Chapter 6
Nothing
The pounding in my head was made way heavier than it needed to be by the pounding on my front door.
“Nothing!” someone shouted, “C’mon man, it’s almost noon! Open the fuckin’ door!”
I rolled off my couch onto all fours and shook my head before pushing up onto my feet. I staggered for the front door and shouted, “Alright; alright, alright!” in a vain attempt to get the fucking renewed pounding to stop.
I threw open the door and squinted into the blinding light, throwing up a hand to ward off the bright.
“Jesus Christ, man. What the fuck?” Marlin pushed past me and into my entry way.
“The fuck do you want?” I mumbled.
“Some respect for one, I ain’t fuckin’ Radar, I’m your VP,” Marlin glowered at me and shoved me into the wall. I slid down it onto my ass and put my head into my hands.
“Sorry,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, well, you gotta get up. We gotta start battening down the hatches. Storm switched track, it’s comin’ this way and should make landfall in five to seven days. We’re operating on the whole ‘five’ to be safe. Some of the boys and me are here to help board your house first since you never leave it.”
“Shouldn’t you be yanking your boats out of the water?”
“Captain has that arranged, the Scarlett Ann’s in his hands. I agreed to take land based action. Supplies, that sort of thing.”
“Why you starting here, again?”
“Because I fuckin’ said so, now get your hungover ass up off the floor and let’s do this.” He kicked my booted foot which rattled all the way up into my brainpan and I suppressed a groan.
“Fuckin’ great,” I grumbled, but I hauled my ass up.
“Girls are spending time together, so I want to get this done before they are so I can be there with my girl.”
“Fuck man, Charity’s been here a whole day and we’re getting ready for a hurricane? Welcome to Florida,” I groused. Marlin gave me a bizarre look, like I was out of my fucking mind.
“What?” I demanded.
“You been in here pickling your fuckin’ self,” he shook his head, “Get in the fucking shower.”
“What?” I demanded again, frowning, and he gave me a shove in the direction of my bedroom.
“Charity’s been here more ‘n two fuckin’ days, bro. You’ve just been too fuckin’ drunk to notice or answer your fuckin’ phone. What gives, brother?”
More than two days?
“Nothin’, I’ll get changed.”
“Shower!” Marlin practically bellowed at my back and I raised a hand, waving him off back over my shoulder. I ached from head to toe and no wonder, after a however many day fucking bender.
I stayed under the spray until the water started to run cold before I got out, and when I did, it was to tapping and banging out front and the rattle and clink of bottles and cans in my kitchen. I threw on some jeans and a faded tee shirt and stepped into the main living area, rubbing a towel over my hair.
“Man, you didn’t fuckin’ drive like this did you?” Trike asked from my kitchen and I simply stopped and stared at him. He stared back at me until the light went off behind his eyes and he said, “Ah! Yeah, sorry man…”
“Couldn’t fuckin’ drive anyways if I wanted to. Marlin has my fuckin’ car and my keys.”
“Good thing, too. Still don’t know how the hell you got into the Captain’s house.”
“What?” I asked, blinking at him blearily.
“Charity said she woke up to your drunk ass fixing her picture frames, told her sister, Hope about it. We aren’t supposed to know, but Hope is more ‘n a little pissed about it.”
“You serious?” I asked. I didn’t remember doing it.
“When she heard I was heading over she said to give you this, she’s acting like nothin’s weird like she’s afraid we’d whoop your ass for being both a creep and a dumbass and she’s not wrong. If it wouldn’t get Hope busted we probably would go toe to toe. Man, what the fuck were you thinking!?” he held out a wad of bills to me and I frowned.
“I wasn’t, I was drunk as fuck and don’t remember a fuckin’ thing about it; I swear it. What’s that for?” I asked jerking my chin in the direction of the bills in his hand and immediately regretting the decision to do so.
“The bedding and the replacement frames, she insisted.”
“Fuck that, I get the frames but how’d she know about the rest?” I looked at Trike, “I told you not to say shit, man!”
“I didn’t!” he exclaimed and Marlin, who’d come in from outside, smirked.
“You’re the only Dominic Shepard the fuckin’ club’s got. Next time, take the receipt with you. The girl’s smarter ‘n Hope. Captain’s already named her ‘Trouble.’” Marlin took the money from Trike and stuffed it in the front pocket on my tee shirt; I glowered at him.
“I need fucking coffee for this shit,” I grumbled.
“You need a hell of a lot more than that.”
I scrubbed my face and groaned, “Okay fine, tell me, tell me what I need oh great one,” I bit sarcastically in his direction.
“Well, since you asked oh so nice, for one, you need to admit Char’s struck a chord with you somehow.”
“She hasn’t,” I denied.
“Right, that’s why you’re fuckin’ putting away her crap and buying her things like a Grade A number one stalker head case.”
