by Diane Kelly
He leaned down to kiss me, warm and soft and full of unfulfilled desires. Still holding the flashlight, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my body to his. Mmm. If I turned on the sirens and flashing lights on the police bike, we could be at the Magnolia Manor in ten minutes flat.
A scuffling sound behind us interrupted the moment. Lucas staggered into the parking lot, totally shit-faced now.
I dropped my arms from Trey’s shoulders. “Duty calls. Wait here.” I headed across the lot. “Lucas!”
The guy was in no condition to drive. He didn’t seem to hear me and stepped up beside his truck, fumbling with the key fob.
“Lucas!” I hollered again. “Stop right there!”
He dropped his keys. “Aw, shit.” He bent to pick them up, lost his balance, and put out a hand to steady himself, leaning against his truck for a moment. When he went to stand, he banged his head on his side mirror with a klunk. “Fuck!”
He tried again to unlock the truck and was successful this go ‘round. The door unlocked with an audible click-click. By this time, I was only twenty feet away. I turned my flashlight back on, aiming the intense beam at him. He put up a hand to shield his eyes.
“Lucas! Hold on a minute.”
Ignoring me, he climbed in the truck, slammed the door and started the engine. His white reverse lights came on as I ran to the driver’s side window and banged on it. “Lucas! Stop!”
He scowled at me through the window. “The fuck you want?” he mouthed.
“You are in no condition to drive!” I yelled loud enough for him to hear through the glass. “Turn off the engine and let me take you home.”
He didn’t bother to unroll the window, just yelled back through the grimy glass. “Back off, bitch!”
Bitch? Really? I grabbed the handle and tried to open the door of his truck, but he’d locked it.
“Damn it, Lucas! If you drive off I’m going to have to haul you in on a DUI. That’s a felony. You don’t want that on your record. Get out of the truck and let me take you home!”
My heart pounded in my chest like a jackhammer and hot tears welled up in my eyes. A felony would push Glick into a new category, subject him to real time in the state pen. I didn’t want to see him end up like that, but I also couldn’t let him out on the streets in this condition. He could kill someone.
The truck lurched back a couple feet, then stalled as his foot slipped off the clutch. I banged my fists on the hood of his truck. “Dammit, Lucas!” I cried. “Stop!”
He started the engine again and pushed the truck into gear, grinding them as he failed to fully engage the clutch. Tires screeching, he turned to the right away from me, his right front fender hitting the front tire of the Ninja parked next to him, knocking the bike to the ground. Glick’s truck bounced as he rolled over the front of the bike, the tire assembly giving way with a crunch.
Lucas circled back past me and roared toward the parking lot exit. I ran after him in my Wonder Woman boots, my efforts to stop him futile, my screams falling on ears that refused to listen. My boots were flat-soled and provided no traction. I slipped and fell in the parking lot, skinning my knees and the palms of my hands. At the front of the lot, Trey bolted toward the truck and reached Glick as he paused at the exit, half-in half-out of the street. The mini-bus from the Jacksburg Retirement Home swerved around him in the nick of time, the furious driver at the wheel laying on the horn, frightened, wrinkled faces gaping at the windows.
Trey grabbed a cinder block that had been used to hold down a half-dozen helium balloons, now at half mast. He used the block to smash the passenger window of Glick’s truck. After tossing the block aside, he hopped onto the running board, reached through the broken window, and managed to get the door unlocked and open, pulling himself into the truck.
The truck rolled farther into the road as the men scuffled in the cab. The red lights on the back of the car came on as Trey managed to set the emergency brake. A few seconds later, the lights went back out. Trey hopped out of the truck, Glick’s keys in his hand.
Thank God.
Glick dove out of the passenger side of the truck, tackling Trey to the asphalt, and the two of them rolled around in the broken glass for a few seconds before Trey immobilized Glick on the ground, his arm crooked behind his back. For a computer geek, Trey was a damn good fighter.
I stomped toward the men, handing Trey my flashlight to warn oncoming traffic. He stood and backed away. “Lucas Glick you are under arrest!” I screamed, yanking off Lucas’s right boot, pulling out the empty metal flask inside, and hurling it across the parking lot into the trees. “You have the right to remain silent!” Tears streamed down my face, tears for the little boy who might have grown up different if his father had stuck around, if his mother hadn’t knocked him around. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right—” I choked back a sob, “to an attorney. You—”
“Fuck you!” Glick yelled at me. He rolled over onto his back, threw his fists to the sky and yelled to the universe and everyone in it. “Fuuuck yooou!”
