"You're all sick," I cried,
"Monsters!" No! We are not a "happy family."
Linda shoved me against the wall and barked,
"Stop being such a big baby."
She smeared away my tears with her thumbs pressed hard against my
cheekbones. Pal slammed shut the door on
the bug-eyed crowd jammed at the threshold.
He shoved his gun into his pants at the small of his back, swaggered to
the bar, and hoisted himself on to a stool.
Mormo had backed away into a corner, surveying the scene with big calm
eyes like he'd seen it all before. Linda
dragged a wooden chair across the floor next to Pal and plopped into it.
"Hey, sweetface." Docker cocked his chin at me. "Please get up off your sweet ass and
fix us all espressos, man. And watch out
for that valve, baby. Give you something
to do. You'll feel better." Steadying myself against the wall, I yanked
the bracelet from my wrist, threw it at him, and climbed up to the loft,
expecting to hear the crack of Pal's gun and feel a bullet slam between my
shoulder blades. Instead, I was hit by
explosions of laughter. Kneeling on the
mattress, I started throwing clothes in my pack. Docker was right behind me.
"Don't go.
Come on. Please." He tossed things out as fast as I stuffed
them in. "I'm sorry. Please.
I need you. The kids. I don't know what we'd do. We're leaving in a couple of days,
anyway. Please. I'm sorry." The loft was hot. I lifted sticky hair from the nape of my neck
and felt his soft lips brush against it.
A shiver ran through me. He put
his arms around me and hugged me.
"Don't ever hit me again, Docker. Ever.
I mean it! What's wrong with you,
anyway?"
"Or what?"
"I'll split."
He kissed my
ear. "I won't," he whispered,
his voice low, "Cross my heart, hope to die. I promise.
It'll never happen again. Scout's
honor, swear on my mother's grave."
"Knock it off.
You're not taking me seriously." I said, trying to work free,
"This place is too crazy. I can't
stay here anymore."
"I know, I know.
I don't blame you. I shouldn't've
done that. You're fragile."
"What do you mean? So you can knock me around again when I'm
stronger?"
"No, no.
Course not." He laughed
softly. "You haven't eaten in a
couple of days. Where you're at mentally
right now. Never should've. Look, I'm sorry. I promise.
Give me a couple more days.
Please. I blew it, I know. Give me a chance to make it up to you,
okay?"
I shuddered as he crossed his arms over my breast and
kissed my neck, nuzzled my ear, tightening his hold with each move I made. He turned me towards him. Mouth covering my lips, tongue reaching
deeply, he stripped off my clothes as he lowered me to the mattress, worked
down his pants and lay his long body on mine.
He caressed my breasts, moved his hands down to my hips, his penis hard
between my thighs. I buried my fingers
in his hair. With one hand on his back
beneath his damp shirt, I pressed him to me.
Abandoned by reason, only a desperate hunger for sensation remained.
Near dusk, I leaned against a limb in the tree-house,
watching random dark brown ragged-edged leaves drift to the ground. I knew I could not stay. The kids, on thick branches above me,
clambered down and sat beside me.
"What's wrong, Sally? Were you sick? Mormo took care of us," Tadpole
said. I smiled at the sight of his
little white face smudged with moss stains.
"I'm okay now.
All better."
"Will you tell us Treasure Island
again?"
"Sure."
I lifted Papa Jo on to my lap, put my arms around the other two, and
launched into the story. Just as I got
to a part where Jim outwits Long John Silver, Docker called to me from the base
of the tree. I looked down at him
through branches whose shadows made crisscross patterns on his up-turned,
sallow face and deepened the hollows of his cheeks and eyes.
"Sally, come on down," he pleaded. "I need to talk to you. Come on, or I'll climb up there and get
you. Please come down, pretty
please? You forgot your bracelet,
love." He grabbed a low hanging
branch, shaking some remaining leaves free, and braced his foot against the
trunk.
"Don't let him come up. Please."
Billy-Bob's thin, feathery eyebrows came together in a frown.
"I won't.
I'll finish the story later. Or,
honey, why don't you start where I left off?
You know it. I'll come back
later." I sat Papa Jo next to him
and worked my way down. Docker swung me
from the lowest branch.
"Put me down.
I can walk."
"No.
Watching you got me all horny again.
I want to hold you."
He slipped the bracelet on my wrist and carried me to
a copse of towering firs where, at their tips, lacy branches appeared to
touch. Cathedral-like, the low, hazy sun
streaked through. Random bird calls
echoed; and, off in the distance, Docker's raucous gang carried on. He lay me on the soft ground, kissed my
eyelids, cheeks and throat.
"You know, when you hit me," I said, turning
away, "it was like, it was like an admission of guilt. Like I was right about what I heard--You're
not listening to me. I'm going home."
He raised his head and gazed off into the trees. "I don't know what comes over me,
baby," he crooned, stroking the inside of my leg. "I don't know what I'm doing till it's
over. But, man, I get pissed when I hear
my people've been spreading lies about me.
Promise you won't listen to anybody or believe anything you hear. It's all a bunch of lies. A couple of guys are trying to undermine my
authority."
