Rock Her (7 page)

“True,” Annie said. “But like I said, I am famished.”

We could eat each other
,
Kip thought.

“
Alrighty
then,” Kip said spinning
around on the street, looking around him. Then he spied the fix. “Come with
me?” He did not wait for an answer. He grabbed Annie’s hand and led her out
into traffic, which was pretty much standing still anyway, and across the
street. He pulled her into a boutique.

When they walked back out onto the busy walk a half an hour
later Annie was carrying her skirt, top and panties, bra and shoes in a canvas
bag with the words
Monshelle’s
Boutique on it. She
was now wearing a black backless dress with spaghetti straps that looked too
thin and weak to keep her chest covered in a strong wind. Luckily the weather
had lightened up. The dress was short, and she pulled it down when she stepped
onto the concrete. The thing barely covered the curves of her perfect heart
shaped ass. Kip saw her adjust the dress and saw a lot more flesh than he’d
expected. He looked closer. Then he stepped up beside her and threw his arm
around her, steadying her on the uneven pavement as she struggled slightly in
her new heels.

“So, you couldn’t find any panties that you liked?” He asked,
grinning.

Annie spoke without turning her head toward him. “I didn’t look
for any.”

Annie sat on the sofa while Kip disappeared in the bedroom. She
kicked her feet up on the coffee table and twisted her feet back and forth,
admiring her new shoes. Then she looked down at her dress. She realized that
everything on her body had set Kip back thirteen hundred dollars. The panties,
if she had bought them, would have put the bill at just over fourteen hundred.
She smiled at the thought. Her ex was an attorney, but not a good one. And her
work as a freelancer didn’t bring in much income. They had lived beyond their
means since the day they were married, and they didn’t live that well. She
could not imagine coming home with over thirteen hundred
dollars
worth
of clothes. The thought of it made her giddy.

Just then the door burst open and Jack barged in. His large
frame filling the doorway before it closed behind him. He bounced over to
Annie, who realized that the way she was sitting was giving Jack a great view,
which would explain the way his eyes were glued to her thighs. She adjusted.

“Hello Jack, come on in.” Annie smiled.

Jacks eyes finally met hers, having had trouble pulling up from
her short skirt. “
Hiya
, Annie. Uh, where’s Kip?” He
looked around the room, then at the open door to his room. He started to walk
that way. “Kip!” he yelled out.

“I hear you Jacky, I hear you. The whole God damned floor of
the hotel can hear you,” sounded Kip’s voice from the room beyond.

“Yeah, well, I have some pretty amazing news. It’s worth
shouting about.” Jack said. He stopped just before entering Kip’s room.

“Alright, let’s have it then,” Kip said. “But if it’s about a
party, Annie and I aren’t coming. We have a date.”

Jack turned around and looked at Annie still sitting on the
couch. She shrugged and pulled her lips back into a smile.

“A date? Like a dinner and a movie kind of thing?” Jack asked.

Kip finally emerged from the room, he was wearing a suit.
Jacket and tie and all. His hair was slicked back, and he was holding a towel
to his neck, letting it suck up the blood from the nick he’d left there while
shaving.

“Yeah, Jacky, Like I said. A date.” He threw the towel over to
jack so that it would fall over his head. Jack pulled it off and started
spinning it in his hand, attempting to make it a weapon.

“And we’re about to be off” Kip held out his hand to Annie to
pull her to her feet. “So, what’s the big news?”

Jack turned away from them slowly and let his head fall in mock
rejection. “Well, if you’re about to be off and all, I guess it can wait until
tomorrow or the next day,” he said.

Kip shrugged and put his arm around Annie, leading her to the
door. “Okay, then.”

Jack spun around, “Hold on! Hold on! I was kidding. This really
is big news. You’re going to want to hear this.”

“Alright then Jacky, let’s hear it. Like I said, we really are
leaving. So spit it out.”

“Kip, I just took a message for you from Lydell,” Jack said.

Kip looked at Annie and explained who Lydell was. “Our manager.
He’s in California.” Annie nodded.

“The USO has asked us to do a concert in Afghanistan for the
troops that are still there,” Jack continued.