“Dude, I was drunk as fuck, I don’t remember –“
“Exactly my point,” he cut me off, “You know what they say about drunks and the truth.”
I shut my damn mouth. Marlin sighed, “I think I’ve picked on you enough for one day, brother. Let’s get your house buttoned up, get your supplies, and get on over to Hossler’s next.”
“She weathering the storm at her place?” I asked a little surprised.
“Her power goes out, she says she bags up all them snakes and sleeps with ‘em to keep ‘em warm.”
“Oh, fuck that shit! You serious?” Trike asked dropping an empty bottle into the garbage sack he was quickly filling, wandering around my kitchen.
“You got a better incubator idea?” I asked.
“That’s fucked up,” he said and looked a little green. He hefted a full garbage sack over his shoulder and went out the front door. The window above the kitchen sink went dark as a thick ass chunk of plywood went over it.
“Today, Nothing… we want to get the houses kitted out as fast as possible, you know once it comes to the bigger boats coming out of the water it’s gonna be all hands on deck.”
“Yeah, man, sorry, let me get my boots on…”
We spent the better part of the day both cleaning and boarding up my place only to head out and do it all again over at Hossler’s. The Captain’s house is typically where everyone weathered the bad storms, but his place was easy. He had state of the art rolling storm shutters that just needed padlocking to the ground and to heavily bolted in strips at the bottom of the second floor windows.
The boats went into dry dock at a facility nearby the marina. They’d take the live-aboard boats first, The Scarlett Ann and the Mysteria Avenge. Then they would spend a couple of days getting the Reclaimer, Cutter’s salvage boat, out of the water. That was all them. It was my duty, along with whatever prospects we had, and Lightning, to get our bikes to safety in a stout, cinderblock, storage unit about a half hour away.
My bike wouldn’t be going. I had discovered a significant enough oil leak that required practically a full engine tear down, so that was the plan for me during the storm. I wanted to get it fixed as soon as possible, so I figured I’d drive the crash truck and the guys back from the storage facility. That would be tomorrow or the next day’s project.
With such a full day, of boarding up and supplying two houses today, I was surprised to find that we wrapped it up while there was still sun in the sky. The plan, as I heard it for tomorrow, was for the The Locker to come out of the water, so I was off the hook. That was all Marlin, the Captain, and Pyro. Some of the other guys with more maritime experience were expected to pitch in; I would be on hand here in town in case of any accidents.
With nothing better to do for the rest of the afternoon, I found myself on the beach, sitting in the sand and staring out over the water, some wraparound, dark sunglasses covering my eyes to bring my light sensitive hangover down to a dull roar. Movement on my left had me flinching just as Faith sat down beside me, except it wasn’t Faith, it was Faith-lite… Charity.
“Hey,” she smiled at me and shaded those light blue eyes from the glare of the sun.
“You should get a pair of sunglasses.”
She laughed a little, the sound light and soothing, carried away on the wind into the crashing surf, “I had a pair, they broke.”
I pulled her money out of my shirt pocket and held it out to her, “Here, go buy a new pair.”
“I can’t let you pay for my bedding, or for the picture frames, or for my sunglasses. Thank you, though.” She closed delicate fingers over my own and pushed my hand back towards me.
“They were a ‘welcome to Ft. Royal’ gift, and ‘you break, you cry, I break, I buy’ on the picture frames. Take it, or you might hurt my feelings… all one of ‘em that’s left.” I said and tried a smile to soften the harshness of my tone. I was angry, but not at her, just at myself for being so messed up.
She nodded silently and took the money from my fingertips, tucking the bills into her white bikini top. It took a second to register I was staring, but I think the glasses hid it. To be fair on my end, it’d been a long time, and she was something else in just her white bikini and long, gauzy, see through, blue and aqua wrap that sat low on her hips.
“Thanks,” she said, voice low and careful, and I could almost detect a faint blush on her cheeks. I propped the glasses up on my head, and sure enough, there it was. I couldn’t explain the tight feeling in my chest that the sight caused.
“Don’t mention it.”
We sat in silence for a time, and she sighed, “You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?”
“I kind of figured you wouldn’t remember,” she said and she sounded a bit chagrined.
“Remember what?” I asked, careful not to let on that the boys had told me full well of my asinine behavior.
“I woke up and you were on my bedroom floor, trying to put my pictures into unbroken frames night before last, you don’t remember?”
“Fuck, you serious?” I asked and tried to sound surprised. Her face held no lie, “Shit, I’m sorry.” The embarrassment I felt now I didn’t bother to hide.
“So, where you been?” she asked, changing the subject for me so I didn’t have to.
“Stuck around the house, working on my bike. The boys showed up this morning to help me board up and get ready for the storm. ”
“I see, is it really that serious?”
“The hurricane coming? Yeah,” I shrugged, “It’s a hurricane.”
“We don’t have storms like that in California.”
“Yeah, I guess not… What’re you doing out here?” I asked, changing the subject again when the silence went too long.
