Blood Brothers (11 page)

Michael looked at his watch. It was fifteen
after three and if he wanted to get home anytime soon, he needed to
get started. It was hard to do. As soon as he started his walk home
and he turned his back on the playground, the deal would be sealed.
Kelly wouldn’t have come and he would be alone again. As long as he
stood here there was a chance she would still show. Slim, almost
dwindling down to nothing, but still a chance.

“Hey, fag, who you waiting for?” Michael
recognized the voice instantly. The words, the voice, chilled him
in a way that the bright summer sunshine couldn’t warm.

Michael twirled, searching for where they
were. Jerry, Bobby, Cliff, and Ricky stood shoulder to shoulder at
the top of the hill. Each face Mike’s eyes saw looked meaner than
the last.

Bobby, the tallest of the group, stepped
forward. “Little sissy looks sad. Your girlfriend not show?”

How did they know? Michael was pretty sure
that even though there’d been a lot of gawkers, no one had heard
the conversation between him and Kelly. Of course there was no way
to be certain. The way it looked, someone had heard.

“Don’t cry about it, Romeo.” That was Ricky.
He made a face, his lips pouting and rubbing his eyes, wiping away
imaginary tears.

“That’s right, fat ass. Didn’t you know your
sweetheart Kelly has the hots for my buddy, Ricky here?”

“That’s right, chubs. I can’t believe you
were so stupid to think my girl would even look at you.”

“At least without getting sick.” That was
from Jerry. Just a fraction of an inch shorter than his buddy
Bobby, Jerry was wide and would eventually grow into a human
steamroller on the football field.

“I-I don’t want any trouble, guys. I was just
heading home.”

“Trouble,” Bobby said. “Trouble is exactly
what you’re gonna get.”

“You see,” Cliff began. He’d been silent
until now, but apparently he, too, found it hard to pass up the
bullying. “We get real tired of you around here. Not just us,
either. Everybody. The whole school. Even the teachers. Even Mr.
Vandiver and Mr. Curlee,” he explained, naming the principal and
vice-principal.”

“That’s right,” Ricky chimed in. “Nobody
likes a fat, sniveling shit like you sitting next to them, or even
eating in the same lunch room. I saw you scarfing down that chili
dog the other day. Almost made me hurl, dude. And I don’t like
hurling.”

Suddenly the group split up. Bobby and Ricky
went one way and Jerry and Cliff went the other: surrounding him,
one big bully with a smaller bully. At least the kids knew
strategy.

“Guys, just leave me along…okay?” His voice
quivered on the last word. He felt water brimming at the bottom of
his eyes. Something bad was going to happen. He just knew it.

And it did. Bobby swung out at him. From the
corner of his eye, he saw it coming. With the four circling around
him, it was next to impossible to watch every movement. He was
lucky to see Bobby’s fist, though. Although it wasn’t a quick one,
Michael was not a glutton for punishment. He leaped far to the left
and Bobby’s hand missed him by just a few inches.

“You little shit,” Bobby said through gritted
teeth.

It was time to go. No one needed to tell
Michael that. Spinning on his heels, Michael darted through the
opening between Jerry and Cliff, albeit just. He was, as his father
called it, digging ‘taters. His feet stomped down into the ground
as he moved, loose dirt erupting up behind him.

“Get his ass,” Jerry yelled, and the boys
were in hot pursuit.

The beating from last night slowed Michael
down—more than a little. Even now, just beginning the run for his
life, his leg throbbed where the electrical plug had left a very
nasty mark. The stitch in his side from yesterday afternoon was
back as well, and he knew right then, he wouldn’t be running
far.

But maybe he wouldn’t have to.

The playground was wide and deep, but the
ground was definitely not even. From the school building itself the
ground gently sloped downward to where he now ran. A hundred yards
more and it dropped off fifteen or so feet. One place in particular
along that drop was popular with the kids; a flattened area that
had once housed a long-forgotten piece of playground equipment that
had been removed. That’s where the boys played King of the Hill;
standing there defending their territory as others rushed towards
him trying to pull him free of that small section of flat earth. As
Mike’s feet touched down on this spot, he leaped. He had no idea
why, he just did. He didn’t actually jump that high, but the steep
drop-off of the land left him sailing high.

