Sunday Morning: A Damaged Novella (2 page)

M
y neighbor and occasional friend Kristi always
wanted to make her boyfriend jealous. This time around, her brilliant idea was
to talk up the bikers hanging out around the Bounce House strip club down the
road. When she told me her plan, I found two reasons to go with her. The first
was Kristi would likely end up in deep shit from either messing with the bikers
or her slap-happy boyfriend finding out. The second reason was I might see Kirk
after weeks of thinking about him.

Kristi wore an AC/DC t-shirt and a short denim
skirt showing off her long, pale legs. I knew she was tempting trouble. Like my
mom, she would never make smart decisions. Some women refused to grow a brain.
I might have been one of those women, considering how excited I was to see
Kirk.

We arrived at the stripper bar and found several
bikers hanging around outside. Kristi batted her eyes for a few and then
giggled when they waved her over. Wearing loose blue jeans and a Guns N’ Roses
shirt, I crossed my arms and played the good girl. Even if all I wanted to do
was to be bad with one particular bad man.

On the bar’s house-style porch, Kirk sat in a
chair. One of his legs rested on the railing while he used the other to rock
the chair. I thought about pretending I didn’t recognize him. I told myself he
didn’t want to talk to me anyway. Might as well keep my mouth shut and eyes
forward. I didn’t need this kind of trouble.

Except I hadn’t stopped thinking of Kirk since that
day. His card was hidden in a rotted hole of my bed frame. Every night, I
caressed the spot and remembered Kirk’s dark eyes on me. Kirk called me kid,
but he looked at me as if I were a strong woman. I’d liked his gaze on me, and
I ached to feel it again.

Even terrified, I stepped onto the porch and faced
him. The other biker sitting nearby scowled at me, but Kirk was the only one I
cared about. He continued rocking his chair as I approached.

“Took you awhile to figure out whether I was worth
your time,” he said once I told him hello.

“I like to consider all my options.”

My words reeked of confidence, yet my voice
betrayed me by trembling. I was normally pretty good at faking bravado. My
temper helped, but I wasn’t angry. I was terrified of Kirk and how I couldn’t
stop thinking about him. His desire could rip me open. His indifference would
most definitely destroy me. This bad man held my future in his hands, leaving
me every reason to be frightened.

Kirk stopped pushing off the floor and dropped his
leg. He sat up slowly, calculatingly, and I felt the urge to back away. I was
tougher than some girls. I could handle shit others buckled under. I rarely
flinched at the ugliness around me. None of that prepared me to face a man like
Kirk.

Standing, he walked lazily to where I waited. “Have
you been staying out of trouble?”

“Is that your way of asking if anyone’s puked on my
porch again?”

“Sure,” he whispered as his fingers caressed my
blonde hair blowing in the wind.

“Well, hell,” the other biker said, standing up,
“don’t make the little shit cry.”

Kirk’s gaze was locked on mine. He casually looked
over my head at his friend and gave him a head gesture. The biker grunted
before walking into the club.

“Impressive,” I said in a shaky voice.

“Why are you scared?”

“You’re very tall,” I babbled.

“Yes, I am.”

Kirk smiled, leaving me torn between my competing
needs. I wanted so badly to stay here and listen to his voice. I wanted to know
who he was and what he was about. But I was also afraid, and my fear told me to
walk away. I should have grabbed Kristi and returned to my home.
Why
shouldn’t I play my life safer and smarter than my mother had?

“Is Kristi safe with that guy?” I asked, prying my
gaze away from his rugged face to look at where my friend brazenly flirted.

“What could happen?”

I heard the annoyance in his voice. When I focused
my gaze on him, I found a frown where a smirk once rested.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re in high school.”

“You’re not.”

Kirk smiled again. “No, I’m not.”

“Were you a good student back then?”

“Yeah, a real ace.”

“I bet you won every spelling bee and always had an
apple for your teacher.”

“It was pretty long ago, but that sounds about
right.”

“Is your memory failing?”

“Hearing too,” he said, leaning forward. “You’ll
have to speak up.”

I inhaled the scent of his rich cologne.
Bad
move!
Between the scent and his warm breath on my skin, I shivered
noticeably. Kirk would have to be blind not to notice. Despite his old age
shtick, I knew he caught my reaction.

“Are you a good student?” he asked in a voice
betraying his interest in more than my grades.

“I want to be, but I’m not smart enough.”

“Why would you want to be a bookworm?” he asked,
stepping back and inhaling sharply.

“I don’t want to end up living in a trailer park
for the rest of my life.”

“Big plans, princess?”

Kirk sounded angry about me wanting more. I wasn’t
sure how to feel about his irritation.

“I don’t want to live on welfare and charity
drives. Are those big plans?”

