Tangling Hearts

63. Tommy

Chapter Sixty-Three

TOMMY

O uch. Fucking ouch.

L ooking down at my wound, I mumble, “I want to try and take a bank, next.”

Dad glares at me. “You think after you fucked this up, you want to aim higher?” He mumbles, shaking his head, “Kid’s a wild card. Fuckin’ shit.”

Paul locks eyes with me. I know what he’s thinking; Dad will never go down that road again. He tried it when he was my age, robbed a Bank of America with his buddy Jim – a guy who’s dead now. Died that day, in fact. Jim made the sorry mistake of shooting my dad right there in the bank in front of the floor-kissing hostages, hoping to take my dad out and keep the money for himself. The two of them were friends since age four, but they had a rivalry and Jim wanted it over and done with. He wanted to be free, a goal I can understand. I’m guessing Jim knew my dad was tough, expected him to be hard to contend with and take out, but he had no idea that my dad’s resiliency is like my own – never ending and stronger than steel. Dad shot Jim in both legs first, even with the bullet sunk deep in his own chest. Then – as the story goes – Jim opened his mouth to say Walter and Dad shot him right in the face and got out of there slower than molasses on a cold day. “I refuse to run from a funeral,” he always says when telling the story. But what I think is that he was stunned it went down like that. I think that, because he never says it proudly, and he’s the most prideful sonofabitch.

“Fine. I’m going to bed.” I trudge toward the door.

“Your momma’s turned your old room into a meditation space, so you’ll be sleeping on the couch in the den,” my dad says to my back.

I turn my head and wince, shifting my feet to do the work instead so I can face him. “She did what?”

“You know your mother. She’s into that hippy shit.”

Paul, looking from me to my dad from underneath his eyebrows, wipes his stupid fucking long-ass tweezers with a rag and some paint remover. I shake my head and leave the room, calling to Bruce over my fucked-up shoulder, “It better look like it did before.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bruce calls back in his best attempt at a deep voice.

My mom has laid blankets on the couch and she’s fluffing a pillow when I scuffle up. Her eyes look me over quickly, and she lays the pillow down, her long salt and pepper hair falling on the sides of her face. “Your father give you that mark on your face?” She straightens her back and looks at me from the corners of her gray eyes. “It wasn’t there before.”

“Well, it’s there now.” I come up to stand beside her at the couch. The room is decorated in safari colors, safari prints, safari art. It’s like a camel threw up in here. There are framed photographs of Lions, a Giraffe lamp with a lampshade made of fake green leaves, Monkey coasters, and even a hyena statue with a snake around the base of its paws. My mom wants to go to Africa, but they’re never going to go. Dad’s too much of a racist to be around all those black people. The racism in this family will die with him. Paul, Bruce, Mom and I – none of us are that dumb.

“A meditation room, Mom? Really?” I climb into the bed and she pulls up the covers.

“I need a space of my own. And it quiets me, Tommy.” She sits on the arm of the couch near my feet. Her sad eyes fall on the source of my pain. “I should wash that.”

“Please don’t touch it, Mom. Not unless you have some pain meds to overdose me with, first.” My eyelids fall half-mast and I let my head sink into the clean, camel-colored pillowcase.

Her eyebrows twitch up. “They didn’t give you pain meds?”

I don’t say anything. She should know better than to even ask, but I don’t need to tell her that. Nothing’s going to change around here anytime soon. Except my room.

“I’ve got some. I’ll go and get them for you.” She rises slowly and flattens her hands on her belly, a personal tick she has that comforts her.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She nods as she walks away to the window to shut out the growing brightness of morning. I watch her thinking what I always think: how’d she ever say ‘yes’ to my dad ? I’ve stopped asking why she stays with him long ago. It’s the abuser/victim psychosis. The victim gets used to the abuse so much that they don’t see it as abuse anymore. Any little crumb the abuser gives them is like a steak to the starving, so when he says something nice, she feels like the world is brighter. And it is… for two whole minutes. I used to beg her to leave him when I was a little guy and we were alone. But she slapped me hard across the face the last time. I learned to keep my mouth shut after that.

“Tommy?” she mumbles, turning away from the closed curtains.

“Yeah?”

“Who did this to you?”

I blink, thinking of what I want to tell her. “It was a robbery gone wrong, Mom. That’s all.”

She looks at me, expecting more. “But it wasn’t time to do the Tiburon deal.”

I sigh loudly, annoyed, and adjust my arms, crunching my face against the ache. “It wasn’t the Tiburon deal. I did something on my own.”

