“Hi Karter.”
As I nibbled what little black polish remained on my fingernails, I began to explain what happened to the best of my ability. I’ve never really had a problem talking to people, but I didn’t care much for authority. The staff member standing in the doorway with her eyes fixed on the back of my head was grinding on my nerves.
“You know how there’s always someone who seems more interested in your business than they should be? Some absolute asshole who is repeatedly peering over your shoulder? Maybe it’s simply a figure of speech and they’re not really behind you taking your inventory,” I paused and glanced over my left shoulder.
“But they’re watching you none the less, waiting for you to fuck up,” I said as I turned and faced the group.
Heads bobbed up and down like they were on springs. Several people gave some form of slight verbal confirmation. I took a slow aggravated breath through my nose as I thought of my bike being in an impound yard, undoubtedly being rained on while I was attempting to entertain a group of fifteen has beens, fuck ups, and wards of the legal system.
“Well, those types of people seem to flock to me. One of them called the cops and I ended up in a psych ward for an evaluation. My only way out of the psych ward was to admit I was an addict. You know, give them a reason for me being there. So, that’s what I did. The judge required I attend a treatment program. This one was twenty-eight days instead of thirty, and I thought I may make it twenty-eight, but I had my doubts about thirty,” I grinned and raised my eyebrows as I looked down at my fingernails.
Silence.
“Glad you’re here, Karter,” someone said from across the table.
I looked up. He was staring at my tits.
“Stare much?” I asked as I pulled my hand from my mouth.
I’d like to dig your eyes out, you douchebag.
His gaze immediately shifted to the person beside me. I shook my head lightly and looked down at my nails. It seemed all men were the same. If a girl was anything remotely close to attractive, men didn’t care who she was. Immediately, their minds shifted to thoughts of sex. I liked sex as much as any man if not more, but I generally wanted to know a little about who I was going to be fucking before we got started. Generally speaking, men gave me an ice cream headache. If I had my bike and a blank canvas, I didn’t so much need a man.
I sat and admired my tattoos silently as several people spoke. When a man from across the table began to speak, either the beginning of the story or the tone of his voice captured my attention. Whichever it was, I looked up and listened intently as he began. The more he spoke, the more attentive I became.
“My name’s Bill, and to me this program’s simple. Breathe in, breathe out, and don’t take a drink between breaths. As easy as it is, I seem to fuck up regularly. I’m seventy-two, and I’ve been in this program for forty years and in treatment half a dozen or more times. I’ve drank all my life. Well, as soon as I was old enough to lift ‘em up and pour ‘em down my throat,” he paused and looked at each person in the group individually for a split second.
He looked down at the table and began to speak, “I was celebrating the Bicentennial. 1976. Most of you probably weren’t even born yet. I was headed home from the bar out on west Kellogg – it was before they built the elevated highway. So I remember hitting this cat on the way home. Vaguely. Just a little whump. It kind of woke me up. I blinked my eyes and shook my head, wondering what a cat was doing on the highway.”
His voice was quiet and gravely as if what little time in his life he didn’t spend drinking, he spent smoking. Something about his story caused me to listen to each and every word. His calming tone was like the man who does the Meat it’s what’s for dinner commercials. As he sat and stared down at the table, I waited for the rest of his story.
“It was about three in the morning when they woke me up. Four of ‘em. They wanted to see my truck. I stumbled to the garage and opened it, not sure why they were so damned worried about a homeless cat. It must have been some special cat. Still today, I remember thinking just that. Must have been some special cat. So I opened the garage door. The first one who got to the front of the truck vomited. Right there. He just pushed his hands onto his trouser legs and threw up right there in my garage. I don’t really remember what all the rest of ‘em said, but when they turned me around to put the handcuffs on me is when I saw his leg. It was kinda under the bumper, caught in my brush guard,” he hesitated and wiped the tears from his face.
The room was silent. As he rubbed his eyes with his index fingers, he cleared his throat. After a short moment of silence, he continued.
“You see, the cat I hit wasn’t a cat. It was a kid. He was nineteen. He was trying to change the tire on his truck was what they told me in court. He was going home to his wife and their newborn baby. He worked the night shift at the diner that used to sit at the intersection of Edgemoor and Kellogg. The other day would have been his birthday. I woke up drunk the next morning. The sixth of June. Tough thing to forget, killing someone. I suppose all things considered, we probably ain’t supposed to forget. Probably ain’t so much God’s will to let us to. Well, that’s all I got. Hope it helps one of ya make it out of this disease alive.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Several people wiped tears from their eyes. I raised my hand to my mouth and nibbled the tips of my fingernails. I’ve always been fascinated with what we remember and what our mind chooses to set aside as either useless or unworthy of recollection at a later date. Without a doubt, Bill’s story would stick with me for a lifetime. I moved my hand to my chin and stared at him blankly as I thought of his misfortune.
Often, words come out of my mouth before my mind has time to apply the brakes. Because most of my thoughts are good, it’s generally not a problem. Generally. Inevitably, there are times after I’ve spoken when I wish I would have been able to catch myself, bite my lip, and prevent me or others from being embarrassed.
