Jackson

Today is what most would call a gorgeous day. It makes me think of this show on television where every single person has some story about being attacked by a wild animal. I have yet to see an episode where they don’t say, it was a beautiful day.

Beautiful.

I knew beauty once.

I knew it well.

She was everything beautiful inside and out. From her dark hair with copper highlights that glistened in the sun, to the tan of her skin. The emerald sparkles of her green eyes always showed a full life. I can still see every freckle that danced on her nose and across her cheeks. In the wind, I can still smell the vanilla of her favorite perfume and to this day it’s like her spirit envelopes me in an unforgotten peace.

The clouds over head move slowly like there is no rush for anything. There is no breeze – no wind to give me the comforts of a lost touch. It’s a cool sixty-eight degrees. The humidity is low and spring is definitely in the air.

The brick building in front of me is tall.

Overbearing.

Powerful.

The ornate columns, large windows, and oversized doors are laced in history.

My history.

Some might consider me a glutton for punishment.

After all, year after year, I return to this courthouse. Year after year, I come back and flip my middle finger to the building that fucked up my life. Year after year, I torture myself with the memories of losing it all. Time heals all wounds, that line is the biggest crock of bullshit ever said. Time is my enemy. Like the bitch she is, the giant clock on the front chimes bringing my attention back to the moment.

Time. Motherfucking time, it is just another way to track everything I have lost. Every passing day, it’s more I can’t get back.

Closing my eyes, I can feel the tingles on my side of the tattoo needles as if it was the night before my hearing again.

“I know you don’t know what to think. Shit’s so fucked between us, I get it Michele. But no matter what happened or happens I need this piece of you, of us. Please?” I beg of her as she trembles beside me.

“Jackson, I want to believe you.” The tears fall and I sigh.

“Please don’t cry. I know you’re caught between your family and us. Tomorrow, I face the courtroom.”

I have been out on bond trying to help my attorney find evidence in my case. Unfortunately, using a state appointed defense lawyer doesn’t give me one with much aptitude for proving the truth, but instead wants me to take a deal for a lesser sentence.

No deal.

Michele has made it clear, she wants to believe the best in me, but with the evidence she doesn’t know what to think.

I understand.

It’s all damning.

My prints.

My knife.

My history with Paul.

Motive.

They have all they need to lock me up.

Except, they don’t have the truth. And that is, I didn’t kill and no matter what, would never kill him because of the woman beside me.

She steps forward opening the door to Jett’s small shop. The walls are a deep purple with flash sheets framed along each wall. There is a seating area with a single couch and single chair. There is one door, leading to the one room, with the single chair for Jett’s clients.

Michele gives my hand a squeeze. “I may not be able to give you everything, but Jackson I can give you this.”

Since my arrest, my wife has been conflicted. She hasn’t slept in our bed. She has barely spoken to me, other than to remind me the evidence says I did it.

It’s like waking up everyday to watch everything you ever dreamed of and work for slip through your hands.

I refuse to ask for her forgiveness. I didn’t do anything to seek it. I think that’s what she wants, but I won’t go down for something I didn’t do – period.

Jett comes from the back and shakes my hand.

“Whatcha got for me, Jackson?”

“Need you to ink me with her help. She’s drawn a peony. I want it on my ribs.”

Jett nods knowing what’s going on like everyone else in this fucked up town. “Sorry to hear about your troubles. Happy to help ya out before you go to court man.”

Michele hiccups back her emotions beside me.

Strong.

She is strong. Somehow, I have to believe she is strong enough to get through this with me. We’ll come out on the other side of this together and stronger than before.

Even though I have long ago healed, my mind and body can still go back to that first tattoo she gave me. Year after year, I add to the peonies on my side. My buddy, Jett placed the stencil of her drawing and guided her hand as she inked me with her favorite flower in the world. It didn’t matter to me that the world would see me as a man with a fluffy flower covering my side. In fact, when the verdict came, I knew I would soon be behind bars with ruthless criminals, I only wished I had a chance to add more. I wanted a piece of her, a piece of us to take with me.

Judge me all they wanted. Torment me, tease me, I didn’t give a shit.

Still don’t.

This is us.

I sit on my bike and look at the building.

Closing my eyes, I can hear the gavel slam down. The echo of my world crashing down plays in my mind.

Guilty.

Manslaughter was the final verdict even though I was originally charged with murder in the first degree of my own brother-in-law. The jury said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to show premeditation or intent to end his life. Rather they felt it was an act of rage. Therefore, instead of life in prison without parole, I was facing ten years behind a medium security state penitentiary.

Did I want to kill him?

Without question, yes.

Did I fucking do it?

Hell no!

I would have never put Michele in that situation. The two of them grew up in a shit hole trailer with a mom working three jobs to feed them and a dad who drank all their money away. She was everything good in my life. He may have been a prick, but he was her brother, he was family.

Paul got tied up in some shit. Deep shit. Moving drugs through Tennessee for the Almanza cartel was not his smartest decision. Money was good and being his dad was dead, his mom was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I can see his motivation to do shady shit. He wanted to ease the burden his mother faced. I get it.

Does it make it right?

Fuck no.

I confronted him when he brought in a Chevy Caprice for me to custom outfit with cut outs to hide drugs. I fix engines not fabricate false bottoms and hidden compartments.

Did I agree with what he was doing?

No.

Did I help him and fix the car to his specifications?

Against my better judgment – yes.

