Chapter 6 Stormy
I wake up and the light is wrong.
It takes me a second to understand why, and then it hits me. The sun is up and angled through the window in a way that means I've been asleep for hours. My hand is under the pillow on the knife, but my grip is loose and my body is heavy.
I sit up and check the door. The chair is still wedged under the knob. Nobody moved it. Nobody tried. Another dark night in this apartment with a man who could break down that door with one shove, and the door stayed closed.
My brain tells me he's waiting. It says the longer he waits, the worse it'll be. This is how they get you comfortable, this is how they make you stop watching, and then the door opens when you least expect it and you weren't ready.
But there's a new thought forming. It's small and I don't trust it, but it's there. The new part says he's taking care of you.
I can't believe I fell asleep on him. On his shoulder, in the dark, during a hurricane.
I've replayed it six times since I woke up, and every time the shame hits a little different.
I don't fall asleep on people or near people.
I barely fall asleep alone in a locked room with a weapon.
But my body shut down, tipped sideways and landed on the biggest, most dangerous-looking man I've ever been in a room with.
And instead of doing anything about it, he just sat there.
He let me sleep. And when I woke up and pulled away, he talked about the weather like it never happened.
He gave me the dignity of pretending it didn't happen. I don't know what that costs a person, but he did it.
I pull the chair away from the door and put it back in the corner. I put the old pocketknife in my pocket, pat it, and go downstairs.
He's already in the bar kitchen as always. The gas stove is on, and he's making eggs again, spatula in one hand, talking to the eggs.
"Don't you dare break on me you little shits," he's saying to the yolks.
"I have done nothing but provide you with a quality cooking surface and adequate butter.
The least you can do is hold your structural integrity until I get you on a plate.
I am not asking for much. This is a partnership and you need to hold up your end of the deal. "
I stand in the doorway and watch him negotiate with breakfast. He's shirtless, which I've learned is his default state now that the air conditioning is gone.
His jeans are the same ones from yesterday, dirty and stained, and his boots have dried mud caked on them from the cleanup.
His back is broad and tan. There's a tattoo across his left shoulder blade that I haven't been close enough to read.
I'm looking at it, trying to make it out, when he turns around.
"Morning, sleeping beauty," he says. "Grab a stool. The eggs and I have reached an understanding."
I sit on my stool. He slides a plate across to me. More eggs than yesterday. More bacon. A piece of toast that's been cooked on the flat top with so much butter it's practically translucent.
"You slept," he says. Not a question. An observation, delivered while he pours himself coffee from a pot he's somehow made on the gas stove.
"Yeah."
"You needed it. We've got another long day and I need you sharp. I'm putting you in charge of the gift shop today. What's left of it anyway."
"In charge?"
"Full authority. I need you to go through it, figure out what's salvageable and what's ruined, organize the good stuff, toss the bad stuff.
You've seen the shop. You know the layout.
I trust your judgment. Any damages we'll need to document with photos.
You can use my phone. Not that insurance will pay much for damages, but it's the thought that counts. "
I stare at him. He's pouring coffee into a second mug and adding what appears to be a ridiculous amount of sugar to it without asking me how I take it. Which means he's either guessing or he noticed that I used three sugars when he made coffee yesterday.
"You trust my judgment," I repeat.
"Hell yeah, I trust your judgment. You're smart, you pay attention, and you've got a better eye for organization than I do, which is not a high bar because I once filed my tax returns in the same drawer as my takeout menus, but still.
The guy at the tax place looked at me like I'd committed a war crime.
In my defense, the Szechuan Palace menu and a W-2 are roughly the same size and I was in a hurry.
" He slides the coffee across to me. "Drink that.
It's not great but it's hot and it's caffeinated and those are the only two qualities that matter right now.
I made it cowboy-style. That means I boiled water in a pot and threw grounds in it and hoped for the best. It's what my daddy did when the power went out and what his daddy did before electricity existed, probably.
It tastes like a smoky campfire. You'll love it and if you don't, dump more sugar in. "
I drink the coffee. It's exactly the way I like it.
