Six
Shooter
The knock came about fifteen minutes after I heard Amelia leave for her meeting. A part of me thought that maybe it was her, coming back to tell me why she had shut down on me after the best fucking kiss I'd ever had. And, let me tell ya, I'd done more than my fair share of kissing.
But I knew better. So there was a coiled knot of trepidation in my guts as I made my way to the door and pulled it open.
Only to find Alex and Breaker standing there, looking travel-weary and heat-miserable. True, we had summers up in Jersey. But the heat there had nothing on the heat in the south.
"All I know is Alex better be right about you needing some friends by your side or I am gonna be fuckin' pissed at being in this bumfuck town. I mean, where the fuck is the grocery store?" Breaker asked, his light eyes looking downright uncomprehending of the concept of small towns.
"Two towns over is a Super Wal-Mart," I said with a small grin. It was good to see them. It meant something that they would do the exact opposite of what I told them I wanted just because they were worried about me.
"Jesus Christ," Break sighed, looking around.
"We thought you would be back by now," Alex said, shrugging. "When you didn't show up, I decided we needed to come down. You know... just in case you needed us."
My slightly sour mood sweetened with her words. See, the thing about Alex was, she had been on her own since her mother offed herself when Alex was just sixteen. She bounced in foster care for a while before she got herself shot of that and lived out on her own, slowly learning skills as a hacker as a way to bring down the man she held responsible for her mother's suicide. Until Breaker found her, she had been reclusive and introverted, afraid of getting close to anyone, terrified to be alive. So the fact that in just a couple of years she went from that sad, lonely girl to a woman who loved Break and me and Paine so deep that she would hop states in the blink of an eye when she thought one of us might need her, yeah it meant a lot to me.
"I always need you, pumpkin," I said, booping her nose and moving out of the way so they could move inside.
Breaker looked around, lines forming between his eyes like something wasn't making sense to him. "You're dad was living here?"
Knowing him for as long as I had, I read more into that than just the words. He meant it seemed like a pretty nice place for a fall-down, pass-out alcoholic. "Apparently he has been clean for two years," I said, closing the door.
"No shit?" he asked, his head tipping to the side, watching me.
"Oh look at you!" Alex said, sounding excited and I turned to find her moving toward Millie who was perched at the end of the counter.
"Babe, I wouldn't..." I started, but even as I said it, her hand moved out to pet her head and Millie's paw moved out and scratched down her arm.
"Ow!" she yelled, snatching her arm back as Breaker chuckled. "What's your problem?" she asked the cat, sounding genuinely offended.
"You got a cat now?" Breaker asked, smiling up at me as he pulled Alex's arm close to inspect it.
"Seems like it. She only likes men, Al honey, don't be offended."
"Well," she said, snatching her hand from Breaker's and looking at me. "How is that gonna work?"
"How's what gonna work?"
"With the revolving door of chicks in and out of your apartment?" she asked with a teasing smirk.
"Shut up, you," I said, tugging at a strand of her hair as I moved past her into the kitchen. "You guys want any sweet tea or banana bread?" At the raised brow from Breaker and the grin from Alex, I shrugged. "What?"
"Shoot, you once offered us tap water and the old chips that were sitting in the back of your cabinet that tasted like cardboard when we were over," Alex said, dangerously close to laughing. "Now you come down here and you suddenly have sweet tea and fresh baked banana bread? We need to hurry up and get you out of here before you start making chicken fried steak and dumplings and buy a pickup truck."
I chuckled, shaking my head, not bothering to tell them that some real chicken fried steak was a gift from the gods. "It's from my neighbor. An apology for being nasty to me yesterday."
"A chick was nasty to you? I don't believe it," Alex winked at me as Breaker wrapped his arm around her shoulders, giving her a small squeeze.
"She was my dad's substance abuse counselor."
"She must have loved the fuckin' scotch," Breaker laughed.
"Oh yeah. She was just tickled," I agreed. "So do you guys want to crash here? The bedroom is free. I promise I won't listen to you guys fucking," I said directly to Alex because I knew I would be rewarded with a huge blush. I wasn't disappointed.
"Nah, Shoot. We got a room at that motel down the road. Didn't want to put you out. Figured you might have people you needed to see, neighbor girls you needed to fuck..." Break said, giving me a knowing grin.