Kip was taken aback.
Back
to the
suckiness
, he thought. He didn’t smile or
react in any way. His face remained like stone. He was thinking.

“Cool, huh?” Jack said, smiling, trying to gauge Kip’s lack of
reaction. “I mean, I know how patriotic you are. I knew you’d love the idea.”

Finally Kip’s mind came back into the room with the others.
“What did you tell Lydell?”

“Well, it’s your band, Kip. I told him I would have to run it
by you. But I did say that I thought you’d be onboard.”

Kip looked down at his feet, then over to Annie. “You ready to
go?” he said.

Annie nodded but looked concerned. She wondered why Kip was not
as happy about the prospect as she would have thought. Or as Jack would have
thought. Again, there was a lot going on inside Kip that almost no one was
privy to. She wished she had her notebook right now.

Kip took Annie’s hand and they headed for the door.

“Kip?” Jack said.

Kip turned his head over his shoulder back toward Jack. “We’ll
talk about it in the morning.”

“But Kip, we’re kind of on a tight time frame here. If we
agree, we have to leave by the weekend.”

Kip stopped and turned to him. He scratched his head. Bombs
were going off inside there. What a strange dilemma he was just put into. He
wanted to honor the troops. He was always telling the band and his fans to
honor them. But to return to Afghanistan was something he had never considered
doing. He left so much of himself back there and he had never intended to
return to retrieve it. He woke up in bed sometimes even still screaming in pain
at the torture he was subjected to. And that was in the relative safety of
America. He wasn’t sure of returning to Afghanistan would be conducive to his
mental health. He looked at Jack.

“Stage? Hardware?” He asked.

Jack nodded. “All arranged already by Lydell,” he said. Kip
scratched his head again. Annie was watching him with intense curiosity, but
had resigned herself to not ask any questions just yet while Kip struggled with
whatever battle was obviously playing out inside his head.

“All we have to do is say the word, Kip,” Jack added.

“Lock and Stabbs?” Kip asked again.

“They are more excited about it than I am,” Jack said. “Lock
just called one of the Becky’s over to celebrate.”

Kip nodded. “Call Lydell. Give the go ahead,” he said.

Jack smiled big teeth. “I think he’d like to hear from you,
Kip.”

Kip looked at Annie and took her hand again. “I’m busy. If he
wants me to, tell him I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Okay Kip.” Jack said as Kip and Annie pulled the door open and
headed to the hall. “Uh, you two have a nice night now. And don’t do anything I
wouldn’t do.”

“Jacky, Satan himself would puke at the thought of doing half
the shit you have done!” Kip yelled back into the room before he pulled the
door closed behind him.

Cimiani’s
was an Italian restaurant
known for its great food, but even better known for its great views. Kip sat
with his back to the curved glass so that Annie would have the window view as
the restaurant rotated around the rooftop. Manhattan slowly rolled by behind kip.
The lights of the city glowed with life until they disappeared to the left and
the darkness of the harbor filled the window. Occasionally small flashes of
activity would twinkle on the surface of the water below, betraying presence of
ships and barges carrying people and cargo from one shore to another.

The curvy waitress had just brought their meals and Kip was
cutting into his steak while it still sizzled on his plate. The beef here was
aged 13 weeks and fired over hickory fueled flames. The restaurant was
consistently voted the best steakhouse in the city.

Annie cut her steak and stacked the morsel with deep fried
mushrooms. Before she took a bite she eyed Kip. “You’d think a place like this
would require reservations,” she said.

Kip paused with his fork just inches from his mouth. “You’d
think, huh?” he said then he shoveled in the bite. Annie held her fork with the
steak at her mouth

“So, Kip, you know I have to ask,” Annie said. Kip sat back in
his chair, savoring the flavor of the beef. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Why the hesitation about going to Afghanistan?” Annie asked.
“With that speech you gave me on the helicopter today, I would have thought you
would have jumped at the chance to go sing for the troops.”

Kip leaned forward and sawed at another slice of steak. “I
would have. I just, I just have issues with going back,” Kip said, raising his
eyes to her.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

Kip took another bite and leaned back again. “Are you going to
eat your steak? It’s delicious. Once you’ve eaten it, no other steak will every
compare, trust me.”

