Wild Ride (2 page)

Matt took off running full speed and slammed into Chuck’s side and they both went down.  What was he thinking?  Matt was half his size!  She pulled herself up using the arms of the chair to better see them in the grass, just in time to see Ben dive on top of the two of them. 

The boys started laughing and Ben squealed with delight when Chuck dropped the ball on purpose and then attempted to scramble toward it with both boys hanging on his back and side.

“It’s a fumble!” Chuck yelled.

Matt clambered over top of Chuck and grabbed the ball and wrapped his body around it holding it to his stomach.

“It’s
a turn over!” Chuck yelled.

Matt stood up with the ball held over his head and began to dance around like a chicken.  Chuck stood up holding Ben under
one arm as though he were a rolled up rug that weighed nothing and then held his fist out to Matt.

“Nice!” Chuck said
laughing.

Matt slowly made a fist and then bumped his fist against Chuck’s bigger one.  Then
Chuck sat Ben on his feet and released him.  Ben began jumping around in his excitement and then stopped and held his fist up to Chuck.  “Do mine!” he yelled.

Chuck bumped fists with Ben as well and then asked
, “One more time?”  They both nodded and then Chuck said, “Ok, but this time Ben’s quarterback and you’re the receiver, Matt.”

Chuck and Ben walked back over to where they had started from the first time and then Chuck hunched down on his knees next to Ben.  He showed Ben the football and then how to hold it. 

Ben tried to throw the ball and it barely went anywhere.  Chuck stood to retrieve the ball, and then came back to where Ben stood and knelt down again. 

This time he helped Ben throw the football and she was surprised when Matt caught it and then took off running
toward the fence.  Chuck caught up with Matt in several long strides and picked him up in both arms and then tumbled to the grass so that Matt landed on top of him.  Then he released Matt just in time to catch Ben who jumped head first on top of them both.

The boys were laughing and yelling…
and having fun.
They all stood up and brushed themselves off.  Then Chuck handed Ben the football and picked him up and slung him over one shoulder as they all headed toward the door.  She dropped the curtain but not before watching Chuck’s gaze fall on her window yet again.

She wheeled herself back over to the bed
.  After locking the wheels of the chair Meredith carefully stood and then pulled herself up on to the bed.  She heard the back door open as the group entered and headed to the kitchen.

“I need a drink
, Chuck!” Ben yelled.

“Ok
!” Chuck yelled back.

Both boys began giggling and then their voices died down and she could hear them
stomping around in the kitchen and water running.  After they had acquired their drinks she heard the refrigerator door open and some shuffling of food.

“You like these things?”
she heard Chuck ask in doubt.

“They are ok.  Mom gets them because they are easy to make in the microwave
,” Matt replied.

“Is that what you
want
to eat or do you want to help me make something else?” Chuck asked.

“Like what?” Matt asked
.

“Well show me where the rest of the food is and we’ll see what options we have besides
that,
” Chuck replied.

If they
make a mess, Mom will have a fit.
  She listened as cupboard doors were opened and closed.  The sounds of pots and pans banging around filtered up to where she lay. 

He should just follow the menu
, especially if the boys were going to be helping.  She nearly yelled out that very thought before catching herself.

“How about
spaghetti instead?” Chuck asked.

“Yea!” Ben yelled
.

“Ok
,” Chuck yelled back.

Both boys giggled again and then Chuck said
, “We have to wash our hands first so grab a chair and get to it.”

The sound of a kitchen chair scooting across the floor and then banging against the cabinets
were followed by running water and the sounds of splashing.  After several minutes she heard the banging of pots and pans again.

“Here…you butter the
pieces of bread and line them up on this pan with the buttered side down, ok?” Chuck said.

“Maybe I should do that part
,” Matt offered.

“Nah, my man’s got it…don’t ya?” Chuck asked
.

“Yep, I can do it
, Matt!” Ben said defensively.

“He’s going to make a mess but ok
,” Matt said skeptically.

“You can brown the hamburger
,” Chuck said.

“You’re going to let me use the stove?” Matt asked in disbelief
.

“Well yea, what the hell could possibly happen?  I’m right here!” Chuck replied
.

Oh my God! 
He just cussed at Matt!
  She could feel anger creeping up her cheeks and barely kept from hefting herself back into the chair and going out to the hallway so she could read him the riot act.  Matt was only a child!

“
Aww, you said a bad word,” Ben sang.

“Sorry
, little man.  I’m trying to learn not to do that but I still mess up sometimes,” Chuck said.

“You will have to put a quarter in the swear jar
,” Matt said matter of fact.  She could hear a pan being placed on the stove and what sounded like chopping noises.

“Do I get a discount since I’m new?” Chuck asked.  The kitchen faucet turned on and it sounded as though he were filling up a
pot with water.

“What’s a discount?” Ben asked
.

“It means he shouldn’t have to pay as much since he’s new here
,” Matt explained.

“Are you a good cooker Chuck?” Ben asked
.

“I do alright but whatever we make will be better than this
,” Chuck replied.  The rustle of a bag sounded, and then the refrigerator door opened and slammed closed.  The boys giggled some more.

“My birthday is in two days!  Can we
make
a birthday cake, Chuck?” Ben asked.