"Working on it," I said with a shrug.
"Working on it? You've never had to work for it before," Alex objected.
"Never met someone like her before," I said before I could think better of it.
"Oh fuck," Break laughed, throwing his head back. "Seriously? Please tell me she ain't no damsel in distress. I think we've all had enough of that shit with Lea and Summer and Lo and Janie and Alex..."
"I was not a damsel in distress!" Alex immediately bristled.
"Doll, you so fuckin' were," Breaker objected.
"You kidnapped me! I was doing just fine on my own. I wasn't in distress until you put me in distress!"
"We seriously fighting 'bout this?" Break asked, looking amused as he always did when he and Alex got into a fight, which was frequently. "I was there, remember? Big bad guy who wanted to use your skills and then rape and kill you? You remember him right? Paid me to kidnap you? He had Shooter in the basement for days? He killed your friend? I think finding yourself on his radar meant you were in some pretty fuckin' serious distress."
"I was dealing with some shit! Was Shoot a gentleman in distress? No. He was just a dude in a situation. Stop being so sexist you giant, pain in the..."
"It's the Chinese food argument all over again," Breaker said, shaking his head.
"This has nothing to do with that! That was about you being a presumptuous..."
"And the bathing suit argument..." Break went on, intentionally trying to poke at her anger.
"The bathing suit was about you thinking you could tell me what to wear!"
"I prefer you naked," he said, attempting to do it quietly, but Break had a voice that could never quite be quiet.
"Sure you guys don't need to use the bedroom? Work off some of that steam?" I offered.
Alex's breath got caught somewhere between a snort and a laugh and she shook her head, lowering her eyes at Breaker. "I don't know why you try to piss me off all the time."
"Sure you do," he said, giving her a smile that made her blush. "Can I leave her with you while I go get some shit to eat and check in at the motel? Every-fucking-thing around here closes by seven."
"I'm going to steal a shower," Alex told me with a shrug. "I feel disgusting."
"Need someone to scrub your back?" I asked with a grin.
Break slapped me across the back of the neck. "Fuck off," he said in good humor and moved toward the door. "Be back in like an hour or so."
As soon as the door closed, Alex turned back to me with a eager smile. "So tell me about this girl..."
--
Breaker and Alex left sometime around ten that night after sharing greasy diner food take-away and sharing old war stories. I half expected for a knock on my door after Amelia's meeting, but there had been nothing.
The next morning, I got up and got dressed in black slacks and a black button up. I wore my creepers out of spite and made my way to the funeral home for the wake. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to have to stand up there and have endless droves of people shake my hand and tell me they were sorry for my loss. All the people who had stood by while my old man beat my ass almost daily. I didn't want their fucking sympathy.
But I went and I stood up with my grandmother, her arm clutching mine, only releasing me to throw her arms around people she wanted to show how devastated she was over her son's death to. Breaker and Alex sat in the back of the room in dark colors, looking wholly out of place and everyone's eyes landed on them questioningly.
"Fucking ridiculous," I heard from behind me when I finally caught a break to talk to Breaker and Alex. All three of us turned to find Dade standing there in black, shaking his head at me. "No way should it be your ass up there shaking the hands of all those people," he clarified, clamping a hand on my shoulder for a second before letting it drop. "That shit should be for your meema. She likes the attention enough."
"Dade," I said, gesturing toward Break and Alex, "these are my friends: Breaker and Alex. Guys this is my childhood friend, Dade."
It felt weird to introduce them. It felt like different parts of myself were meeting one another for the first time. The others seemed completely unphased by it and exchanged handshakes.
"Don't think it has escaped my notice that you haven't paid your respect to your daddy," my meema's voice said at my side, low and angry and disapproving.
"All do respect, ma'am," Dade started, surprising me, "don't think he owes that man anything." True, he had stood up for me as a kid, as a teen. But that had always been to the shits we went to school with, never our elders. We both knew better than that. I guess things changed when he grew up. Because no one, no one, talked to my grandmother that way.
"Dade Murphy!" she whisper-yelled at him. "How can you say such a thing? I saw you at your daddy's wake. You collapsed beside his casket."
I felt a knife twist inside at that information, knowing I hadn't been there for him. "Yes, ma'am, I did. But my daddy never broke my arm in two places," he said, his eyes daring her to contradict the fact.
