Just a City Boy (Midnight Train Series) (15 page)

“I don’t remember that conversation, Lauren,” he said through gritted teeth. “I think you’re trying to confuse me with all that Southern girl charm that I’ve grown to hate,” he said.

If I still cared about him that would have hurt. But instead it just made me angrier than a wet hen.

“I’ve had about enough of your shenanigans, Raymond Jolene Parker!” I shouted at him. We were on the sidewalk outside my building.

“That is NOT my name, Lauren!” he yelled back at me. He jabbed the gun in my side, and my mind ran through every possible thing I could do to disarm him. My cast would hurt like Hades if I could swing it around and hit him in the head before he got a shot off. I could try to trip him up with my left leg or stomp on his right foot. The only problem was I was wearing my sneakers. What I wouldn’t give to be wearing my spiky stilettos now!

Ray had us walking briskly toward a Junker parked about twenty feet away. Daddy always told me never to let an attacker get me into a car. My chances of survival would be drastically reduced. It was now or never to give it my best shot.

I decided my cast was the best weapon at this point because it was so hard. I choreographed my move in my head. First I would step in front of his right leg with my left. He should stumble a bit, and he might shoot me in the kidney. Hopefully he wouldn’t. As I stepped in front of his ankle, I would bring my right arm around and whack him good right in the nose. I took a deep breath and counted my steps so I would get the timing right.

We were about six steps away from his car.

One breath, two breaths, now!

He stumbled; he dropped the gun; I whacked him so hard in the face that my wrist screamed in pain from the aftershock, and I twisted out of his grasp. He roared in anger, but I was already ten feet away, fifteen, running so fast I could be a redneck at a Walmart clearance event. I heard shouting, but I didn’t stop for nothing. I made it all the way to the end of the street before I dared look back.

Two figures joined and separated in a strange dark silhouette. It was around 3am, after all. It looked like someone was beating on someone else. It must be Zack and Ray, but I couldn’t tell who was who or who was winning. Then a gunshot went off, and I screamed Zack’s name. The last figure standing started walking toward me, and I froze in place. My feet would not move. My mouth would not work. My brain would not think. What would Mama say? What would she say? Mama wasn’t talking either. I was on my own.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Zack was having the dream again. The one where the bus they came up behind was filled with kids, and a little dark-eyed child of about five or six stared at their Humvee out the back window. Dave’s big brother Gideon and Zack played peek a boo with the kid, smiling and covering their eyes while the little kid giggled and pointed. Then two orange plumes went up, one under the bus filled with Afghani children, and the other one behind his vehicle, taking out his entire platoon. Gideon and he were thrown fifty feet, and Gideon landed in two places. Zack screamed and screamed, but he could only see the dark eyes of that beautiful child in his mind’s eye.

He woke with a start to the sound of the teakettle whistling vigorously. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, disoriented from his recurring nightmare and wondering why Lauren had forgotten about her tea. Was she in the bathroom? Did she curl up on some pillows and fall asleep?

He rushed to the kitchen and turned off the burner. He also moved the teakettle to a cool one, and the whistling quickly abated.

Her cup with a tea bag sat untouched on the counter. Her novel lay on the table. Her purse was across the room where she’d dumped it upon their return from the lounge.

His internal early warning system was going haywire. She wasn’t here.

He thought back to their return. Something had niggled at the back of his mind. The bags. Ray’s crap was completely gone. Ray!

Zack sprang across the room and grabbed her purse. She called her gun her ‘insurance’. He hoped it was something a little more substantial than a little ladies’ two shot unit. Even Dave’s old pistol would be better. When he pulled out her .40 S&W he smiled. Good girl. He checked to see if it was loaded. It was. Switched off the safety. Zack the ex-Army Ranger was open for business.

He spun to the front door and wrenched it open, letting it bang from the force. He ran down the steps in his socks, using the rail for leverage and leaping in great strides. He landed with an ‘oof!’ at the bottom and tore the outer door open as well. He stopped right outside, looking both ways. It was the darkest part of the morning, and it took a second for his eyes to adjust. There, heading west, were two figures walking closely together. If he didn’t know different, he’d think they were lovers returning from a tryst. He knew different.

Ray appeared to be escorting her toward an older model car. Zack began his approach as quietly but swiftly as he could. He was still trying to shake the ghostly images of his nightmare from his mind. Gideon. The little baby with the beautiful eyes. John, Reece, Tank, Marshall, Doc, Tanner, Fidge and Don. All gone. He was the only one left. Gideon volunteered to drive that day. He’d let him. Dammit. He shook himself. Counted the steps.

