Crushing (The Southern California Wine Country Series)

by Smith, J Gordon

  Kyle took the gun; he felt the shift in weight travel across his shoulders. He gritted his teeth against the pain surge, but managed, “Yes.” He pulled out a shingle as Henry did and laid it down. He positioned the gun and touched the trigger. The gun cycled with a burst of air and a shiny nail head appeared in the shingle.

  “Good nail placement. Show me a few more.”

  Kyle touched the gun down and added more nails into the shingles.

  “Feel that rebound after it fires a nail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Use that to move the gun to the next point. You get that into a rhythm and you’ll be doing as good as any here. Bob might bump your pay grade if you can keep up with the others and put down straight lines. A valuable new skill for you.”

  “Thanks, Henry.”

  “I’ll check on you soon. I have to get the others set up and make sure they are not screwing around. When I don’t hear enough pops – someone is slacking off or stuck on a problem. Remember, we make money by the shingles we lay and nails we push into the decking.” Henry moved down the ladder and was gone like a nervous ghost.

  Kyle looked at the first nails he put down and how they sparkled in the sun like pretty little stones in a river of blackness. This is going to get so hot up here again.

  Kyle rubbed his forehead with the back of his arm. His glove’s wristband already soaked from wiping the sweat off his nose. It beaded up and ran down his face and dripped onto the nailer or left wet puddles on the black shingles. He timed his rhythm against other workers. Although injured and inexperienced, he saw rapid improvement approaching three quarters the speed of the others, people that had done this job for years. Kyle slid another shingle in place and popped the nails down. He soon felt like a gangster taking out his grit-covered cross-town gang bangers. Pop-pop pop-pop – you’re dead. Pop-pop pop-pop – you’re dead too.

  Kyle looked to the roofline on the main house and saw the person everyone called Blue, because he only ever wore a bright blue t-shirt. The others laughed that he must only have one shirt while some speculated that the person bought a container of t-shirts from a China company intending to sell them and no store wanted just a container of blue shirts. So he filled up his garage and wore one of them every day. Kyle thought, I should get a themed t-shirt to fit in with these people. He guessed they originally relied on shirt colors since everyone was always half a house away. Blue could lay shingles as fast as any two of the other workers. Kyle watched his pace and tried to pick out the tricks, but he moved too fast.

  Kyle slid another shingle into place and fastened it down. The next. He wiped his forehead. The heat was getting unbearable. He felt thirsty. The water wagon was out front. Kyle looked down his row and decided he would finish to the edge before climbing down for a drink of water and another aspirin. Pop-pop pop-pop. Scrape a shingle into place. Pop-pop – Kyle felt pain surging through his left hand. The same reflecting nail top that lay in a crisp dotted line from the edge of the roof to him ended with a dot in the back of his hand. His fingers quivered in the pain. Blood oozed up from the wound. He put down the nailer and accidentally fired six nails in a burst that looked like a bouquet of metal flowers sticking in the wood. He pushed the gun away. It slid down the roof and then balanced on the drip edge. Its nail hole surveying him like the eye of a black lizard with an orange tail that snaked down to the ground and the compressor hookups. His voice rattled, “Help!!!”

  Blue was the first one to Kyle, “Keep your hand flat and press down.” Blue looked at the nail head tight to Kyle’s hand. “There’s no space under the nail head to wedge a pry bar under there.”

  Kyle wanted to yank his hand away from the trap like an animal in a hunter’s snare.

  Two more roofers clomped over. Henry made it up the ladder, “Bob’s going to be pissed at us.” Arty nodded but held the ladder, already too many people on the roof; someone could trip off the edge.

  “I don’t care,” Kyle moaned. “Get the nail out. I hope I can still play guitar.”

  Blue said, “Tommy, get the reciprocating saw that’s sitting in the valley over there.”

  Blue took the weapon from Tommy, “This sawing is going to hurt like hell. I’ll try keeping the vibrations down but it needs to be quick. See my hand? I know what this is about.”