And, of course, she tried. "He fell out of a tree!" she objected, reciting the story she made me tell the hospital when she brought me.
"Yeah? Then explain the finger-shaped bruises he had on his wrist when he showed up at my house after."
Fuck. This was going to get ugly if I didn't put a stop to it.
Despite the words feeling rancid on my tongue, I held up my hands at them. "It's fine. I'll go up," I said and shrugged at the head shake Dade was giving me.
"Want me to come with?" Alex asked, touching my arm.
"No, pumpkin, I got this," I said, turning away from the group and making my way down the aisle. Each step felt more and more weighted. It had been so long since I had seen him. His face had become blurred around the edges in my memory. I remembered him in strange, fragmented parts: his fisted hand around the neck of a handle of scotch, his bruised knuckles from hitting me, his belt, the hazy nothingness of his eyes that were the same color as mine, the way his hair would get greasy when he was on a bender. I forgot what he looked like as a whole picture. I took a deep breath and took the last step, resting my hand on the side of the casket and looking in.
The pieces fit back together, giving me the image of a man who had been the worst parts of my childhood. He looked older, wrinkles I didn't recognize by his eyes, graying at his temples, thinner without all the sugar from the booze. The makeup gave his skin an almost orange tint and his lips were an unnatural pinkish red. But it was my Pops alright.
I expected to maybe feel a punch of grief sucker me from the side. But it didn't happen. All I felt was a sort of resigned acceptance. That was the end of that. There would be no mending bridges, no reconciling, no nothing. It was over.
I moved to cross myself and something bright caught my eye, something tucked discreetly between his arm and body. Curious, I reached down and fished it out, pulling it up with a weird twist in my stomach. It was a snow globe. Not only was it a snow globe, but it was a snow globe from Maine. That was where Amelia was from. I didn't have to know it to know it. She put the most important snow globe there with my father, the one that held all her secrets, like maybe my father did as well. Fuck.
I tucked it back where she had put it, pulling his sleeve over it to hide it better, then turned. I had been watching for hours, waiting for her to show her face. But she hadn't shown. I was fucking sure of it. She hadn't been there.
I moved away from the casket, walking toward the back of the room where the funeral director was standing in his dull gray suit, his face a blank mask. "Was Amelia here?" I asked, not caring if people wanted to jaw-jab about my interest in her.
"Funny you ask that, son," he said, looking suddenly interested. "She came in here an hour before services and asked if she could pay her respects. That's not usually done, but you should have seen her..." he said, shaking his head almost sadly.
"Seen her?"
"Yeah. Eyes all puffy, tear-stained cheeks. I didn't think y'all would mind if she paid her respects in private. They were close, y'know."
"Yeah. No, sir, I don't mind at all. Excuse me."
Why would she have felt the need to show up early and beg for favors? Why wouldn't she come in and pay her respects like everyone else did?
I wondered those things, but mostly what I was really wondering but was pretending not to, was why she wouldn't want to let me help her through her grief.
Yeah I didn't want to think of that because it made no damn sense at all.
There had been a second (unnecessary) viewing after dinner and by the time I dragged my ass back to the apartment, I was too drained to go over to Amelia's like I had been planning to. There was no reason. I would see her bright and early at the funeral the next morning. I would talk to her then.
--
The church was packed ten minutes before the service was set to begin. I sat in the front row with my meema, trying not to roll my eyes every time she dabbed at her completely dry eyes. Behind me was Breaker, Alex, and Dade, all respectfully silent. I hadn't caught sight of Amelia, but I also hadn't made a show of craning my head over my shoulder to look around either. Father Sanders droned on endlessly, reading passages, addressing the congregation, talking about heaven and forgiveness while my grandmother made choking noises beside me.
"... Amelia Alvarado would like to say a few words..." he said, making my spaced-out brain clear as my head snapped up to watch her walking out from the back room in a simple black dress and black ballet flats. Her hair was braided to the side and fell down toward her breasts, simple and elegant. I couldn't see her eyes well from a distance, but they did have the distinct look of puffiness that either meant sleeplessness or tears, or both.
