The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (7 page)

Throat cancer took Red about a year and a half ago, and his family sold the place pretty quickly.

To a woman.

Nothing wrong with that in principle, Marc knew. But this was Grayson. It was Marc’s place. Hell, it was the place for a lot of blue-collar types like Marc who wanted to relax and drink where they didn’t have to be too concerned with who they might offend.

Worse, the clientele took a turn for the younger when the woman—Kelsie or Karly or some other horrible, cutesy, sorority-princess name—took over.

Still, Marc had nowhere else to go. He could sit at the bar and drink the same beer Red used to serve and watch sports on the TV hanging in the corner and willfully ignore the shrill, over-loud voices of the kids and their dart games and pinball. He could be alone in this crowd.

At least there wasn’t any live music this Friday night. Even though the jukebox was loud enough to raise Christ, he’d gotten real good at blocking out most of the new-wave shit the punks paid to hear, and every now and then someone would drop a quarter for REO Speedwagon or Loverboy or Pat Benetar or something Marc could appreciate.

Bottom line, even with the kids and the yuppies and the goddamn woman behind the bar when it should be Red Grayson and the name should also be Grayson…

It still beat the shit out of sitting at home.

A man’s home was his castle. Yeah, it was corny, but it was true, too. When Marc was growing up, his pop ruled over his castle, that was for damn sure. Marc had done his best to follow suit, keeping on Byron’s ass and making sure Jeri kept the house up, and if either of them fell short, well, Marc didn’t let that shit slide.

If he did…well, Marc could almost hear the old man’s voice, riding him. It sure as hell wasn’t too difficult to call up any of the times he’d taken the belt to Marc’s ass.

Now, though…with Byron gone, there wasn’t much of a house for Marc to be master of.

He reflected, for the millionth time, that he was running out of things he
could
control. They’d been pulling responsibilities from him at the distribution center where he worked, little by little, citing “all you’re going through,” but Marc didn’t need their fake kindness. He knew his fight with the Sovereigns was a distraction.

His so-called friends sure thought so. He didn’t even bother calling Vic or Sam or anybody. Over the last eleven months, they’d all gradually gotten too busy to come down to Grayson and have a beer with ol’ Marc.

He knew what that was.

On this barstool, he could at least pretend things were still the way they were supposed to be. In fact, if he stopped coming here, that would be like giving in to the whole fucking mess the last year had been.

On the TV, a promo for the eleven o’clock news played. Marc couldn’t hear what the anchorman was saying.

Then Marc saw his own face, livid, blotched and red, followed a split second later by fucking Nathan Charters
growling
at him.

Apparently they would be running something about
The Azarrio Show
on the news that night. Like that was really news.

“Hey! That was you!”

Marc had not registered the presence of the kid on the next barstool. He looked at him now: clean cut, smooth-faced, wearing a light blue suit coat over a pale pink dress shirt. The guy’s tie was loose around his neck.

Fucking yuppie.

The game was back on the TV. Marc focused on it.

The kid yelled cheerfully in Marc’s ear. “You’re that Tekonski guy!”

No escape. Not even here. Not anymore.

“The name,” Marc growled, his eyes on the television, “is Teslowski.”

“Yeah! Teslowski! Dude!” Marc peripherally sensed the kid turning on his stool. “Shane! C’mere!”

Another off-duty day trader fresh out of business school crowded up on the far side of the first guy, who slapped the bar very close to Marc’s hand.

“Check it out! You know who this is?”

Marc said, “I’m trying to watch the game. You mind?”

Shane gawked at him. “Whoa! You’re that Sovereign kid’s dad! Check it out!”

Marc turned to face them both. He stood up.

“My boy is not a Sovereign.”

The yuppies grinned at each other. The first one nodded up at Marc, all casual, baby-practice intimidation.

“Sure, man. Sure.”

They laughed at him.

They.

Laughed at him.

In
his place
.

It didn’t take a thought. It didn’t take a second. Marc slapped his open palm against the back of the seated kid’s neck and shoved it firmly against the bar. Condensation splashed.

“The fuck?” Shane yelped. The first yuppie flailed. Marc applied pressure.

“My kid,” he said, louder, “is not a fucking Sovereign, you little shit!”

