Roustabout Read online

  Her eyes had drifted back to the Duke and she twitched a shoulder.

  “Big wigs. Politicians liking the sound of their own voices. Where you stay these days?”

  A guy in a suit who was sweating worse than a whore in church tapped the microphone, drawing my attention. He’d tried to dress upscale, but his accent was pure East Tennessee. I’d let mine drift away as soon as I left. But Aimee said I still had an accent, which surprised me.

  Feedback screeched through the mic and everyone winced. The guy flushed even redder then started babbling on about ‘honored guests’ and shit.

  The bigwig was from the Senator’s office in Nashville. He kind of reminded me of the online photos I’d seen of Kes’s dad: sharp suit, sharp hair, white shark-like smile. He had a young blonde woman with him, probably some sort of assistant. She had the same glossy poise as Tera, the same air of being classy without trying.

  I shook my head to clear it. Coming back here was really screwing with me—I needed to forget about Tera and focus on the clusterfuck that was sure to be heading my way.

  After the short speeches, the crowd began to clear and the police cruisers reopened Main Street. I said goodbye to Mary and climbed back on the Duke, slowly heading toward where the old family-run motel had been. It was still there, but not quite the dump it used to be. I took a room, bargaining with the guy at the desk from $40 a night, the price he probably reserved for tourists, down to $35.

  I dumped the leathers in a corner of the room, then tested the full-size bed, bouncing slightly on the well-used mattress.

  Despite being ass-naked, sweat was trickling down my spine, the summer humidity sucking the life out of everything. I cranked up the AC, wincing as the unit rattled and wheezed, banging so loudly I was afraid it would shake itself apart.

  The water in the shower was lukewarm, but I was so damn hot and sticky, I didn’t care. I did care that being alone with soapy water had me thinking all things Tera, but then I remembered why I was here and my dick deflated faster than a birthday balloon.

  When I couldn’t put it off any longer, I climbed back on the Duke and rode out of town, turning off at the dusty path that led up the mountain and more than a decade into the past . . .

  . . . Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

  That’s what my momma told me my entire life while I was growing up, which was pretty damn funny, considering I was hungry every single day. It was the kind of gnawing hunger that would shrink your belly so bad, it’d feel like it was trying to tie itself into a knot. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first word I learned was ‘food’, although it might have been ‘hungry’. I spent a decade fantasizing about eating. Momma seemed to think that filling us up on soda was enough. I’m surprised my teeth didn’t fall out, the gallons of Mountain Dew we used to drink. My stepdaddy told her that the bubbles took up more room so you didn’t need to eat as much. Maybe she believed it, maybe she just pretended to, but I can tell you for sure that it’s bullshit. Thank God medical and dental was covered through welfare.

  By the age of three, I’d learned not to cry because it didn’t do any damn good—no one ever came . . . or Momma smacked the shit out of me until I was quiet. That was the year my father died in a car accident. I don’t remember him, and any photos were hidden away. Maybe that’s when Momma started drinking, maybe not. All I know is that I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t stash a bottle in her purse and another under the bed.

  She used to cry and say that the people you loved always left you. Guess she was right.

  Anyways, Momma replaced my pa a couple of years later. Randolph came with his kids, twins who were two years older than me.

  I learned not to ask for more or to question the way things were after my stepfather answered with his belt across my backside, or my stepbrothers spoke with a fist to my face.

  I was as skinny as piece of string, just a tall streak of nothing. I stole what I needed and I knew not to get caught.

  Renee lived at the next place over, a half-mile down the mountain. I knew her from Junior High, just another too-pretty, too-young girl who was a woman at 13 with eyes of an old lady.

  Those eyes had seen things. It was something we had in common.

  “Guess you’re pretty hungry, huh?”

  That was the first time she ever spoke to me.

  I cleaned off my mouth with my hand and carefully placed the bowl back down on the porch by my feet.

  “You must be if you’re eating dog food.”

