Without You

– Scotch –

Macallistar Blair

“Morning, Turner.”

I look up and grin at my eleven-year-old basketball buddy. “Mornin’ Mac. Ready for me to whip your ass today?”

“You’re dreaming,” he scoffs, walking toward me in red high top’s and a shirt that goes half way down his thighs. Macallistar is the only son of Katrina Blair, a mid-twenties single mom who works at the local diner more hours than she’s home. She’s not a negligent mom, she’s simply doing the best she can, but that leaves Mac home alone a lot, and as is the case with most kids his age, too much boredom leads to getting into trouble.

Last year, at the ripe old age of ten, Mac was caught trying to break into a car. He had nowhere to be, he was simply bored and wanted to know if he could do it. He could and he did.

Alex was patrolling that day and happened across the foul-mouthed little shit. He brought him into the station where Mac promptly transformed from big mouth to mute for hours. Eventually, he fessed up his and his mom’s names. Katrina came flying into the station with tears in her eyes and twitching hands ready to beat his ass for being so bad.

Alex gave them a bit of a scare, they talked about juvi and what it would mean for kids like Mac, then he told her he’d be by the following week to check in with them. And the week after that. And the week after that. Mac didn’t go quietly though. He told my brother exactly what he thought of the police and how much he liked them, but I guess with familiarity and Alex’s non-reactionary behavior, Mac started to cool it toward him. Eventually, Alex happened across Mac at the local basketball courts instead of screwing around and in trouble, so as a reward for not being a shit, he bought the kid a new ball. They played some one-on-one for a few hours and a new friendship blossomed between a couple of foul-mouthed assholes as they bonded over cheap shots and cheating.

It’s not uncommon for Alex to introduce me to kids like Mac. I play in the band a few nights a week and I may have gotten my law degree because I needed to prove to myself that I could do it, even if Fred Ricardo will never know about it, but by day, I work with kids like Mac at the local community center. Troubled youth in need of impartial adult guidance and someone to perhaps give them advice if they ask for it.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life while I was in high school. I couldn’t see past the band and Sammy, but eventually, once the dust settled and real life continued to speed past me while I stood still and watched the blur, I decided maybe I’d like to help kids; kids in situations similar to the one Sammy and I found ourselves in.

Mac is only eleven, but I also help the older teens. Fifteen and sixteen-year-old trouble making boys, seventeen and eighteen-year-old pregnant girls. Thirteen-year-old thugs who’ve had their hands on guns they should never have even laid eyes on. I’ve had them all walk through my office, and I do the best I can to give those kids a voice, get them straight, and give them a hand up.

Maybe I can give a kid something, something I wish someone could have offered Sammy when she was a scared teenager in a situation she found spiraling out of her control. For reasons I’ll never know, she didn’t come to me, but maybe she could have gone to someone else. If she’d had someone else, then maybe that someone’s voice might have counteracted that of her parents.

Mac stops in front of me, smiling like a goof ball and bringing me back to reality. I refocus on his moppy hair and smile. I think it’s ugly as shit the way he’s shaved one whole side of his head, then the other side is all Justin Bieber-esque as it flops down over his eyes and ear. He assures me this was the style he asked for, and no, the clippers didn’t have a stroke, and no, he didn’t fall head-first under a lawn mower. He actually paid for that monstrosity, but hey, my job is to not judge; drug use, delinquent activities… terrible haircuts.

“Did you do your homework? I’m not playing ‘till you show me your papers.”

He smiles the smile of a man beyond his years, and two tiny little dimples pop below his lips. “I’ve got somethin’ even better than that for ya.” He swaggers toward me with a blue and white basketball under one arm while his other hand reaches around to his back pocket. He pulls out a cream card, folded in half, then folded in half again, and thrusts the small square toward me.

“What is it?”

He sniffs arrogantly and shuffles from his left foot to his right. “You can just call me Santy Claus.”

I laugh at his cocky attitude and begin to unfold the card, then my eyes stop on the neat row of A’s and B’s. My gaze snaps to his as the pride shines in his green eyes. “Your report card?”

He smiles wide and tucks his hair behind his ear. “Yup.”

I literally run my thumb along the A’s and B’s. “This is the best report card I’ve ever seen in my life, Mac!”

“Aw, nah.” The cocky man is replaced with a shy child. “Bet that’s not true.”

It’s not true, but it’s right up there, and I’m so fucking proud of the little shit, I’ll never tell him different. “It totally is. You just made my day, bud.”

“I showed my mom last night.”

My eyes come back up to his. “Yeah?”

“She cried.” He says the word cry as though it was covered in girl germs, but damn, I know he’s proud of himself too. This time last year, he wasn’t even being handed report cards. He was given notes to take home to Katrina to attend parent teacher meetings.

“I think I might cry too.” I wipe a knuckle below my eye mockingly.

“Shut the hell up!” Mac steps forward and punches me in the chest. “Let’s play some ball. I gotta kick your ass. I owe you from last time.”

