American Outlaw

by James, Jesse

  “Bro,” he said, smiling, “I hate to tell you I told you so. But . . .”

  “Why didn’t anyone warn me?” I moaned.

  “We tried to,” he said. “But you just weren’t ready to hear it.”

  I sat down at the kitchen table and looked at Tyson gravely. “You knew I came from a pretty messed-up home, right?”

  “No,” he admitted. “You never really mentioned it to me.”

  I sighed. “I just . . . I want to do better than that. I can’t let my kids grow up like I did.”

  Tyson shook his head. “Jesse,” he said, after a second, “no matter how hard it is, what you’re doing right now is worth it, man. You have to try to make a new start without this woman.”

  I tried to make work fill my emotional void. The lineup of customers clamoring for expensive custom bikes was endless, so, digging in, I tried to face the stack of orders with renewed determination.

  Soon I lost myself in the rhythmic, soothing tempo of welding. The mask flipped down over my head had never felt so protective. When I was under that metallic hood, shooting sparks and melting steel, I was free from human engagement. There were no stupid conversations. No mindless bullshitting about the NFL or horse racing. No wife who punched me in the fucking face.

  Weeks passed, and then months. Gradually I watched myself grow stronger. I spent the weekends alone with my kids, running on the beach with them, laughing, enjoying the process of watching them grow up. They were my saviors.

  Still, I couldn’t help but feel starved for companionship. I was so used to being in a relationship: Karla and I had been together for the better part of a decade, and I hadn’t been alone for very long before I’d found myself head over heels for Janine. For better or for worse, I seemed most comfortable being part of a twosome. I guess I was coming around to the realization that I missed having a woman in my life when, right on cue, Janine finally called.

  “I want to see you,” she said seductively. “Can you guess why?”

  “Janine,” I said stiffly. “I really don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  “Oh, come on.” She laughed. “You’re not still mad about what happened, are you?”

  “Which time?” I asked, angrily.

  Janine laughed. “Honestly, honey, I feel awful about smacking you. You know I wasn’t in the right head space at the time. But I’ve got things in order now, and I want to make it up to you.”

  “Well,” I said, my resolve weakening. “How exactly do you mean?”

  Janine let her voice drop to a whisper. “I’d much rather show you in person than describe it on the phone.”

  Half an hour later, she was at my doorstep. Five minutes after that, we were in bed together.

  We slept together, one last time—my lust had gotten the better of me. But it wouldn’t happen again. I had been wrong to believe that I could get closer to her. Janine was too violent, too unpredictable to form a life around. She would never be able to change.

  “We should give this another shot,” said Janine. “Don’t you think?”

  I shook my head. “No. This was a mistake.”

  Janine shrugged and began putting her clothing back on. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t try,” she said, smiling and strangely smug. “I’ll see myself out.”

  13

  Several months passed without speaking to Janine. Slowly, I began to form plans for a life beyond our relationship, beyond a marriage that I already considered a regrettable mistake. I knew someday I would find a wiser, more stable person to spend time with. Until then, I would be best off alone.

  Then one day, with no warning, Janine appeared at the shop.

  “Can I speak with you?” she asked, looking serious.

  “You came by on the wrong day,” I said stiffly, not looking up from my work. “No filming happening here.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” Janine said, steadily. “I’m pregnant, Jesse. We’re going to have a baby.”

  My mouth hung open, like I’d been sucker punched in the stomach. Immediately, I called bullshit.

  “We’ve been broken up for months.”

  “The last night we spent together,” she said, shaking her head. “It must have been then.”

  “No way,” I said, folding my arms stubbornly. “Impossible. I mean, what are the chances?”

  “Hey,” Janine said, shrugging. “I’ve done the math, and it had to have been then. I haven’t been with anyone else.”

  “Why would I believe that?” I snorted. “I don’t know who you’ve been spending time with lately.”