The playground butted up against a thick
wooded area. A chain link fence separated wilderness from school
property and he believed if he could make it into the woods, he
could lose these boys. He had to lose them. They were in really
nasty moods and there was no way he could possibly fight off four
of them. Heck, he couldn’t fight off one—any one of them.

Michael Cole was, unfortunately, as
ungraceful a flyer as he was a walker. But it was not the actual
flight that damned him. It was the landing. It is often said that a
successful landing is nothing more than a controlled landing.
Michael Cole didn’t know this, how could he? But it made little
difference; there was absolutely no control in his landing. He
braced himself and bent his knees, but as his left foot touched
ground, the shock ran up his leg and his knee gave out
completely.

To say that Michael crashed would be like
saying the moon is nothing more than a pebble. His body landed in a
bad way. Though grounded, the hard earth did not stop him. The
momentum of his leap propelled him through several head-over-rear
flips. When he finally crashed for the last time and was left lying
on his back, a tree root broken through the dirt jabbed into his
kidney and the world fell silent as the sky spun above him. But
that silence was not to last.

There were footfalls behind him now, and they
grew louder and louder with each passing second. And then, it was
all over but the crying, so to speak.

A heavy weight dropped down on Mike’s chest,
pushing the air from his lungs, squeezing his stomach.

“Hey, fucker!” Bobby said. He was a big guy,
true enough, but he was not a pretty sight to see. Besides missing
his front two teeth, Bobby Crews also had a severe freckle issue
and hair that looked like a farmer’s cow had gotten loose and
decided to feast on the wild red stuff instead of the salt lick,
for a while. And his breath…oh, that was bad, too. Smelling like
the asshole of a twenty-year-old German shepherd, his breath almost
gagged Mike. But since Bobby’s considerable weight made breathing
hard, there wasn’t actually a chance for that. “Where were you
heading off to? The party’s just getting started. Don’t want to
miss it, do you?”

Bobby started hitting him. In the face, on
the chest, on the top of the head. The other boys, starting to feel
left out, wanted in on the action too. As Bobby straddled him and
hammered him with punches, the other three joined in with kicks. To
the ribs, to his thighs, down both arms, his hands, his
fingers.

Time stopped. No, that wasn’t right. It
crawled. Slowly, seconds passed. Mike’s body never went numb. It
was too alive and still sensitive from the hell it had suffered at
his father’s hands. He felt every bash, bang, and clobber that
came. Felt it all too well.

It was by the grace of God that the boys
finally tired of their little game. They left him there, but not
before Jerry worked up a bit of snot in his mouth by hocking a bit,
and spat it down on Mike’s cheek.

Then they walked away. Their curses filled
the air until they were out of earshot.

Michael Cole lay there for a very long time.
He couldn’t move. He was bleeding. He was crying. Every inch of his
body hurt, but especially his pride. He went through all this
because he dared to think a girl thought he was more than a piece
of shit to be kicked away like so much garbage.

He would never make that mistake again.

Michael Cole awoke with a start. He blinked
several times at the strange surroundings he found himself in. It
took half a minute for him to realize he was in his motel room.
Blades of light filtered in through the window blinds and the room
was uncommonly cold.

His mouth felt full of cotton and when he sat
up in the bed, sharp knife-like pains filled his head. He actually
touched his hand to his temple to make sure it hadn’t spilt.

“Damn, must’ve been a good time. That’s all I
can say.” He finished sitting up and swung his legs to the floor.
He was weak as all get out, but he managed to stand. It was only
then that he remembered Trista. He looked back to the bed, but he’d
apparently been sleeping alone. He checked the bathroom, found
nothing. He looked over the surfaces of the tables and along the
bar, but there as no note.

Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, huh?

Her scent only barely remained in the room,
on the bed sheets. She left not a single thing behind as a
memento.

