Chapter 5
Hawk
When I hear the lock turn in the middle of the night, I assume the worst. Lord knows I’m not ready to die yet, but then again, who is?
I decide to keep my head down and fake sleep. Maybe they’ll untie me for transport; then, I’d have a fighting chance.
They shuffle around the room, and when I manage to take a peek, I see that they’re tying a hooded woman to the chair. Shit.
She looks to be 5’5 or 5’6, around 140-145 pounds. She’s wearing high-heeled boots, fishnets, a pair of tiny shorts, and what looks like a corset.
Cold dread seizes my gut. Are they going to rape or traffic her?
God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, I chant to myself to keep from freaking out.
I listen to her interaction with the two morons and deduce that she’s an addict who’s gotten on the Preacher’s bad side. Still, she might have clues as to where we are.
“Who are you?” I ask once I’m certain that Beavis and Butthead are gone.
Judging from her gasp when she first sees me, I must look a mess. I know my eye is a sight. My hand itches to feel the stubble on my head and gauge the pathetic amount of hair it’s capable of producing, but the rope burns on my wrists remind me I can’t.
She purses her lips, like she doesn’t want to answer. Her face is striking. It’s round and pale, framed by a curtain of long, black hair. Her eyes are light, most likely blue. There’s a red bandana on the floor behind her. Probably came off when the hood was pulled from her head.
“No sense in lying,” I say, trying to put her at ease. “What am I gonna do, find out where you live and come kidnap you?”
She almost smiles at the joke, then clears her throat, as if remembering where she is. “My name is Marissa. Johnson. And who are you?”
I ignore the question. “Why are you here?”
“No idea,” she says quite bitterly. “You?”
She seems to be in that sweet spot where she doesn’t look high out of her mind, but isn’t in withdrawal yet. Give it time.
“Beavis and Butthead think I blew up a meth lab.”
She raises her eyebrows, stunned. This is fun.
“What day is it?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve,” she replies, looking at the skylight with unconcealed longing. “Who are these people?”
“Small-time drug dealers who earn extra cash by running errands, such as kidnapping, for bigger fish,” I explain.
She considers this information briefly. “What’s your name?”
“Hawk.”
“Is that so?” she asks sarcastically. I like that better than the longing.
I shrug. “Do you really not know who the Preacher is?”
“I really don’t.”
She appears truthful. It’s hard to analyze a person’s body language with maximum accuracy if all they can move is their face. I mean, I could, but I’d need two functioning eyes and better light.
“He’s a drug lord, but likes to think of himself as a businessman. He’s in charge of most of the coke and heroin coming into Arizona, and the facilities where they cut and package the shit.”
Marissa Johnson seems disturbed at the idea that such a man might want something from her, and then she frowns at me. “How come you know so much about this stuff? Do you work with these people?”
The balls on this junkie. I’m offended. “We work against them. In a way.”
Why am I explaining myself to her?
“Who’s we?”
“You got a kid?” I ask in order to throw her off.
“Yeah,” she says in a hoarse voice. “His name is DJ, and he’s seven months old.”
She looks absolutely devastated, and I hate myself for it. I don’t want her to be sad, because I need information from her. No other reason.
“What does DJ stand for?”
“Dylan Junior. I wanted to name him Alexander or Sebastian, but his father thought those names were too pretentious,” she says quietly, as if to herself.
“Are you always the one to go along with what others want?”
She starts bouncing her leg even harder. “Depends. If their being upset or unhappy makes me want to peel my skin off, then yes.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“DJ’s probably out of milk by now,” she says after a while. “I’ve only pumped two bottles for him.”
She looks genuinely worried. Marissa Johnson is either a very committed liar, or she really is a breastfeeding mom and not an addict.
“I’m sure someone will go out and buy him some formula.”
“He’s never had formula before. Besides, I don’t even know if Dylan, my… his father, has already gone to get him from my mother-in-law’s.”
I see her mind going a million miles an hour, and she soon works herself up to crying, probably already imagining her emaciated baby in the hospital, hooked up to all sorts of IVs to keep him alive.
“Good God,” I say in an exasperated tone.
She looks at me angrily. “What the fuck is your problem?” She hisses. “You have no idea what I’ve been through tonight!”
I sit up and reflexively strain against the rope. “Did they touch you?”
“No, thank God,” she replies between the sobs. “Will Rebel swoop in and play mommy after I’m dead?” She asks and sobs even harder.
I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. Maybe that withdrawal’s kicking in.
We’re both quiet for a long time. After a while, Marissa’s sobs die down. She’s probably fallen asleep.
*
It’s nice to have someone here with me. Since Marissa’s arrival, I haven’t been torturing myself with shame and feelings of inadequacy for allowing myself to be captured by these idiots.
No, I can almost hear my therapist. A child cried that their Mommy wasn’t waking up, and you ran to help.
No regrets. I’d do it again. I wonder what happened to the boy.
I glance up at the sky light and see that night is slowly giving way to dawn. I feel her eyes on me.
Marissa.
“Where did they take you from?” I ask without preamble.
“The Gray Wolves MC compound.”
I’m pleasantly surprised that she has ties to the lifestyle, but the feeling sours quickly, ‘cause I realize that she’s either a club girl or someone’s ol’ lady.
“In Tucson?”
She nods.
“Did they knock you out?”
“No. They just put a shirt or something over my face.”
“How long was the drive here?”
“Not long. Around twenty minutes, I’d say.”
“So, we’re still in Tucson,” I muse. “You with the club?”