One. Ten feet away.

Three. Almost there.

Five. Lauren swung her arm around and met Ray’s face with a resounding ‘thwack!’ noise. Zack stopped suddenly. If Ray saw him, he might shoot her. Ray dropped his gun and Lauren took off like a track star. This was Zack’s moment. He sprinted the last few steps, and tackled Ray to the ground.

They scuffled and scrambled, and Ray pinned him for just a moment. But Zack used a wrestling move Gideon had taught him back in high school, and he flipped Ray onto his back. He made sure Ray couldn’t get back up. He had him caught between his powerful legs and a choke hold in the crook of his strong arm. He could feel Ray weakening as he struggled, and then he totally relaxed. Zack loosened his grip involuntarily, and a sharp pain in his arm had him gasp and let go. He rolled and jumped up, pulling Lauren’s gun from his waistband and pointing it at Ray who held a knife in one hand, and his fallen gun, now recovered, in the other.

The streetlight caught the raging glint in Ray’s eyes, and the blood flowing from his nose. Zack stood at the ready, letting his instincts guide him.

“Ray, just ease up there. You’ve got a lot riding on what happens next, man. You’re out on bail. You don’t want to mess that up dude,” Zack said.

Ray used his knife hand to wipe his chin with his sleeve. He glanced at the dark stain.

“Are you Zack?” he spit the name out like it was poison.

“Just calm down and nobody has to get hurt,” Zack ignored his question.

“Hurt! Ha! That’s a crock!” Ray said. Suddenly he flipped the knife so the handle was ready for throwing, and he let it fly straight at Zack’s head. He dodged and Zack’s trigger finger reacted instantaneously, firing three rounds so quickly in succession it sounded like one loud shot. The .40 was a semiautomatic.

Ray crumpled to the ground, and Zack slowly lowered the gun. What a mess. He looked down the street to see where Lauren ended up. She was under the street sign and a utility pole, and while she appeared to be fine, she had to have heard the gunshot. She might not know who the victor was, so he decided to approach her with caution.

“Hey, Lauren. It’s me, Zack. You’re going to be okay,” he said.

He saw her shoulders relax, and then she fell back against the pole. “Oh thank God,” she said, and covered her eyes.

By now, neighbors had heard the commotion, and the sound of sirens could be heard approaching. They returned to the vicinity of Ray’s body and waited for the police. Zack advised her to hold her hands up along with him, to avoid any confusion.

Right before the cops pulled up, Lauren spoke to him.

“You know the first night we met? I told myself you were going to land me at the hospital, the morgue or the police station,” she said.

Zack grunted.

“I guess I had you pegged from the get-go,” she said simply, and then the cops got out of their cars, and the question and answer period began. They were cleared within minutes, and allowed to eventually return to the apartment.

Zack laid her in bed for the second night in a row, but this time cradled her in his arms. There was no way he was letting her go for the next several hours. He might have tried to mug her, but she stole his heart.

Chapter Twenty-Four

She finally felt safe, and insisted she could stay at home without any trouble. She said Brenda was coming in an hour and to please get the heck out of her personal space long enough for her to take a bath.

Zack got the message and left with a smile. He did want to clear the air with Dave.

He brought Dave a coffee and a doughnut, and was secretly glad to see that Sandra was nowhere in sight.

“Dave, I need to talk to you. But first, here’s the rest of what I owe you for rent,” he said.

Dave wouldn’t take the money.

“Let’s talk first,” Dave said. He pointed to the sofa, and he took the easy chair himself. “Go on,” he said.

Zack rubbed the back of his neck. How to start? Where to start? He looked around the room, and his eyes fell on the gaming system.

“That night,” he said, carefully looking at Dave to see his expression. It was neutral.

“That night the sound of the gunfire was actually putting me on edge. I didn’t realize it until after,” he said.

Dave frowned a little and rubbed his chin. “Okay,” he said. He gestured with his hand that Zack should keep talking.

“I was wrong. I was having a panic attack, and I took it out on you. I can’t apologize enough, and I thank God every day nothing worse happened,” he continued.

Dave nodded solemnly, but didn’t smile.

“There’s more, too,” Zack said, and his voice broke a little.

Dave sat forward.

“That day in Afghanistan, the day the IEDs went off?” he began. “Gideon volunteered to drive. I’d been up late the night before, dinking around with a Humvee, and he knew I was tired. He took the wheel. The blast hit him first, and he never had a chance,” Zack said through tears, his voice wavering but plowing through the story. “I’m sorry every day of my life, Dave. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, and I’m sorry I’m responsible for Gideon’s death!” Zack finished and broke down into sobs.

