Leather Maiden

  Perhaps she had changed in the years since we had been together. Maybe it was just me she didn’t want to ride with.

  I stopped at the house down from Gabby’s, parked my bike at the curb and walked back. It was Jimmy’s bike all right. It still had the packed goods strung across the back of it. I tried to figure every reason in the world why it would be there, other than the reason that made the most sense. I took a deep breath, stepped back and kicked the bike so hard it fell over.

  I went up her walk and pounded on her door. I pounded hard.

  Time went by and I pounded again. The door was jerked open, and there was Gabby, her dark hair hanging over her shoulders, all fluffed as if she had just been jerked out of sleep, or something more dramatic. She wore blue pajama tops with blue bottoms with darker blue stripes. She had on blue fluffy house shoes, and when I saw her, my heart beat faster.

  Jimmy came up behind her. He was still dressed in his camping clothes and he looked at me like I had been teleported there from Mars. I pushed past Gabby, and Jimmy said, “You don’t get it, Cason. Don’t, man.”

  But I had him by the shirt then, and when I yanked I heard the shirt rip, and then I pulled him through the doorway and sort of slung him out in the yard. He got up, pushed both hands out at me. I slapped his arms down and hit him with a right hook on the side of the face. It knocked him down. Gabby yelled at me, something I didn’t quite hear, but nothing complimentary. She came running out then, squatted by Jimmy and lifted his head in her hands. When she spoke, she was so mad spittle flew.

  “That’s it, Cason. That’s what I mean. That’s all you know. Fight and bully.”

  “It’s all right,” Jimmy said. He moved as if to get up.

  “You get up, I’ll knock you down again, Jimmy.”

  “I’ve had it,” Gabby said. “I’m going to put out a restraining order. I don’t love you, Cason. I don’t even like you. I wish you had been killed over there. There, I’ve said it, and worst of all, I mean it.”

  I couldn’t move for a moment. I looked at Jimmy. He was wiping blood off of his mouth with the back of his wrist.

  “You are a piece of work,” I said to Jimmy.

  “You’re the one who’s a piece a work,” Gabby said. “You’re crazy, Cason. Crazy.”

  “Cason,” Jimmy started, but I was already walking away.

  “Go on,” Gabby said. “Go on, and keep going. Don’t let me ever see you again. You’ll be hearing from someone. My lawyer, the cops, some-goddamn-body.”

  I walked out to the street, and along it to where I had parked the motorcycle. I got on it, cranked it with a hard drop of the foot, then rolled out of there.

  I pulled up outside Belinda’s place on the bike and sat at the curb, thought about what I was doing. Belinda deserved better than a frustrated, angry, lovesick puppy who wanted nothing more at the moment than to get laid. I looked at my watch. Still way early. I pushed the bike off and stomped the starter to life, rolled back to my place.

  I had been there about fifteen minutes when there was a pounding on the door. I went to the window beside the door, pulled back the curtain and took a look. It was Jimmy.

  I went to the door, called through it. “Go away, Jimmy.”

  “Cason. You big asshole. You don’t know a thing. It wasn’t what you thought. I went over there for you.”

  “I’m gonna have to get the hip boots out.”

  “Come on, man. Do we have to keep talking through the door?”

  “I don’t want to talk at all.”

  “Come on. We’re brothers.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No you don’t. Come on. I’m your brother.”

  “You been playing that card awful heavy lately. And did I mention I hate you?”

  “Come on, now. I mean it, Cason. Let me in.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Pretty please?”

  “Go on.”

  Jimmy paused, then: “Cherry on top?”

  I leaned against the door for a moment. There must be some inbuilt genetic thing that allows you, even expects you, to take abuse from siblings, because I unlocked the door and opened it. He came in. The motorcycle was inside again, in the same spot. He had to thread his way around it, and when he did, when he was close to me, I hit him again. It was a hard lick, a straight right, and he staggered back. I slipped forward and landed a left uppercut in his belly and he went down on one knee and started sucking air.

  I think he said something foul to me, but with him breathing the way he was, for all I knew it could have been something polite in Japanese.

  After a moment he just sat back on his ass. He looked up at me, gulped like a guppy out of water.

  “You want some more?” I said.

  He shook his head. His breath had come back a little. “I didn’t want any in the first place. It hurts.”

  “Good.”

  “Really, Cason. You hit too hard.”

  I got a chair from the table and put it down in front of Jimmy with the back of the chair toward him. I straddled it like a horse and put my arms on the chair back and looked at him.

  “What the hell you doing?” Jimmy said.

  “Watching you suffer.”

  “I might have a tooth loose.”

  “Good.”

  “You always could whip my ass.”

  “It was the one thing I could do better than you,” I said. “You always had the grades. You were popular in school. And, of course, you could get the girls. Me, I could fight. I could always fight.”

  “Yeah. You could always fight, asshole. And you could outplay me in football, and you got nominated for the Pulitzer, so I think you could do a lot of things I couldn’t do.”

  I hadn’t really thought about that. I kept thinking of myself as his lesser. Shit, maybe he was right. I could do some things. Had in fact done some things. And I really could knock him down.