  My gaze was stony, but I didn’t answer.

  Her old Bluetick coonhound threw me a mournful look, but was too gentle to complain. The ole fella ambled over to lick out the canned dog food that I’d left—which wasn’t much. I couldn’t help my eyes following, envying that damn dog.

  A flash of pity in her pebble-hard eyes sent a burn of humiliation through me, making my gut squirm and my cheeks flush.

  We stared at each other across the porch: her in cute little cut-offs, smelling sweet from the shower; me in torn shorts and dirty t-shirt.

  I wanted to beg her not to tell anyone, but I guess I must have had some pride left. Who’d have thought it? Dog-food boy still had some pride. I figured I could laugh it off if she told anyone at school—say I done it for a bet. Everyone already thought I was the class clown.

  I turned and was halfway across the yard when she called after me.

  “You want pancakes? I’m just fixing a batch.”

  I turned to stare, wary now.

  She stood there, poking at a weed that was growing up through the deck, her bare toes painted candy pink. When I didn’t answer, she looked up.

  “Well, come on in if you’re coming.”

  I followed her inside and ate everything that she put in front of me.

  We didn’t talk much; I guess I was too busy shoveling food into my mouth.

  It was nearly dark when I got home. Lights were shining through the window and I could hear Randolph’s voice as he yelled at Momma, and her slurred replies. Then there was a sharp crack, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and she started to cry; long, soul-breaking sobs. I crept away before they reached the part where flesh started slapping flesh in a different way.

  I got between them once, trying to protect her from Randolph. But there’s not much a kid can do against a grown man. I lost a tooth from my stepdaddy’s fist.

  You know what my momma said? “It’s just a milk tooth.”

  When she still didn’t kick him out, I stopped trying.

  Sometimes you’ve got to want to be saved.

  I stretched out on the porch, wrapping an old blanket around me, and wondered what it would be like to be anywhere but here. Were there places where it didn’t hurt to see the stars shining in the blackness?

  I started hanging out at Renee’s place when school was through. She’d give me food, then I’d give her what she wanted in her bedroom before she kicked me out to do her homework. She liked school, saying it was her ticket out.

  She was my first, but I wasn’t hers.

  We dated, kind of, for the next four years. I reckoned that when we graduated, I’d get a job in the distillery. That’s where the men from town worked—the ones who were lucky enough to have a job, however shitty. Renee would get over wanting to leave, and take a part-time job until she popped out a couple of kids. I thought I had it all figured out: life was shit and you did what you had to do to get by. Sex was the only thing that was fun and free. If there was more to life out there, I knew I’d never have enough money to go look for it.

  We understood each other and in our own way we looked after each other. She fed me and fucked me; I kept the sharks off of her at school. Because Renee grew up pretty, which wasn’t always a blessing.

  I was an average student, not smart like Renee, but there was one thing I was good at—dirt bike riding. Most kids messed around on BMXs, but my buddy Brandon had two parents working in office jobs, which made him rich by the town’s standards, and he got a Honda
80 when he was 14. He took me with him, and we tore up the mountain trails. I think he did it because it was something to do, but I loved it. We learned some stuff in shop and then taught ourselves to strip the parts and understand the basics of how a two-stroke engine worked.

  Brandon got a car when he was 16, so the bike was pretty much mine after that.

  I swore I’d save up to pay him back the $300 bucks it was worth. I had a job after school sweeping up at the distillery and hauling whatever shit needed hauling.

  But it was because of that bike that my eyes were opened.

  Our last summer before senior year, a bunch of us had been hanging out at the dried up riverbed. There was a place where the bank sloped upward at the widest point, making a natural ramp.

  Everyone said it was impossible to jump the gully, but I knew I could do this. I’d gotten plenty banged up jumping that bike all over, and no one could touch me. I liked that. If I’m honest, I liked it a lot. Renee thought it was kind of childish. Maybe it was, but flying through the air was the closest I’d ever been to being free. I could look across the whole town and see further, imagining a world just out of reach—one that I’d only seen on Renee’s TV.

