Chapter 3
Penance
Gemiah
My dick has a long memory, and it’s trying to get me killed.
It’d be easy to blame it on the alcohol, on the pills and the pretty white powders, but those are the symptoms. The root of the issue—pun fully intended—is my asshole dick.
The Chili’s knock-off in Bakersfield is the perfect hunting ground, full of frat boys with a Central Valley redneck sheen.
For a while, I thought I’d be wasting a perfectly good coke high, but then the kitchen closed, and the place stopped trying to appear family friendly.
Now one of the bartenders is drunk, the other is showing signs of his own coke habit, and the college crowd is full of slightly manic energy.
The last hurrah of those about to be returned to their sleepy hometowns, grasping at their last chance at freedom.
I’m too old, too worn and dirty to blend in, but I let the curiosity and vague testosterone-fueled hostility roll off me. I don’t care about them.
My sharklike focus is all for the douchebag du jour.
Tonight’s target is sprawled in a booth across from the U-shaped bar, chugging his fourth Coors Light from a bottle with the label torn off.
Previous casualties litter the table amid the cold onion rings and spent ketchup packets.
Shredding beer labels is a classic sign of sexual frustration, dickhead.
His cronies are neck-deep in bimbos—labels pristinely intact—but this guy’s gaze keeps flitting to the bar, and I can read the desperate hunger on his face as easily as looking in a mirror.
The kid he can’t take his eyes off sits two stools down from me, fiddling with the cherry in the rum and Coke he looks barely old enough to be drinking.
His hair is the wrong color—a washed-out brown—but he’s got the dusting of freckles across his cheekbones and the faded flannel that first caught my attention, with the sleeves pushed up past the elbows.
And the shy yet defiant set to his shoulders sends a familiar prickle over my skin.
Neither of them have noticed me skulking at the corner of the bar, even with my shaved head and full-sleeve tattoos. Bad for them. Good for me.
Frat boy finally gets up the courage to approach, squeezing in next to Freckles-in-Flannel a little too closely to be casual.
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I’ll take unoriginal pickup lines for two hundred, Alex.” I snort, not bothering to keep my voice down. Now they notice me. Douche-du-Jour frowns, leaning into the bar to peer at me suspiciously.
“How’d you know my name?” he asks.
Whiskey burns my nose as I choke out a disbelieving laugh. The kid tosses me a look but does a better job hiding his own smile.
“I’m a mind reader.” I let hostility bleed into my stare. I know what you’re after. “And he’s not interested.”
The kid fidgets on his stool, while Alex turns faintly red.
“Just making conversation while I grab the next round for my crew, man.” He glances at the boy. “And maybe you should let him speak for himself.”
“Isn’t that your waitress draped all over one of your crew right now?” I ask.
“Which is why this seemed faster.” The red is creeping up his neck now, but he’s moved even closer to the kid. A hyena guarding his prey.
“I’m Josh, if you’re buying rounds,” the kid pipes up, recklessly reclaiming his attention.
“Of course you are.” I stifle a groan and slam the rest of my drink.
“I’m Josha.”
It’s time to move this shit show along, but my head throbs and my heart is trying to claw its way out of my chest. Maybe the coke in the bathroom was a bad idea.
That’s not the problem, and you know it, asshole, but nice try.
Alex is practically whispering in Josh’s pink-tipped ear now, and I need to move because it doesn’t matter what this one’s name is—they’re all Joshas—and I’m the type of predator that will die if it stops moving, and I really need another drink, and now the kid is smiling at this dickhead, and—
I’m shoving between them before I even realize I’ve left my stool.
“I told you to leave him alone.”
“What the fuck is your problem?” Alex is really pissed now, caveman brows lowered beneath the ball cap.
“How much time have you got?” I cock my head toward the bar. “Looks like your beers are here, and your friends are waiting.”
He glances at the booth behind him, and I know I’ve won.
The first rule of the game is don’t let your friends find out.
He’ll scurry back to them now with some story about the asshole at the bar that has nothing to do with getting his dick sucked, and if I’m lucky, they’ll find me later and we can have some real fun.
Alex-the-Idiot leaves with another round of beers for his cronies, and Josh-the-Kid very deliberately doesn’t watch him go.
“That was very…dramatic. And unnecessary,” he observes.
I turn and raise an eyebrow at him. “You telling me he wasn’t trying to sweet-talk you into the bathroom and you weren’t considering saying yes?”
“He wasn’t that bad.”
“He’s a closeted douchebag.”
“He said I have a pretty mouth.” He tilts his head and rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. My gaze drops briefly before I catch myself.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“I’m a fast learner.”
Jesus Christ.
“Why don’t you drive up to Santa Cruz and find yourself a fancy college-boy cock?”
“That’s a long drive.” He shrugs, glancing over at Alex and his cronies. “And those are college jerseys.”
“A guy like that will hate himself after, but he’ll pretend it’s you he hates. You deserve better.”
“Is that an offer?”