“Why don’t we see how dinner goes first?  I might need to get a recipe for cake.  I’m good but not
that
good!” Chuck said.

“Ok…now what?” Ben asked.

Some more shuffling sounds occurred along with both the smell and sound of frying hamburger.

“Ok, butter the top of each one but you have to do it without picking up the bread,” Chuck said, followed by, “Wow, buddy, you are frying the shit out of that hamburger… let’s turn that down some huh?”

“You said another bad word!” Ben yelled
.

“Sorry
!” Chuck yelled.  The boys laughed again as did Chuck. “Ok, how about a two for one deal?  One quarter for every two cusswords?  I still might end up broke but not as quickly,” he said.  She heard a coin being dropped in the swear jar on the counter.

Soon enough the oven door opened and closed and the sounds and smells of dinner preparations continued.  She realized that for the first time in a long time
, she not only cared about what was going on outside of her four bedroom walls, but was curious as hell. 
Now she owed a quarter.

She listened as
Chuck instructed Matt to get plates and for Ben to get silverware to set the table in the breakfast nook.  The spaghetti dinner they were making actually smelled delicious and her stomach growled in tribute to their efforts. 

As the noises began to die down from having set the table and
finished up dinner her blood ran cold when Chuck said, “Maybe your sister would want to come and eat down here.”

The boys were suddenly silent.

“She doesn’t come down here anymore,” Matt finally said.  Tears flooded her eyes but didn’t actually fall. 

“Why not?” Chuck asked
.

Shut up!
 
Stop asking questions!
  She wanted to shout down to the cute but stupid man who even now was making friends with her brothers.

“She’s only got one foot now…
not two like us,” she heard Ben say.

“Shut up!” Matt said angrily
.

“So?  I could carry her down here… and don’t tell him that…
he was just answering my question,” Chuck admonished.

Oh
hell
no!  He wasn’t going to be carrying her anywhere and did he just say ‘so’?  Was he really so dumb that he didn’t understand that being a spectacle at family dinner time wasn’t cool?

“I miss her…” Ben said as though arguing his point.

She reached up and brushed away the tears that had finally spilled over and onto her cheeks. 

She missed them too
.  It wasn’t so bad when they were quiet or playing video games in the basement, but since Chuck’s arrival on the scene she’d been reminded brutally of all that she was missing… and all that she had lost.

Long minutes of awkward silence wrapped around him like a
blanket.  The boys continued to look at each other with the younger boy Ben watching the older boy Matt for a reaction.  Rich people were ten kinds of fucked up.  The daughter loses a foot so they keep her hidden away? 
From what?  From who?

“Alright then you take her up some grub
,” he finally said to Matt. “I’ll pour her a drink and then you can come back down for that.”

Matt picked up the plate and headed up the stairs. 
Chuck hadn’t missed the curious look in the single dark eye that had been poking through the curtains…watching every move they made. 

He might be a lot of things…but he wasn’t such a shit that he would lock someone away from their family… from everything… because of a missing foot!
 
Were they embarrassed by her?

“So why does she have to stay up there?  This house is
so big, why doesn’t she stay down here somewhere?” he asked Ben, as he began to dish up spaghetti onto a plate for him.

“She doesn’t like to come out of her room anymore
,” Ben said and then a look of sadness appeared on his little face. “Even for my birthday.”

So it was a self-imposed exile.  He had no idea what it would be like to wake up one day and be physically different than he was the day before, but he did understand change. 

Hell
, change was his middle name…it was consistency he had a hard time coping with.  If not for his job and the friends he’d made working there he’d have nothing dependable in his life at all.

Being shoved from one foster home to the next to the next the entire time he was growing up had taught him not to expect anything to be
stable.  Back then he’d needed regularity in the worst way. 

That need had led him to hanging out with some local gang members.  For the first time in his life he’d felt like he finally had a place to belong…
that it mattered that he was even around.

He mattered alright…
he was just the tool they used to get what they wanted.  By the time he’d figured that out he’d been arrested, charged and convicted of armed robbery at the ripe old age of fourteen. 

After being sentenced to the county Juvenile Detention Center that would be the last home he would know as a child, the gang had merely become a new source of torment to him.

A month after turning eighteen he’d been released from the Juvenile Detention Center to find himself homeless and broke.  He’d been homeless a few times as a kid but had always known in the back of his mind that if things got too rough he could go back into the foster care system again. 

This time there had been no foster system safety net
, only the thought of real jail time if he screwed up.

He’d made his way to the other side of town as far from the gang as possible and one rainy night had broken into a shed owned by a man named Richard Long.  Instead of turning him into the cops like most people would do, ‘Dickie
,’ as he was referred to, had helped him get a job at a local motorcycle repair shop instead. 

The repair shop had just been started by another man named Bobby Jackson.  Bobby’s best friend Tommy McMurray worked there as well.

Some four…almost five years later, those three men were the closest thing to family he’d ever had.  Bobby had recently been married and his wife Lilly had moved from New York where her late husband had been involved in a major scandal. 

The trouble had followed Lilly to Florida in the form of a corrupt FBI agent who wanted her dead.  The FBI agent had held Lilly hostage at the repair shop and
Chuck had known her life was in serious danger.