  Brandon pulled me to one side and slung his arm around my neck.

  “You don’t have to do it, man. Just walk away—it’s not worth getting busted up.”

  I grinned at him. “You chicken?”

  “Hell, yeah!” he said sharply. “And if you had more brains than guts, you would be, too!”

  I shrugged. I knew the jump was a monster, but I could make it. How I knew, was something else: I just knew.

  Adrenaline was surging through me, making everything pinhole sharp. I could see the jump in my mind, knew how it would go and the exact patch of dirt where I would land. I backed up a good ways, then revved the engine hard, the wheels spinning before I let her fly. The wind was hot in my face, and my eyes were squinting against the angle of the sun that sent up shards of light from the glittering sand. The bike hit the highest point on the ramp and I tensed my thighs, rising above the seat like I was on a galloping horse.

  Higher, higher, higher we flew, arcing out over the dusty riverbed, and it felt like I could see everything in slow motion: my past, my present, my future—all laid out like the town in the distance.

  And then I was hitting the dirt hard, the bike bouncing and skittering like a wild animal. I wrestled the handlebars, working to keep her upright. Behind me, I could hear shouts and screams.

  And then I was braking, turning the bike in a slow curve as the adrenaline rush spiked and began to ebb away. Looking back at my friends, I waved, a huge shit-eating grin stretching across my face. As I looked at the riverbed, my eyes widened. Holy hell! That is a long way down!

  I rode back slowly across the rickety wooden bridge, enjoying the moment of triumph, feeling like a goddamn gladiator. I shook my fists in the air and howled.

  “Man! That was freakin’ epic!” Brandon yelled as I stopped the bike next to him and cut the engine.

  “I could hardly look!” screeched Mary Dunne, her painted nails digging into my bare arm.

  I grinned and winked at her.

  Her boyfriend pulled her away and scowled at me.

  “Huh,” he said, trying to look unimpressed. “Any fool can do that. Watch me!”

  “Don’t be a butthead,” groaned Brandon. “Tucker is the only one who can make that jump!”

  He didn’t listen. Harley Law’s dad was floor manager at the distillery so he thought that made him something special. Maybe it did, but not out here.

  Harley looked pissed. “Don’t you know that my word is Law?”

  We all rolled our eyes—we’d been hearing that joke our whole lives.

  Harley wasn’t a bad guy, just kind of self-centered. Guess he couldn’t help it. But when he started revving his engine, getting ready to let it burn, I was already cringing: no way he’d make it.

  Some part of him must have agreed, because when he hit the ramp, I saw him hauling on the handlebars till the bike tipped over and skidded as he landed in the dirt.

  Mary screamed, but I could already see that he wasn’t hurt. He came limping back, a wry expression on his face.

  “Hope you can fix this, McCoy,” he grimaced, pointing at his bike’s bent metalwork, “or my ole man will be handing me my ass.”

  “Man, you landed on your butt so hard, I thought you might have broke that too, the way you’re rubbing it!”

  When I’d stopped laughing, I agreed to go home and pick up some tools so I could hammer out the dents.

  The rest of the afternoon is a blur, a twist in my gut when I think about it—which isn’t very often—but some moments stand out in my memory.

  I remember being surprised that my stepdaddy’s truck was in the driveway. He wasn’t usually home this time of day. Momma had just gotten herself a job stocking shelves in a small grocery store so there was food on the table for the first time in months. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she went back to drinking, and lost her job again. Even when she did manage to earn something, the bastard spent her money at the bars in town and then came home and beat the shit out of her, or me. I could never figure out why she didn’t leave him, but she just said that I was too young to understand.

  I understood well enough, but if she didn’t want to admit it, I wasn’t going to force her. She thought a drunken abusive bastard who beat up on her and her kid was better than no man at all. My guess is he married her just to have someone look after his own kids. I’ve heard people say that indifference is worse than hatred, but it’s not true.