“No.”
“Pity.” He scans the ink on my forearms. “‘Je suis désolé.’ What’s that about?”
“You speak French?” I ask, deflecting like the pro I am.
“They teach ‘I’m sorry’ in the first week. So, what are you? A remorseful serial killer?” He flashes a smile to share the joke. “A misguided vigilante?”
“I’m an asshole who recognizes my own kind. Don’t go painting me as some type of hero.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ever the optimist, Alex makes his way to the bathroom with a significant look at Josh. Me, he blatantly ignores.
“Don’t,” I say, but my high is wearing off, and I’m not sure who I think I’m saving anymore. Josh sighs and grabs his jacket as he slips from his stool.
“You’re buying my drink,” he informs me. “See you next time.”
There won’t be a next time. I need to get the fuck out of Bakersfield. Unconsciously, my eyes track to the north, following the gut tug of instinct I’ve been battling since I left Albuquerque. Drawn unerringly toward the guy I spent years torturing and more years running away from.
I thought it might be weird being back in California after over a year away.
Instead, I’m filled with a familiar charge of being back in the same state as him—the feeling conversely soothing and dangerous, like the murmur of the crowd through the curtain before the start of the show.
The coke from earlier fizzes in my bloodstream, just starting to mellow with the third drink.
A misguided vigilante.
Except vigilantes try to help people. I can dress it up however I want, but all I’m trying to do is punish myself.
It doesn’t matter that he’s still my best friend, or that once upon a time, I was his. He’s far better off without me, and I’m an idiot for thinking I can fix anything with booze and drugs and brutal fists.
And a selfish asshole for dreaming I deserve to be fixed.
Three drinks later, and I’m drunk enough to know I shouldn’t get back on my bike, but I fix that with a couple more lines in the bathroom. The whole time I’m cutting them out, I’m half expecting Alex to pay me a visit, but when I get back to the bar, he and his cronies are gone.
Swallowing the drug’s acrid drip, I pay my tab—including Josh’s single rum and Coke—and let myself out into the night.
They’re waiting for me in the parking lot, one of them lounging against my Triumph with a familiarity that makes my teeth itch. I guess in a bar filled with jocks and sorority girls, the leather jacket gave me away.
“I see you’ve met Bonnie.” I keep my voice friendly enough but pull my hands from my pockets and shift my weight onto my toes. Looks like I’m getting some action tonight after all.
“My boy here says you tried to suck his dick,” the Bonnie molester says, tossing my helmet between his hands.
“Oh, I did more than try. He loved it too.” I wink at Alex. “Told me I had the prettiest mouth.”
Predictably, said mouth takes the first hit.
I duck the second swing and get in a good gut shot and an elbow to the nose of the guy closing in behind me before they’re all on me, and then the world goes hazy and red.
As always, my wasted state protects me from the worst of the pain, but my reflexes are slow and my spirit’s not in it.
I’m on the ground too soon, arms curled around my worthless head in a last-ditch attempt at self-preservation, when a cowboy boot to the side sends a flash of real pain through the fog.
It’s been a while since I busted a rib.
There’s asphalt under my cheek and blood in my mouth, and it must be starting to rain because my vision is all halos and smears. The sharp smell of gasoline burns my already abused nostrils.
I put up a last feeble fight when one of them rips at my jacket, but when a muscle threatens to tear, I give it up. I can ride with a bruised rib, but not a dislocated shoulder.
Who knows how long I lie there after they leave, sucking shallow breaths through my mouth and blinking up at the light pollution.
I miss the stars.
They were so close in the desert, sprawled in three dimensions across the vastness of the sky. So elusive in Mendo, a hidden tapestry peeking through the trees to wink at two boys in a hammock.
Move, asshole.
I roll my head to the side, bracing for the inevitable agony of pushing my bruised abs to work against my protesting ribs. Bonnie is on her side, leaking from her own cracked carapace, and something is wrong about the angle of the back wheel.
Bastards. Taking out their homophobia on an innocent machine.
My jacket is gone, and with it, my wallet.
I guess a robbery is easier on the conscience than a hate crime, but damn, the Triumph is fucked, and since I’m strictly cash only these days, I’m equally screwed without my wallet. At least I still have the keys in my front jeans pocket and my phone digging into my hip, hopefully unbroken.
Rolling over with a groan, I try to remember how far it is to the motel.
I think I’m paid up for the next two nights, but after that, I’ll be sleeping rough unless I can score a gig.
Not that I’m in any shape to dance with a fucked-up rib and a strained shoulder.
And not like anyone would give me a shift with my face looking the way it’s bound to for the next few days.
For the first time, I regret selling the truck.
Well. Not the first time, exactly. I have memories in that truck. Memories that make me hate myself, sure, but also make me hard.
Silky auburn hair between my fingers. Shy breath teasing my cock.
Fuck.
Using my good arm, I fumble my phone out of my pocket.
“Are you sure?”
Am I sure?
I’m sure.
I make the call.