Chapter 22

Trainer

 

“I'm glad you came here today, Brett.”

“I screwed up,” I admit after I just spent the last half hour filling him in.

Judge lifts a palm, and I notice his reddened knuckles are swollen, the skin around them stretched tight. “No. Don't apologize for love.”

I lean back in a patio chair that's all-wood, a “lounger,” Mama would have called it. “I didn't say I loved her, Judge.”

Didn't say I didn't, either.Without answering, he takes out his pipe from his silken robe and places a bit of tobacco in the bowl. After lighting it and taking a few experimental puffs, he settles comfortably against the chair. 

That uncomfortable woven shit is MIA. Don't miss it.

The smell of Judge's tobacco makes a good feeling come over me. Solid. Unshifting.

“Don't expound to Eleanor about this little noxious habit I maintain. I'd never hear the end of it.”

This is like Krista told me. I get what Judge is saying, even if I don’t know all the words. It's okay.

Learning isn't so bad no more.

“So the ex-boyfriend was already at her residence when you arrived?”

“Yeah. Shoved Krista into her door.”

“Hmm. What is this fellow's name?”

“Allen Fitzgerald.”

Judge puzzles over that for a half minute. “Doesn't ring any bells, but that doesn't mean he wasn't just starting out as I was finishing. However, by that time, I was a judge, and no longer an attorney.”

“Which job was your favorite?”

Judge chuckles. “Neither.” Smoke flows between us, but I still make out the twinkle in his eye. Hard to know when Judge is yanking a guy's chain.

It's just his way.

“This Fitzgerald seems a bit disheveled around the edges with conduct like that. I'm surprised a man of that caliber would be caught manhandling women.”

“Any man can be caught doing the wrong thing to a lady, Judge.”

Our eyes meet.

“True, so true… my apologies, Brett. I forget with whom I'm speaking.”

“It's no big.”

After a few more puffs, Judge rests the pipe in a holder made just for it. Another thing I like about Judge is how precise he is. There is a purpose and a reason for everything he does, everything around him.

That's part of why I know I'm okay.

Because he wants Brett Rife as part of his universe. The Judge Hammerstein universe.

“I think your friend… Noose?”

I nod.

He smiles, continuing, “Your friend Noose did you a good turn, showing you the door at the exact moment law enforcement arrived. It would have been very bad timing had you been there, given some of the issues we face.”

Leaning forward, I plant each foot on either side of the lounger thing and clasp my hands. I don't wince, but they still hurt from using them on Fitzgerald.

I'd do it again if he were standing in front of me.

“I didn't do nothinʼ,” I say.

Judge inclines his head, picking up the pipe for a few more puffs. Frowning at the pipe, he picks up a square silver lighter, with elaborate script that I can almost read. Flicking the lid open, he dips the flame inside the pipe bowl, relighting it. He puffs then sets the lighter on the small glass-topped table beside his lounger. “I know that, and you know that. But where there's smoke”—he lifts his pipe—“there's fire. Those police officers would have connected you because of your presence, nothing more, truly a circumstantial coincidence. One we do not need.”

“Allen Fitzgerald is a bad dude.” I look down at my hands, consciously forcing myself to stop hanging on so tight. “He's an Arnie,” I say so low, I'm surprised to hear Judge's reply. Almost as surprised at his words.

“I know. They come in many shapes and sizes. You might think to ask Krista what happened to cause her to terminate the relationship.”

I make a noise of disbelief. “None of my business. She doesn't make me confess all the chicks I've… yʼknow—been with.”

“Oh, I think it is very much your business.”

Lifting my chin, I meet Judge's stare. His eyes remind me of Noose's a little. Not the color, which is sorta boring brown, but the determination in them. “Krista Glass chose you. This Noose has said you're her third boyfriend. And the last was an attorney.” His eyes narrow with intensity, and his voice goes deeper. “You're a young man with outstanding moral fortitude, from a debilitating childhood, who cannot read—yet. Why would any young woman in her right mind take on a male with those challenges unless she sees who you really are, as I did? The man behind the traumas, so to speak.”

My heart begins to race. Judge is saying so much of what I've been thinking, but couldn't find the words for. “I thought she did, ya know—see me. It's why I gave us a shot.”

“I know she does.” Judge sounds so sure.

“What do I do?” I struggle to rein in my emotion and fail. Fisting my hands, I plunge them against my burning eyeballs, hating my bullshit, the barrier that's always been there.

“Brett.”

I can't do this.

“Brett,” Judge repeats.

I drop my hands, ignoring the small wetness on my skin, the feeling like I'll blow up any second and fly away like leaves on a torrent of wind.