Lucas had tears running down his face now, too. I fell to my already-skinned knees next to him and pulled him to a sitting position, holding him to me in a tight embrace. He sobbed whiskey-scented sobs on my shoulder while I sobbed strawberry snow-cone sobs on his.
Trey backed Glick’s truck out of the street and into the parking lot, then came to stand beside us.
After a couple minutes, Lucas said, “Shit,” and released me. He sat back on the asphalt, Indian style, like a child, elbows on his knees. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I took his hands in mine and looked into his face. “Lucas, you need to get some help. You’ve got to get some help.”
He looked at me with eyes full of pure grief. His voice was still slurred, but soft now. “You think I don’t know that, Marnie? You know what those rehab places cost? A goddamn fortune, that’s what. I ain’t got money for the Betty Ford clinic.” He looked down at the grease spot on the asphalt between us.
“I’ve got some money left over from my divorce settlement,” I said. “You can have it, Lucas.”
He glanced at me, then away, then back at me. “Why would you do that for me?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s ‘cause I like you. When you’re not drunk, that is.”
Lucas snorted, then eyed me, a look of incredulity on his face as if the poor guy couldn’t believe someone actually gave a crap about him. My heart felt swollen and tight, like the time I’d tried to squeeze my size sixteen butt into a size twelve pair of jeans.
He looked away again. “Got nobody to watch Tosh.”
“Who’s Tosh?”
“My cat.”
If the guy was responsible enough to think about his cat, there was definitely hope for him. “Your cat can come stay with me for a while. Bluebonnet would love the company.”
Lucas seemed to consider my proposal. “What if I say no?”
“Then I arrest you for DUI and you’ll spend a few months in Huntsville, lose your septic business and your cat, maybe even your trailer.”
Trey stepped up beside us. “Not to mention you’ll have to fight off some guy with a thing for skinny cowboys.”
I scrunched up my nose at Trey. “Yuck.”
“Just trying to help you out. It would persuade me.”
I turned back to Lucas. “He’s right, you know. You want that?”
Lucas didn’t answer.
“Sounds like a no-brainer to me,” Trey said. “There’s a good facility in Hockerville. My cousin’s been through the program there. Sober now for four years. She’s not as fun as she used to be, but at least she hasn’t woken up in bed with a stranger lately.”
Lucas stared up at the sky. Clearly fate hadn’t singled me out to bully. Fate had been a royal bitch to him, too.
“Looks like I don’t have much choice,” he finally muttered. If he was trying to sound tough, he failed. His relief was clear in his voice.
&nbs
p; I took his arm and helped him up. “Let’s go.”
We swept the broken glass off the seat and helped Glick into the passenger side of his truck, then walked back to the Ninja to survey the damage. The bike lay on its side like a racehorse with a broken leg, its front wheel deflated, pieces of yellow plastic littering the ground around it.
I stuck my business card between the leather seat and gas tank where the rider would find it, making a mental note of the license plate number.
Trey stared at the mess for a few seconds. “I hope Glick has good insurance.”
I snorted. “I hope he’s got any insurance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE BEST LAID PLANS TO GET LAID . . .
Glick’s truck had only two seats, so Trey drove the truck while I followed on the police bike. We swung by Glick’s trailer so he could pack a few things for his stay. The hail-dented, plain white trailer had settled unevenly in the clay soil, one end a foot higher than the other, and I had to jerk on his front door several times to free it from the crooked frame.
Trey put a hand on Glick’s back to prevent him from falling back down the two metal steps leading up to the front door. The inside of the trailer smelled like a typical bachelor pad, an aromatic stench of beer, stale pizza, and garbage funk. The trash can overflowed with beer cans, fast food wrappers, and whiskey bottles. A pair of enormous brown roaches scurried out from a hamburger wrapper, seeking a safer hiding place underneath the cabinets.
“Tosh? Where are ya,’ buddy?” Lucas called.
A solidly-built black tomcat with long hair matted into kitty dreadlocks crawled out from under the wood-frame futon and walked over to rub on Lucas’s legs.
“I try to brush him,” Lucas said, “but he don’t like it.”
Despite the matted fur, the cat appeared healthy and well-socialized. Lucas picked up the heavy cat, almost falling over as he did. He held Tosh to his chest for a moment, looking down at him almost as if he wanted to say something to his pet. But when he glanced up at me and Trey and saw us watching, he set the cat back down on the dingy linoleum, which curled up every few feet at the seams. “Carrier’s in the hall closet.”
We loaded Tosh into the plastic pet carrier. Lucas went into his bedroom and returned with a round fleece cat bed and a sisal scratching post. On his second trip, he handed me a plastic box full of assorted cat toys. A peacock feather, a fishing pole type toy with a fuzzy pom-pom dangling from the end, a trio of plastic balls with bells inside.