His expression softened as much as such a rough
face could. I studied the creases around his eyes. His tanned skin tempted me
to touch it until my fingers refused to listen to reason. They reached up and
caressed his stubbled cheek.

Kirk’s dark eyes hypnotized me, and I couldn’t pull
away my hand.

“Are you looking for trouble, little girl?” he
asked, suddenly stepping out of my reach and sitting in the chair again. “Is
that why you and Barbie are here?”

“She wants to make her boyfriend jealous,” I
blurted out, feeling dizzy without him close.

“What about you?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Kirk watched me for a minute and then nodded. “Good
call.”

Even terrified, I forced my feet to move until I
stood where he rocked in the chair.

“What do you do here?” I asked, crossing my arms
again.

“None of your business,” he growled.

I smiled at his tone. “Are you the boss?”

Kirk shared my smile, but I noticed he was tense.
In fact, he seemed angry with me. I instantly got angry about him being angry.

“Is that what you want?” he asked. “The guy who
calls the shots?”

“No. I want whatever you are.”

Kirk lifted an eyebrow at how I challenged him.
“What do you think will happen here, Jodi?”

Summoning all of my strength, I held his gaze and
said the words, “You’ll worship me.”

Kirk let out a laugh. He didn’t sound angry
anymore, but I wasn’t sure if his laughter was meant to mock me.

“I can see that,” he said finally. “If you were a
few years older, I might bow down this very fucking second. But you’re not so I
won’t.”

“No, I guess you won’t.”

His dark eyes were so rich like the expensive
chocolates I stole from the mall’s candy store. All of the best things were
that color, I suspected.

“Not yet anyway,” Kirk said, standing up.

His gaze focused on someone behind me. “Is that a
friend of yours?”

I turned to see Kristi’s slap-happy boyfriend
nearly running toward the bar. His face was beet red and his hands already in
fists. I didn’t know who Carvin planned to hit, but Kristi made a run for it.

Kirk stood on the porch steps, looking amused by the
squawking Kristi did as she ran back toward the trailer park. I joined him,
wondering if I should follow my friend. Carvin looked at the biker Kristi had
been talking to and then he focused his glare on me.

“You’re always talking girls into being sluts,” he
accused.

“Fuck off!” I yelled without thinking. “If you
weren’t such an asshole, she wouldn’t want to run around on you.”

Too angry not to hit someone, Carvin made a move
for me. Kirk stepped off the porch.

“Son, I’m not in the mood to dig a shallow grave,”
he calmly said.

“Then get out of the way. You won’t want that whore
anyway. She’s all talk and no action. Won’t put out even if you beg.”

“Then she isn’t much of a whore, is she?” Kirk said,
walking slowly toward Carvin. “If I hit you, you’re not walking away easy.”

“You’d be doing the world a favor by killing him,”
I said, still pissed about Carvin calling me a whore. “No one would miss his
ugly ass.”

Kirk glanced back at me and shook his head at my
goading. Even though he didn’t see Carvin rush our direction, Kirk had no
trouble landing a punch to the younger man’s jaw. I swore I saw teeth fly out
of the asshole’s mouth.

Dropping on the ground, Carvin screamed in pain.
Kirk looked at the other bikers.

“You were flirting with the girl. You finish this.”

“Shallow grave?” the biker asked Kirk.

My hero glanced back at me and considered the
question. “No, just make it harder for him to cause trouble.”

The other guys dragged a crying Carvin behind the
club while Kirk stepped onto the porch where I waited.

“You’re a troublemaker.”

“He called me a whore.”

“That he did,” Kirk said, caressing my cheek. “Did
you want him to die?”

“I really wouldn’t have cared either way. Kristi is
a shitty friend, but Carvin busts her upside the head a lot.”

“I don’t like hitting women. You know why?”

“They hit back?” I asked.

Kirk smiled. “No, they cry.”

“Carvin’s crying.”

“Yeah and that’s why I don’t like hitting pussies
either.”

“What would I have to do to make you hit me?”

Kirk considered my question. “Try to set me on
fire. Or bury me alive. I wouldn’t sit still for that shit.”

“But slapping you around or stealing your heart
would be non-hitting offenses,” I teased, nearly laughing.

“I’m tough. I could take you kicking my ass.”

“I’d probably cheat.”

“Oh, no doubt about that,” he said, gesturing for
me to follow him off the porch. “I’ll walk you home.”

I paced myself and passed three trailers before
speaking. “I want you to know that if Carvin got the upper hand with you, I
would have jumped in and saved you.”

“Without your bat?”

“I would have used your rocking chair as a weapon.”

Laughing, Kirk reached over and played with my
loose hair. He didn’t turn the touch into anything more, though.

We stopped in front of my trailer where inside
Robin blasted Bon Jovi.

“You behave until you’re old enough for me to
worship.”

“I promise nothing,” I said, hating to leave his
side.