  Kyle looked at the back of Blue’s left hand. A mangled mass of twisted bones and a scar in his skin that glowed like the crater from a pistol shot. Two of Blue’s fingers stuck out as if welded inside that mass of bones in his hand – too unusable and stiff for anything other than hooking shingles into place. Kyle could only think through the pain, I will never play guitar again!

  -:-:-:- -:-:-:-

  Amanda found her way through the hospital and to the edge of Kyle’s room. He lay there, looking out the corner of a window where the slatted shade cocked up on one side. The rest of the room remained in darkness.

  “You’ll be out fast this time.” Kyle’s nurse said as she busied around measuring his vital signs and recording the numbers on the roll-around computer cart. “A little more recovery from your surgery and you’ll be free to go.” She turned and smiled at Amanda, showing a couple of gold capped teeth in the side of her mouth and a scar that dug across her cheek. Amanda saw gang-style tattoos on her weathered hands that poked out of long sleeves rolled down against the cold air conditioning.

  Amanda said, “Hi, Kyle.”

  “Amanda.” Kyle sat up.

  The nurse said, “Whoa, handsome. I need you staying calm for this measurement. You just lay back and wait until I’m finished.” She winked at Amanda, “I don’t like to share.” The computer system whistled and she ripped off the pressure cuff. Then she typed a few numbers and said, “He’s all yours, girl.” She sighed. “All yours.” Then she put her hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “The doctor will be here soon, he’s like three rooms down the hall right now, to sign you off so you can get out.” She looked at him from toe to head and shook her head, “Since this will be my last time to ask you these measurements I wanted to give you some words. You’ve been here way too much. I don’t want to see you again unless you are visiting friends – or,” she laughed, “bringing me flowers.” She wheeled her cart out of the room, a wave of her hand in the air behind her.

  Amanda came close to Kyle’s bed. Three other recovery tables filled the room, thankfully empty now. “Kyle. What happened?”

  “Short story is I nailed my hand to the roof, they had to cut the chip board out and bring me in. Then surgery.”

  Amanda touched his shoulder and looked down Kyle’s arm. His strong muscular bicep disappeared into an immobilizing bandage that ran down to his fingertips. She could see the ends of three fingers and his thumb sticking on the far end of the wrapping – purple and bloated thick. “Can you move your fingers?”

  “No. They have my arm all numbed up. Plus gave me a box of stuff for the pain – so I’m lucky I can even remember who you are.” His eyes stayed riveted on the slit under the window shade.

  Amanda wanted to hug him. “Sardis called the winery and said you’d be out for more time. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known.”

  “Fine if you did not.”

  “I care about you, Kyle.” Her body ached for his pain.

  “All I can think of is this guy called Blue that cut the roof boards off so they could bring me to the Emergency Room. A crippled hand – Blue nailed his hand to a roof years ago.” Kyle hefted his numb hand at the end of his arm like a dead slab of steak. “I’ll never play guitar again.”

  “– You’ll play again.”

  “You didn’t see his hand.”

  “Maybe something else happened? They have good doctors here, I’m sure you will be able to play.”

  “The doctor said the nail brushed near a bunch of nerves. I might not be able to feel anything nor control anything in that hand.” He raised his hand by his elbow.

  Amanda watched how his bicep scrunched together, bulging in a way that made her body long for him
. She wanted his arms around her. Then a surge of shame washed through her.

  “I want to be able to touch you …”

  How she wanted him to touch her. Kyle brought his eyes from the window and looked into her face. Despair filled his striking looks. Fear and despair. She said, “You will heal. You will be able to play the guitar. You are meant to play the guitar.”

  “But what if I can’t?”

  “Then we will find something else. I’ll be here for you.”

  “Look at you. You can have any person you want. You don’t need to be stuck to a broke and broken cripple that can’t get any job other than general labor.”