Dave got up and went to him, kneeling on the ground, and enfolding him in his long arms. He held him like a friend, and squeezed him like a brother. He held him until the shaking stopped and the tears subsided.

Dave pulled away and sat up next to him.

“Please don’t carry that burden anymore, Zack,” Dave said. “You could trace the line of fault all the way back to my mother giving birth to him, if you wanted. Don’t play that game anymore. You’ve paid enough for his death. You don’t owe anymore. And you don’t owe me any money,” he said.

Zack started to protest.

“Shut the hell up, Zack. I prorated it, for Pete’s sake,” Dave said, shoving him. “So when are you coming back? I need you bro. Sandra left my sorry hide, and I’m lonely as hell,” he said.

Zack laughed a little.

“I’m not sure, Dave. I need to check with someone first,” he said. “I uh, met a girl. And she’s really something. I’ve been staying at her place…long story. But I don’t know how much longer I can handle that situation,” he said with a laugh.

Dave chuckled. “You told her you wanted to wait, didn’t you?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” Zack said with a grin.

Dave looked him right in the eye. “Thank you for telling me everything. And I mean it. Don’t play that blame game thing. You could map any number of probabilities to his cause of death. In fact, with your background in math, you should do it sometime. It might make you feel better,” he said.

Zack frowned and nodded, considering it.

He stood and they shook hands and he left, feeling about a thousand pounds lighter. It was a good feeling. Almost as good of a feeling as waking up beside Lauren this morning. He hoped to be able to wake up beside her every day for the rest of his life, but first things first. He had to get involved in that treatment. He wanted to give Lauren a whole man for a husband. He was a lot closer to that ideal now than he was even a week ago, but she deserved the best. He just didn’t feel at his best yet. He hoped with Ray out of the picture for good, that he could leave her at peace. He picked up the pace as he returned to her place. He wondered what colorful phrases she might throw at him today. Her lively banter kept him on his toes and brightened his life. She truly was a light shining in his dark world. He hoped he could give her half as much as she gave him without even trying. She was perky, spunky, smart, talented, and crazier than a cat on a hot tin roof. Ha! He had to tell her that. She’d love it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I was boundlessly happy today. I felt so free and like the future was made just for me. It had been easily the worst week of my entire life, but was turning out to be the best year of my life to date. And it was all because of my adorable mugger. It was probably for the best that Mama and Daddy were gone. I didn’t think they’d entirely approve of my choice for a future husband, though I thought they would be very pleased if they knew about his Baptist ways. Some might even call him Puritanical. Like me, for example. But that was okay.

These thoughts followed me around as I scrubbed and polished my place to a shining sparkle with my one good hand. I found that using my sling was much more comfortable, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t begun using it as soon as I got home from the hospital.

Brenda showed up about noon.

“Hey girl!” I said brightly.

“Hey yourself,” she said. “Where’s Zack?”

“I kicked him out. He was hovering and it was driving me batty. How’s the lounge doing?” I asked her.

She waved a hand. “Please. You’ve been gone, what? Twelve hours? You haven’t missed a blessed thing,” she said.

I laughed. “You’re right. It’s just that so much happened in that time that it feels like a lifetime ago,” I told her while wiping down my chair legs.

She piled up pillows and sat on my living room floor.

“Pure craziness, Lulu. I can’t even imagine,” Brenda said.

I thought about asking her not to call me that anymore, but I found I didn’t care after all.

“So when are you going to ask me about my relationship with Zack?” I said while rubbing the stubborn paint splotches on my tabletop.

She laughed. “I figured you’d get around to it eventually. What is the story? He’s gorgeous!”

“We’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” I said with a little pride in my voice.

“Well good for you,” she said with genuine happiness. I looked up from my scrubbing and smiled.

“I’ll have to tell you how we met sometime,” I told her with a secret smile. She raised her eyebrow at me, but Zack knocked and came in the door right then.

“My ears were burning,” he announced as he looked from Brenda to me and back. We both busted out laughing.

“I knew it!” he said.

We had a nice chat for half an hour or so, and then it was time for him to get ready for work again. I offered to be a domestic goddess and do his laundry since I didn’t have anything better to do, other than scour the classifieds for a one-armed paper hanger job somewhere.

He left after I gave him a kiss that guaranteed he would wake me up upon his return very early tomorrow morning. I’d already given him a key, so he could just come on in. We were waiting, per his request, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t convince him to make out with me for a while. Especially since he was planning on moving back in with Dave for a short time.

He’d said, “Lauren, this is too hard.”