  “For all I’ve done wrong, honey, I’ve never once wanted to be with anyone else,” Janine said. “You can believe me or not, but it’s yours, Jesse. I promise.”

  I felt frantic. I had no idea what to say or do. In a single instant, my entire world had just been turned upside down.

  “You and I can’t have a baby,” I protested weakly.

  “We don’t have any choice,” Janine said.

  “We tried this already. It didn’t work. Remember?”

  “I’m starting to think that we should give it another chance,” Janine said, patiently. “You know, I don’t think we’ve tried hard enough, yet.”

  “No,” I said stubbornly. “I tried. I tried damn hard. You know what? I want a paternity test.”

  “Oh, fine!” Janine said, the frustration finally rising in her voice. “If you want to be difficult about it, then off we go.”

  That week, we drove together in silence to an expensive doctor’s appointment, where a prenatal sampling of Janine’s ripening placenta returned the verdict that I had been fearing all along.

  “See?” Janine said triumphantly. “I told you it was yours. Didn’t I?”

  I slumped forward, in shock. “What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “We’ll just have to get along, that’s all.” Janine kissed me on my neck, and looked into my eyes expectantly. “Because, Jesse, we’re going to raise this little baby together.”

  ——

  That very evening, she moved back into my house. She marched her clothes back into the closet, marshaled her lipsticks along her side of the bathroom sink.

  “I missed this,” Janine said, kissing me gently. “I missed making a home with you.”

  I shook my head, still not knowing what to think or how to feel. “Janine . . .”

  “Yes, honey?” she asked, turning on the television, settling back onto my bed, as if she had never left.

  “This is all happening way too fast for me,” I said. “I had sort of gotten used to the idea of . . . well, of us having separated.”

  “We did separate,” Janine said patiently. “But,” she wagged her index finger at me, “we didn’t divorce. And aren’t you happy now that we didn’t? That would have been a bunch of unnecessary paperwork, huh? I mean, now that we’re getting back together.”

  “What?” I said.

  Janine raised herself up on one elbow and looked at me oddly. “Honey, we’re having a child together. Of course we’re getting back together. It may take some work, but I’m willing to do my part. Aren’t you?”

  “Shit,” I stammered, “I don’t know. I mean . . . maybe . . . but if I’m going to do this, there’s got to be some rules, okay?”

  “That’s fine,” Janine said. “Like what?”

  “Like, no more crazy fighting. I can’t deal with it, Janine!”

  “Um, I hate to say this,” Janine said, calmly, “but you’re the one who’s yelling right now.”

  I tensed my fists. “Look. I just need this to be different than it was. I don’t want to have the same kind of marriage that my folks did. I can’t stand battling against you all the time. I can’t stand being scared to bring my kids around someone who I’m supposed to be in love with . . .”

  “So, hey, hey—just take a deep breath, baby,” Janine said, laughing. “I mean, your blood pressure must be going through the
roof! Wow, what the hell’s got into you since I’ve been gone?”

  “What’s got into me?” I whispered.

  “You look frustrated,” she said. Her eyes crinkled sympathetically. “I think you need to lie down next to me. Come on. Calm yourself. Take a second to think about this little baby we’re having. Don’t you want it to come into a sweet and relaxing world?”

  I looked at her, shook my head back and forth, pulse racing, words failing me completely.

  ——

  Despite any misgivings I might have had, I knew that the decision was a done deal. She was pregnant with my kid. I had to try again. No matter how bad Janine had screwed with my trust, I was going to have to get over it, and quick.

  “My girl’s back,” I mentioned to Bill, as we began to wrench on a new custom chopper. “She moved all her stuff back into my house.”

  “Huh,” he said noncommittally. “How’s that working for you?”

  I cranked up the blowtorch and, sighing heavily, dropped my safety goggles over my eyes. “To be honest, I’m kind of relieved.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Gives us both a do-over. We got another chance to make things right.”