I snatch the ball from under his arm, then turn and swish it through the hoop twenty feet away. “I was gonna treat you to a celebratory ice-cream or something…”

His eyes pop wide with excitement. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, but then you said ass.” I jog forward and grab the ball as it bounces back toward us. I turn and toss it against his chest, forcing him to let out a sudden gasp of air. He’s eleven, but he isn’t a little kid. I can already see the teen he’s growing into, then the man that’ll follow soon behind. “So now you don’t get shit. That’s one for me. First to ten wins.”

Mac and I horse around for a couple hours and we end up collapsing to the concrete court in exhaustion when the score sits around thirteen to sixteen. I’m fairly certain I was on sixteen and Mac thirteen, but he’s claiming to be the winner. Either way, I find myself exhausted and not giving a damn, as sweat drips down my temples and my feet throb in my shoes. “What time does your mom get home tonight?”

Mac looks at his wrist in what must be an old reflex, because he has no watch. “Said she’ll be home at eight.”

That’s a little over an hour away. It’s Friday today, which means the guys and I have to play at the club, but I have hours before I have to be there. We tend to set up about nine-thirty and start really getting into the swing of things around eleven. More often than not we practice at my place or Alex’s in the garage, or even in the club earlier in the day when it’s empty except staff, but tonight I decide I’ll ditch. “Let’s go get some pizza for dinner.”

“Aw, nah.” Mac’s words are an embarrassed mumble as he lies on his back a few feet away from me. “Mom made me some dinner. I just gotta reheat it.”

“What will she eat when she gets home?”

He shrugs awkwardly and taps the heel of his high tops against the ground. “Dunno, I’d have to check. There might be leftovers. Or maybe she ate at the diner. Or maybe she’ll make a grilled cheese.”

“How about I buy you pizza, then your mom can have your dinner. And if she already ate, then she doesn’t have to worry about cooking tomorrow night and you can reheat it then.”

“You don’t have to buy me food, Mr. Turner. We’re okay. Mom would never let me go hungry.”

“I know.” I let my head flop to the left and wait for his gaze to meet mine. I know Katrina would never let Mac go hungry, but I wonder how many nights she gets a proper meal herself. “I’m going for pizza anyway. I have to order a whole pizza anyway. I never eat the whole thing though, so I may as well split it with you.”

He watches me for another long moment and considers his options, then eventually he nods, rolls to his hands and knees, and climbs to his feet.

A couple hours later, I walk into the club with my lucky guitar under my arm, and my long hair flopping into my eyes and tickling my ears. I give Mac shit for his haircut, yet I walk around like a homeless person who hasn’t had a haircut in forever. My mom renews that razor subscription every month, but I never use it. I maintain my facial hair, but I don’t shave it off. I have stubble covering my chin and above my lips and it meets my sideburns, then it just blends into the dirty mop on my head that I’ve been sporting since high school. My mom blames my hair and stubble as the sole reason why I’m not married and settled down yet. She thinks I’d attract the right kind of women if I didn’t look so homeless.

Everyone knows what went down in my final semester of high school, but after a year of no contact with Sammy Ricardo, then another, and another, it was all kind of brushed away and forgotten.

I haven’t seen Sammy since the night I dropped her off at her family’s estate and watched her slowly walk up her front stairs and head inside with plans to meet and run away together the next morning. I haven’t heard a single word from her since the phone call that changed my life. Since she told me it was all over.

I don’t know where she is now, or what she’s doing. I technically don’t even know if she’s alive, but I figure since we’re still legally married, someone would have called me if something happened to her. Maybe. Or maybe her folks took care of it so I never hear one way or the other. I’m her husband by law, but her daddy is a master manipulator of the law and everyone around him. And she chose him.

Whatever.

I look toward the bar and find Tink working like usual. She and Tina smile as they chat and pour beers for customers, then I glance up at the stage to find the guys setting up for the night. The club is already loud and hot from all the dancing bodies, but our set isn’t officially on for another thirty minutes, so I don’t rush, and neither do the guys.

“Nice of you to join us,” Marcus drawls from my left. His green eyes watch me, but his hands work on his guitar as he fine tunes the strings.

I place my guitar case on the stage between speakers, swing a leg up and over, and climb up as random dancers grab at my jeans. “I had dinner with a friend. I’m here now.”

Luc’s eagle eyes snap up to mine. “You were on a date?”

“No. I wasn’t on a date. I was wi--”

“Because this is probably a good year for you to move on, dude. Nineteen-year-old virgins might be cute, like a fixer-upper for the big-breasted girls to fix. You know how they have this inbuilt need to press your face to their tits and smother you with love? But we’re not kids anymore. It ain’t cute. It’s time to finally--”

“Shut up, jackass.”

“I’m just saying, you moved past cute and into pathetic.”

I roll my eyes and wait for him to finish. This isn’t the first time the guys have given me shit about girls. And every year that passes brings louder and more insistent nagging. It’s not just my mom who’s concerned with my love life.