Relentlessly, I focus on staring at the lake. Sunlight glints off waves, and every thing around me is happy to soak it up.

I don't think I deserve it. Soaking up sun, being happy. Living.

Finally, I look to Judge.

“Don't let the Arnies steal her, son.”

Choking emotion begins to suffocate me—having Krista and the Arnies sharing the same space in my head.

I make an inarticulate noise and try to stand. Can't see. My hand flies out, and I touch the cold glass of the sliding door that leads into Judge's house as I fumble around for the handle to escape myself.

Warm arms go around my torso, and I try to shove away.

They grow tighter.

“No, son—let it out. I won't leave you. Let it out.”

Those cracks in my chest grow wider.

Then break.

My chest heaves, and a broken sob tears out of my throat. 

Wrapping my arms around the smaller man, I cry like I'm gonna die.

Feels like it.

Great hitching sobs spill out of me, one after the next. I see my life rewind like a movie.

The beatings.

The burnings.

The words used against me like weapons and the ones I couldn't read.

In the end, when I'm a spent, useless mess, shaming my ass to the point of no return—I see Krista like a mirage inside my head.

I see her so good. 

 

*

 

“Let him sleep, sweetheart.”

I hear Judge's voice, but I ignore him telling Eleanor that I'm okay, that I just need rest.

My phone's been blowing up with texts all day.

I sent a two-word memorized phrase text to Noose. And I could read the second word, accepting a brief moment of victory through the haze of releasing a lifetime of bottled emotions.

I'm okay.

Feel like an empty husk. Like shit. Empty. Withered. But at the same time, I think I know what I want.

And if Krista doesn't want me like I want her, at least I know I tried for it.

For that happy thing everyone tries for.

I feel like the luckiest man alive that I had it for two weeks. But now I know how it feels to be happy. I ache for another taste. The smell of her hair. That smile she gets when she thinks I'm smart because I learned more letters. Or because I try. Krista says even if I don't get it right then, I will.

Krista believes in me, and her believing changed how I felt about me.

Made shit look different.

When I finally stopped bawling like an infant, Judge told me I've experienced a perspective shift.

Didn't have to guess at that one. Pretty easy to figure out. Shit was always the same. Krista came into the picture, and suddenly, all the old shit looked different. New shit became interesting in a good way.

I gotta face the club first. The brothers have to know I'm throwing down for a woman even if she won't have me.

Just making the decision to come clean with the brothers makes me feel better. A load off.

Haven't spent the night at Judge's house in a long time. They keep a room for me here.

 

Why do I feel so unbalanced when something good might actually happen?

Maybe because happiness is so new, I don't know what to do with it. Bad is so familiar, it's automatic on how to deal.

If Krista says yes to me, I'll have her stop by, meet Eleanor and Judge.

She'd like them.

I know it.

 

*

 

I shovel Eleanor's pancakes down, chasing the entire load with a glass of milk, and remember at the last sec to use my napkin.

“My, you do have a fine appetite.” Eleanor's grin takes up her entire face. She loves that I eat good. Never had trouble with food. Me and food get along fine.

Judge gets a secret smile on his face, looking at me over the top of a small fancy glass of OJ gripped in his arthritic hand.

Setting the half-empty glass down, he looks at a wristwatch. “Brett slept—ten hours.” His eyebrows quirk.

Judge doesn't reference my pussy meltdown. His only comment is, “Brett is lighter today. Aren't you, son?”

“Yes.” I am so much lighter. I know what I want. Who I want. And reading is important for shit other than just improving myself for some distant court date. And that feels way better than it outta.

Maybe I just want to be something. Maybe I want to be what I would've been if I'd had a mama who cared.

I duck my chin, guilt sweeping through me.

Mama did her best.

A horrible thought moves through my mind. Maybe Mama didn't do her best. Maybe she just got by and let those men beat on me because she was too broken to do what was right.

“What is it, son?” Judge grips my forearm, sharp eyes on my face.

The words that form aren’t perfect, but I have more than usual. “I think Mama didn't make so good of choices, Judge.”

He bursts out laughing, and I cock my head. Don't know what's so funny.

Judge sobers up, like a drunk without a drink. “It's okay to love your mama, even though she made bad choices. Sometimes folks make the only choices they can see. To some people, there's only a few choices. To others, there's an infinite number.”

I get what he's saying, and that feels great too. “I think there's more, Judge.”

Judge's smile broadens, and Eleanor walks to stand behind him. They look proud of me, and I feel my face get hot with an emotion I can't name.

But I got no reason to feel dumb or ashamed. I got something to say, and I know it. Feel it. “I see more choices.”

Judge spreads his hands away from his body.

His next words make me feel like I could fly.

“You always did.”