Annie plopped the steak into her mouth and closed her eyes. The
flavor was unexpected. This truly was the best steak she had ever eaten. Kip
smiled and raised his eyebrows at her, nodding. “Did I not tell you?”

“You’re right again, Kip,” Annie said between chews, slightly
embarrassed about talking with her mouth full in a place as classy as this.
Then Kip’s features darkened and he became serious.

“I was on a mission and it went south. Four of my friends, two
of them I went to boot camp with, were killed. I was hit several times with
AK47 rounds. When I came to I was in the basement of an old warehouse with
bandages wrapped around me and tied to a bedspring mattress. All of the
covering had been ripped off. The metal was stabbing me in the back. Later I
learned I had been there unconscious for 6 weeks before I came to. But then I
had no idea how long. I was bleeding all over my body from where the rusty
springs had pierced me.”

Kip raised his arms to demonstrate where, even though his shirt
covered him. His fists were clenched tight.

“It’s why I have the tattoos on my back and arms, to hide the
scars. Just like with the tattoos of bullets to hide my gunshot wounds.” Annie
nodded in understanding.

“Anyway, when I came to a doctor was there. He had been
treating me, trying to save my life.” Annie nodded.

“No, he wasn’t a good guy. He was keeping me alive because my
captors wanted information from me. He was no humanitarian. Shortly after I
woke, he was helping them to torture me. In some of my more sane moments when I
wasn’t being tortured I called him ‘Kevorkian’.

Anyway, I was kept there for 3 months. I would not speak to the
animals. Finally, they gave up torturing me and left me to rot strapped to that
bedspring. I was left there for about 5 days. No one came in; no one gave me
food or water. They just left me to die, I thought. I had beaten them. I was
giddy at the thought of it. I remember laughing there in the dark like a crazy
man. Oh, I knew I was going to die, but I was in so much pain by then I was
welcoming it. But I was happy that I had withstood the test. I had beaten them
for sure. They never got a scrap of information from me other than my serial
number.”

“Then, in the middle of one of my maniacal moments, the door to
the basement opened and four ragheads came down and unstrapped me from my wire
prison. They dragged me upstairs and shoved me to the floor on white sheets.
When I looked around I saw that I was in front of a camera on a tripod.
Kevorkian was behind it and running it. Then the four men and another man who
wore a hood gathered behind me and they started speaking into the camera in
Arabic. I had no idea what they were saying, but I knew that I was about to be
killed on video. Kevorkian, the doctor, was just watching. Aren’t doctors
supposed to help people?”

“Anyway, now you see my problem with going to see the doctor
about my deep cut from the bullet?”

“I understand,” Annie said, half in tears at hearing his story.

“So, the hooded guy, who I assumed was the guy in charge,
finished his speech to the camera and came up behind me. Kevorkian stepped from
behind the camera and handed him a scimitar, that’s a long ceremonial sword and
was about to cut my throat, behead me.”

“Just then, flash bangs went off and then building filled with
smoke. I was knocked unconscious again. When I came to Navy Seals were standing
over me and the four men who had dragged me up from the basement and the hooded
lunatic were lying around me, dead. But the doctor wasn’t there. He had gotten
away in the firefight. Believe it or not, I was wounded in that firefight too.”
He pointed to a spot on his right shoulder.

Annie sat there with her fork halfway to her face. This was the
best steak she had ever tasted and she could not bring herself to put it in her
mouth. Her eyes were welled up and her beautiful mouth hung open.

“My God, Kip. I never knew!”

“Of course not. That’s because I don’t like talking about it.
And it’s why I have some reservation about going back to Afghanistan.” Kip took
another bite.

“I know things are different there now, and I am not longer in
the service so I am not going to be in action. But I’ve got real hang-ups about
that day. I was never afraid to die when I was in combat. I was a real John
Wayne. I did some crazy shit over there. Stuff that wasn’t by the book. Risky
stuff. But when I was kneeled before that camera and they were about to
separate my head from my shoulders, well, that was a totally different feeling.
Remember the helplessness feeling I was trying to explain today on the
helicopter?”