  “You might be broke for the moment, but that is only temporary. Same with your injuries. You are strong. You will heal.” Amanda put her hand on his chest. She could feel his breathing and the rumble of his words.

  “You don’t need to pretend to be loyal. I’m finished before I ever got started.”

  “Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. Even if worst case like you said, this other guy, he is still working.”

  “A broken half a man.”

  “No, not broken. A temporary injury.”

  He raised his hands off the bed, “I work with my hands. Don’t you see? Half of my ability is gone. It takes both hands to play guitar. The guitar is the only thing I have talent for, and now I’m done.” His hands flopped down on the bed and his gaze returned to the window. Two workers in hard hats walked past the window to inspect one of the air conditioning units mounted there. “See, those guys need both hands for those wrenches they use on the air conditioner motors.”

  Amanda nodded. “You’re going to get better.”

  “But what if I don’t?”

  “I’ll be here for you.”

  “You don’t want half a man, one that can’t earn decent wages because of permanent disability.”

  “You are not disabled. You are only injured.”

  “No.” Kyle’s eyes pierced her.

  “What?” Amanda stepped back.

  “I want you gone.”

  Amanda saw how his eyes glistened at the edges, rimmed with tears. “I want you to leave. I will never be able to play. I will always be angry. I resent my situation. None of this will be good for us. For you.”

  “– But we can work it out.”

  “No. We cannot. I want you to go –”

  “I’m staying.”

  “No. You are going. I don’t want to see you again.” He forgot a moment about his hand and crossed his arms. When his right elbow crushed down on his injured left hand, he bellowed and slid his hand out over the empty space of the floor. His face screwed down in pain.

  Amanda backed up. She did not know what to do. Tears flooded her eyes and made the whiteness of the hospital bright and confusing. She wiped her face with her hands. “Call me.”

  “Don’t wait for any calls. Go!” Kyle rolled his body toward the sliver of window so his back pointed at Amanda.

  Amanda’s stomach churned into an empty pit. Her heart lonely with the chill of ice cracking its corners. She realized just how much she loved this man. It was not just her body drunk on his physical being but her heart needed him. Her mind wanted him despite everything about him. She did not know what to do. She left, tears wetting her hands and arms as she fled from Kyle and from hope.

  Chapter 13

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That bad?”

  “Yes.” Amanda leaned against the bar. It was early yet and quiet except for her and Julie in the tasting room. Her nose prickled with new tear preludes. She squeezed the edge of the granite.

  Julie watched Amanda’s body move to fight the hurt. “You look like a poltergeist is twisting you to take over.”

  “– Still don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then …” Julie arranged the block of empty wine glasses for the third time. Her fingers touching the foot of each glass and nudging them tighter in their military formation as they readied for battle. “Let me tell you about the archeology team I’m joining.”

  Amanda saw the ice cubes floating in her tall cup of green tea as it stood wetly under the back lip of the bar. Her shoulders eased back. “Did you get that ship-in-the-ice project?”

  “Yes! I am in now! I got the letter yesterday. That thirty-eight gun British frigate that Doctor Cooper located in the Antarctic glacier ten years ago. He finally received a grant – a pharmaceutical company out of Chicago. What they want with an old ship, who knows? For history, though there will be tons of fantastic artifacts. I have been rearranging my fall schedule so I can get on that project winter term. I’m soooo excited!”

  “Oooh, swarthy swashbucklers. I’ll bet it is all romantic, messages in bottles, those big flouncy princess dresses –”

  “They didn’t allow women on those ships. But yeah, swashbucklers in those fluttery shirts that are barely tied across their muscular chests,” Julie sighed.

  “And the treasure. There must be treasure if there are pirates.”

  The two of them stared out the grand winery windows as if feeling the salt air from the ocean bursting over the gunwales, a slow ravishing by a returning rogue, or a handsome pirate prince.

  Amanda asked, “When are you going?”