That’s where I fucked up. Detective Lee Bates was a long time friend of Paul’s and he was out for blood when his buddy turned up dead. At least that’s what everyone in town thought when he began his investigation targeting me. Bates planted the evidence of my fingerprints everywhere in Paul’s home, personal vehicle, and of course my prints were on the car I help customize. It was all in his plan to spin it that I was Paul’s partner. No one ever looked to the cartel or even Paul’s crazy ex. Automatically Bates painted the picture that we had a feud over the drugs and money rather than look to what Paul was really involved in.

Javi Almanza is untouchable. He was then and still is now.

Collector and I spent time when I got out scouting all of Bates’ associates and Javi Almanza is the baddest of the bad.

There were a lot of things I was willing to do for Michele, but pedaling drugs for a cartel wasn’t and still isn’t one of them. I believe in a hard day’s work. I want to earn my position in life, not have it handed to me through dirty money.

Lifting my hand to the building, I once again raise my middle finger in salute before I twist the throttle and pull away. There are not enough fucks I can give to this courthouse or this town to make up for everything it cost me.

Time passes in a blur. There is an ache deep inside me, a pain in my very depths I can’t shake. Before I can stop myself, I am dropping my kickstand in the grass at the one place I lose myself completely in.

The stark reminder that there really is no going back. The past is the past and my future is destined to be an empty void of existence. The verdict came on May 22, 1999 and from that moment on my life was a tornado spinning out of control.

The marker is level with the ground. It doesn’t have her real name, not in my eyes anyway. It doesn’t have some saying like beloved wife, friend, lover, or any other accolade that would tell the world she was loved.

No, the gravestone is a flat black metal plate in the ground showing not one inch of claim from me.

Michele Elizabeth Forbes

Born August 24, 1980

Died August 1, 2000

One year, two months, twelve days into my incarceration she died of a drug overdose. I wasn’t given the usual respect a spouse would be allotted. In fact, if Dover “Collector” Ragnes didn’t suspect his own partner of wrong doing and knowing more about Michele then he let on, I wouldn’t have found out until I was released.

I was four years into my sentence when Ragnes came to visit. In the four years of my time served, I had no visitors until Dover. Michele had passed on three years before I was even informed.

 I remember the last contact I had with her. A letter. A fucking handwritten letter sealing my fate.

Jackson,

I have received your letters. The calls, I get them and refuse the collect call fee, but I do get them.

All of them.

Please stop.

No matter the weather, I’m in the midst of a storm every moment since that night.

For months, for six months I stood by your side through every trial, every postponement, and every disappointment. I tried to be the devoted wife. A jury of your peers even agreed with Detective Bates and found you guilty.

I told you if the evidence showed a jury without a doubt of your guilt then I would have to take that as a sign. The secrets, the lies, they eat at me. You and Paul kept so much from me.

I can’t do it anymore.

It’s hard enough to get up every day and go on knowing my brother is gone and so are you. I don’t need the extra pressure of what happens to us now. I have refused every call because I can’t listen to you continue to plead your innocence to me when the evidence and a jury of your peers all show you are guilty. How can I believe you when everything in front of us says you did it?

If you ever loved me at all, it is time to let go. If you even understand that I loved you, Jackson Joseph Presley, then you will understand our time has come to an end. I loved you with every ounce of my being. The very depths of my soul belonged to you. With every breath I took, I took them for you and the life we would build together.

Now I exist.

Up.

Down.

Left.

Right.

Nothing matters. I am trying to figure out my life without you in it. I need you to respect that I gave you everything. Every part of me was yours. I need to move on and so do you.

There is a piece of me, a piece of us I would like to believe was pure and honest. I can’t keep replaying every moment in my mind and wonder where it all went wrong. As much as I love you, it hurts too much to hold onto you.

This will be the last you hear from me.

Ever yours,

Michele

True to her word, it was the last correspondence we shared. She never served me with divorce papers, but when she died, her mother buried her here with their last name.

Her brother’s grave is just inches away.

I didn’t do it. No matter what the evidence showed, I didn’t kill him. The night it happened, I was in bed making love to my wife. We had three years together in high school. I graduated a year before her and got my life sorted. She turned eighteen and she was my wife.

Mine.

To have and to hold.

To love and to cherish.

In sickness and in health.

Until death due us part!

Only she was stripped from me.

“How could you believe it was a misprint by the coroner on time of death?” I ask the air around me. “I don’t give two shits what Lee Bates testified about the time on the death certificate being wrong. No, the coroner was right and your brother died three hours later than Bates says. He got it right. Your brother died while I was balls deep inside of your heat, dammit.”

“How could you give up on us, Michele?” I yell out my frustrations. “I got him. I got your brother’s killer. His best friend, Lee Bates, the man behind the badge. He did it Michele. I hope you can see that now. I killed him for you, for Paul, and for the time and life I lost because of him. I hope you can see me. I want you to see me and know what you threw away!”

The pain in my chest grows deeper.

“I forgive you, though. You should know, I never once blamed you. Not even now when I miss you so much I can’t take my next breath. I understand Michele. I know you were blinded in your grief. It’s okay. Can you hear me? Can you see the truth now?”

I don’t climb off my bike.

I don’t place a peony on her marker.

I don’t give in to the urge to lay on the grass over her just to once again feel connected to my wife.

No.

“I beg you to give me peace!” I yell before the emotions are too much. The anger is too much. I want to kill Lee Bates, the fucker who cost me everything, over and over again. He’s at the bottom of the Chattanooga where turtles nibble away at his remains. At night though when I close my eyes and miss my wife, I wish with everything I could drag him up just to slit his throat once again. That isn’t possible. Changing any of this is impossible. I just haven’t found a way to live with it all yet. Without Michele I just don’t know how to live at all.

With a twist of my throttle I pull away leaving my wife in the ground behind me unclaimed.

Unclaimed.

Unwed.

No longer mine.

Death, take me soon.