And just as I was feeling sorry for her, she says, “Well, that was a stupid thing to do, now wasn’t it.” She walks to the door, mumbling, “You got what you deserved.”

S peak for yourself, Mom.

I’m still on the couch, sleeping, when I get a phone call a couple days later. My dad comes in the room, holding my phone. “Your buddy’s calling you from the grave,” with his expression sneering, You couldn’t even get this right.

I cut my eyes to the phone. Brendan’s alive? Well, that answers that question.

“Well, this is a surprise,” I say to Brendan.

My dad kicks my leg and I bite down on my tongue. Shit. I didn’t think.

“Tommy?” a female voice asks.

I pause, thrown off. “Who’s this?”

Her voice sounds urgent and unrecognizable as she says, “Rebecca. Can I come see you?”

“Rebecca? Why are you calling me from Brendan’s phone?”

My dad’s eyes stay glued to me. “Is he dead?” he whispers.

Rebecca sounds like she’s almost panting. “Because I didn’t have your number. Um… I’m calling because…” she pauses and I wait, staring at my dad, both of us impatient. “Brendan’s in the hospital. There was a robbery and he got shot and there’s some other things that are happening.” Her voice trails off like she doesn’t know what to say, or if she even should.

I exhale and cover the phone. “He’s alive.” To her, I say, “Oh no. That’s terrible. How’s he doing? Is he gonna make it?”

“He’s fine. It grazed his lung, but they were able to save it. He was in surgery for five hours.”

Probably with pain meds, the dick. “Great. That’s great. How are you doing? You okay? You must be pretty scared, huh?”

“Yes, and I’m a mess. I need to see a friendly face. Can I come over?”

She wants to cry on my shoulder? This is my chance to get in there, and here I am on the couch in a fake Sahara Desert. Unbelievably bad timing.

“I’m sorry, Bec. I can’t. I’m staying with family for a while. There’s a family emergency. We’re really close. You know how it is.”

“Oh. I talked with Margaret – we’ve stayed in touch – I had to tell her Brendan wasn’t coming in to work for a while, tell her what happened. But she didn’t tell me you were out of town. I guess she wouldn’t have mentioned it, though…”

“Yeah, she probably wouldn’t.” My brain is doing somersaults thinking how I can make this happen. My dad reaches out his arm, wanting me to end the call. “Bec, I’ve got another call coming through. I have to go.” There’s silence on the other end. “Bec?”

“Yeah… sorry. I just wanted to see you.” I can hear the hesitancy. The guilt. What is she playing at? “I’m sorry for calling. I’ll talk to you later.”

She hangs up and I look at my dad. “She hung up. He’s alive.”

“Who was that?”

“Brendan’s girl,” I answer, still thinking about her call, my eyes distant.

“What’s she want with you?” I smirk my answer and throw him a look. His eyes go hard. “It’s a good thing you’re holed up here with that.” He points to my shoulder. “Give you a chance to cool off and not dig yourself deeper in this ditch you’ve made. Listen up, Tommy. You’re not taking this family down just because some guy has gold coming out of his ass and that galls ya. You stay put and let that steam that’s boiling out the top of your head, cool off. And stay away from his girl, too. If he ever finds out it was you that shot him…”

“He’s not going to, Dad.”

“You better make sure he doesn’t. Keep your head clear and your nose clean, you hear me? Or you’ll have to deal with me.” He juts his thumb to his chest, a wicked gleam in his eyes that still terrifies me.

“Okay, Dad. Alright.”

He stares at me until he believes me, and he turns, holding my eyes prisoner as he walks out of the room, his gait slow and steady. He closes the door and I wait with my heart beating hard in my chest. I’m staring at the door, wondering if he noticed. But the door stays closed, so I reach down to pick up the phone he forgot to take with him. She answers on the first ring.

“Bec, I only have a second,” I whisper, “I can meet you tomorrow night. Tell me where.”

“Really? That’s great. Thank you! I’m getting a hotel tonight. You can meet me there. I’ve been staying at Brendan’s, but I… I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“Go to The Inn on South Van Ness. It’s a Bed and Breakfast. You’ll love it. I’ll meet you there at 9:00 p.m. And look, I might not have my phone, so don’t call me. But I’ll be there. I promise.”

“Okay.” Her voice changes and she says, again, “Thank you, Tommy.”

“No problem, babe. Delete these calls from his phone.”

“Oh. Right. Good thinking.”

“See you tomorrow.” I hang up and delete the call myself, reaching over gingerly to lay it on the coffee table next to books on Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Lying back, I stare at the ceiling, my blood pumping in a cool, accelerating rhythm as I plan my escape tomorrow night. This is gonna be fun.