  “Well, remember,” Bill advised, “nobody’s marriage is perfect. But hell, you’re a survivor! I believe in you.” He clapped me on the back. “Now go to war.”

  Janine and I circled around each other uneasily for the first few weeks back, like two lions staking out territory. Out of the corners of my eyes, I studied her, just waiting for her to snap and betray me. But to my surprise, Janine stayed calm and levelheaded, even seeming apologetic for her past indiscretions at certain moments. Soon, enough trust had returned to where I felt okay bringing my children back into the house while she was there.

  “Janine!” Chandler said, tossing her backpack onto the living room couch. “When did you get back?”

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Janine beamed. “It’s so nice to see you!”

  “Where did you go?” Chandler asked again, hugging her. “Why weren’t you here for such a long time?”

  Janine shot me a glance. “Oh, darling, I was . . . taking a long trip.” She pursed her lips, then rubbed my nine-year-old daughter softly on the back. “I won’t be going away anymore, okay?”

  Chandler smiled, pleased. “Do you want to see the drawing I did?”

  “Of course I do!”

  Janine had it in her to love a child, that much was obvious. Tentatively, I began to envision us redefining ourselves as a couple, from a dysfunctional duo to a husband and wife who were fit to make a stable home for our baby. The reality of the situation was that there was a new life growing in my wife’s belly. In under a year, that life would take shape in Long Beach. She and I were going to spend a great deal of time together learning how to raise it correctly, so we might as well do it together, as a team.

  “You know,” I said to Janine, as we were driving to the doctor’s again a week or so later, “I think we’re capable of doing this.”

  “Well, finally,” Janine said, smiling. She reached over and took my hand in hers. “I’ve been waiting for you to come around.”

  “I’ve been watching you,” I admitted. “And I can see it in your eyes. You want to be a mom so bad.”

  “Oh, sweetie, it’s true,” she said proudly. “I just can’t wait.”

  We arrived at the hospital and went inside. After a short wait, we met our doctor. She was a friendly, goofy-looking little woman who shortly instructed Janine to disrobe and place her legs in the gynecological stirrups for a pelvic exam.

  “Do you need me to leave?” I asked.

  “No, you can stay,” the lady doctor said genially, patting a chair for me to sit on. As she turned away from me, I noticed the doctor’s hairstyle. It was business in the front, and nothin’ but a party in the back: a mullet. On a female doctor, no less. How funny was that?

  “Now then, have you two decided on a name?”

  “Oh, we’ll probably have to mull it over for a while,” I said, winking at Janine.

  Janine shot me a dirty look. As she struggled uncomfortably to place her legs in the stirrups, she appeared to be sweating. “My husband’s just trying to be funny,” she said.

  The doctor looked confused. “Oh?” she asked.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said. “It’s a very important decision. I’m just trying to mull it over in my head.”

  We completed the exam without further incident. Then, as we walked out to the car, Janine turned to me and said, “I can’t believe you!”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “That whole ‘mull it’ thing? What the fuck were you going on about?”

  “She had a sweet hairstyle,” I said, laughing. “Look, I was just having some fun, okay?”

  “I was down there naked,” she hissed at me. “That was not the time or the place!”

  We reached our car. “Give me a break, all right?” I said. “It’s not that big a deal . . .”

  “You don’t know what a big deal is!” Janine cried, digging in her purse. “That’s always been your biggest FUCKING PROBLEM!”

  She found her big ring of keys, gripped them in her fist, and threw them directly in my face as hard as she could.

  “OWW!” I yelled, dropping to my knees in the parking lot. “Janine! What the hell was that for?”

  “You think this is all a joke?” Janine screeched, standing over me. “I’m going to have your baby! And you want to treat me like some fucking joke?”

  Slowly, my breath heaving, I picked up Janine’s keys from the ground and handed them to her.

  “Drive yourself,” I said. “I’m walking.”

  ——

  I slept at the shop that night.

  I can’t go on with this woman, I thought to myself, rolling uncomfortably on the futon I kept in my office, trying to steal an hour or so of sleep. There’s just no way.