Luc’s pretty much on the mark with the ‘fixer-upper’ thing though. Women want to fix me, but I just want to be left the hell alone.

Angelo’s eyes meet mine, and though he thinks Luc is funny, his eyes are soft. “I’m glad you got out tonight though. That’s good. I’m not even mad you ditched practice.”

“Yeah, I know you idiots mean well, but you jump to conclusions. I was with an eleven-year-old boy.”

Marc’s eyes flare wide. “Um. Well--”

“That’s what you get for making ASS-umptions,” I laugh. “You deserve to feel awkward. Next time you’ll mind your own damn business about my life.”

Luc and Marc go back to prepping for our set, but Angelo remains silent for a minute, studying his hands as they fuss with his keyboard.

“Spit it out, Ang.”

His eyes come up to mine hesitantly. “You’re my best friend.”

Oh boy. “Yep.” I take another step closer to him, away from Marc and Luc. We’re all best friends. We’re all brothers. Perhaps Marc even more so, since we lived together, but Angelo is my best friend by choice. I love him like I love Alex and Britt.

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I know.”

His eyes watch me for a long hesitant minute before he sighs. “It’s time to move on--”

“Why now?” I interrupt him. “Why is this such a hot topic lately? None of you ask about my sex life for ten years. You just leave me be. Why now?”

“We’re not kids anymore, Sam.”

“My name’s Scotch! Call me Scotch.”

“Your name’s Sam!” he shoots back. “That’s the name your mama gave you, and you need to stop living up to the promises a teenage boy made to a teenage girl. Neither of those people are here anymore.”

“I don’t break my promises,” I spit out. “Even if everyone else does!”

“You’ve been with other girls since her, right?”

“That’s none of your business--”

“So your promise of fidelity is already broken.”

I step toward him as rage bubbles under my skin. Feelings I thought I’d long ago buried come rushing back; humiliation that she up and left me. Heartbreak that for some reason, I wasn’t enough. Sorrow that her vanishing act was like a death in the family. But worse. So much worse because I spent years after she left looking for her, wondering why she left, unable to find the closure I so desperately wanted. Needed. I broke no promises. She did. “I didn’t cheat on her.” My words are low and come out almost a growl. “I didn’t cheat, Angelo. She left, I didn’t.”

“I’m not saying you cheated. I’m saying good for you for not keeping promises that she obviously didn’t intend to keep herself. I’m glad you’ve moved on, but now I want you to go all the way. File some fucking paperwork, man. Grow some balls, get a damn divorce, then find a nice girl.”

“No.”

“She left you, bud! She left you a long ass time ago. Maybe she thought she was too good for us. Maybe she got cold feet. Maybe she and Snitch took off to live it up with guys just like them, but either way, she ain’t here! Do you plan to die alone? Because that’s the way you’re going.”

I turn away from Angelo and come face to face with Luc and Marc as they silently watch us. The club is still loud and pumping. People dance within feet of us, but no one notices our drama. Angelo thinks I don’t know this stuff. He thinks I didn’t spend years wondering. He thinks I’ve just let it go and that I haven’t thought about filing for a divorce. Of course I’ve thought about it. I think about it every single time I think about her, but I can’t pull the trigger. I can’t go all the way, though of course I’ve already had the papers drawn up. They simply require a signature, but for me to get her signature, means I have to find her. I so desperately want to know where she is. I’m so desperate, that I’m not sure I want to know. It wouldn’t be good for me. Not healthy.

My options, logically, are that she’s moved on and has a family, she’s happy. I don’t want to see that shit, because she was supposed to be happy with me! She made me promises. That should have been good enough.

But okay, maybe she isn’t in love with her new man and her new family. Maybe she’s dead, long ago buried. I’d rather she was living it up behind the white picket fence than dead. But I don’t want her in love with someone else either. Therefore, I don’t want to know. I prefer ignorance, which means I won’t be looking for her.

I fucking hate that she left, and if I let that hate go, then the sorrow creeps in. I don’t want that either. Hate works. For now. Hate keeps the fire alive, a fire that I knew would burn for Sammy Ricardo for the rest of our lives.

She consumes my every passionate emotion. She owns it. She owns me, and goddamn Angelo for bringing this shit up tonight. I’d rather just think about her in vague terms, remembering what used to be and not trying to riddle out the reasons she left. I spent years thinking that shit through. I wasted years of my life wondering.

Fuck Angelo for dropping me back in the deep end of painful memories.

I focus on Luc and Marcus for another second, then turn away and walk to our processor to start getting ready for our set.

“Alright,” I speak into the microphone twenty minutes later in that low voice the girls tell me turns them on. “We’ve been working on some new stuff lately, so we’re gonna start off with a song Luc wrote for his girl.” That’s a lie. Luc did write it, but he’s the biggest man whore I’ve ever met. He doesn’t have ‘a’ girl, but several dozen of them. “All you lovebirds here tonight, this one’s for you.”