"It's good," I say.
"Yeah, just pretend we're camping because we basically are."
We head down to the first floor after breakfast. The bar looks different in full daylight, the morning sun coming through the open doors and illuminating every inch of damage in high definition.
Yesterday it was overwhelming. Today it's just work.
A lot of work, but work. Identifiable, breakable-into-pieces work.
I'm learning that about disasters. The first time you see the damage, it's paralyzing. The second time, it's a to-do list.
Tex sets up the battery radio on the bar top and turns it on.
The oldies station from yesterday is still broadcasting, and Bon Jovi comes through the little speaker like an old friend showing up to help.
Tex nods approvingly and heads for the far side of the bar where he left off pulling flooring yesterday.
I go to the gift shop. It's a mess. The display racks are toppled, the spinning stands knocked over, and everything that was below three feet is soaked or muddy or both.
The glass display cases that held the nicer items, the leather wallets and silver keychains, are intact but full of cloudy water.
The t-shirts and sweatshirts and sweatpants that were on the lower racks are soaked through.
The ones on the higher racks are mostly dry.
I start sorting. Dry stuff in one pile, wet stuff in another, ruined stuff in a third.
It's simple work, repetitive, and my hands fall into a rhythm that lets my brain go quiet for stretches.
I check each item, assess the damage, make a decision, move on.
It feels good. It feels like I'm capable, which is a feeling I don't have often enough to take for granted.
I find the hot pink tank top Tex threatened me with.
"Property of Big Tex" in white block letters across the front.
It's dry. I hold it up and look at it. Tex said he'd make me wear this if I called him sir too many times.
The fact that my biggest threat in this building is being forced to wear a hot pink tank top is so far from what I'm used to that it almost makes me dizzy.
I fold the tank top and put it in the dry pile up high. I keep sorting.
Around mid-morning, Tex calls me over. He's near the back of the bar, standing next to an old metal tool chest. The kind with multiple drawers, dented and scratched, the red paint chipped off in patches.
"Come here," he says. "I want to show you something."
I walk over. My hand goes to my pocket where the pocketknife is. Automatic. I don't even think about it anymore. It's just what my hand does when a man tells me to come closer.
"Open the bottom drawer," he says.
I crouch down and pull the drawer open. It's heavy, slides out on rusted runners with a grinding sound, and when I see what's inside, I stop.
Knives. Dozens of them. Pocket knives, hunting knives, folding knives, a couple of switchblades, some cheap gas station blades with plastic handles, a few that look expensive. They're piled in the drawer like a junk drawer in a house where the junk happens to be weapons.
"What is this?" I ask.
"Twenty years of confiscations." Tex leans against the wall with his arms crossed.
"Bar rule since my daddy's day. You pull a blade in Big Tex's, you lose the blade.
Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter why.
You pull it, it goes in the drawer. Some of those have been in there since before I took over.
Dad started the collection. I've added to it considerably.
That drawer is basically a museum of bad decisions.
Every knife in there represents a moment when someone thought pulling a blade in a biker bar was a good idea.
Spoiler alert. It never is. The drawer always wins. "
I look at the drawer then back up at him. "Do you want me to sort them?"
"Hell no. That pocketknife of yours. The butter knife.
I've been thinking about it and it's been bothering me.
If you're going to carry a knife, you should carry a real one.
A blade that actually works. A weapon that could do some good if you ever needed it to.
If you pull that pocketknife on someone all it's going to do is piss them off. "
I don't move. I'm crouched in front of the drawer full of knives and I'm waiting for the other part of this.
The part where he says, give me your knife and I'll pick one for you.
The part where the weapon I have gets taken and replaced with one he controls.
I know this game. I've played this game before.
"Pick one," he says. "Or a whole handful. God knows, I've got enough of them. Whatever feels right in your hand. It's yours."
His face is open and his brown eyes are doing that thing where the crinkles at the corners make him look like the least threatening person on earth.
"You're giving me a knife?"