"So why hit me? Get back at them!" I turned on my side. "What are you going to do?" He lay on his back, arms crossed behind his
head.
Letting his breath out slowly, he spoke softly as
though he were thinking out loud.
"They want this spread for themselves. Try to bring down the boss. It's human, animal-nature. All us guys never bought into the
bourgeoisie. Make a little scratch here
and there and get together with our old ladies and kids and come up here. Built it all myself." His arm described an arc through the
air. "Water piped from the creek,
everything. Can't even be detected from
the air, day or night. It's enough
staying ahead of the Members. They got
eyes." He shifted to his side and
looked at me. "Forgive me?"
"You'd mentioned them on our first night. Are they your rivals?"
"You don't need to know, nothing to do with
you. Just don't listen to anyone,
baby." I propped myself up on my
elbow, cupped my chin in my hand, and looked through the trees toward the
cabin.
"It
must have cost a fortune to build. How
did you do it with odd jobs? Veteran
loans? Or did you win the
lottery?" He rolled over on his
back and stared up into the trees.
"I know, too many questions."
I heard my voice coming back to me in a whisper. Minutes passed. Neither of us spoke. The wind brushed the tips of the trees far
above us. After a while I said,
"I
think I know why you're different around them than when you're with me."
He stood up and brushed himself
off. "Don't start with that psych
crap. You don't know shit," he
said, walking away.
Elbows on my knees, I covered my
head with my hands and stayed beneath the trees until it started getting
cold. Trying to figure him out was
useless. I wanted no part of him, his
intrigues, or his life. I wanted to go
home.
After
I'd bedded down the kids that night, Docker asked, from his chair, "Now
will you fix us espressos?" Pal and Linda flanked him.
"Fix them yourself," I
said. He laughed. Linda shot me a glance, lips twisted, and
started grinding the beans. She passed
out the porcelain cups of steaming brew, handing me one, too. I sat apart, sipping mine, inhaling its
restorative aroma, nursing my inner wounds, ignoring the physical. And whenever I opened my mouth to speak, they
stared.
Late
that night, bruised and aching, pinned beneath Docker on our mattress, I
decided not to waste any more time. I
didn't want to stick around to see what he would do next. I didn't believe I'd had a nightmare. I had
never passed out or hallucinated, ever, no matter what I'd smoked or
ingested. He must have drugged me. Why? I
came too close to the truth so he smacked me.
No-Face was right: I didn't belong here, not with these low-lifes,
anyway. Yeah, I love men who live on the
edge, but Docker, I was beginning to discover, was over, far over, in ways no
sane person would want to be connected.
I laughed inside. Imagine telling
him I wanted to catch a bus back to the City.
Snoring like a Harley at a three way
stop-light, he slept the sleep that suddenly whacks the burnt-out who have
barraged their brains with countless uppers and downers and numberless swigs of
alcohol to wash them down they can't do anything but crash hard. He had pulled me towards him in the night and
had me locked in a bear hug. I tried
waking him. He didn't break his
rhythm. I hoped he'd gone without sleep
for a couple of days and would be out at least twelve hours. I guessed Pal and Linda were on the same
schedule. I didn't know about Mormo; I'd
have to chance it.
At
the sound of the dawn breeze soughing through the pines, I worked myself free
from the dead-weight of Docker's limbs, pausing each time his breath gurgled in
his throat or when he snorted and sighed through flaccid, drooling lips. With a corner of the blanket, I wiped his
saliva from my breast. My feet hit the
icy floor; I drew in my breath and clapped a hand over my mouth. I felt my heart racing. He didn't move. I unclenched my teeth to keep them from
chattering. It was too dark to see
whether Mormo was squatting in his corner.
Across the floor, the kids breathed shallowly. Shaking, I pulled on a wool shirt, socks, and
jeans, conscious not only of the sounds of breathing, but the whisper of
clothing as I dressed. Jacket over my
arm and boots in one hand, I felt my way around the couple's lumpy, inert
forms. I heard the swish of their
down-bags. Linda sighed, more
rustling. I stiffened for a second, then
stole down the ladder.
Silence
roared in my ears. I reached the
hardwood floor and tip-toed across, avoiding the boards I knew were loose,
missed one and cringed at its squeak. My
shirt stuck to my back. I ran a finger
around the collar, pulled a scarf from my pocket and wiped my face. Each breath grated and strained. I opened the cupboard and stuffed bottled
water, a tin of beef jerky, and dried fruit into my pack. I made for the front door, heard a movement
from the loft so ducked behind the bar.
Holding my breath and praying, I peered around it. One of the kids climbed down the ladder, then
headed right for me. It was
Tadpole. He stopped, turned, and walked
slowly across the room toward the bathroom.
He appeared to be sleepwalking, mumbling something about Dad and
Disneyland. Then he about-faced and
moved toward the ladder, climbing part way up.
When I saw Mormo's huge arm reach down and pull him up into the loft, I
heard a whimper and realized it came from me.
If I was going to make it, I had to get myself together.
STAY TUNED: Does she succeed? We're rooting for her. A new entry will be posted soon.
