Wild Wind (Chaos)

Prologue

Fuckin’ A

Jagger

When Jagger first saw her, it was eleven years ago.

On his sixteenth birthday.

His brother Dutch had let Jagger use his truck and Jag drove

by himself for the first time.

Where’d he go?

He went to his father’s grave.

That was another first.

The first time he’d been there by himself.

And it was the only time Jag could remember that he and his

dad had been alone together.

Well, kinda alone.

She was there.

Not with him and his dad.

She was at a funeral that was happening across the way.

When he first clapped eyes on her, she was in one of those

chairs they set up, right at the front, staring at the casket.

Jag sat, and he was supposed to be sharing part of his

sixteenth birthday with his dad, but he couldn’t help himself.

He kept glancing over at her, mostly because she was pretty.

But he looked her way so often, he knew, eventually when he

did it, she’d be looking at him.

And eventually, she was.

She was so pretty, he didn’t think about what she was doing

there, he just thought about how pretty she was.

But when they caught eyes over those thirty yards dotted

with headstones, he felt the look on her face in the back of his throat.

Only then did he take in her surroundings.

There was a man sitting beside her and a guy maybe Jagger’s

age sitting on the other side of the man.

But there was no woman.

So…

Yeah.

He wasn’t surprised.

He knew that look on her face.

He felt it.

Still.

Fuck.

Even though it was his birthday, and he was finally legal to

drive, and there were a million other things he wanted to do, he didn’t do any

of them.

He hung there until the service was over.

He didn’t get why. Maybe it had to do with the fact that,

once she saw him there, she kept glancing at him. Maybe she knew what he knew,

and they both just got it. So, if she was looking his way, he needed to be

there for her.

Or maybe it was that she was just that pretty.

Jag had guessed it before, but he figured it out for sure

when the service was over. The way people were with her, the guy who looked

like her brother, and the man who was probably her dad.

God, Jag had had that shit shoved down his throat for as

long as he could remember.

He was barely old enough to talk when his dad was murdered,

and to that day, he got those looks. Especially when folks found out his father

was murdered. And more especially when they learned Jag was barely able to talk

when his old man got whacked.

The looks she and her brother and her dad were getting right

then.

Looks that Jag knew the person intended to be nice, but they

made you just want to punch them in the throat.

Or shout in their face.

Just be real! I’m not dead, he is!

I barely knew him!

I don’t even remember him!

My real dad is alive. He’s always been there for me. So

you can just chill!

It was not the same for that girl.

Nope.

She was probably fourteen, fifteen, and Jag was guessing it

was her mom who was gone.

That was a lot of time to have in before you lost

everything.

He didn’t know what he’d do if his mom kicked it.

Or Hound did.

Or something happened to Dutch.

No, he did know.

He’d go off the rails. He didn’t even care. End up dead or

in prison.

But his birth dad? Graham Black?

Jag didn’t know the man.

So, yeah.

When it came to Jag, people could just chill.

Her though?

That girl?

For her, even on his birthday, able to drive by himself, he

stayed at the cemetery.

He wanted to go over there, take her aside, say to her,

“Yeah, just look like you’re listening, nod and move on. It’ll be over soon.

They’ll go away. And then it’s just your family. It’ll always be just your

family.”

He wanted to save her from that shit or at least shield her

from it.

But he couldn’t do that.

Still, he stayed.

He stayed while everyone came over and fucking touched her.

Her arm, or shoulder, her hair, her hand.

And it was tough to sit through that. It was tough not to

haul his ass over there and stop that shit.

Christ, why did they do that?

Like, your mom was gone, and you wanted people pawing you?

But he sat where he was and stayed through all that.

He stayed, watching her walk with her dad and brother to

their car.

The dad held her hand.

He had his other hand wrapped around the back of his boy’s

neck.

Jag couldn’t even look at the dad’s face.

He knew what he’d see.

Jag had been looking at that for as long as he could

remember.

But seeing it new? Fresh? Raw?

Nope.

He wasn’t looking at that dude.

Jag also stayed after they drove away.

After everyone was gone.

And he stayed to hold vigil as the cemetery workers took

care of things.

Put her mom under dirt.

Did right with the process. Laid the flowers on just so.

Yeah, Jag stayed through all of that.

Only when her mom was all good did Jag look at his father’s

tombstone.

“Later, Pops,” he said, getting up, brushing off the ass of

his jeans, and making his way to Dutch’s truck.

And it was fucked in the head.

But to this day, he would swear it happened.

