Chapter 11
Flint
Jasper has arranged for some brothers from our LA chapter to keep an eye on Jules’ former landlord and make sure those assholes don’t circle back.
I’ve just filled her in on what’s happening when she leans over the table and lowers her voice. “Flint, can I ask you something?”
“Always. I know you’re trying to be polite, but you don’t have to keep asking first.” I try to keep from sounding frustrated because she doesn’t deserve my ire when she’s always nice as fuckin’ pie.
“I’m just curious why you’re so obsessed with safety. I know it’s important, but you make it seem like everything is an emergency. Every situation is either zero or a hundred. There’s never anything in between. You never used to be like that…”
I close my eyes for a second. After the day I’ve had, this is the last fuckin’ thing in the world I want to talk about. “Look, can we not do this today?”
“You told me last night I could ask you anything I wanted.”
Sighing, I respond, “Yeah, I remember saying that. I just didn’t think you’d take me up on it quite so fast.”
When she laughs, the sound is easy on my ears. I fuckin’ love the sound of her voice and the way she laughs. It lightens my mood.
I begin telling my story, one she might end up hating me for.
“Tommy and I were in the same unit but had different MOSs. I was responsible for repairing firearms. Tommy got stuck moving JP-8 fuel, which is highly combustible. I was rushing through a job on a fifty-caliber machine gun, making headspace and timing adjustments with steel tools. He came off shift reeking of fuel.”
“What happened?”
“Tommy walked into the munitions bay looking for me. He wanted to grab lunch. He leaned over my shoulder to see what I was working on, just as I scraped a metal tool to dislodge a bolt. All it took was one spark to ignite his shirt.”
I stop telling the most painful story of my life to take another long drink of beer.
“The fuel on the fabric caught fire. Tommy got his shirt off in a matter of seconds, which saved his fuckin’ life. He ended up with pretty severe burns on his right side and spent six weeks in a burn unit.”
Jules just stares at me with a confused look on her face before blurting out, “Is that where all that scarring along his rib cage came from? He told me it was an accident.”
“Yeah, and I totally feel like shit about what happened to him. Burns are nasty business.”
“But was just an accident, nobody’s fault,” she tells me.
“You’re wrong about that, Jules. I didn’t use the proper headspace and timing gauge. I was sure I could make it work with a screwdriver, and that’s what caused the spark.”
“You’re being pretty hard on yourself. It sounds like an accident.”
“Yeah, that’s what the investigation revealed. They said I was working under pressure without the availability of proper tools, so I was forced to improvise.” Rubbing my fist against my chest, I tell her, “It doesn’t matter what anyone says. I feel like it was my fault.”
She reaches out and places her hand over mine. “You need to forgive yourself, Flint. Looks like you’re the only person who thinks you were responsible.”
“I’m not there yet, not even close. And you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Who was the first person?”
“Tommy.”
“Of course it was. My brother’s a smart man. He’s not going to hold a grudge against his best friend over something he didn’t mean to do.”
I look down at my hands, wishing that had never happened. “You want to know something that I’ve never told anyone?”
“What’s that?”
“It would have been easier if the investigation had determined that I was at fault because I would have received a punishment. If Tommy had blamed me, I could have made some kind of restitution. But as it stands, everyone just wiped the slate clean, and now I have to live with the endless fuckin’ guilt. ”
Jules nods and gives my hand a little squeeze. “There you go with the guilt again. Tommy has some scars. But has it stopped him doing what he wants with his life? No. Did you ever think about seeing a therapist over this?”
“Hell the fuck no, I did not.”
I pull my biggest secret into the light, and now we just let it sit there for a few minutes. It makes me feel so fuckin’ vulnerable. And I hate feeling that way. It’s fuckin’ emasculating.
“Flint, you’re so stuck in the whole guilt thing that you’re not seeing the accident for what it is.”
“Yeah, but no matter what, if I hadn’t created that spark then it never would have happened.”
She says something that blows my mind. “Believe it or not, I know exactly what that feels like. For a long time I felt responsible for my mom’s death.”
“What are you saying, Jules? Your mom died of cancer. I remember it like it was yesterday. She was trying to work her way through the second bout of radiation treatment when her body just lost the fight. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”
She’s just silent.
“What in the world makes you think it was your fault?”
It takes her a second or two to get started. “It was an in-service day, you know, where the teachers spend the day in meetings and trainings?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know they still had those in California.”
“Yeah, they did back then,” she says quietly.
“So, I was home from school. Tommy was starting his grown-up job. It was his first full-time day job. It was the one that came with benefits like paid time off and health insurance. He took it because Mom needed the insurance, and we needed the money to stay afloat.”
She stops talking and stares straight up, blinking her tears away.
I speak. “He’d just turned eighteen, and we were both graduating in a few months. I remember being impressed as hell that he had his life together before he even graduated.”
“Yeah, he was so proud of himself. The night before, Mom and I sat at the kitchen table watching him iron his uniform shirt as he told us about how important his security job was and how working at the mall could lead to bigger and better things. I remember how Mom told him how handsome he looked when he tried on his neatly pressed uniform for us.”
Good goddamn, her story is making me tear up as well because I remember how this day ended. She needs to talk about this fuckin’ trauma, I can tell by how she’s forcing herself to speak. So, I reach across the table and put my hand over hers.
“Just get it all out, darlin’. I’m here for you.”
She nods and then continues in the same hollow voice, “Tommy had just left for work. The minute he walked out the door, she laid back on the sofa. I know she was tired from those treatments she was getting, but this was different.”
She turns her hand in mine and grips it harder. “I made her some toast and brought her medicine. She asked me to bring her ice water, and her hands were shaking when she took the glass and swallowed her meds. I just knew something was wrong, more wrong than usual.”
She stops, tugs her hand from mine, and takes a sip of her drink before continuing. “I wanted to call Tommy, but Mom said no. She said it was his first day, and we could not afford for him to lose this job. She said she was fine and promised me everything would be okay, but it wasn’t.”
“Jules, we both know how this ends. Talk if you need to, but don’t go on for my sake.”
“I’ve never told a living soul about what happened that day.”
I nod. “Go on then. I want to understand what happened so we can put your mind at ease about it.”
“If that’s even possible,” she says. “You’ll probably feel differently by the time you hear the whole thing.
” She doesn’t give me a chance to respond.
Instead, she just plows ahead with her heart-wrenching tale.
“I was twelve years old, and I didn’t know what to do.
I was taught growing up to do what my mom told me to do. And she told me not to call.”
Glancing away, she rubs her hands nervously down the thighs of her jeans.
“I kept wiping her forehead and arms with a cold cloth, and when she woke up the next time, I begged her to let me call 911. She said absolutely not. She said that she was tired of the damned hospital and she wasn’t going back there again no matter what.
I remember turning away, so she didn’t see me crying.
She reaches up and wipes her eyes. I can tell this is traumatic for her. “Don’t. If it’s too hard you don’t—”
She waves me away and continues. “By noon, her breathing didn’t sound right.
I panicked and called 911. It took a bit for the ambulance to get there.
They tried to clear her airway, but she had a heart attack at some point, and they couldn’t get her back.
They told me there was nothing I could have done.
They’d sent me out to sit on the porch while they worked on her, so I didn’t see what all they did, but I could hear every word they said. ”
“Tell me they didn’t blame you.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“Of course not. All her cancer meds were right there on the end table. I remember them saying she’s lucky she lasted as long as she did.
They told me there was nothing I could have done.
Tommy said the same thing. But when I watched them lower her casket into the ground, all I could think of was what if I’d called when I first realized something was wrong.
Maybe they could have saved her? Who knows, she might have even rung the bell. ”
I know what she means by ringing the bell. Patients do that on the way out of the doctor’s office when they get a clean screening at their checkups after being treated for cancer.
I gaze down into her tearstained face and say, “Maybe your mother was just tired of bein’ in pain all the time. Radiation treatment really takes it out of a person.”
Shock registers on every inch of her face. Her eyes widen, and her mouth drops open slightly. “Wait. What are you saying, Flint? My mother was a fighter. Everyone said so. She wouldn’t just give up.”
“Cancer is a brutal disease. Her cancer had been caught in the later stages and was aggressive. At some point, everyone has to decide whether to keep fighting through the pain and misery or take a well-deserved final rest. My best guess is, Tommy finally started a job that meant the two of you could stand on your own two feet without her. She decided to use that opportunity to go out on her own terms, sweetheart. Maybe she sensed it was her time. The bottom line is you did the right thing by offering her the option to keep fighting, but it just wasn’t what she wanted for herself. ”
She starts shaking her head as fresh tears track down her face. “That’s not what happened. It’s not. She wanted to live.”
“Of course she did. It was just too much. She told you she never wanted to go back to the hospital herself. Now that you’re all grown up, you must be able to see what that statement really meant. I know that her choosing to go without you hurts.”
“I’ve felt so guilty for so long, I don’t know how to live any other way.”
I tuck her head under my chin and hold her closer.
“Your grief and guilt about not calling sooner got all twisted up in your mind. It made you feel responsible for what happened, but you weren’t.
” As I say the words, I realize that this is what happened with Tommy’s accident.
All my thoughts about the situation got twisted.
Though knowing it, doesn’t make me feel any less responsible.
She’s quiet for a long beat. She finally pulls back enough to look up at me.
“That’s why I went straight to the police that night on the beltline.
I knew what I’d seen, that there was a man in a trunk, and I had to do then what I didn’t do before.
I was convinced that if I told the police right away that I could save him. ”
I frown down at her, trying to work out her train of thought. It doesn’t take long. “In your mind, not calling in time caused your mother’s death. I can see how you thought contacting the authorities right away was the right answer.”
“I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the girl who didn’t learn from her mistakes. Fat lot of good it did me.”
“You saw what you saw and tried your best to get that poor man help.”
“I feel like I can’t win, no matter what I do.”
“Yeah, I get that help from the official sources fails sometimes. That’s when organizations like the Sons step up.
Men like me aren’t afraid to stick our necks out when people are in trouble.
In this situation, the right thing to do was to tell me.
Let me take a crack at figuring this out.
I guarantee I’m worlds more effective than a fucking cop when it comes to tracking shit down and holding people accountable. ”
She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out before responding, “I know you’re already trying to find that sedan from the beltline. I’ve overheard you talking to junk yards.”
I give her a determined little smile and nod. “You bet your sweet ass I’m trackin’ that shit hard. I want to know what the fuck is going on. Trust me, I ain’t lettin’ go of this until I get some answers. Especially now they’re asking your ex-landlord questions.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and moves closer, laying her cheek against my chest. When she relaxes against me, I know she feels better and trusts me to track down some fuckin’ answers.
Between the conversation with Rock and Jules unburdening herself, this day has been an emotional rollercoaster, not only for me but for Jules too. She needs me to be strong for her. Luckily, I’m not the kind of man who breaks.