“Yeah, my… I used to be. Technically still am. It’s complicated.”
“It’s a yes or no,” I say, annoyed at her for some reason.
She starts bouncing her leg harder. “I guess it’s a no. DJ’s father is, though.”
“Is he gonna look for you?”
“Who knows. If he’s not too busy fucking his One True Love,” she says bitterly.
This is getting confusing.
“You really don’t know why they took you?”
“No idea. I was at the New Year’s party and suddenly… At first, I honestly thought Dylan was trying to get rid of me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He’s been cheating on me with his ex, so I thought maybe they decided to get rid of me and raise our son together.”
So she’s single.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I need to get my head checked; maybe one of those two knocked something loose in there.
“How long have you been here?” Marissa’s voice is a welcome interruption.
“Four days, I think.”
“Do they give you any food or water?”
“They come in once a day, around noon, give me some water, some junk to eat, and let me use the bucket.”
She makes a face, then quickly says, “Sorry,” and promptly bursts into tears again.
“Hey, hey,” I tell her kindly. “Don’t do that. That’ll kill you. There’s nothing we can do now; we’re trapped here. All we can do is pass the time. Talk to me, distract us both. You grow up around here?”
“Phoenix, South Side.”
I whistle. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“What about you?”
“Paradise Valley.”
“It’s my turn to whistle, but I don’t know how, rich boy.”
“All that glitters is not gold, et cetera, et cetera. My parents worked a lot, so they were always too busy for me.”
“Boo hoo, you still had two parents, unlike me,” she taunts, but a flash of pain crosses her face.
Just for a millisecond, and then it’s gone. It’s like she absorbed it back into her body. She seems well-versed in powering through discomfort. I wonder whether that is by necessity or by choice.
“Who did you have, mom or dad?”
“Mom. Never met dad,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Is she still in Phoenix?”
“She passed away two years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about her.”
We talk about the various jobs her mom held throughout Marissa’s childhood, and she even confides in me about her mother’s emotionally Spartan ways.
“I don’t know what happened to her. From flower child to someone who had so little faith in humanity,” Marissa tells me, and I suspect that she’s at some point blamed herself for the change. “She always went on about how you can’t rely on anyone but yourself.”
Finally, through sobs, she reveals how, on the morning she found her mother, dead from an aneurysm at the age of 57, she was far from glad that her childhood was spent preparing her for the harshness of life.
“I was going to stay all alone either way,” she says after unsuccessfully trying to wipe her nose on her shoulder. “We could have enjoyed the time before that inevitably happened. It’s like she didn’t want me to get used to being happy or cared for.”
I sigh. “You know how some people buy gifts that they themselves would like to receive instead of what the other person might want? Your mom probably wished someone had told her those things when she was young.”
She blinks. “I never thought of it that way. What are you? Some sort of shrink?”
“No.” I smile. “But I’ve been sober for almost six and a half years, so I’ve picked up a few tricks in therapy and AA meetings.”
“Wha-,” Marissa starts saying something, but then, we hear the door unlock, and her eyes widen.
“I can’t wait to be rid of you two,” Beavis announces when they stroll into the room. “It’s probably going to be a slow death for you, princess. I heard the Preacher likes to tie people to his vehicle and drag them around the desert for fun.”
I’ve heard the same thing, but I manage to conceal my terror. Marissa, on the other hand, has no poker face. I wish I could say, or better yet, do something to save us.
Our captors rustle around the plastic bags they brought with them before they each pick a prisoner to feed. On today’s menu: a gas station hot dog and an energy drink.
I’ve never been fussy about food; working crazy shifts trains you to fuel your body with whatever you can find. Ignoring the humiliation of literally eating from my enemy’s hand, however, is a whole other thing.
“Yeah, swallow all of it,” that pervert Butthead tells Marissa while shoving the hot dog deeper into her mouth.
Beavis snorts. “Next time, I’m feeding the bitch.”
White-hot rage starts pulsing in my temples. My neck feels hot.
“Knock it off,” I instruct them in my cop voice.
Unfortunately, very little intimidation is possible when you’re the one who’s tied up.
Beavis shoves the energy drink at my mouth. “Shut up.”
I almost choke when Marissa starts whimpering.
“No, please, where are you taking me?”
Butthead is dragging her towards the corner. That’s where the bucket is. I know that. I do.
My body, however, is in fight mode and refuses to listen to reason. I finally understand how Hammer feels during one of his episodes.
“You leave her alone!” I yell out, straining against the rope.
Utterly impotent, I watch Butthead unbutton Marissa’s shorts. She’s shaking like a leaf. Her lips are ghostly white, and silent tears are streaming down her face.
I can’t let them hurt her, I can’t.
With all my remaining strength, I lurch towards Beavis, who’s watching the scene with great amusement, and headbutt him in the stomach.
His backhanding me across the face does nothing to quell the adrenaline turning me into the Incredible Hulk, but the metal pipe against my leg sobers me in no time.
“Please, no! Please stop! Hawk! Hawk!” Marissa pleads in vain.
My chair topples over with me tied to it, and the world is tilted and hazy.
“Piss or get off the bucket,” Butthead taunts Marissa, and I hear them laughing at her while she relieves herself.
Soon, she’s back in her chair, whereas I’m left on the floor, and told that I’ve lost “the privilege” of using the bucket. I suspect they’re scared of untying me, so I burst out laughing.
The sound turns into a wheeze when one of them kicks me in the ribs.
“Cocksucker,” Butthead spits, and they leave.