  “If you had anything at all with Gabby, you fixed it this morning,” Jimmy said, wincing as he spoke.

  “You’re the one had something going.”

  Jimmy started to get up.

  I pointed a finger at him. “Stay right there.”

  Jimmy decided to sit back down. He said, “I went over there to talk to her about you, dumb shit. I went over to try and tell her to give you a second chance, and that maybe, just maybe, she was missing out.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  I sat for a moment studying him. He was a good liar. Always had been. I was looking for any sign of a tell. “Don’t lie to me, Jimmy.”

  He held up one hand. “I swear, brother. I’m not lying. I went over there to tell her how you changed, and then you showed up and pounded on the door and pulled me outside and whipped my ass. That sort of threw a blanket over my heartfelt proclamations about your personality shifts.”

  “What’s wrong with my personality?”

  “She was under the impression that you were violent by nature.”

  “I was never violent with her.”

  “She just doesn’t like the idea of it. For someone who doesn’t want me to kill someone, you sure don’t mind knocking my dick in the dirt.”

  “Was she listening?”

  “What?”

  “Was she listening?” I said. “Was she listening to what you said about me?”

  “I ought to tell you she was, and that she was going to be okay with things until you did what you did. That would make me feel better. But no. She wasn’t listening. She wasn’t having any. I tried because of what you’ve been doing for me. And you’re my brother.”

  “You telling me straight, Jimmy?”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “I believe you would. Yes.”

  “I’m not, though. Not this time.”

  “Straight?”

  “Straight as William Tell’s arrow.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit. H
elp me up.”

  I got up and put out a hand, and watched to make sure he wasn’t going to clip me one when he thought I wasn’t looking. He figured that was what I was doing. He said, “I’m not crazy. You can take a punch. I can’t. But I do want to note that you hit me when I wasn’t looking.”

  “Best way.”

  “If I had been guilty of anything.”

  “I’m still not sure I believe you.”

  “I would say ask Gabby, but considering she wants to put out a restraining order and wishes you dead, probably you ought not to. And by the way: After you left, I think I talked her out of that restraining order business, and she told me to tell you that she really doesn’t wish you dead, that she didn’t wish you had been killed in Iraq. She was just angry. But she told me to tell you that she really does hate you, and she is going to stand by that statement. Come on, Cason. You know I’m telling the truth.”

  I studied his face for a while. It’s hard to tell with a really good liar. “All right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “How sorry?”

  “Pretty sorry.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Okay. Pretty damn sorry.”

  “Once more up the notch, baby brother.”

  “I’m real goddamn sorry.”

  “With a cherry on top?”

  “A cherry on top.”

  That satisfied him. He wandered over to the fridge, got out a bottled coffee, went to the couch and sat down. He twisted off the lid and I went and sat in one of the big chairs across from him. I shifted my ass a little so that the loose spring in it didn’t poke me too hard. I looked at Jimmy. His lip was swollen from where I had just hit him, there was a big bruise on the left side of his face, and he was rubbing his stomach.

  “No need to try and make me feel bad,” I said. “I feel bad as I’m gonna feel. You weren’t messing with Gabby, you still had that coming just because you’re you and all the bullshit you’ve caused.”

  He quit rubbing his stomach.

  I said, “What you gonna tell Trixie, about the bruise?”

  “I was thinking of telling her we got drunk and you hit me. But then she might not let us go out and play again. I’m going to tell her it was a motorcycle spill.”

  “All right. I can back that up. That’s a lie I’m willing to tell, because it makes me look like less of a jerk. Damn, bro, you aren’t working me, are you?”

  “I was not banging your old girlfriend. I shouldn’t have gone over there, not that early. But I was feeling kind of bonded. Like you and I had a moment akin to the old days, back when we camped and hung out. I haven’t felt like that in a while. I decided to be stupid and wake her up and try to talk to her. Truth is, though, it wouldn’t have gone well anytime. Morning. Noon. Night. It’s over, Cason.”

  I let that settle, then said, “Listen. I went to the church where the kids got the DVDs. I found some more. All that were left, I think.”

  “You broke into the church?”

  “Did it the way Tabitha and Ernie did it.”

  “Are they the same stuff?” Jimmy asked.

  “Haven’t looked at them yet, but my guess is yes.”

  “Well, I don’t want to see them. I’ve seen all of that shit I want to see. I’m on any of them, destroy it. Destroy all of them.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  Jimmy pressed the cold bottled coffee to the side of his face before he finally sipped at it. He said, “Man, that was a hard punch.”

  “Just as hard as I could throw it.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” he said. “Listen. I’ve given it some thought. I think you’re right. Those kids don’t want any more shit from us. I don’t have any real worries now.”

  “Now you’re confident.”

  “I just want it to be over, Cason. Be done with.”

  I went and got a bottled coffee and sat back down in my chair. Jimmy said, “But you aren’t going to let it go, are you? I know you. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious? About her? Why, and all that? I mean, you got snookered by someone for no reason you can discern, and she did the same to a lot of others. So, don’t you want to know?”