  But I seemed to have little choice in the matter. I was boxed in with nowhere to go. She’s going to have my kid! I thought, desperately. And yet . . .

  And yet I’m afraid she could run me over.

  I rolled off the futon at six o’clock sharp the following morning, having gotten about forty-five minutes of rotten, dreamless shut-eye.

  “Hey, Jesse. Good morning!” My custodian, Dennis, was a mentally challenged guy about my own age—like Boyd, I’d kept up the tradition of employing developmentally disadvantaged adults. Dennis never failed to raise my spirits and keep me humble at the same time.

  But this morning, I didn’t want to hear anything from anyone.

  “Hey,” I said shortly, brushing past him to go wash my face in the restroom.

  “Did you sleep here?” Dennis asked, giggling.

  I didn’t answer, just slammed the bathroom door hard behind me and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and underscored with dark rings. Fuck, I thought. I’ve aged ten years the last ten months.

  I splashed cold water on my face and tried to come back to reality. There was business to take care of. Soon everyone would be arriving. As always, I had to be ready to take the wheel of the ship. Pretend like I knew what I was doing.

  “Jesse,” my assistant began, as soon as she settled in. “Season two of Monster Garage is going to start filming in three weeks. Thom Beers called. He wants to get together ASAP, to bat around ideas.”

  “Yo, Jess,” Bill Dodge yelled, “we got two CFL frames to get chromed by next Tuesday—are we ready to send them over to the shop in Riverside?”

  “Jesse,” apologized Melissa, my secretary, “I don’t want to alarm you, but retail’s been experiencing a ton of shoplifting lately. Are we going to go forward with installing those electronic scanners by the door, or what?”

  Leave me alone, guys. Please, fucking leave me alone . . .

  “Jesse, we’ve got a big show set up in Japan for you to make an appearance at this November. They’re still waiting on your decision. Do you want me to t
ell them yea or nay?”

  “Jesse! Walmart’s looking for a quarterly update on the menswear line. Do we have anything new?”

  I hid behind my desk, feeling completely overwhelmed.

  ——

  When I got home, the house was empty. Exhausted beyond belief, I sank into my couch and switched on the television. I watched fifteen seconds of a basketball game, then fifteen seconds of cable news. Then some cheesy murder mystery. And on and on. My stuttering mind wove the random TV snippets into a singular saga, a story bearing a nonsensical plotline that nevertheless seemed to make more sense than my own life.

  I waited for Janine to show up, but she never did. I went to sleep uneasily, and woke up alone.

  Her absence continued the following day. Janine was nowhere to be seen.

  When, on the third day, she still failed to appear, I began to relax. Maybe it’s over, I thought to myself with some relief.

  The following week, I was scheduled to have surgery on my shoulder. Over the years, the accumulation of injuries sustained through football and as a bodyguard, including my stage dive at the White Zombie show, had just gotten too painful to deal with on a daily basis. After consulting the X-rays and running me through a battery of tests, my doctor advised me to go through with the surgery.

  “How long will the rehab be?” I asked.

  “You’ll be in a sling for six to eight weeks. Then you can start physical therapy,” he said, smiling. “By my estimation, you should have a pain-free shoulder in under a year’s time.”

  I sighed. “Well, that sucks. Timing’s not good. We’re going to start filming the next season of my show soon.”

  “Timing’s never good for going under the knife, is it?” he said. “I strongly advise this surgery.”

  Bill Dodge drove me to the hospital.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “I hate hospitals.”

  “You’ll be just fine, man. I’ll pick you up when you’re done.”

  The doctors put me out and began the long process of removing old scar tissue that had collected around the head of my humerus. When I awoke, I was alone.

  Bill took me home. I slept for what seemed like days. It wasn’t quite like coming back from my knee surgery when I was twenty; this time I felt almost unnaturally tired, older, and weary in my bones.