Swear that he heard You’re a good kid, Jag, in a

voice that was totally familiar.

At the same time it was not.

It was a couple of months after when he saw the

tombstone go up.

He was in Dutch’s truck again, alone, visiting his dad.

And he was pissed because Hound and his mom were just not

getting it on.

Seriously with that, what the fuck?

Hound was, like, wasting his whole damned life waiting for

his mother to snap out of it.

But did she?

No.

Hell, everything she needed was right there.

In her boys.

And in Hound.

Jesus.

But yeah, Jag saw the new headstone, which was good. Seeing

that, he could think of her, the pretty girl, and not think about why he kept

coming to his dad’s grave, especially when he was frustrated that his father’s

wife wasn’t hooking up with a man his father considered a brother.

And Jag didn’t know why, but when he saw that new

gravestone, he turned right around, drove to the store, bought some paper,

envelopes and Ziplocs, as well as duct tape. He found a pen in Dutch’s glove

box and drove back to the cemetery.

He sat on his father’s grave and wrote her a note because he

knew, that headstone was up, they’d come back for certain to check it out.

The note read:

Hey,

I’m the guy from across the way. Just to say, it sucks

now and people are gonna be weird about it for a long time. Just ignore them

and do your thing. You got her in your head, you know? That’s not going

anywhere. Ever.

And you got your dad and your brother. That’s big.

I got my mom and my brother. And they’re like,

everything, you know? We look out for each other. We’re a family. Totally.

I can’t say it’s all good, because it’s not.

I can just say you get on with it.

So let people do their thing, you do yours, and stick

tight with your dad and brother.

You’ll be OK.

Hang

loose,

-J

He’d then folded it up, put it in an envelope and wrote For

the Girl Across the Way on it.

When he was done with that, he’d taped it to the base of her

mom’s headstone.

Her mom’s name had been Bryn.

Pretty.

He wondered what the girl’s name was.

At the time, he figured that he’d probably never find out.

It was a week or so later when Hound caught up with

him.

“Reckon this is for you,” his stepdad-not-stepdad had

grunted, handing him an envelope in a Ziploc.

Hound said nothing more.

That was just like Hound. He always knew what to do, say,

how to be.

So he took off and left Jagger to it.

Jag never asked him when he was there, or why. It wasn’t a

surprise Hound visited his father’s grave.

They were brothers, after all.

Jagger pulled the envelope out of the baggie and saw it said

For the Guy Across the Way.

The writing wasn’t girlie. Each letter was straight up and

down, deep impressions in the strokes, taking space. It had personality but it

was so perfect, it was a little eerie. Like it wasn’t handwritten, but instead

some font pretending to be handwriting, printed out on a printer.

It said:

J-

Thanks for the advice.

Dad says you’re right.

And you’re wise.

You hang loose too.

-A

Jag really wanted to know what “A” stood for.

But he’d have to wait a while to find out.

The next time Jag saw her, it was two, three months

later, outside an Arby’s.

She was with her family.

Or what was left of it.

Jag was going in.

She was coming out.

He stopped dead the second he saw her.

She did the same.

Her father and brother didn’t notice and kept walking to

their car.

Jag moved to her where she was standing on the sidewalk,

waiting for him.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey,” she replied.

“How’s things? You hangin’ in

there?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Cool,” he said, feeling something he’d never felt before.

Uncomfortable.

Unsure.

Like a dork.

Man, she was pretty.

And man, he was a dick, when all he could think was how

pretty she was, and her mom hadn’t been under dirt for a full year.

“Thanks for the note,” she said.

“I get it,” he told her.

“Yeah, I saw your dad’s stone. I get that you do,” she

replied.

“Honey!”

They both looked in the direction of the call.

The dad was looking impatient and not too hip on his

daughter chatting with Jag.

The brother had the same exact look.

“Be right there,” she yelled back.

“I’ll let you go, but you know how to get me, you need me,

yeah?” Jag asked.

He was talking about exchanging notes.

What he wanted to do was get her number.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Thanks,” she said, tucking her black

hair behind her ear.

And he wondered about her mom. The dad was tall and blond.

She was not either.

Nor was her brother.

She stepped off the curb and said, “Later?”

This was the time he should ask for her number or give her

his.

But how did he do that when her brother and father were

right there?

“Later,” he said, though he didn’t know how that would

happen, unless she left him a note, which could be intercepted by someone other

than Hound, like Dutch or his mom, and they wouldn’t be as cool about it.