Marine, and in a sense, a military brother. Without reservation, he gave me permission to run on the track for the summer months during the school’s recess from classes. Generations separated us, but we would always have the common bond of war and the recovery associated with attempting to become human again. As I walked around the corner of the building, I noticed the door to the building was open. Before I stepped into the opening, his voice echoed through the small concrete facility.
“How many miles this morning, Jak?”
I stepped remaining distance to the doorway and walked inside, “Your old ears work well, Oscar. I ran three. I couldn’t stay focused, so I stopped. How’s your day progressing?”
He turned from the work bench, revealing a disassembled pump on the table in front of him, “We’re gonna get off to a fucked up start young man, you keep calling me old. And I couldn’t be any better unless I was twins. What’s on your mind?”
Oscar was somewhere close to seventy years old, bald, and still resembled the Marine he once was. Marines claim once they’re a Marine they’re always a Marine, and Oscar was certainly no exception. He seemed to be in great health, and appeared to be very physically fit. Short of his own admittance of his age and the grey goatee beard he wore, I would have never guessed him to be seventy years old.
I grinned and responded, “I’ve got one quick question, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
He walked to the golf cart and sat on the edge of the fender, “I know you ain’t a dumb man Jak, so I’m gonna go on and just guess you’s blind. I ain’t got no hair. What’s ailin’ ya?”
“When you got back, how long was it before you were in a relationship?”
He looked up at the ceiling as if recalling past memories and smiled. As he leaned away from the golf cart and slowly walked my direction, he beg
an to chuckle, “Hell Jak, I was married when I left for Viet Nam. I had a young ‘un. I was twenty-eight when I got shot in 1969. And when I got back I went home and tried to act like nothin’ happened. Now what’s really ailin’ ya?”
“I met a girl,” I sighed.
“I sure don’t see that as a problem. Sounds like the man upstairs might be lookin’ after ya,” he grinned and pointed his index finger in the air.
I nodded my head, “Thanks Oscar. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He pressed his hands into his hips and widened his eyes, “Hold up, lightnin’. That’s what’s wrong with your generation. You’re always in a damned hurry. So, you met a girl. What’s troublin’ ya about it?”
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I responded truthfully, “I already feel as if I need her. It’s almost like I’ve known her for years, but we just met.”
He leaned into the fender of the golf cart and grinned, “Ain’t no shame in that, Jak. Now, you scared you’re gonna fuck it up or are you thinkin’ she’s gonna hurt ya? Which one?”
I rocked back and forth on my aching calves. I thought about what he asked. I really didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t sure it was either I was afraid of. More accurately, I feared what I felt was an unnatural attraction based on the amount of time I had known Karter. I opted to respond with a brief but accurate answer.
I bent down, touched my toes, and responded as I stood, “I’m afraid it’s too early for me to feel like this.”
“Too early? Shit, feelin’s ain’t got a time clock, Jak. An’ if you’re worried about you, lemme tell ya somethin’. I was over there a little better’n two years. Two years of hell, fo’ sho’. When I come back, I was like a dried out sponge. I sucked up everything what got close to me. Sights, sounds, food, feelin’s - I just sucked ‘em up,” he leaned forward and stood from the golf cart’s fender as he began to laugh.
“I was prob’ly back a week at the time. I walked up to this tree and for some reason I just stared at it. I looked up in it and I remember smilin’. She was a biggun, prob’ly a forty footer. An’ I just climbed that sum bitch. Hell, I was damned near thirty years old, an’ I climbed a tree. You wanna know why?”
Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC #7) Page 26