Stay Vertical (25 page)

He’d been nothing short of wonderful throughout my whole recovery. He knew instinctively when to back off when I was timid and jittery. Understandably, that whole Iso incident had left me with a sort of post-traumatic stress. It was difficult for me to open up and trust anyone. I even saw a counselor Madison recommended for awhile, a Dr. Petrie. Lytton didn’t push me. I was slowly relaxing with Lytton, but we still had not fucked again. Some teeth still hurt, I had popping and pain in my ear drum, and there was nerve damage. I knew Lytton wouldn’t wait forever. The only good thing—I’d lost a lot of weight due to not eating. Milkshakes get very old after awhile.

Lytton was hotter than ever, and meeting more women than usual in his new position as budtender of The Joint System. It shouldn’t be a shock that some “patients” who come into dispensaries for “medicine” aren’t really ill—they are just recreational users. So Lytton saw many new able-bodied healthy women every day, the fresh-faced idealistic type who wanted to discuss vortexes. While I was feeling vulnerable, unattractive, and disabled with these ugly arch bars on my teeth, Lytton was leaning over the counter having in-depth conversations with pretty, younger girls about the benefits of his home-grown Young Man Blue.

But Lytton claimed to never go to the Racquet Club in Flagstaff, that Master Hawk was dead and buried. In fact, he’d disassembled his playroom at the Leaves of Grass ranch. He’d bought ten acres much farther down the mountain where he already had architectural drawings for a new house. There hadn’t been any talk of me sharing the house—the old house would remain as offices for the Leaves of Grass, but even Toby didn’t want to live there after what had happened. Toby would be coming to the new house, too.

So in a way, although Lytton gave me no reason to doubt him, I felt insecure. I couldn’t give Lytton blowjobs, and everyone knows blowjobs are ninety-five percent of men’s reason for living.

Now I told Emma, “Would you dump Paul if you could get Bobo Segrist to dance the mattress jig with you?”

Emma giggled behind her hand. “You think he’d want me? I’m so much squarer than these sugarbutts.” But since just hearing “dance the mattress jig” was causing Emma conniption fits, I doubted she would.

“Sweetbutts.” There were only a few sweetbutts at my party because old ladies were also invited. Old ladies, historically speaking, didn’t like to see the chicks their old men were probably fucking. “Sure, Bobo would give you a hot roll with cream.” I was getting all of these terrible euphemisms from Toby. He
wished
he could park his yacht in Hair Harbor. Although lately he’d been getting a lot more action due to being a hang-around of The Bare Bones.

“I don’t know,” said Emma. “Lately I’ve been sort of bored with Paul. All we do is watch TV, and then I see you guys. Every night of your life is some death-defying excursion, some exciting run. That, or you’re going on Toys for Tots runs, doing good for the community, teaching archery to Boy Scouts.”

“Emma,” said Ford, grabbing a chair and slamming it down between me and Emma. “Good to see you. I’ll see you at the policeman’s dinner next week? You’ll be with Paul Goodhue?”

Emma visibly deflated. “Yeah,” she said unenthusiastically. She worked at City Hall too, so she’d been seeing Ford at the policeman’s function for years. “I’ll see you and Madison there.”

Ford said, “And Lytton and June. Right, June?”

“Oh, sure.” Lytton hadn’t actually asked me yet, but I didn’t want to admit that to Ford.

Ford’s tone changed now. “And how’s your mom doing? I should go visit her at the hospice.”

“Don’t bother. It’s spread to her lungs and peritoneal cavity. It’s metastatic, and we’ve stopped chemotherapy.”

Once Ford had found out that Ingrid had pancreatic cancer and we’d moved her from the drug addict hospice to the more expensive, nicer one, he stepped up to the plate too. He actually got mad at Madison for not telling him that Ingrid needed money. He said he would’ve stepped up a lot sooner even if it meant going against Madison’s wishes. Maddy was the holdout, the embittered one holding the massive grudge against Ingrid for how she’d treated us.