Kirk might have heard the sadness in my tone. He
reached out and softly brushed my cheek with his thumb.

“I’d say something to fix the look on your face,
but I don’t know what that something might be.”

I nodded. “Thanks for talking to me.”

Kirk stepped back. “I’m glad you came by and
entertained me, but you probably shouldn’t do that again. The club isn’t safe.”

My heart wouldn’t let me nod at his warning. I
needed to see Kirk again. He was too special in a world full of crap. I didn’t
know how long it would take, but I would know everything there was to know
about Kirk.

S
unday mornings changed once I got older. I wasn’t
sure exactly when it happened. I woke one Sunday without a hangover or a
strange woman in my bed. I got up earlier and drank coffee rather than chasing
my last buzz. I stood in the cold morning and thought about the forty-two years
that led to that moment.

I never wanted much from life. My parents couldn’t
raise me. I ended up shuffled between relatives who didn’t want me either. Once
I was old enough, I got stuck in juvenile hall where I finally fit. I met
people who later hired me for work that made me solid money. Years passed, and
I stumbled onto the Chesterfield Vandals. They were a young, bratty club full
of boys playing men. I was like their fucking dad, but I wouldn’t have been
proud of a single one of them if they really were my kids.

After I lost interest in drinking and started waking
up sober on Sundays, I got handed the job of tracking down my club brothers
from wherever the booze and drugs finally dropped them. Most were around the
Bounce House strip joint where we did our business. I usually found Jimmy in
the parking lot, half under a car. Toby often crawled into someone’s truck bed
before crashing. Anyone not at the Bounce House was likely in the Princess Farms Trailer Park next door to the club.

Sunday mornings were probably the only times the
park wasn’t rocking a
Morton Downey, Jr. Show
vibe with unsupervised
kids, drunken arguments, and blasting TVs. Whenever I got nostalgic for my
childhood, I took a ride through Princess Farms and saw the lack of parental
attention.

Sometimes, the bullshit got to me like when I
intervened with a stoned mom wailing on her kid. No doubt she returned to
beating the shit out of him as soon as I drove off. There was no fixing what
was wrong with the trailer park. The only solution was to burn it down and hope
something worthwhile came from its ashes.

Everything about Princess Farms pissed me off until
I caught sight of a pajama-wearing Jodi swinging her bat at a wasted Gordy. The
chick raged on him, and I nearly burst into laughter. I knew how she felt.
These younger guys in the Chesterfield Vandals Motorcycle Club often made me
homicidal.

They didn’t know how to keep their asses focused.
The cops in Chesterfield were a joke, but they weren’t the only law enforcement
assholes keeping an eye on us or the Memphis outfit pulling our strings. If I
were in charge, our operations would run tighter and leaner. More work, fewer
parties. Except I wasn’t in charge, and I didn’t see the benefit of taking on
the pressure.
Not with these guys or in this town.

I’d done my time as the guy with the plan. A decade
earlier, I worked ugly jobs for powerful men in Memphis. I made connections,
and I could have moved up in the organization. That life didn’t interest me.
Fancy fucking cars and playing handshake with other assholes wasn’t nearly as
fun as riding hogs and enjoying a hot afternoon with a cold beer.

Pressure was for other men. I wasn’t a follower,
but I sure as hell didn’t want to be a leader. Hell, I didn’t want much of
anything those days. Life was stable.

Then I looked into the pissed-off blue eyes of a
raging teenager and wanted someone I shouldn’t have. Someone I couldn’t have
yet knew was mine. This chick was it for me, and I didn’t even know her name.

Her eyes were clear of drugs and alcohol. What I
was witnessing was pure, righteous indignation. She had a temper and a solid
swing with her bat. When she stood up to me, I knew she was full of shit.
Fuck!
She was so completely overflowing with shit, but she challenged me anyway.
How
in the hell could I not want this woman even if she was barely past being a kid?

Reality ensured I was already backtracking on my
instant lust for the blonde by the time I left my card with her. Jodi was too
young I told myself. An hour later, I was convinced I was ready to wait five
years until she was old enough to deal with a man like me.

Five years were nothing to a man my age. I could
wait while she grew up. I’d let her mature and experience life. Not experience
men, of course. She’d need to stay away from them because only one man would
do. I wondered if she was sitting in her trailer thinking about me and knowing
I’d claimed her.
Probably not.
She was likely scared that one of the
club guys planned to take away her bat and make her publicly pay for
embarrassing Gordy.

She surprised me by showing up at the club and then
surprised me again by challenging me. When I hurt the asshole, she didn’t even
blink. Jodi was made of tough stuff, and I needed a strong woman. Her courage
made me even more willing to wait for however long it took.

Whether Jodi sensed this truth, our paths were
headed in the same direction. I was a patient man when I needed to be, and I
needed Jodi. I could do five years in my fucking sleep.