Sunday Morning: A Damaged Novella (7 page)

D
espite spending hours wrapped together with Kirk in
bed everyday, I never thought I’d get pregnant. Based on my sex education
class, I viewed condoms as a protective wall between me and motherhood.
Somehow, the wall was faulty like most things in Chesterfield.

I knew I was pregnant before I missed my period,
but I didn’t tell Kirk. The day I took the test, I left school early so I’d
have the apartment to myself. Smoking a cigarette while waiting for the result,
I paced around the apartment and heard a mental clock ticking. A positive
result would be a bomb going off.

Holding the test, I cursed under my breath and
threw my cigarette in the toilet. Next I cried. All of my old fears about
becoming Robin resurfaced. Kirk would ditch me, and I’d fuck any man willing to
give me the time of day. I’d spend my days wasting away in a trailer park while
raising a kid who didn’t like me.

Except that wouldn’t happen. Even if Kirk dumped
his kid and me, I wasn’t Robin. I didn’t like men enough to beg for their
attention. In fact, Kirk was the only guy I ever wanted. The rest could fucking
disappear for all I cared.

Crying alone in the apartment, I told myself I was
capable of being a good mom. How hard could it be to be better than Robin? As
long as I fed the baby, kept it clean, gave it an occasional hug, and didn’t
beat the shit out of it when it pissed me off, I’d be miles ahead of most of
the mothers I knew.

By the time Kirk arrived at the apartment, I had
hidden the test and washed away my tears. I planned to keep this baby. Kirk and
I made it, and I wanted it, and that was that.

Except Kirk might not agree, so I didn’t tell him
that night.

Or that week.

Or that month.

I got into such a habit of not telling him that
making my big announcement soon felt impossible.

Kirk was relaxed with our situation. He stopped all
of the bitching about our ages and enjoyed my company. We were happy, and I
didn’t plan to stop being happy. The truth could wait until the right time, or
until the baby fell out of me. I was leaning toward the latter.

Three months after I peed on the test, I was
cramming for finals. Kirk was at a club meeting and didn’t plan to be home for
hours. When he finally arrived, he walked into the kitchen and returned with a
beer in his hand. He took a gulp while studying me.

“Want some?” he asked.

My mind immediately flashed to the tiny person
inside me. As much as I could use a little buzz, I shook my head.

Kirk nodded and then leaned against the wall. “How
long have you known you’re pregnant?”

I stared at him in horror, unable to understand how
he saw past my amazing deception.

“What?”

“You haven’t been smoking for weeks. You keep
saying no to liquor. Plus you got that belly now.”

I frowned down at my belly and then back at him.
“I’m not getting rid of it.”

“Sounds about right.”

“You’re not mad?” I asked, suspicious of his calm
demeanor.

“For what? I was in charge of the condoms. I’m not
gonna blame you for me failing at my job.”

Kirk joined me on the couch and patted my knee.
“Hiding this from me wasn’t a very mature move.”

“Fuck off.”

Grinning, he leaned over and kissed the top of my
head. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“I was waiting for me to get through the first
trimester. I read in a book I found at the library that waiting was smart.”

“So it said not to tell your man until after the
first trimester?”

“Yes,” I said, fighting a smile. “I was scared you
were going to make me get rid of it.”

“That doesn’t sound like me. I’m a laidback guy.”

Rolling my eyes, I muttered in my version of Kirk's
voice, “I’m too old, and you’re too young. This ain’t happening, kid. Life
don’t have no rainbows and pineapples.”

“Pineapples, huh?”

“Well when you start bullshitting me with the age
thing, I stop listening.”

“Fair enough,” he said, holding my hand.

“I love you, and I love the baby. I’m glad you’re
not freaking out, but I’m also scared because you’re not freaking out.”

“You’re having my son. That’s a good thing, Jodi.”

“It’s a girl,” I said immediately.

“Do you know that for sure because I sense it’s a
boy.”

“You’re wrong. I had a dream. I’m already thinking
names. I like Tiara.”

Kirk grinned. “We’re not naming our daughter
something silly. Sorry, Jodi. You can run me around like your fucking bitch on
most things, but I refuse to have kids will stupid names.”

“Well, I’m not naming our son Kirk Junior. I hate
that stuff.”

“I’m Kirk Junior.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, patting his hand in fake
sympathy. “I should call you KJ.”

“We’ve got lots of time to talk names.”

I exhaled hard and let the realization of this
moment take hold.

“I was really nervous about your reaction.”