Glick’s pantry contained a veritable smorgasbord of cat delights, everything from Fancy Feast to fish-shaped treats, and we added them to the box. The five-foot carpet-covered cat tree was too big to fit into the truck, so we had to leave that behind for now. Tosh was certainly one spoiled cat.
After taking Tosh to my house, we continued on to Hockerville and dropped Lucas off at the treatment center for a six-week intensive live-in program. Trey lugged a laundry basket filled with clean socks, underwear, jeans, and T-shirts up to Glick’s room. I signed a contract to pay for the treatment, making a sizable dent in my savings account balance, but what did I need the money for? I lived with my dad, had no mortgage or car payment, and only a big white dog to take care of.
I gave Lucas’s hand one last squeeze before we left, the motion reactivating the pain in the raw scrapes on my palms, but I fought through it, managing to maintain a smile.
He squeezed back, then pulled me to him for a hug, whispering, “Thanks, Marnie. You’re as nice as your mother.”
It was the best compliment I’d ever received.
***
It was after 2:00 AM when Trey and I walked out to the parking lot of the rehab center.
I was physically and mentally exhausted. I stood next to the police bike and looked up at Trey. “Trey, I’m not sure I’m up for the Magnolia Manor.” By the time we could drive back to Jacksburg for me to pack a bag and return to Hockerville, it would be at least another hour and I’d be too exhausted for a night of passion.
I could tell he was disappointed, but he said, “I understand.”
I think he actually did understand. He realized I needed this, that I had to help Lucas, to eliminate my karmic debt. I could only hope that Lucas’s time in rehab would make a real, lasting difference.
Since it was so late, I suggested Trey drive Glick’s truck home and pick up his parent’s car the following day. “No sense you making another run back and forth this late at night.”
Trey nodded and gave me a soft peck on the cheek. “Let’s get together tomorrow.”
“I’ll be at Savannah’s. I’m babysitting.”
“Want some company?”
“With those three boys? Heck, I want backup.”
“You got it.”
***
An hour later I lay in bed, Band-Aids on my knees and palms. Bluebonnet was draped over my legs, her head dangling over the side of my bed so she could keep a watchful eye on Tosh. The cat made his way around my room, curiously sniffing everything in sight, including the boxes addressed to Zane that sat on the floor in the corner. Despite the fact that Tosh seemed to suffer a perpetual bad hair day, the cat was well-adjusted, trusting. Lucas was a much better parent than his mother or father had ever been.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at my canopy. Seemed like I’d been doing a lot of staring at my canopy lately.
A mix of emotions battled inside me. Part of me was pissed off at Lucas for ruining one of my last nights with Trey, but another part of me hoped the night would turn out to be the beginning of a new life for Lucas. I hoped he could beat his addiction to alcohol. I needed him to get well not only for himself, but also for me. I had to know that I’d helped save a life, had to even the score and get rid of these guilty feelings that had dogged me ever since that dark day in Dallas when I’d killed that man. I said a quick prayer for Lucas, asking God to give him strength.
My thoughts then turned to Trey. Trey had gone along tonight, never once questioning my motives. He seemed to understand me intuitively, instinctively, as if we’d known each other much longer than we actually had. Trey was clever, a good listener, and he made me laugh, bringing a lightness to my life, which had felt too heavy for too long. He made me feel like a desirable woman again, even with those extra pounds packed into my Wonder Woman costume, testing its seams. He wasn’t a bad dancer, either. What more could I want in a man?
I could want him to stick around. That’s what.
***
I might have fallen asleep last night dreaming of Trey, but when I woke to the stark sunlight Sunday morning, things were more clear. Trey was a great guy, but I’d stupidly let myself fall way too hard for him. No doubt I’d pay for that. He was leaving in three days. Sure, he’d be back every few months to visit his family, but at this point in my life I wasn’t in the market for a part-time, now-and-then, no-strings-attached relationship. I wanted a full-time, always-and-forever ball and chain.
Time for me to face reality and acknowledge once and for all what my relationship with Trey was, a brief distraction in an otherwise routine and lonely existence. But at least he would help me keep Savannah’s wild and crazy boys under control today.
Normally, I went to church with Dad and Uncle Angus on Sunday mornings. We attended the non-denominational service offered at the VFW Hall, not only because the preacher didn’t get bogged down with rules and restrictions, but also because the church offered an 11:30 service, the latest service in town, allowing us to sleep in, praise the Lord. I’d begged off this morning. At least I’d be doing some of God’s work, helping my fellow man. Surely He’d forgive me for missing church under these circumstances.