“What was his name?” I asked, “the nineteen-year-old boy?”
All eyes shifted to me. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. It didn’t seem inappropriate at the time, but as everyone stared I wondered about the consensus of the group. He lowered his hand from his face and leaned forward in his chair as he stuffed the handkerchief into his pants pocket. He sniffed again loudly and narrowed his gaze as his eyes focused on mine.
“You know Karter, that’s what’s strange. I can remember the day it happened like it was yesterday. I can remember the name on the officer’s uniform who handcuffed me. I recall the smell of the vomit. Hell, it’s still stuck in my nose. But now? Now I can’t remember his name. Can’t really say when it was I forgot, but I did. Don’t rightly know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s the truth. Any more, he’s just become a date. June 6, 1976,” he sighed as he shook his head slightly.
I pursed my lips and stared at the basket, frustrated he was incapable of remembering the name of the boy. I wanted to know who he was, what his name was, and what his wife and son thought about everything. How their lives were affected by the events of that one night in 1976 when everything changed for them. Without a name, it seemed as if it didn’t even matter. It was just some bullshit story from some bullshit old man in a bullshit room of a bullshit drug treatment program.
Twenty-seven more days and this nightmare would be over. I picked the remaining polish from my authority finger with my thumbnail as I became more frustrated at Bill’s lack of memory. As I blew the flakes of polish from the edge of the table, I nodded my head and grinned.
When this nightmare ends, I’ll paint all twenty-eight days on a new canvas.
Today will be a pile of bullshit.
And a face with no name.
JAK. After fractionally more than twenty years in the Navy, I received exactly what I wanted; retirement. Now my days felt empty and my life seemed meaningless. In a sense, I’d ridden a roller coaster for the last two decades, and now expected to be satisfied wit
h standing on the ground. Without a doubt, some positions in the military are without any degree of excitement. Being deployed as an active duty Navy SEAL was not one of those positions. I suspected the feelings of worthlessness could be compared to the countless police who retired and eventually committed suicide over feelings of either guilt or deep depression. Navy SEALS were no exception, and especially if they were exposed to the level of combat I was exposed to. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicide went hand in hand for far too many military veterans. Although I didn’t want to become a statistic, the possibility was a little too close to reality.
I was far from deeply depressed, but the last three days away from my SEAL Team seemed like another lifetime altogether. As I accelerated to merge into traffic, I quickly realized there was a motorcycle stalled in the center of the lane in front of me. When I instinctively stomped on the brake pedal, the right rear tire locked up and screeched on the pavement until the truck came to a stop.
The woman kneeling in front of the motorcycle quickly turned and extended her middle finger in the air as she stood. A few purple highlights stood out in clear contrast to the more prominent brown color of her hair. A helmet hung from the left handlebar of the bike, and what appeared to be a small tool kit was unrolled beside the front tire. The thighs of the faded jeans she wore were almost worn through. A Ramones tee shirt and a pair of canvas sneakers blended appropriately with the colorful tattoos on her right arm. As I released the brake and carefully pulled my truck to the side, I pushed the button to activate the emergency flashers.
“Sorry about the brake locking up,” I said as I got out of the truck.
“If you’d have hit my bike, I’d be beating your big ass about now,” she said as she kneeled down began to gather her tools.
“Fair enough,” I shrugged.
“I saw you as soon as I came around the corner. The truck hasn’t been driven for years, probably needs to have the brakes checked. My name’s Jak. Need some help?” I asked as I stepped toward the motorcycle.
“Battery’s dead. Looks like I need a new voltage regulator,” she responded as she stood.
I turned and admired the motorcycle. I didn’t much care for motorcycles, but it was a beautiful bike. Everything that wasn’t covered in glossy black paint was chromed. As she walked around the other side of the bike, she appeared to be sizing me up for a fight.
“Need a ride somewhere?” I asked.
“I’m not leaving it here,” she snapped as she pointed toward the cars entering the highway.
“Well,” I hesitated as I turned toward the truck.
“We can load it in the bed of the truck. I’ve got some tie-down straps in the back.”
“You got any ramps?” she raised her eyebrows and pushed her fingers into her back pockets.
“No, but we shouldn’t need them. Together we can lift the front tire into the bed, you can get in, and I’ll lift the rear in by myself,” I said confidently.
“It’s a full size Harley Softail. It weighs seven fifty,” she chuckled.
“Well, it’s worth a try,” I shrugged.
“Better not scratch it. I’m Karter,” she said as she reached over the bike.
Her hand was covered in grease, paint, and tattoos. Without hesitation, I took her hand in mine and shook it firmly. If she was nothing else, she was an interesting woman. She looked as if she spent a considerable amount of time in the sun, probably on her bike. It was difficult to tell her age due to the dark color of her tanned skin, but my guess was somewhere in her latter twenties.
“I’m Jak,” I said as we shook.
“Yeah, you said that already. I heard you the first time,” she nodded as she released my hand.
She swiftly kicked the kick-stand and began pushing the bike toward the rear of the truck.
“I got it, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to push this fucker somewhere,” she said as I tried to help her push the bike backward.