“I know. You’re probably right to worry. I’m not
used to having anyone depend on me like you do. I’ll probably fuck up a lot
before I stop fucking up.”

“At least, you’re honest about it.”

“That I am.”

Kirk removed the pillow from in front of me and
rested his hand on my stomach.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m hungry a lot, and I cried yesterday at school
because my French fries were soggy at lunch. Otherwise, I feel okay.”

“Well, I guess we better feed you more so my boy
can get big and strong in there.”

“It’s a girl, Kirk.”

“Said your dream. My gut says otherwise.”

“I want a girl.”

“We’ll have a second kid, but we won’t name her
Tiara.”

“How about Heaven?”

Kirk kissed me softly and then stood up. “Not
fucking happening. I’ll buy you a baby name book, and you can start looking for
something to name our son.”

I rolled my eyes, but somehow Kirk saying we were
having a boy made me really think we were. In fact, I stopped worrying about
girl names immediately.

“We can’t have a kid here,” Kirk said from the
kitchen.

I walked to where he dumped a can of ravioli into a
pan.

“We can put the baby in the bedroom with us.”

“My boy needs space to run. He’ll need a dog too.
No space in here for a boy and his dog.”

Smiling, I leaned into his body. “I wish I told you
sooner. I’ve been nervous about things. Now all that scary stuff has
disappeared.”

“I’m going to figure out what to do about our living
situation. I have ideas.”

Kirk’s tone killed my smile. He was intimidating as
hell when his brain snapped into overdrive. I didn’t know what his ideas
entailed, but I figured they were bigger than finding a new apartment.

J
odi finished her junior year of high school while
carrying my son. We still didn’t know the gender, but I felt in my bones that my
woman was carrying a boy.

Each morning, I woke up and watched Jodi sleep. Her
blonde hair usually covered her face, blocking the sunlight. She always slept
on her back, with her hands resting next to her shoulders. Looking so
vulnerable, Jodi needed more than Chesterfield offered.

The town wasn’t the worst I’d seen, but the schools
were bad, the people were rude, and violence broke out randomly. For my woman
and son, I expected more.

Ideas spun in my head for a while before I made my
move. I wasn’t scared as much as wary. I knew the men in Memphis could help me.
They might also shoot me where I stood. I never feared dying before, but I had
people to take care of.
Death was no longer an option.

Arlo James was a roly-poly shaped guy I met back in
juvenile hall. He and his buddy Jeff Goldstein broke into an old lady’s house
on a dare. They got caught and spent three months locked up. Both were soft,
rich boys perfect for beatings. More than once, I stepped in to help them.
Mostly, I liked pounding on people and helping them gave me a reason.

Even with a plush fucking life, Arlo grew up to be
cold inside. He was quick to kill if he could make money and take territory. He
remembered how I helped him out in juvenile hall and gave me a chance to help
him again when he took power in Memphis.

After all of these years, we retained a sort of
friendship. He used to call on us to do his dirty enforcement work. Though not
as much anymore. There were other clubs with harder members, willing to do
uglier things with better results. The Chesterfield Vandals made messes when
Arlo wanted precision.

In late June, we met for lunch at a barbecue joint
in Memphis. He brought several big guys along, but they sat near the door and
gave us privacy.

“I have a kid on the way,” I said after a few
minutes of chit chat. “My woman still has a way to go, but I’m thinking about
the future.”

“Children are a blessing.”

I thought about how Arlo remained childless and
realized he and I weren’t so different. We thought our world was too ugly for
families. Jodi changed my way of thinking.

“There’s a college town in Kentucky run by a small
group of moonshiners. They run drugs too, but they started out as moonshiners,
and they don’t have the brains to do much more. They’re small and disorganized
but violent,” I said and then got to my point. “With your help, I want to build
a new club, take over that town, and give my family a quiet place to live.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“The college town has untapped potential. Taking it
would give you a pathway to expand your territory outside of Tennessee.”

Arlo tapped his fork against his plate. “Tell me
about the club you’re building.”

“I’d take a few guys from the Vandals. They’re
older and less impressed by our leadership. I know other guys around Chesterfield and in Tennessee. They’re not in clubs, but they’re loyal. Smart guys with
experience.”

“Think your current club will give you trouble?”

“I don’t think they’re smart enough to know to give
me trouble. They think of the club as a social thing. The business side doesn’t
interest them. It’s like the fucking Boy Scouts with pussy, drugs, and booze.”