She cleared her throat a little awkwardly as she stood at the podium, looking out at the crowd with a palpable sort of anxiety until her gaze fell on a group toward the back, people I assumed belonged in her group, were part of her comfort zone. She spoke directly to them.
"I didn't know Ben like many of you did. I didn't have that kind of history. But when I moved in next door to him, I felt something in him, something I recognized in myself, a need for someone to understand, to get us. He wasn't in the best place, as many of you know, but that didn't stop him from looking out for me. He used to open the door when I was walking home from work at night and remind me to lock up. And once, when my shower broke and water was spraying everywhere, he came running in and fixed it for me. Then he got his life on track and made amends for some of his wrongdoings. Not all of them," she said and suddenly her gaze landed on mine. It was just for the barest of seconds, like she couldn't stand to look at me for some reason. "But he was trying. See? I think by not knowing his history, I got to know the man he had always meant to be. And that man was kind and generous and determined to do right. He was..." her voice broke slightly and her hand rose to press up to her brow for a minute. I clutched the bottom of the pew to keep myself from rushing up there and putting an arm around her. Her grief was a palpable thing, reverberating from her body and surrounding me. A second later, she took a deep breath, shaking her head as if to clear it. "He was my only real friend and I feel really blessed to have gotten to have him in my life. Thank you," she said, pressing her lips together as she flew from the altar and disappeared into the room she had emerged from.
Father Sanders stood up again, saying a prayer and calling the pallbearers which included me, Dade, and, unbelievably, Breaker. I didn't know how he pulled that off, but he had somehow made that happen. He really was my brother. Maybe not by blood, but by everything that mattered.
The cemetery was old and unimpressive, the grass a prickly mix of brown and green. My father was being buried in a plot beside his father, far away from the spot my mother was buried. I found that somehow fitting. She escaped him in life, who would condemn her to an eternity beside him?
The service started and Alex snuck away from the crowd and stood beside me, taking my hand in hers. I think it was more her living through an old memory; her mother's funeral, more so than it was for me. I squeezed her hand hard, looking around at everyone gathered. Death brought everyone out of the woodworks, even his old boss who hated his guts. A few feet away, my grandmother was crying crocodile tears, loudly, supported by a bunch of her lady friends.
Across from me, however, was Amelia. And there was nothing insincere or attention-grabbing about her grief, her silent and endless tears she didn't even bother to wipe away. Her shoulders slumped further and further as the service dragged on, her legs looking like the didn't want to carry the burden of her pain anymore as she bent slightly forward into herself, her arms wrapped around her belly.
Father Sanders finished and everyone slowly started to move away and I dropped Alex's hand, making a beeline for Amelia whose body was shaking with violent sobs.
"Angel, hey..." I started, reaching my hand out to rest on her arm, wanting to pull her close and wrap her up, try to steal some of her sorrow.
But her entire body jolted at the contact, her head snapping up toward me before she wrenched away and started running as far and as fast from me as she could.
"Come on, Johnnie," my meema said, coming up to me. "We have to get back to my house. Everyone is going to be gathering soon."
I pulled away from her, my chest feeling tight. "Yeah, ma'am. I just... I need to do something first." With that, and no word to any of the people who actually cared, I made my way to my car and battled the traffic of literally fucking everyone in town in my mission to get back to the apartment building and check on Amelia.
It took me the better part of half an hour before I parked and hopped out, hauling ass up the stairs. I went to her door, reaching for the knob without a second thought, knowing it would be unlocked. I walked through her apartment, following the sound of her cries to her bedroom where I found her laying in the center of her bed, curled up on her side into a ball on top of the blankets, her hands covering her face. I kicked off my shoes and moved to the side of the bed, getting in behind her and curling my body around hers, one of my arms going under her head, the other wrapped tight around her middle, squeezing her tight. My face nestled into her neck as she let me hold her.
It felt endless, how long we laid there like that, until she completely drained her misery.
She sniffled for a long time, wiping at her eyes before slowly trying to turn in my arms. I loosened up my hold and let her, stroking a bit of hair that escaped her braid off of her face and behind her ear. "You okay, sweetheart?"
Her eyes closed for a second as she took a deep breath. When they opened again, there was a heat there I recognized, but thought I was misinterpreting until she opened her mouth to speak. "Make me feel better, Johnnie," she said, her hand slipping behind my neck and pulling my face toward hers.