  “I think I just got out of hot water, thanks to you, so why climb back into it? Sleep with the satisfaction that you saved your dear old brother some money and his marriage and his job, and I didn’t shoot anyone. And you got to punch me for no good reason. Just let it pass. We’re not the law.”

  “Man, you have made a turnaround,” I said.

  “I’m not as scared as before. I’m ready to let it go. You should be too.”

  “Can’t. It’s the reporter in me.”

  “It’s the obsessive-compulsive in you. This isn’t Santa Claus and this isn’t trying to call up the bull ape. Whoever did this thing, took Caroline, I got a feeling he isn’t like the kids. We don’t want to fuck with whoever that is, now that we don’t have to. He’s most likely moved on, so why stir things up, man? Let’s let this stuff be.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I know I’m right.” Jimmy put his empty bottle on the coffee table and got up. “I got to go home. I think I’m going to soak in a tub, try and treat Trixie right. Give her a foot rub, take her to lunch. Something nice.”

  I walked him to the door. I said, “I really am sorry about hitting you.”

  “I don’t think you’re that sorry.”

  “That was sort of for Trixie.”

  “Oh, it was, huh?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Listen, man,” Jimmy said. “We’re done on this. Right?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  I opened the door, and he reached back and slapped me on the shoulder, smiled and went away.

  25

  Exhausted and confused, I stretched out on the couch and was soon asleep. When I awoke the apartment was hot and full of the aroma of rotting rat. I got up and turned up the air conditioner and found something to eat in the fridge, compartmentalized my thinking about the rat to some deep section of my brain and tried to enjoy eating. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and was happy that with the air conditioner going the rat was down to half level, demoted to corporal.

  I didn’t really have to check in, but I got my cell phone and dialed work and told Timpson I would be out today so I could work on a story at home. Then I dialed Belinda.

  She answered immediately.

  “Cason,” she said.

  “Wanted you to know I took off today, but I was wondering what you’re doing tonight.”

  “I called in sick, not because I’m sick, but because I’m sick of the job.”

  “I lied and said I was working at home.”

  Belinda laughed. “What liars we are. I called this morning and went back to sleep, not wanting to get up, wondering if maybe you had already had your fill of me. I was thinking about what my mother used to say about giving out, and how when you did it was pretty much over.”

  “Mothers aren’t right about everything,” I said. “It’s time you moved into the twenty-first century, though I’ve been living here for a few years now and don’t think much of it…Look, I’ve just been a little wrapped up is all.”

  “Work?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Is that what we’ll say?”

  “Yeah. Let’s say that.”

  “Will I hear more?”

  “Nothing really to hear.”

  “Okay, then. What are our plans?”

  “It’s as much about your choices as mine, kid…But I was just sitting here thinking we ought to go to dinner tonight and maybe a movie. After that, we could come to my place, but it smells like there’s a dead rat in the wall, because there is.”

  She laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe we can do the hotel again. I loved room service.”

  We worked out the details, and I lay down on the couch again and went right back to sleep. I woke up after a few hours of deep satisfying sleep, got
into the boxes I had first shipped to my parents’ house and brought over just a few days ago. I had yet to open them. What was in them was a new computer, the odds and ends that go with it. I spent some time setting it up and made myself a cup of hot coffee. I fiddled on the computer for a time, making sure it was working, no damage in shipping, just sort of cruising Web sites, looked to see if I could find a MySpace site for Caroline. I didn’t.

  I finally decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work on a column, so I did. When I finished with a rough draft, I went back to playing online. While I killed time, I wondered about Belinda, thought maybe I ought not to have called, that it was just a way for me to soothe my banged-up heart and she deserved better. My penis argued with me for a while, and by the time I had to get up and brush my teeth and put on a better set of clothes, my penis had out-argued my brain and was trying to tell me that what we were doing was okay and that all that mattered was everyone had a good time and didn’t get hurt. It was the greatest oration since Cicero.

  I drove over to Belinda’s place. We went to a nice steak house downtown, had some rib eyes and some drinks and a lot of conversation. We went to a bad movie, and then we went back to her place instead of the hotel. I don’t know why we did it that way, instead of the hotel, which had been our plan, but that’s how it came out.

  Inside, the place was neat. It was about the size of my joint, but it was well furnished. Nothing fancy, but everything was nice and the colors were coordinated and there was no dead rat smell in the wall. That fact alone was enough to charm me.

  We talked about having drinks, but we never got that far. Our hands found each other, and then we were kissing, and pretty soon she was leading me through a door and into her bedroom, which smelled of scented candles, which had a real leg up on my dead rat. She lit a fresh candle that was melted onto a saucer by her bed, and the smell that came off of it was banana nut bread. She started up her CD player, some soft jazz. She slowly took off her shirt and bra, smiled her shiny braces at me and shook her head, throwing her hair about. She began to move slowly to the music. It wasn’t what I expected of her, but I stood there grinning like a fool, watching her move, watching her skin out of her pants and what little there was of her panties. She was someone who didn’t overdo the shaving and had left a bit of womanly hair where it counts, and when she swayed the little guy in my pants swayed with her.