I pulled away from his firm and sensuous mouth.

“Too hard?” I asked him.

“The kissing and hugging. You know I want to go further, but I’m not budging on it. My grandparents raised me, and it was taught to me from a young age. I can’t do that to my grandparents. So I’m going to stay with Dave,” he lectured.

I pouted and stamped my foot. I was a Southern girl after all. I could work my bottom lip like the want ads.

“Don’t be like that, Lauren,” he whispered and pulled me close. I finagled another few kisses before he pulled away again with a groan. “You’re killing me, here,” he said.

I giggled a little wickedly.

“I know,” I said.

He closed his eyes and put his palm to his forehead.

“You’re an evil, evil child. Spawn of the devil,” he said, teasing me. Only it reminded me of something I still hadn’t told him. Something he needed to know before we made everything really really official. I pulled away this time.

“You better get on to work,” I had told him. He probably sensed something was wrong, but he really did need to scoot, so he touched my cheek.

“We’ll talk more, Sugar,” he said to me, using my own endearment. It sounded even sweeter from his handsome lips.

With my place to myself, I took the time to finish up laundry. In between loads I surfed my phone for job openings. I tried talking to Pete again, but no dice. I found that terribly ironic considering I was one of his hardest workers. He never was very pleasant to work for. Oh well. As Mama used to say, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!

Since I was googling things on the internet, I decided to try and find that treatment protocol that Zack had talked about. He said it was in Bethesda, and that it was something like a six week program involving a strict regimen and slightly unorthodox treatments. I plugged those parameters into the search engine and found the likely candidate. A Dr. Gutierrez.

On a whim, I tried doing a search for something else. If it panned out, it would be a wonderful surprise for Zack! I looked for a good hour, and then I found something so unbelievable, so wonderful…that it had to be Providence. Of course, I had to do my part, but I had every confidence that I could do it. I couldn’t wait to tell Zack about it when he got back. The only thing that dampened my excitement was the cloud hanging over my head that I had to share with him. I didn’t think it would change anything, but I hated talking about it.

I just had to get my courage, that’s all. I decided to get that box out of the recesses of my closet. I hadn’t looked at its contents for a long time, but I’d moved it up here with me.

I had arranged a bunch of my pillows on the living room floor, making a kind of nest for myself, and carefully lifted the lid to my shoebox. My Mama had shoeboxes, hat boxes and coat boxes. She also had a wedding dress box. I just had this shoebox but I sure as shootin’ didn’t have shoes in it.

I took out the stack of faded envelopes with red and blue stripes around the edges of some, and delicately scented pink ones for the others. They were tied with ribbon, and I left them that way and set them aside. The next thing I took out was a yellowed envelope stuffed to bursting with photographs. I took out the stack and settled in to my nest. I stared at each one, occasionally touching a smiling face with my finger. My parents had a passionate relationship. They were completely devoted to each other, but fought like cats and dogs every other day. It seemed like a constant struggle for them to communicate. As kids, Curtis Lee and I would hightail it to the creek out back or climb trees or ride bikes to the duck pond. We didn’t want anything to do with it, and sometimes things got thrown. It was wild. The next thing we knew, Mama and Daddy were hugging and crying and telling us to watch TV while they went to their room and locked the door.

Now that I was grown, I realized what that was about. But at the time, we were just glad they were done shouting at each other. When Daddy was gone at work, Mama would tell us things like, ‘don’t blame your Daddy. Blame the Gulf war. He’s not the same as he was before,’ and she would stare off into space. When I was in high school, I got on the internet and tried to learn about the casualties of the Gulf War and I found that there were less than 300 deaths. I couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Then when I dug deeper, I learned that the deaths were slowly creeping up as injuries sustained during the conflict eventually caught up with the vets. All of that still didn’t explain why Daddy and Mama fought all the time.

I had friends at school whose daddies drank and got mean. My Daddy never did drink. He wasn’t exactly mean, just serious all the time. He taught me how to clean a gun, load it and unload it, break it down and put it back together. He taught me how to defend myself and to not let fear paralyze me. He taught me to listen to my instincts about people too. Ray excluded, I was usually a good judge of people.

I finally started to understand my Daddy when I learned about post-traumatic stress disorder. I read up on the symptoms, and saw so much of my Daddy in those lists. One day at school, I printed out a list and brought it home to Mama and showed her. I thought she would be happy to get some explanation!

Instead, she looked it over and gave it back to me.

“That’s not your Daddy, Sugar,” was what she said, and she turned away and finished up the dishes. I was brought back to the present, and my eyes focused on the photograph in my hand.

