Red Hot Blues (7 page)

He was breathing. But he needed treatment.
Fast.

I looked up at her again, asked her, “Do you
want me to call an ambulance?”

She knew what I was really asking.

After a moment that lasted forever, she gave
me her answer, and although I wasn’t happy with it, I respected
it.

I called the ambulance.

Pops had a concussion. Momma made up some
story about him falling or some bullshit. Old School Tie. Everybody
knows and nobody does anything. That’s the way of it where I grew
up.

Pops was up and running three days later. And
three days later, he kicked my ass. I couldn’t walk for a week.

I started lifting weights. I’d always played
football as well, but now I started taking it seriously. I knew my
dad could physically kick my ass, but not for long. I worked out, I
pumped iron, I threw pigskin, and I tackled men. I never got huge,
because I never did juice, but I got strong. I only went out when
my sisters were out as well. My youngest sister was coming of age,
and sometimes I had thoughts that... Well, I wasn’t gonna let that
happen to her. I might not have been big enough to take on my dad,
but I was sure big enough to put up one helluva stinking fight if I
had to.

Bobby, Jed, and Lewis. My “friends” at that
age. Idiots. They’d pick up girls, fuck em, leave em. They’d break
their hearts. I didn’t particularly care about girls with broken
hearts. Broken hearts happen. It’s life. And I played a similar
game, but with a key difference: I never told any of these girls I
loved them.

Because I didn’t.

Were they hot? Damn straight. Did I wanna get
it on with them? Uh-huh. Was there gonna be a second night? Not a
goddamn chance. They knew it. I knew it. We were all on the same
page.

Bobby and Jed and Lewis played it a little
differently. They lied.

If you can’t get a girl without lying, then
you just can’t get a girl. Period.

No, I didn’t care about broken hearts. But I
did
care about how these boys played the chicks. It just
wasn’t cool. It’s one thing to be smooth, it’s one thing to flirt,
it’s one thing to look at a girl in such a way that she wants to
drop her panties for you. It’s another thing to tell her you love
her when you don’t.

That just ain’t cool.

So I told them.

They made fun of me.

So I fucked them up. Each one. I took on all
three of them, and I had it good for a few rounds, landed some good
shots. But three guys is still three guys. And eventually they got
me down, kicked me a few times on the ground, not so bad. I’d been
kicked worse, much worse. Daddy had taught me how to take a
beating. When I picked myself up off the ground, and when they
realized I was ready for more, they ran. A week later they got
their brothers involved, big brothers, military brothers.

I didn’t win that one.

Pops laughed at me, but I didn’t care. I was
becoming a street fighter. I was learning through experience.

It wasn’t gonna be much longer that he’d hold
physical sway over me.

More years rolled by. I was nineteen now.
Janice (pronounced Jan
eece
), my youngest sister, was now
fourteen, and “developing.” Pops would look at her in a way that
made me uncomfortable. I never left her alone in the house. It was
just a gut feel I had. Fiona, my other sister, was seventeen. But
Fiona has always been his pride and joy. Pops would never hurt his
precious Fiona.

Fiona and I don’t get along. She’s very much
like my father.

Then it happened. The fucker just couldn’t
keep it to himself. He thought I’d left the house, because I’d
wanted to catch him in the act, so I’d pretended I was out and had
made a big deal out of it; and I heard it, heard
him
, behind
Janice’s door. And I heard her saying, “No, no,” just softly,
lightly. Fragilely.

I exploded.

But I’d planned for this.

You must remember this is NRA country we’re
talking about. Sweet Virginia. Welcome to the South.

This wasn’t gonna be no “fist in the face and
then it happens again some other time” kind of fight. In
this
case, Logan Travers, my father, was going to learn to
back the fuck off or else he was gonna lose his crown jewels.
Violently. I busted the door open, because it was locked. And I
cocked his rifle in my hand. And I said, slowly, “Get the fuck away
from her.”

Pops was sitting on her bed, his hand on her
bare leg. She was lying in her nightgown, shivering. They always
shiver. Always. Mom had also shivered. But mom had made a
choice
to be with him. Janice had made no such choice. Even
from eight feet away I could smell the liquor on his breath. He was
unshaven, white hairs peeking out from his chin and cheeks.