I was a believer in the adage, “Your parents make you what you are, but it’s up to you to change it.” I tried not to carry on a vendetta against our mother. People say “oh, she tried, to the best of her ability,” but that wasn’t true. Ingrid truly didn’t “try.” If she had “tried,” she would have reigned in her awful, nasty temper. She wouldn’t have beaten us for tiny infractions. Most of all, she would have found a way to provide for the three children she’d brought into the world. Nobody had forced her to have us. There is such a thing as birth control. She made us all feel as though we weren’t worth a damn.

But I didn’t want to regret anything when it was too late. So maybe it
was
still selfish that I moved her to the nicer facility and let Ford and Lytton split the bill. Maybe it was their way of feeling better about their own mothers, both drug addicted alcoholics from the same tribe who might have even known each other. It certainly had given the two brothers something to bond over. I was really relishing their new friendship.

“I still want to go. I’ll go tomorrow with Maddy on her day off.”

“Oh, Maddy wants to go?”

Ford grinned adorably. “She does. She just doesn’t know it yet. How is it working up at Leaves of Grass? Driving Hawk paying you a decent salary?”

“More than the Peace Corps paid.” Helium Head had actually been the hydraulic engineer, taking care of the watering, irrigation, and the recycling for all the plants. It was a hell of a way for me to get my job. It might sound weird or callous, but I just took over his duties seamlessly. I worked with Toby and Crybaby, the cultivator, but was rarely stuck working with Lytton since he was spending most of his time downtown at the dispensary. It worked out perfectly.

I’ve never understood those couples who delight in working together. Don’t they get sick of each other? I was glad I didn’t have to work with Lytton, and at the end of the day it was a gorgeous drive down the mountain where I could stop and see him at The Joint System. Sometimes we’d go to The Hip Quiver, where Lytton was brushing up on his nerdy high school sport of archery. He was even helping Kneecap out by teaching some kids. I couldn’t shoot due to my facial injuries, but I hoped to, soon. And Lytton usually brought some edibles to Slushy in the range’s back office.

“Well, I’ll tell you, June. I don’t blame you for moving into Lytton’s new house, but I’ll sure miss you around ours.”

I was confused. Lytton hadn’t said a word to me about moving into his new house. Ford must’ve just assumed that. “Oh, well, he’s barely laid the foundation so far. It’ll still be a few months.” It had kind of been bothering me that Lytton hadn’t asked me to move in. I thought it had something to do with how ugly I looked with the scary metal arch bars on my teeth. I knew I should give him credit for deeper feelings than that. After all, he’d given me a gorgeous diamond and garnet choker to replace the plain leather cuff he’d given me on the spur of the moment. This signaled his ownership of me. I was his property.

“I know,” said Ford. “I just don’t get to talk to you much. I wanted to let you know how much we’ve appreciated having you around, taking care of Fidelia so we can go out and relax. Uh-oh. Speaking of.” Ford looked over my shoulder toward the front door, his face lit up, raising his beer can. “Hey, Prospect! Get me a cold beer!”

This prompted a whole round of men raising their cans and yelling, “Prospect!”

“Another Bud!”

“We need more chips over here!”

“My ride is dirty. I need it washed!”

“There’s no toilet paper in the bathroom!”

The catcalls became grosser and baser, things like, “Yeah, the toilet’s plugged up! August had a double serving of Bobo’s chili!” and “Some hang-around puked in the back hallway, clean it up!”

Lytton bore this all stoically for the honor of being allowed to wear a cut with the Bare Bones rocker. He had decided to join his brother’s club with his sponsorship, but as predicted, he had to start at the bottom like everyone else had once upon a time. I had to admit, he looked hella smoking hot in the cut, usually wearing it over his white wifebeater. With that stylized eagle draped over his shoulder, his sleepy, dark-lined eyes, and his lush mane of hair, I’d never seen a man I wanted as much.

Another Prospect, Kneecap, got up from his table and took Lytton’s arm. “It’s okay, Driving Hawk. Today’s your old lady’s party. I’ll get them their beers.”

“And clean up the puke?” Lytton asked.