My Mama and Daddy posed for the camera with Curtis Lee and me in front of a slightly tilted Christmas tree. We all had smiles. I couldn’t see any of the pain reflected in my parents’ faces. I decided I needed to keep this photo out. And I should call Curtis Lee too. It had been a while. In fact, once I told him about Ray, he would want to fly up here and tan my hide for not asking him for help. I felt terrible. Maybe that would have prevented Ray’s death too.

The more I thought about stuff, the more I felt my spirit sink. There were some other deaths I could have prevented.

Zack’s key rattled in the lock, and he came in, stopping off between jobs. He’d been busing at the sports bar, and he had time to eat and change before he went to Lonely Nights. He must have seen something in my face. He came right over to me and knelt down in front of me.

“You look cozy,” he said softly. He reached a hand and swiped something wet off my face. Had I been crying? “What’s the matter, Lauren?” he asked with concern on his face.

“There’s something I need to tell you, before we go any further,” I said. I watched his face carefully, afraid to see him shut down or pull back or something that could mean the death knell for our fresh relationship. He only looked worried for me, and he grabbed my hand.

“Go ahead,” he said, and sat down to get more comfortable.

“We don’t know that much about each other, do we?” I laughed softly. Suddenly I felt young and naïve and stupid. He shrugged but didn’t say anything. “I mean, I don’t know your parents or if you have any siblings. You’ve only mentioned your friend Dave once or twice but I haven’t met him,” I started in and I found my Southern voice again. “And me. You don’t know me hardly at all. I mean, I have a big brother down in Texas. He builds office buildings and is a really good skeet shooter. Curtis Lee is going to come up here and put me over his knee when he finds out about Ray and how long I let him take advantage of my Southern hospitality,” I said, shaking my head. “I graduated high school with honors, but no college would give me a full ride scholarship for music, and I just got tired of waiting and left home a few years after graduating,” I continued. It was like I was trying to give him my life history in three paragraphs or less. He just nodded and smiled and looked so encouraging that I felt like I could go on. “I mean, I’m impatient and curious and impulsive. And Mama always told me I talked too much and got my nose in people’s business and attracted crazies and strays and I never did do anything right,” I said. I sniffed a little, and realized with horror that I had forgotten to put my face on this morning. At least crying wouldn’t mess up my makeup. “I mean, Mama was always right,” I said, and I started sniffling a little more erratically.

“I used to bring home little stray animals all the time. But not just precious little kittens. I brought home injured ducks, mangy dogs, maimed toads…anything that looked homely and unwanted and required a lot more work than I expected,” I said, looking up at him. He had pulled a wad of tissue out and handed it to me. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes, not in that order, and tried to compose myself. “More than half the time Mama told me to get those dirty creatures out of her house!” I laughed. “Oh, I was a scrapper back then. Didn’t mind getting dirty, got in fights with school kids, just not the daughter Mama wanted, you know?” I continued.

“Everything changed when I was in high school. I started doing some searching on my own, because my parents had these arguments all the time. I thought I had it figured out. I learned about this affliction that military veterans were getting diagnosed with. PTSD,” I said. He nodded. He must have been so curious where I was going with all this, but it was just tumbling out of me so fast, and my momentum was the only thing carrying me to the ugly hard nugget in the middle of everything.

“I did my research, and I just knew I had the answers. I even found the address of a VA clinic about an hour from my little town that Daddy could go to. I brought a printout of the symptoms to my Mama and showed her,” I said. My body started doing those mortifying sucking breaths that were like sobs with hiccups. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, trying to control myself. I felt Zack scooch over to me and sit right by me and put his arm around my shoulders. I was grateful for his support.

“She shoved the paper back at me and told me I was wrong,” I said. By now, the tissue was obliterated, but I used it anyway to try and sop up some tears.

“Three weeks later Curtis Lee and I came home from school to find Mama dead. Daddy shot her and killed himself,” I whispered. All my tears were cried out by now, and I felt like a dried up husk. Plus I was mad at myself because my timing was all wrong. Zack had to get to work. He couldn’t be here trying to fix me all up. “I’m sorry. You have to get to work!” I took deep breaths and wiped my eyes a final time.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said in a deep voice. I shot him a look. He had wet eyes. “Who have you talked to about this?” he asked me.

“Oh there was a round of counselors in high school. Curtis Lee was old enough he could take care of me. We went to therapy for years and finally got a clean bill of health. I tried to transform myself into my Mama too. She was always so put together. That helped me feel connected to her, you know? Trying to put into practice all those things she always tried to teach me.”