“What the
fuck
are you gonna do with
that thing, boy?” he bellowed, thinking I didn’t have the guts.

He got up, walked in my direction. I put the
rifle to his chest, and pushed him back with it. “Try me, old
man.”

Reason dawned in his eyes. He knew I was
serious.

“You’re gonna regret this, little boy. Oh
you’re gonna regret this!”

“Janice, pack a bag,” I said.

She didn’t move. She was in shock.

“Janice, pack a fucking bag NOW!” I realized
I’d been harsh. I was stressed. She was probably freaking out. I
was freaking out as well. “Baby, I’m sorry, just please back a bag,
OK?”

Dad chewed, shook his head. He was livid,
ready to kill. But I was the one holding the gun.

Dad has other guns around the house. Plenty
guns. A good Southern Military man. But he didn’t carry one on his
person when he was inside the house. At least not in those
days.

Janice started crying. “What should I pack,
Ace?”

“Anything, baby. Anything you want. You and
me are gonna go out of town for a bit.”

“That’s kidnapping, boy,” he growled.

I growled back. “You fucking try me, old man.
You just. Fucken. Try me.” I pushed the rifle against his chest
harder. Pushed him back. He stayed still. My finger squeezed
tighter on the trigger, almost pushing it to the point of no
return. In that instant, in my mind’s eye, I even saw the spray of
red blood behind him against the window and the wall, gray matter,
pieces of smoking flesh...

“Tell people we’re on vacation. I got nothing
to lose. If mom and Janice are OK, I don’t care what happens to me.
And I sure don’t give a damn what happens to you.” With the rifle
between us, he knew what I was talking about.

“Janice, you done?” I asked.

Janice wept some more. She’d packed a messy
bag with pink and white things dangling out of it. She was still in
shock. She sat on the bed.

“Janice, baby, come over here to Ace.”

She wept more.

Pops saw his chance. “Janice, tell Ace here
he was just mistaken. Tell him you and I were just havin a little
talk
.”

His tone was threatening. He was trying to
scare her.
Bastard.

Janice got up slowly, walked around my
father’s outstretched hand, and joined me at my side.

A part of me melted there, knowing she was
counting on me, knowing I was her only hope. I almost shot the
fucker right there.

It was in that moment I decided to get my
tattoo. This was the defining moment of it, the design, the quote,
something Aaron always used to say to me—it all formed in my head.
Right there.

We eased out of her bedroom, down the stairs.
Mom was out for the night, with some friends. Just like
I’d
planned my own night, so had dad. He’d been all alone with
Janice.

My finger tightened again on the trigger
instinctively.

I took the keys to his ’67 Pontiac, grabbed a
few hundred from his wallet, picked up my guitar, and Janice and I
drove, and drove, and drove. Seven hours later we were in New York,
at my aunt’s house. Brooklyn. And not the rich part, either.

Aunt Nola, my mother’s half-sister, is no
fool, no pushover. She took Janice in, threatened my father to high
heaven with social embarrassment and legal threats, and dad backed
down.

No one fucks with a New Yorker.

I stayed in New York for a bit. Virginians
say I’ve lost my accent. If that’s true, it was here that it
happened.

New York’s not a great city for a country
boy, because everything’s cramped up and the people dress funny. I
was used to the wide open spaces, but I needed to work, and I
needed money. I found a job that required muscle, and I saved up.
Aunt Nola let me stay with her if I helped her with the cooking,
which I did. I didn’t know how to cook at first, but I learned.
“All good men need to know how to cook,” she’d say to me.

I was in no position to argue. I really had
nowhere else to go. So, by day I’d haul ass and sweat like a
monkey, and by night I’d put on an apron and slice garlic and dice
tomatoes. Aunt Nola’s really into the Mediterranean food.