  My whole life, home was a three room shack. Momma and the bastard slept in one bedroom, and my stepbrothers shared the other. I slept on the porch in summer, or on the couch when the cold chased me indoors.

  I’d lie awake and listen to the bastard fucking my momma, and then I’d listen to her cry while he snored.

  The place was a dump. There were holes in the floor that could trip you up if you weren’t paying attention. I needed to steal some timber to fix them. There were holes in the roof too, and newspaper plugged the gaps in the walls and around the windows. The fridge had stopped working years ago, so we kept milk and beer in a bucket by the backdoor.

  I was the only one who ever fixed anything around the place—when you have no other choices, it’s amazing what you can learn to mend. My stepbrothers were useless wastes of space—drinking and stealing cars, cutting school until they were old enough to leave for good. But I had some pride and I kept our place almost respectable. Which meant I cleaned the trash from the front yard, and sometimes the back; and when I could steal enough money from Momma’s purse, I’d buy glass to fix the windows instead of plastic bags and cardboard. Until the next time one of the assholes decided to toss a chair through it.

  That day, my pride was broken on the rack of reality.

  I don’t know why I walked into the living room, because the tools I needed were in the shed. But I did, and that chance decision, what I saw next, it changed the path of my whole life . . .

  . . . And here I was again, 12 years later.

  I cut the engine, letting the silence wash over me. Insulated inside my helmet, I could hear myself breathing. I turned my head slowly, looking around at the place I swore I’d never see again.

  Leaving the hotel to come here was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

  I parked the Duke fifty yards in front of the shack, not wanting to get any closer. I swung a leg over the saddle and took a deep breath. Then I pulled off my helmet and made the rest of the way on foot. I’m not sure why: maybe I didn’t want my Ducati associated with all the shit I left behind.

  The place had changed; a small addition had been tacked on the side, but overall it was neither better nor worse. I stared at it critically—I could guarantee that roof leaked like a bastard.

  There were no vehicles, unless you counted the rusting carcass of a Chevy, its wheels long gone, the windowless ca
b a home for squirrels by now.

  A shudder ran through me, the raw anger that I’d been running from suddenly caught up—I wanted to burn that shithole shack to the ground. I wanted to see flames licking over the roof. I wanted . . .

  I shook my head slowly—that wasn’t me anymore. I’d put it all behind me. I had.

  It was a bad idea coming here and I sure as hell didn’t want to run into my bastard of a stepfather.

  I decided to leave. Seeing him at the funeral would be more than soon enough.

  As I stood there, tamping down the angry past, the door opened and Renee was in front of me, one hip resting against the door jamb, her arms crossed. She looked different but familiar. Same straight hair the color of corn; same cold blue eyes; but there were harsh lines around her mouth and she was too thin. She didn’t smile when she saw me.

  “Renee?”

  My voice was hoarse as I spoke, and my body was frozen to the spot, unwilling to enter.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You gonna come in?”

  “You . . . you live here?”

  She glared at me impatiently. “Where else would I live?”

  That was a good question. Why the hell had she stayed? To be with my asshole stepbrother? It didn’t make any sense.

  She opened the door wider and stepped back, and I wasn’t sure if it was an invitation or a challenge.

  I nodded, forcing a weak smile onto my face, and followed her inside. The same sagging couch was in the corner, but the other furniture had been moved around and an enormous flatscreen took up most of one wall. Someone had made an attempt to put up wallpaper, but now it was stained and peeling. The room smelled musty, although the place seemed clean enough and dust-free.

  “Nice . . . TV,” I managed.

  She gave a harsh laugh. “Our pride and joy.”

  I was silent, the memories weighing too heavily. I kept smiling as I met her impassive face.

  “You look well . . .” I began, but she interrupted me.

  “Cut the crap, Tucker. You don’t have to charm me. I know how I look.”

  I glanced down and noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring.