Chapter 13 #2
“Where are you headed tonight, sir?” He asks me, shining his flashlight on my license.
“I’m just out clearing my head, man,” I tell him.
“Is that why I clocked you at one thirty-nine in a sixty-five?” Handing my license back to me, he says, “Step off of the bike.”
“Unless I’m being detained, I’m good here,” I tell him, tapping my fingers angrily against the fuel tank.
My molars grind against each other as I stare blankly ahead of me, barely aware of his presence next to me anymore. For a minute, I think about peeling away from him and flying down the road.
Everything I still had left, that actually mattered to me, just fucking imploded; who cares anymore?
What the fuck do I even have left to go home to?
Donor cycle, I think with a humorless huff.
Proving my brother right should be the last thing I want to do.
Hands clamp down on my shoulders, pulling me to the side and off of my bike.
I can hear someone shouting ‘get the fuck off of me!’ but I can’t see them.
The only thing I know is that my pulse is pounding in my head like it’s on a surround sound system and I’m floating around somewhere outside of my body while the world is moving around me in slow motion.
I think my hands are pulled behind my back, but they don’t stay that way for more than a second or two. My body pivots and I hear that same voice shouting again.
“Fuck yourself!”
Shit. That’s me.
It doesn’t sound like me.
Something hard hits my knuckles – his face, I think – and suddenly, my own face hurts. My knees, too.
I’m on the ground.
The impact of a booted foot slams against my ribs with a sharp javelin of blinding pain that steals my breath, and I’m in the air again as something hard hits me in the face.
His knee.
Goddammit, that hurts.
My arms swing out, fists making contact with something solid only a few times before my knuckles hit the asphalt beneath me.
The taste of salt and copper fills my mouth; I’m not sure where the blood is coming from, but it feels like there’s a lot of it.
That’s not good, Tripp.
“…Anything you say…”
My chest is slammed against the ground as hard pressure hits my spine. My lungs struggle and wheeze, trying desperately to pull in any air as what I think is his knee digs into my back.
There’s a distant memory dragged closer to the surface as the world sways back and forth, side to side in front of me; my grandpa Henry’s yacht.
I was only a kid the last time I saw him, but I can remember always being seasick on it.
His face blurs somewhere in the distance, and I squint to try to make it out.
Not just his face. Another one, too.
I spit as I’m pulled off of the ground, a splattering of crimson smacking onto the white toe of my Chucks to join the steady drip falling from my nose.
“…Have the right to an attorney…”
My brother. Get my brother.
“…Understand these rights…”
A group of us were pulled over a few months ago in a big meet. I thought for sure, at least three of us were going to leave in handcuffs and at least another four would be ticketed. There was no way we weren’t walking away with some kind of ding to our records.
But we did.
I didn’t let them near my bike because it felt like a set up, but six MPD officers hung out with us for a solid hour, acting just as fucking stupid as we were.
They took pictures of the bikes, they asked for recommendations on which models they should start with; a couple of them even rode backpack.
As my ear rings and the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, I think about how different this moment might be had it been one of those guys who pulled me over tonight.
I’m moving, but I’m not sure if I’m walking or if I’m being dragged.
I blink, forcing my eyes open, and I’m not on the side of the road anymore.
I’m moving through a grey building, past an equally-grey desk.
When did I black out? The floor squeaks underneath my bloodied Chucks – half dragging, half walking, then – and a few muffled voices stream into my still-ringing ears.
What the hell did you do to him?
Are you okay?
I hope the camera was off.
“Phone call,” I groan.
“Oh, now he’s awake. Yeah,” he scoffs, “I’ll make that a priority, buddy.”
“Know…” I groan again as a sharp pain shoots through my side. “…My rights.”
“Yeah, guys like you always think you do, don’t you,” he chuckles. “Above the law until the law benefits you, isn’t that right?”
I slip in and out of consciousness as I’m booked, and I’m not sure how many times I say the words ‘lawyer’ and ‘phone call,’ but neither are offered to me before I’m taken to a holding cell and locked inside.
It’s not the first time that I’ve been arrested, and it likely won’t be the last, but this time admittedly fucking sucks the most.
Sunlight is spilling into the pitifully-small, single window on the far wall before someone finally comes to get me to make my phone call.
The only sleep I managed to get last night was the few minutes in which I blacked out again.
“This is Brody Montgomery,” my brother greets me as he picks up the phone.
“I only have a minute and I need a favor,” I tell him.
“Tripp?” He sounds equal parts disappointed and furious. I guess I can’t really blame him for that. “What the hell are you—”
“I punched a cop, B,” I say, rubbing my fingers along my aching forehead with a grimace.
The only thing that comes through the receiver is the sound of my brother cursing under his breath, followed by the slamming of a desk drawer.
“Was it an act of self defense,” he demands.
Fuck-up little brother fucked up again. Alert the presses.
I sigh. “I think he was trying to cuff me and—”
“Stop talking,” he barks. “I’m sending a colleague out to you. Don’t speak to anyone without an attorney present. Don’t look at anyone the wrong way. Just shut the fuck up and wait for him to get there.”
“I need you to—”
“That doesn’t sound like shutting the fuck up,” he scolds. “I will get you home, but right now, you need to be quiet. Your attorney’s name is Ezra Amato and you will not speak to anyone unless he is present, is that clear?” After a few long beats of silence, he says, “You can answer that one.”
“Crystal clear.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I tell him with a sigh.
“Ezra will be there in a few hours,” he says with relief in his voice. “I’m going to call Julia – don’t fight me on that – and I’ll have you home by dinner time.”
My hand scrubs at my aching face with a groan, my elbow resting on the phone box in front of me. An ache buries itself in my chest as I recall the look on my best friend’s face when I asked him the one question he should have always been able to say no to.
“She fucked someone else.”
A beat of silence.
“What?”
“My wife fucked another guy,” I tell him. “So no, you’re not calling her.”
He curses under his breath again, this time following with quiet mumbling, not intended for me to hear or to understand. He’s done it since we were kids, any time he’s deep in thought. It’s no less obnoxious today than it was when I was ten and trying to do my homework next to him.
“I’ll be on the next flight out.”