Now They Call Me Gunner

  * * *

  Friday was chili day. Chili for the chilidogs came out of a can but we made two batches of the good stuff from scratch every week to give to customers who wanted a bowl. The Thursday afternoon batch lasted through the weekend and the Monday afternoons was for the weekdays.

  Almost always, the last batch was gone before we made the next batch. It was good chili. Maybe the best item on the menu. The locals knew that if you were going to eat a bowl of chili at Elsa’s, it was best to come in on a Thursday or Monday evening. It would be fresh and there was no risk that we’d have run out.

  I put the beans on to simmer and was cutting a big chuck roast into bite-sized pieces when Katie stopped beside me. Tears were drying on my face from having chopped half a dozen onions. “My shift is over,” she said. “Are you going on your break soon?”

  “As soon as I get the chili simmering. Another twenty minutes, maybe.”

  “Oh.” She watched me for a minute. “I’ll wait outside for you.” She went back to the office to take off her apron and hat.

  I wondered what was up. I hadn’t spoken to her since her close brush with the Road Snakes. For three days, I had felt nauseous whenever I thought about what had almost happened to her and my face colored in shame remembering that I had done nothing to stop it. That it had been Bucks and Candy who had rescued her.

  I didn’t think that I could ever look Katie in the face again.

  I started cutting the meat faster. And trimming it less. We took off as much fat and other white matter as we could, but it wasn’t critical. We simmered the chili for long enough that it all broke down. This batch of chili would be a little more interesting than most.

  A few minutes later, I added the meat, spices, a number ten can of diced tomatoes, and the onions that I had already chopped and I was good to go.

  Katie was waiting patiently at the picnic table when I rounded the corner.

  “How are you?” I asked, unable to meet her eyes.

  “I’m good. You?” Her voice didn’t sound so fine. It sounded shaky. Uncertain.

  “Fine,” I said, sounding no better.

  There was an awkward pause. Then she said, “I’m sorry.”

  I looked at her. She was looking down at her hands.

  Was she sorry that she was about to break up with me? Were her next words going to be that this wasn’t working? Was she going to end by promising that we could still be friends?

  I couldn’t blame her. Why would she want a coward for a boyfriend? She needed a man that she could respect. Not one who would abandon her to a group of outlaw bikers without fighting to the death to save her.

  I couldn’t imagine her wanting even to stay friends.

  I steeled myself for her next words but she said nothing.

  “Sorry about what?” I asked. What could be more galling than to have to prompt her to break my heart? She sure knew how to twist the knife.

  “Sorry that I made you take me up there. You told me that you didn’t want to go. I should have trusted you. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  I grabbed her hands and she raised her eyes to meet mine. They were wet. “No,” I said. “No. No. No. It was my fault. I should never have taken you up there. I knew what they were like. I never should have let them get near you.”

  “You only did it because I made you.”

  “No. I could have refused.”

  “No, you couldn’t. You wanted me. I knew that. I knew that you couldn’t say, ‘No,’ to me. I thought it would be a lark. I didn’t know that you’d almost get killed trying to protect me. I’m so sorry.” Tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

  I was dumbfounded. That bit of moisture melted me like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  I stood up and said, softly, “Come here.”

  She stood, folded into my arms, and began sobbing in earnest.

  I felt like a man. I don’t know why, but I felt like a man.

  I let her cry until my shirt was soaked with her tears.

  When her weeping abated, I asked, “Do you want to go to the A&W on Sunday?”

  “You still want me?” she mumbled into my shirt.

  “More than ever.”

  She looked up at me and smiled a teary smile. “I’ll go anywhere with you on Sunday.”

  “Not much place to go in Wemsley except the A&W.”

  “Then I’d love to go to the A&W.”

  “It’s a date.”

  “I must look a mess.” Her mascara was running down her face.

  “You look beautiful.” It was true.

  She bent forward and wiped her tears on my wet tee shirt.

  I looked down and saw her mascara smeared across my chest. That looked beautiful, too.

  “I’ll see you on Sunday,” she said. When she released my hands, she dragged her fingers slowly across my palms as though reluctant to lose contact with me.

  The grill has burners under the middle and left side. The far right is less hot so I could reduce the rate of boil to a gentle simmer by moving the chili pot further to the right. As I was stirring it, I was thinking about Katie.

  The more I thought about her, the less I understood. I was never going to figure her out, no matter how long I knew her.

  I also couldn’t figure out what had happened in the Road Snakes clubhouse. There was a mystery buried in there that eluded me. Bucks and Candy had made the other three back off from Katie and me, at least for long enough for us to make our escape.

  They were the real hero and heroine of the day.

  But why? Why would Bucks and Candy care about Katie and me?

  I could think of no reason.

  I knew how strong lust could grip a man. Especially lust for a lovely girl like Katie. What exactly had Bucks said that had broken lust’s hold on the others? I couldn’t remember his exact words. I was almost wrecked by the time he came into the clubhouse. All I could recall was that it was something about a promise that they made to The Doll.

  What promise had they made to that strange, fragile, beautiful, little woman?

  Gwen called an order for a barbecue sandwich and a cheeseburger and my thoughts were going in circles so I forgot about the Road Snakes for the moment and concentrated on my cooking.

  Not that a cheeseburger required much concentration.