Seriously considering the plan, Arlo scratched his
balding head and frowned. “Will the moonshiners be easy to remove?”

“No, it’ll be bloody, but they have no reason to
see me coming. They’re like a lot of crews in Kentucky. Disorganized, only
thinking about this job or that mark. With the right kind of leadership, Kentucky could belong to you.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Money and weapons. I can bring the guys. Once
we’ve removed the moonshiners, we’ll need funds to build our organization and
fend off anyone thinking of messing with us. It could take a year before we can
expand further into Kentucky. By then, I’d have my club together. Once we have
a strong base, we can push out and take more territory.”

“And you just came up with all this since you got a
kid coming?”

“I’ve always thought about stuff, but the Vandals
don’t have the organization to make those kinds of moves.”

Arlo was interested in my idea, but he didn’t trust
anyone and needed to poke at me before agreeing.

“I thought clubs were about loyalty to your
brothers.”

Arlo’s dark eyes made me feel like a fucking chump.
I wondered what my dark eyes made him feel.

“I joined the Vandals because I knew one fucking
guy. He’s dead now. What do I care about loyalty to a group of kids playing
tough guys?”

To make me squirm, Arlo ate the rest of his meal
before talking about my plan again.

“I’ll back you, but if you’re underestimating these
moonshiners, it’ll be your ass. I won’t send reinforcements. I’m not investing
my reputation in this scheme. Money and weapons, I can recoup. A damaged image
never goes away.”

“Fair enough.”

Arlo leaned back in his chair and yawned. “I don’t
see you doing daddy duty, Kirk.”

“And I never saw you being a badass when we met
back in juvie. Shit, didn’t you cry the first day?”

Grinning, Arlo nodded. “Yes, I did. Point made. I
wish you the best of luck with the family man routine. Is your kid’s mother
okay with you wiping out moonshiners to get her a new zip code?”

I wiped my mouth. “My woman is mine so you know
she’s got balls of steel.”

Arlo laughed, and the mood shifted to talking about
sports. That was that. He would back me unless I fucked up. Then I was on my
own. Fortunately, I didn’t plan to fuck up.

I
cried like a fucking baby when Kirk told me he was
leaving town for a few weeks. The hormones made me weaker than usual, but the
idea of him never returning was the real reason for my blubbering.

I was terrified of giving birth and raising a baby.
I still needed to get my GED and learn how to be a mom. All of my plans felt
possible with Kirk at my side. Except I would be on my own until he returned.

“This place is pretty as fuck,” Kirk told me the
day before he left.

We rested in bed while he teased the stretched
flesh of my swollen gut. I managed to get through the first half of my
pregnancy without puking or nausea. I only wanted to eat all day and hide in
the apartment. The hormones made me paranoid, and I was fairly sure the
homeless man across the street was working for the CIA.

“Ellsberg is quiet,” Kirk said, painting a picture
of our future home.

“Chesterfield has quiet parts.”

“No, it really doesn’t. I live in the nicest part,
and it’s a fucking shithole.”

I thought of the homeless CIA agent and figured
Kirk had a point.

“What if you don’t come back?”

“I know what I’m doing. I have it planned out up
here,” he said, tapping his big, beautiful head.

“Things can happen.”

“Things can happen if I’m here too.”

I only grunted because being alone in Chesterfield for weeks sounded like the worst thing ever.

“It’s not too far from here. I can visit while I’m
putting things together in Ellsberg.”

“Ellsberg sounds like a loser town,” I said,
pouting despite knowing I was making shit harder on Kirk.

“It has a small college where you can take courses.
It’s a nice school too, not like the crappy community college here.”

I imagined myself on the campus of a real college,
and my worries settled slightly.

“Colleges probably have nice libraries,” I said
while putting my pout in neutral.

“I bet it does.”

“Do you think the schools will be good enough for
our baby?”

“Way better than here. Safer too.”

“Can we have a yard?”

“Hell yeah,” he said, smiling at how I was coming
around. “Our boy is going to need space for him and his dogs.”

“Dogs? Now there’s more than one?”

“Sure. I always wanted a dog, but I ain’t taking it
for a walk like Missus Glibber downstairs. I want a yard for us and our kids.”

Smiling easier now, I rested my hand on my stomach next
to his.

“I like the idea of our baby growing up somewhere
nice, but I like the idea of you staying here with me better.”

“I’ll call you every night before bed. I’ll visit
whenever I have a chance. And Jodi,” he said, pressing his forehead against
mine. “I will return to take you and our kid to Ellsberg.”