“Fair enough,” I said as I released the seat from my grasp and smiled.
“You said that earlier. Fair enough. Quite a vocabulary you have, Jak,” she smiled as she brought the bike to a stop alongside the rear of the truck.
In twenty years of travels, I’d been to more countries than I could ever count, and encountered no less than a million people. I had never, however, been exposed to any woman more brash than Karter. I smiled and rolled my eyes as she positioned the bike in the center of the truck’s bumper.
“Just hop in the bed and steady the handlebars,” I said as I lowered the tailgate.
“Fair enough,” she responded.
I turned to face her and smiled. As she jumped into the bed of the truck, I noticed the knife clipped to her right jeans pocket. Although many people in recent years carried knives, very few chose one worth actually using. She, on the other hand, had selected one worthy of combat. One I would have chosen.
“Benchmade. Nice choice,” I nodded as I pulled upward on the handlebars.
“Thanks for noticing. Not much sense in carrying some cheap fucker from Wal-Mart. Anything worth doing is worth doing right,” she said as he bent over and reached for the handlebars.
“I agree,” I responded.
A Benchmade folding combat style knife would cost a civilian roughly three hundred dollars. When a similar but certainly less effective copy could be purchased for one tenth the cost, the few who chose to carry such a blade generally did so for a reason. A gorgeous Harley riding, tattooed, combat knife carrying woman covered in miscellaneous colors of paint and grease. If Karter was doing nothing else, she was capturing my interest.
I needed to know more.
As soon as the rear tire of the bike entered the bed of the truck, she grinned as if she wondered all along whether or not I could have actually lifted it.
“So you’re more than just big and sexy. You’re actually useful, Jak. You hold it steady, and I’ll strap it down,” she said as she straightened the handlebars.
She thinks I’m sexy.
Well, Karter, the feeling is mutual.
“Fair enough,” I chuckled.
Maybe retirement wouldn’t be so bad after all.
KARTER. I’ve never really been attracted to a man without knowing an awful lot about him. To me, looks aren’t everything. They certainly help, but without a personality and a fascinating background, an attractive man is nothing more than a turd sprinkled in powdered sugar.
Underneath, a turd will always remain.
For what reason I wasn’t sure, but Jak could have been the biggest, stinkiest, most repulsive turd ever, and I doubt it would have mattered. I’d never been in the presence of a man who immediately captured my attention and kept it. He could have stood up, slapped me, and told me to fuck off and I’m afraid I would have followed him home. As little time as we’d spent together, I knew one thing for sure.
Jak made me feel like a carefree little girl.
“Worst bike wreck as a kid?” I asked.
He choked on his salad as he erupted into laughter, “This is a good one.”
He lifted his hand to his mouth and touched his two front teeth with his index finger, “See these?”
I narrowed my gaze and admired the whitest teeth I’d ever seen in a man’s mouth, “Your teeth?”
“These two. My two front teeth,” he tapped the tip of his finger against them.
“Okay?” I looked down at my plate as if I was interested in the salad it contained.
I wasn’t. Not at all.
I wanted to stare at him and find an imperfection. He looked like a muscular version of David Beckham. I was having a difficult time not staring. I tried to center my mouth over my plate just in case I drooled. As he began to speak, he started laughing again. As soon he caught his breath he lowered his fork onto his plate and wiped his hands on the napkin neatly positioned on his thigh.
No matter what he says or does, stare at your plate, Karter. Do not fuck this up.
“I was riding behind my b
est friend. This cute girl crossed the street. I think I was twelve. It was summertime and she was wearing shorts and a cute tangerine colored top, but it was really her hair that caught my attention,” he paused and began lightly chuckling.
“Her hair?” I said without looking up.
“Yes. She had beautiful hair. Dark brown, similar to yours,” he paused.
“Fair enough,” I sighed.
Damn it, Karter. He’s going to get annoyed and you’ll never see him again. Settle down. Breathe. Just breathe.
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” he chuckled.
“So I stared at her as she crossed the street. My buddy yelling at me caused me to look back in his direction, but it was too late. I hit a telephone pole and my mouth smacked the handlebars. Knocked out my two front teeth. Well, it snapped them off. They’re fake,” he tapped them again with the tip of his finger.
I stared at my salad and counted the remaining pieces of chicken. Nine. I wondered how many it had when I started. As he began to speak again, I tried not to look up. After what appeared to be an eternity, I gave in and admired his dimples as he grinned.
“Nice,” I said as I took another precursory glance at his perfect smile.
I picked up my fork and stirred through my salad. As I attempted to find a cranberry, I wondered how old he thought I might be. He was obviously older than I was, and I didn’t care. I felt if we got to know each other a little more my age might not matter to him. If he became attracted to me, truly attracted to me, he wouldn’t care. If I didn’t offer, hopefully he wouldn’t ask. With his boyish smile and smooth skin, I guessed he was probably in his early thirties.
“Let’s hear it,” he said.
I looked up and smiled. His hands rested on the bottom of his chin. I glanced down at his plate. He had almost the same amount of salad as I did. I had been picking at my meal trying to make our lunch last as long as possible.
Maybe he enjoys this as much as I do.