  Julie said, “Soon. I have to tell Miles.”

  “That will be an adventure to tell your grandchildren, for sure.”

  Julie giggled.

  Amanda hoped her Vampire Pirate might someday change his mind.

  Chapter 14

  Kyle laid on the rear seat of his car under their tree. He would need to get Sardis from the roofing job at five. His guitar remained in the trunk, not played since his hand was injured, surely as out of tune as his soul. A pair of lazy green flies zipped through the open window and hovered around. Leaving and returning. “I’m not dead yet, fly.” Kyle waved his good hand at them, the change in fluid pressure in his body made his hand throb. The last of his pain pills from the hospital tempted him from their package jammed in the cup-holder. He split a pill in half and used that to get some sleep each of the last two nights. He worried that the pain and the doctor’s description of nicking the nerves meant bad things for his still numb fingers, puffy in the bandaging and braces. The flies disappeared out the window only to return. They could be patient in their hunger for his flesh. Kyle decided to ignore them for now.

  Images of Amanda shimmered through his thoughts. The smell of her. The touch of her skin. “Why did I push you away?” He could call her. The phone showed a full charge now, sitting on the dash plugged into the cigarette lighter. His heart hurt for her. “Why did I push you away?”

  He lifted his wounded hand, scanning the bandages and the dark finger tips the size of hot dogs. “This useless piece of meat.” Memories of his fingers scathing licks up and down the guitar fingerboard, brushing some notes, hammering others, shredding the strings with a peal of rapid-fire impulses. Music that broiled out of his stage amp and seethed across a room packed with dancers. All of that silent now, maybe forever. He turned his head and tried to get sleep.

  Chapter 15

  “What do we do?” Elliot sniffed. His thin brittle blond hair quivered at the sides of his splotchy face, somehow puberty woes had not left him pimple free even at twenty-three. “I need cash to get out of the house, too unbearable with the rules there. If Kyle is out for months –”

  Sardis said, “That’s months if the damage is minor, if permanent then we might as well sit on the pointy end of our drumsticks. I’m the same. I need cash. After Haley’s band took all our gear, sold it, and did not split the money as she said … shit. This is screwed up.”

  Elliot nodded. “Haley said we should join her band. She doesn’t like her bass player –”

  “Because he’s fucking gay. She handles the rest of that band by yanking around their dicks. She is a hot fuck who knows her body like a gold medal dancer and sings half-naked. She rubs up and down on them d
uring the set. That bass player sees right through her though. It’s funny.”

  “Yeah, that’s too funny.”

  Sardis stared at Elliot, “You think she’s hot.”

  “She is.”

  “She’s also dangerous.”

  “I can use a little of her kind of hot danger.”

  “Don’t wet your pants, little girl.”

  Elliot smiled and then laughed. His gaze came back to Sardis, “I need to earn cash, and playing bass is my best talent. What do we do? He’s your brother; otherwise I’d be gone already.”

  Sardis nodded. His little brother that had been able to kick his ass at music and in the fights they got into, but they were still brothers. “Screw him. We have to look out for ourselves right now. If we hit it big then we can bring him back on to run the tambourine or some crappy single-handed instrument.”

  “Put a cow-bell on the broken mic stand and wail on that with one hand.”

  “We only have two songs that use a cow-bell.”

  “Then he plays two songs every night and does vocals the rest.”

  “I know him. If he cannot play guitar then he will not have any of it. He’d rot in a hotel room if we could afford the digs.”

  “Then I don’t know. You decide. I’m up for playing bass and making money. The rest … give me a reason to stay.”

  Sardis nodded. “I agree.”

  Chapter 16

  “Which wine would you like to taste first? I’m recommending Zack’s Blend Two but there are several excellent wines on the tasting list.” Amanda held a wine glass up for Benjamin.

  “No wine for me just yet. I’m looking for an Amanda that works here, about your age, I think.”