“Do you promise you’ll be as vicious as you need to
be, so you’ll come back to me?”

Kirk’s expression shifted, and I saw the killer
hidden inside the man I loved.

“I’ll do whatever I need to do.”

I believed Kirk. I knew he was on a mission to make
something special for us. As much as I trusted him, I had no faith in life not
to shit all over our future.

The day Kirk left for Ellsberg, I did nothing
except cry, sleep, and eat. The next day, I considered leaving the apartment
but decided against it.

Before leaving, Kirk bought me a used car so I
could get around town. He stashed a ton of cash in hidey-holes in the
apartment. If he didn’t come back, I’d be set for a good chunk of time. He’d
thought of everything including having someone check on me every few days. I
was safe even with him hundreds of miles away.

Despite all his efforts, I wasn’t happy except when
he called. We talked about nothing most days. He couldn’t share what he was
doing in Ellsberg. My days were spent in the apartment, watching TV and reading
books I bought at the grocery store. Even with nothing to say, he called every
night and helped me relax.

“You’re my woman, and you’re carrying my boy. When
you get to feeling like shit, you just remember those two facts, Jodi.”

By the second week, I only left the apartment to
grocery shop. I didn’t want to see anyone. When I was in the apartment, I could
hold one of Kirk’s shirts and inhale his scent. I could daydream about us
together in a magical place called Ellsberg.

A month passed. Kirk visited twice in the
beginning, but then he couldn’t get away. I swore to myself that I trusted him,
yet I felt my panic growing each day.

The one saving grace was my boy’s hard kicks. The
baby was healthy. After the ultrasound, the doctor gave me a black and white
picture that I studied constantly.

“You were right,” I told Kirk on the phone the
night I found out we were having a boy. “I’m sure you’re used to hearing that.”

Kirk laughed, sounding closer than he had in weeks.
“Have you been thinking about names?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have any I like. I guess I was
hoping we’d have a Tiara despite your assurances.”

“You keep going through that baby name book and
pick out the best five. When I get home, we’ll haggle over the choices.”

“You’re coming home soon,” I said, sounding ready
to cry.

“Autumn is fucking gorgeous here, Jodi. You’re
going to love it. I’ve been driving around and looking for a place for us to
live. Soon, you’ll be driving around with me.”

I believed his words, but I was lonely. The baby’s
kicks weren’t enough to console me when I was left with an empty apartment day
in and out.

The school year began without me. I didn’t miss it.
Not when I had books to read at the apartment.

During my only trip out of the house for the week,
I stood at the books and magazines racks at the grocery store. I thought I
heard someone say my name, but I ignored it. Sometimes people from the trailer
park or school would recognize me. They’d want to make chit chat, but I wasn’t
interested. I only wanted to talk to Kirk, and he felt a million miles away.

“Jodi,” my mother said, suddenly beside me.

Wearing too much eye shadow and sporting frizzy,
blonde hair, Robin looked just like I remembered. She always tried too hard to
be young and sexy. In reality, she was her prettiest when she first woke up
with a clean face.

I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t say anything. I
only nodded an acknowledgment while she stood in front of me.

“Didn’t take you long to get knocked up,” she said.

The hormones made me prone to take everything
personally, so her nastiness hit me hard. Only my temper kept me from crying.

“You might want to lay off all the slutty clothes
now that you’re going to be a grandma,” I said.

“I don’t see a ring on your finger. Has he ditched
you yet?”

“Would you care if he did?”

Robin twirled her over processed hair. “I don’t
want you trying to move back into my place with your bastard.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Grandma. If my
man leaves me like every man leaves you, I’ll raise my son without your help.”

“Stuck-up bitch.”

“Used-up hag.”

Robin snapped her fingers in my face like some
crazed whore from
The Jerry Springer Show
. “I’ll try not to laugh when
you show up on my doorstep after the pervert gets bored of your jailbait
pussy.”

I opened my mouth to unleash a million insults but
stopped myself.
What was the point of trashing her when she did such a great
job of trashing herself?
I needed to be smarter. Robin would argue until
the end of time. That kind of thinking led her to a miserable end. Instead, I
chose to walk away and finish shopping.

Robin wouldn’t understand about Kirk and me. Most
people couldn’t because from the outside he looked too old, and I looked too
young. In their minds, we couldn’t work long term, but I knew better. Call it
blind faith, but I believed in Kirk and me and the long life we had waiting for
us.