Oh, well. It was a nice ride while it lasted.
Or so he thought. Really, he couldn’t remember much at all about
last night. After the club, things got a bit fuzzy. But he
remembered enough to know that he’d had a great lay. Such a great
one, it would be hard to follow up.

Michael ordered coffee and breakfast from
room service, and showered leisurely. The meal arrived just as he
was getting out of the shower. He tipped the steward and dined near
a window. He checked his Blackberry. There were no missed calls and
no new messages. So he ate, perusing the Sunday edition of the
Memphis paper as he did so.

When the omelet was gone and the coffee
carafe drained, he dressed and called for a bellhop to gather his
bags.

The traffic was remarkably light on I-240 as
he wound around the city and finally took the exit that led him
home. Just under two hours from the time he left the room, he
passed into Benedict and before going home, decided to stop by the
office.

Michael’s office was located just a street
off the town square. The entire block had once been old, crumbling
husks of a greater past. Michael had, for a steal, acquired all
four buildings that made up the block. The old shirt factory was
now a doctors’ clinic. The five and dime shop, Kirk’s, was now a
massage therapy business that offered great rates on tanning
packages. Carlton Vickers, who served as both Michael’s personal
and business attorney, leased the next building which, fifty years
ago, had been a furniture dealership. Michael’s little slice of
pie, a three-story white stone building, often referred to as the
Ivory Tower among the Benedictians, served as the cornerstone of
Mayflower Street. Michael had, of course, kept the most
eye-pleasing of the four structures for himself, but was thinking,
or at least had been, of relocating. This was his third office
since he had first hung out his shingle as a property manager. The
wonderful thing about titling yourself with such an ambiguous
moniker is that you were never pigeonholed. Michael could buy and
sell real estate which, besides the wonderful profit he’d made just
yesterday, was pretty much a hit or miss undertaking. While renting
and leasing property wasn’t a get-rich-quick deal, it sure paid the
bills.

Michael owned apartments, houses, trailer
parks, business locations, and land all over the south, as far east
as the Georgia coast and as far west as the snow-capped peaks of
Colorado. He was in the kind of business that you had to spend
money to make money, but he had a good nose for business and never
had his losses outweighed his profits. While the flashier places
and ones with the ritziest addresses made the most money, the
low-income sector was the backbone of his cash flow. The apartments
and mobile home courts he owned that accepted government-assisted
renters were cheap to throw up and while the return was startling,
it helped keep the pot full during the downturns of a troubled
economy.

But with his take from selling the downtown
Memphis property, he now had the funds readily available to
construct an office more in line with his personality and to his
liking—one with covered parking, for instance. It pained Michael to
no end that the only parking for this office was up and down the
street, and all of that was parallel parking. And most of those
slots were often filled with patients from the clinic or customers
of the masseuses down the way. While the sign signified the front
spot as reserved for him, he found it more often than not,
occupied. So he dropped a call to the police department and they
had the auto towed—at the owner’s expense. Today the angels must be
smiling on him. The spot was open and he maneuvered in.

The car took to the parking space like a hand
to a glove. Of all his toys, this car had to be among his very
favorites. A Porsche 911, Model 997 (Carrera S), the fine Italian
masterpiece was worth every red cent of the manufacturer’s
suggested retail price. The exclusive Macadamia Metallic exterior,
the dark grey natural leather interior, the 19” classic Carrera
wheels—the car definitely turned heads. Michael had once owned a
secondhand Hot Wheels rendition of the car, an older version of
course, but he always dreamed of owning that Porsche, and now he
finally did. The bright, shiny toy had cost him almost one hundred
and twenty grand, but he didn’t regret it in the least. There was
no one else in town that had a car even remotely as expensive or
beautiful, or fast. People knew when they saw that car that a major
player was behind the wheel and Michael like that very, very
much.

And it was sweet.

The drive train responded like a dream. The
feel of the power in his hands was, to say the least, exhilarating.
High-end Bose speakers pumped crystal clear music straight out and
down into his head. The seven-speed manual transmission responded
to his deft touch, and the 385 horsepower of the rear-placed engine
hummed dominance, yearning for something besides the close-cropped
streets of downtown Benedict.