The new owner, Kristy or Karly or what the fuck ever, sauntered over behind the bar.

“Marc,” she said. For a tiny moment, he didn’t understand how in the hell she would know his name. Then he realized how stupid that was. He was on the damn news, all the time. Who didn’t know his name?

“My kid,” he said to her, “is not a Sovereign.”

“I don’t give a shit, Marc,” she said. “You gotta let this man go, and get out of my place.”

One of her workers, a big dyke, flanked her. She held a serving tray like it was a discus. Marc could see she’d love him to give her an excuse to do something.

The little shit under his hand pushed against the bar with both hands. Marc increased his pressure. He might not be in the best shape of his life, but he was still stronger than this white-collar maggot. “C’mon, man!”

The crowd behind Marc—no doubt all buddies of the sniveling little fuck—started shouting shit at him.

The dyke looked at her boss. “Say the word, Christine.”

She held up her hand, restraining her employee. “Make it easy, Marc,” she said.

“Fuckin’ come outside with us, old man,” Shane said to him.

“Nope,” Christine said. “You will not.” She said to Marc, “C’mon. Just today.”

Marc felt the kid pushing hard against him. When Marc let go, all that force sent the kid backwards off the stool and onto his ass.

“Fuck you,” Marc said to the kid. “Fuck you,” he said to Shane. He looked at the women behind the bar. “Fuck you, too.”

He muscled his way through the crowd and burst out the door. The night air was jarringly cold compared to the crowded heat inside. Marc was chilled by his own sweat.

He heard them laughing inside.

He thought of the guy in the audience during
The Azarrio Show
. That fuck had been laughing at him, too. He wasn’t obvious about it, but it was clear enough.

They thought he was a joke.

The world thought he was a joke. An item of interest on the eleven o’clock news. An old man being disrespected by a little fucking monster and sitting there and taking it.

Taking it.

The Sovereign—starting with that smug fuck, William Donner—had spent the last year laughing at him.

No wonder his friends wouldn’t talk to him. And Jesus, if his pop was still alive, grown man or not, Marc would have deserved the belt. He’d bend right over. Fuck it. No more.

No more.

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Eight

Lina didn’t take any of my five calls on Saturday. On the fifth, her dad told me to “Relax, Nate. Give it a day or two for her to get done being mad at you for whatever you’re in the doghouse for.” He paused, then said in the same bemused tone, “You didn’t do anything too stupid, did you…?”

Debatable.

“No sir. Thanks.”

My mother took advantage of my apparently open schedule to hold me to our “celebratory” dinner. It wasn’t much fun for either of us. I was too distracted by the Lina stuff, and I think whatever rush my mother had felt from the television show had faded. We didn’t order dessert. At least she let me drive the car to the restaurant.

We got home in one piece, and I retreated to my bedroom. It felt sort of poetically appropriate to put on the new Hüsker Dü record Car had loaned me, given how tangled up we all were. I put on my headphones, turned out the lights, lay on my bed, and let it spin, hoping I could turn my brain off for forty-five minutes.

That didn’t work so well. Pretty much every song on the damn record might as well have been written for my life. I put myself through it anyway, even getting up to flip the record over after “Too Far Down.”

Maybe I felt like I deserved it. By the time the mournful piano of “No Promise Have I Made” came around, I had tears on my face.

One more song, and the record was done, and so was I. I pulled the headphones off my head and spaced out, staring at the maps on the wall over my desk for a few minutes.

I’d had a thing for maps as soon as I’d been old enough to understand what they were. The idea that I could look at a piece of paper, a drawing, and see places far away from what I knew, far away from what I had to deal with day in and day out, was a powerful distraction.

It didn’t do much for me that night. Maps represented all the people in all those places, too. In one of those places, somewhere in one of those little dots, was Eric Finn. Somewhere else, probably not far away, was Lina Porter. And too far away from her…was me.

Eventually, I fell asleep on top of my bedspread.

My head wasn’t in any better place Sunday morning. I tried to take Graham Porter’s advice and not bother his daughter. The whole thing was driving me buggy, though. I had to talk to somebody about it.

So I called a conference with Mel and Jason, my closest and oldest friends. As usual, we convened in Mel’s bedroom, where they were already waiting for me when I arrived.

Mel’s bedroom had all the same stuff on the walls—framed Disneyland prints, album jackets, and a giant foamcore Duran Duran display he’d managed to finagle from Pinnacle Records—but I felt a little out of place there. I realized it had been a month, at least, since the three of us had hung out.

“Nathan!” Mel and I clasped hands. I noticed he’d shaved the wispy chin-hairs he’d been sporting, but seemed to be cultivating something on his upper lip. He smiled but seemed a little on edge to me. “We haven’t seen you in a while, good sir.” He glanced at my hair. “What’s with the leopard spots?”

I ran my hand over the dye job on my short hair. “I dunno. Just something to do.”

Jason and I shook. “It’s boss, dude.” I was relieved to see his own snaggle-toothed grin was as cheerfully unburdened as always. “You been pretty busy hanging out with the big kids, I guess, huh?” He punched me in the shoulder, a tap.

I laughed. “I know, I know. It’s been weird since I got on independent study. Makes it harder to see you guys.”

Mel nodded. “It’s a long walk between our houses, that’s for sure.”

We lived two blocks apart.

“Uh…yeah.” I didn’t need to be hassled, not now. Not today. I needed their help.

Jason shrugged and ran his thumb and index finger across his own bushy blonde mustache. “Hey, everybody’s busy. Y’know, doing homework, ditching class…being on TV shows…”

“Ugh.” I grinned. “Did you watch that horrible thing? I’m trying to forget it even happened.”

“Dude. I watched it, then it was on the news that night, too.”

“National news, that is.” Mel gave me a pointed look.

“What?” This wasn’t good. “Why?” My profile was high enough as it was.

Mel sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the four milk crates holding his record collection. “Who knows? Slow news day?” He looked up at me. “Whose idea was that fiasco, anyway?” This time, his smile carried some genuine sympathy.

“The lawyers,” I said. “My mother. The Sovereigns, I guess. I don’t think it did any of us any good—me or Byron’s folks.”

“Is that why you called us?” Jason asked.

I sighed and sat down on the edge of Mel’s bed. “No.”

“Hold on.” Mel put the Golden Palominos on his record player to cover our conversation and keep his little sister from her occasional eavesdropping from the other side of the closed bedroom door. He held up an index finger until the dude from R.E.M. started singing. “Okay, boy. Go.”

I mustered a small smile to acknowledge his pun on the first song. I sighed again and looked at my two best friends while Mel bounced down his bed.

“I…found something out about Lina.”

Jason’s jaw dropped. “No fuckin’ way. She’s cheating on you!”

I frowned. “Way to go right to the worst possible thing, ever, Jase.”

“Well, she’s always hanging out with that Sting wannabe…I dunno…”

Carson. Jesus.

“It’s not that,” I cut him off. “It’s something that happened a while ago. Before we knew her.”

“What?” Mel’s dark eyes were steady on me.

“Okay.” Another deep breath for me. “Okay, this is pretty shitty, and it’s…okay, look. She was almost raped.”

“Dude!” Jason barked.

“Almost…?” Mel would have looked calm to Jason, but I could smell his skin pop with a burst of adrenaline and testosterone.

“Yeah. I guess this guy came really close—she was all wasted or whatever—but Crystal Dubois pulled him off of her.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck yeah, fuck,” Jason echoed.

Mel scratched at his chin like he expected to find his old scraggly beard there. “So…what happened?”

“Nothing.” I chewed on the insides of my cheeks and exhaled through my nose. “That’s the problem. That’s why I needed to see you guys. Get your opinion.”

Mel shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“I mean, nothing. The guy who did it didn’t get in any trouble,” I said. “He’s still out there. He got away with it.”

“Lina didn’t, like, press charges?” Jason looked indignant.

“Nope.”

“Why the fuck not?”

I closed my eyes and struggled with what to tell these guys, how much to share. I shook my head, shrugged.

“There’s…stuff. It happened pretty much right when Car’s parents were killed. The plane crash. That kinda overshadowed everything else.”

Mel’s lips puckered, and he blew air. He never did learn to whistle. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Jason stared into space for a second before looking at me. “So—who is this asshole?”