“Needed to go for a walk. Hope and Faith opted for an afternoon nap, but I was feeling a little restless.”
I got up, probably a little abruptly, but this feeling I had buzzing through my veins… I just wanted it to quit. I covered up my eyes with my glasses and held a hand down to her. She smiled up at me and grasped my hand and I hauled her lightly to her feet. She dusted off her shapely ass and I forced myself to look away from her and out to the water. I’d intended to walk with her some, but that’s when I saw it and the emergency medical professional in me leapt out to the surface.
“Oh, god!” I heard Charity exclaim and she was right on my heels as we ran full tilt down the beach and onto the wet sand. A woman was struggling onto the shore with her child in her arms, limp… arms and legs flopping, likely not breathing.
Fucking shit.
Charity didn’t miss a beat as I snatched the little boy from the screaming and crying lady and laid him out on the sand. She knelt by him, ear to his chest, and shook her head.
“Begin chest compressions,” I snapped out and she assumed the trademark position and began her count. Bones and cartilage crackled and popped beneath her hands as they worked to pump life back through the kid’s veins. This shit was real, and nothing at all like in the movies, but Charity the nurse was in the house and I was suitably impressed.
“Breathe!” she called and I bent, sealing my mouth over the boy’s. Tilting his head back and pinching his nose.
“Again,” I said and she began her count. We were a team, the two of us melded into a working unit and I was surprised at how seamlessly. She’d had some good training, and me? I’d kept up with my certifications, mostly for the club and for the odd emergency like this one.
The kid coughed and choked, my mouth filling with sea water and I sat up, spitting it off to the side. Charity rolled the kid into the recovery position and helped him choke it all up. His color started to return from the sickly blue purple he’d come out of the water with, and he started to cry.
“Somebody call an ambulance!?” I called out and was met with a random ‘yeah’ out of the crowd. I didn’t see where it’d come from, because my eyes were on Charity who was all about her patient right now. Fuck that’s hot… I thought to myself and instantly, the guilt slammed into my chest at the same time my respect for her rose more than a few notches. Fuck my misplaced attraction for her. I struggled with it. Corrine doesn’t deserve it. I chastised myself, but for the first time, maybe ever, a tiny voice flitted out from the back of my mind and whispered, Corrine is gone, maybe you’ve punished yourself enough?
Sirens, medics, she and I helped carry the kid across the sand on a backboard, his mother thanking us over and over again profusely.
“Good thing you were here, Shepard.”
I shook my head at O’Reilly, one of the medics I’d used to work with and told him, “It was mostly her,” inclining my head towards Charity who was consoling the mother.
“Man, wish you’d never given it up. Any thoughts on coming back?” he asked me, eyeing Charity critically, as if taking her measure.
“Nope.”
“Then why you keep up with all the certs? Saw your name on the re-cert course at the community college last round. Perfect score and putting us all to shame, per usual.”
“Reasons, O’Reilly. I got my reasons.”
O’Reilly shook his head and sighed, “So who is she? Where she come from? You know?” he asked.
“Up north, just graduated with a nursing degree. She’s my club captain’s girl’s sister.”
“A nurse? Well fuck, there goes that idea.”
“What idea?” I tore my gaze away from Charity’s which was locked on mine and looked up at O’Reilly who was a tall bastard at six foot eight. He rubbed a hand over his close buzz cut and shook his head.
“We lost Phillips to a heart attack last month,” he said and I bowed and shook my head. Phillips had been one of the older medics to show me the ropes when I’d first gotten down to Ft. Royal with Corrine.
“Man, I hadn’t heard.”
“You were out of town.” O’Reilly kept talking, “Anyways, Phillips went, and Marty retired. A couple of the young bucks quit on us; couldn’t handle it. We’re hurting, we’re hurting bad for personnel. Will you at least think about it?”
“You know what this job cost me…”
O’Reilly sighed, “I know what you think it cost you, but Shep,” he put his hand on my shoulder, “You know deep down there was nothing you could’a –“ I shook the hand off and started walking away to O’Reilly’s sharp exhalation of breath and muttered curse.
I didn’t feel like it. I really fucking didn’t. It was selfish as fuck, but I’d been having a good day as far as days went. I didn’t want to think about it too much, which was hard as is, with the date coming up. Charity eyed me curiously and helped the woman into the back of the ambulance with her son. O’Reilly climbed in after her while his partner, a guy I didn’t know, got in to drive.
Charity waved and rapped twice on the back of the cab and the bus pulled away from the curb, lights going up and siren wailing, piercing through my receding hangover like a marlin spike to the temple.
I needed a fucking drink, so I took the opportunity to disappear into the crowd before Charity turned back, making long strides down the boulevard heading for The Plank, and the familiar taste of oblivion that was Crown Royal before the ugly memories splattered themselves up on the inside of my skull in horrifying, living color.