Weekends I’d call home, just to make sure
everything was OK. As OK as it could be, all things considered.
Mostly I just wanted to talk to my mom. But sometimes dad picked
up. He’d berate me for not joining the army, for being an asshole,
for being a “nigger-lover,” and any other colorful terms he’d like
to use for me. When he was done, he’d put mom on the phone. He
might play it tough, but I think he knew I was missing a few
marbles, and if I wasn’t certain my mom was OK, I’d take him out
without fear of criminal repercussions.

These are the hard, cold truths of life.

Talking to my dad always made me angry, so
angry. And when I got angry, I wanted to run. I stayed because I
had to stay. I stayed because of Janice. I stayed because of the
promise I’d made to her, to myself, by putting that ink on my right
arm, the ink of Justice.

But staying was the hardest thing I’ve ever
done in my life.

If I hadn’t found the underground fight
clubs, I would have never made it. Hitting, and getting hit, kept
me sane, kept my marbles together. If I don’t run, I wanna throw my
fists. If I don’t throw my fists, I wanna run.

If there’s one thing I learned how to do when
I was growing up at home it was getting my ass kicked. So that’s
pretty much what happened when I did these underground fights. I
got my ass kicked. Sometimes I got my ass kicked on purpose,
because it paid more.

When I didn’t talk to my dad for a while,
things actually felt “normal.” At Aunt Nola’s we had a grand time.
We were actually happy, the three of us. It’s funny how being in
such a heavy environment for so long can give you a pessimistic
view of life, making you think everything is evil and horrible and
terrible. But being away from that monster actually cleared my
head, made me think more positively.

Janice was doing well at school, making
friends. Pops never did call the cops or child services about what
happened that night with her—about the fact that I’d “kidnapped”
her.

We’d gotten away.

I tried to get Fiona, my other sister, to
follow suit, but Fiona is daddy’s little girl. She blamed me for
taking Janice, accused me of being disrespectful to my father, told
me it was against the commandments. Yeah, she and I are definitely
different colored sheep.

Momma, well, I never understood why she stays
with the man. She just does. She’s still with him. Does he hurt
her? I’ve been down there a few times, and I don’t really know. I
can’t tell.

I’ve been down there when he’s not there,
because if I ever see him again, I can’t guarantee my or his
safety. I visit Aaron when I’m down there, and my mom. Not my
father.

People don’t realize it’s complicated. But it
is. Love complicates things, families complicate things, fiscal
responsibilities complicate things. It
isn’t
as simple as
telling someone to shove off and then being rid of them. Does mom
stay with him because she loves him? Needs him? Wants him?

Truth is, in a weird and convoluted way, if
my dad goes down, so does Aaron’s family, because dad’s got
everything locked down financially. He’s the man. And he owns
everything.

See how complicated it gets?

But if mom ever wants to run, I’ll be here
for her. I’ve told her that. But more than that I can’t do. Because
if I drag her out of there kicking and screaming, I’ll be no better
than my father.

Lesson number one that Aaron taught me about
women is that a woman must be
willing
. And if she is, she’ll
go to the ends of the earth for you.

At twenty-one I hit the road, with the Harley
and the Gibson I’d saved up to purchase. The Harley was a piece of
shit, but I had a friend at a hotrod shop who fixed it up for
me.

That was three years ago. I mostly travelled
the northern states, and then the west coast. It’s as if I wanted
to stay as far away from the South and from Virginia as possible.
I’d settle a few months each time in a place, do some work, save
up, put some money in a bank account. I usually stayed in
out-of-the-way places.

Because I can cook I tend to save up on
eating out, and I also tend to get the short-order cook jobs when
they’re available.

I don’t fight for money any more, and there
have been places where the demand has been there, and the money
offered has been good—Detroit, Chicago—but I turned it down. I
needed wheels, and I got them. Dad’s Pontiac had long since been
returned to the farm by me. So now I live hand to mouth. More than
that I don’t need.

The last six months it’s just been open road,
no working, no stopping, just riding, moving from town to town,
spending two or three days there at the most. You spend very little
when you’re on a bike, feeding only yourself. I have enough to keep
me going for another twelve months, maybe eighteen, provided I
don’t stay at The Ritz or the Sheraton whenever I make a stop. And
even if I did that, I could probably still go four to six months
without working.