Kneecap said, “Oh, I think the puke’s fictional.”

“Says who?” quipped Ford, and everyone roared with glee, including Lytton. He really was being a good sport about the whole thing, especially for a guy whose complete title was Dr. Driving Hawk, PhD. This doctor washed brother’s bikes, fetched their coffee, and stood in line for them, and he bore it all very well. Of course, nobody really took advantage of the situation, knowing Lytton was the President’s brother, and grew the ever-popular marijuana that was making The Joint System the richest dispensary in Arizona.

Lytton reached down a hand for me. “I’d like a few minutes alone with the party girl.”

The catcalls were different now, ranging from,

“Get a wet one, Driving Hawk!” to

“Do a squeeze and a squirt!” and

“Put your tool in her shed, Lyt!” That one, of course, was Toby.

I was getting used to shit like this, though, and I knew I looked hotter than I had in months as I headed toward the back rooms, rocking my leathers. If ever there was a time to wear them, it was today, the day I got those damned arch bars off and started feeling good about myself again.

Lytton took me to one of the back rooms. I presumed this had been a patch member’s room in the old days when he told me,

“This was Ford’s little cubicle before he hooked up with your sister. Look. Corny poster.”

“Some things never change,” I said, nodding at the AC/DC poster behind some boxes of ketchup and mustard packs.

But he didn’t laugh as heavily as he could have at the embarrassing poster, so I knew something was up. This put me on the defensive, especially when he backed me up against the wall, running one forearm against it next to my head. When he covered me like this with his tall, lanky body, I always felt smaller, more feminine and helpless.

He tipped my chin up so I had to look him in the eyes. “Little June bug,” he said seriously. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but I know you haven’t been feeling well, with those grills all over your teeth.”

“To say the least.” I smiled widely. I liked smiling now that I wouldn’t blind him with my metallic chompers.

He brushed a butterfly kiss to my forehead. “Little one, you know that I don’t care where this road is leading, as long as I’m riding with you.”

He had said that a few times before. I figured he’d gotten it from a coffee cup. “Yes.”

“Well, I hope to fucking hell you feel the same. Together we’re growing the best damned medicine Arizona has ever seen, and we’re not poisoning anyone with pesticides, and we’re mellowing people out, one toke at a time.”

“Oh, yes.” It was such a great feeling to once again be working for a venture I could completely get behind morally. It was just icing on the cake that it was also making us some serious Benjamins.

“I was running around with a chip on my shoulder, bitter as hell, feeling misunderstood, an outcast, a renegade, until I met you. Only now is everything coming together, making sense. Little one, now I’ve got
family
for the first time in my life. I had Toby and Helium Head before, but now I’ve got you, Ford, Madison, Speed, Turk, all my new brothers and sisters. I’ve got you to thank for that. I finally fit in somewhere. I’m not destined to roam the planet as some disgraced fallen rebel.”

During the last part of this lovely speech, he reached into a pocket of his cut. Blood practically curdled in my veins when I realized what he was up to.

I mean, it’s something a girl looks forward to her entire life. And I never wanted it more than I wanted it with Lytton. But it’s such a major life’s decision, such a shock to the system, such a change to the status quo.
I was terrified
when he took that ring box out, and I barely glanced at the chocolate diamond—framed with, as it turned out, deep rich rubies. The room started actually spinning and I think it was only later that I pieced together what he must’ve said.

“June Shellmound. You are the love of my life. I want to be here for you through thick and thin, to be your rock, your savior, your support. I want to obey you as much as I want you to obey me. I want to ride, eat, and sleep with you. We’re never going to stop riding when we get old together. It takes more love to share the saddle than to share the bed, and we’ve got both in spades. June Shellmound, would you do me the honor of becoming June Driving Hawk?”

I was so aghast, I actually forget the next few minutes. I heard words and remember Lytton’s blurry face, and he put some ring onto my finger so I must’ve said yes. But damn, I was in such shock I was probably on the verge of fainting like a Victorian lady.

“
Mungu moja
,” I whispered.
One God.