Chapter 7 - Never take a knife to a gunfight. Or a show.
A cross between a puppy whimpering and a bad ventriloquist dragged me out of a murky dream that was forgotten before I remembered it. Blinking slowly, the troll doll hanging from Jimmie’s rearview mirror came into focus and then I remembered where I was. And where the noise was coming from. I picked Van’s body out from among the steaming alcohol-drenched pile of humanity in the back and quickly climbed over my seat (as the only girl, I’d gotten the one reclining seat in the place) to get to him.

“Van,” I whispered, reaching out to touch his shoulder as he jerked and moaned in what was obviously a nightmare.

Before I could even process what was happening, he had pinned me to the metal wall and my wrist was in excruciating pain. “Ouch,” I squeaked, trying vainly to wrench my arm away from him. His eyes were open but it was like he didn’t even see me. “Van!”

There was a long tense moment and then the haze disappeared from his eyes. He dropped my arms. A look of horror spread across his face and without a word, he threw open the door and tumbled out into the night. It all happened so quickly that it took me a long breath to decide to follow him. The thick salt mist replaced the stench of sweaty bodies in my nostrils as I slid the door shut behind me. The only source of light hidden behind the blanket of clouds, it took another minute to get my eyes to adjust and then to locate Van. He was loping down the beach, his gazelle-like stride taking him ever farther away from me.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. “Van!” I yelled, surprised at how quickly the mist swallowed my voice as I ran and tripped over a log.

“What the-?” It wasn’t a log. It was a person.

I didn’t even stop to see if they were okay. “Van!” I screamed again. Still no answer and no sound but that of my heavy footfalls in the wet sand. How could he run so fast on this stuff? It was like running in slow motion! Still I pressed forward, my cheeks and lips burning in the cold damp. Then I tripped again as the terrain switched from black sand to black rocks. I bit back an epithet as the rocks chewed up my shins through my jeans.

“Get out of here!” he thundered, appearing out of the swirling gray in front of me. “Just, go, Leigh!”

“What?” I gasped, more than a little unnerved. He’d never yelled at me before and I had to admit, it cut me to the core.

“Get away from me,” he screamed and I thought I heard tears in his voice. “Get out! Go home! And never, never come back to me!” The last line came out more as a sob than a scream. He pulled me roughly to my feet and shoved me away from him. I stumbled again over the rocks.

I started to cry too. I couldn’t help it. “Why? What have I done that was so wrong?” My heart was in my throat as I reeled, trying to figure out what had just happened.

“I almost killed you!” He let out an anguished cry and sunk to his knees, oblivious to the waves that were quickly soaking him. “Don’t you understand? I’m dangerous! I could have killed you! Now, leave! Just leave me here.” Covering his face, he sobbed so hard it almost sounded like retching. “Please, go. Please.”

The display rooted me to the spot. I’d never seen the like. “What are you talking about?” I said sternly. “My wrist hurts a little bit but trust me, nobody ever died of surprise. I just shouldn’t have startled you – that’s all.” He didn’t reply, his sobs gone eerily silent as he remained crouched on the ground, face in his hands. I took a step closer to him. And then another step. But I didn’t touch him, afraid of whatever mood had possessed him.

At last he held up his hand to me. Something glinted in the low light. “It’s a knife,” he whispered without looking at me. “I sleep with a knife.” I waited through another long silence. “When you woke me up, I had it in my hand. You were thisclose to having it in your ribs, Leigh.”

“But you didn’t,” I stammered, still in shock, still staring at the wicked blade.

“But I could have,” he said flatly. “It was in me. It was there. I felt it.” I didn’t know what to say, so instead I sat down next to him. I laid my hand lightly on his taut shoulder and his whole body shuddered. “I’m evil and I’m dangerous.”

“I don’t believe that.” No matter what he said, he hadn’t killed me. So somewhere along the line he’d managed to rein it in. That was the important part, right?

“Look, I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “This isn’t going to work. You and I. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me…” he started to quietly sob again, “but you don’t know what is in me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I thought you would be safe, that I could protect you. From me. But I can’t. I’m so so sorry.”

“You can’t break up with me,” I huffed indignantly.

“Fine. You break up with me then,” he muttered. “I have no pride.”

“You idiot!” I chided gently. “I’m not dumping you either. I’m not leaving you.”

Finally he looked up at me. “Are you insane?”

“Yeah, probably.” Or something else.

“You should go.”

“Are you going to make me?”

He shook his head and swallowed. “I’m not that kind of guy, really I’m not. I’ll never make you do anything, Leigh-a. Not stay with me and, I guess, not leave me either. I would never take away your power to choose. But I really think you should leave me.”

“And I think you should trust me.”

“Huh?” A look of confusion crossed his face and I have to admit, it was adorable. “I do trust you.”

“No you don’t,” I said matter-of-factly. “You don’t tell me anything. I hardly know anything about you or where you’re from or what you do. I haven’t even met your family yet! That’s what’s crazy. You’re so afraid of…of…something that I don’t know what yet, but you’re so afraid that you won’t let me in! You don’t trust me at all.”

He looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time and smiled a little. “So, what do I do?”

“You have to open up. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself, so stop worrying about protecting me and let me in already.” It felt strangely good to be the strong one, the one in charge for a change. “Besides, it must be lonely in there all alone,” I placed my hand over his heart. I could feel it beating under my fingers. “Don’t you want to let somebody in there?”

He nodded slowly, still watching me carefully as if I were going to suddenly change my mind and run away. At last, he covered my hand with his and then lifted up his shirt, placing my palm against his pounding chest. “Yeah, I do.”

I sat back and smiled. “Then I’m going to need answers.”

He wrapped his arms around me, snuggling me into his side. “Let’s start with questions.”

“Are you serious? Because I really want you to talk to me this time.”

Nodding, he said resolutely, “I’m serious. Anything you want – ask away.”

I took a deep breath, deciding to start with the obvious. “Why do you sleep with a knife?”

He blanched noticeably. “That’s a hard one to explain.”

“Van…” I said, the warning evident in my voice.

“But I’ll give it my best shot.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he shook his head. “That involves telling you a lot about my past that’s not necessarily pretty.”

“I can handle it.” I was sure that I could, too. My feelings for Van made me want to crawl in his head, understand every little piece of him – I wasn’t afraid of the dark corners.

After a long pause, where we both stared at the brackish black water instead of at each other, he started his story. “My dad’s career military. Army, actually. And it wasn’t because he was all into being an ‘army of one’ or wanted to serve his country or any of those other noble reasons you hear in movies. It was his only option. Barely got his high school diploma, my mom was pregnant, he’d done some jail time for petty crimes, you know the drill.”

Actually, I didn’t know the drill. But I didn’t want to interrupt him so I just nodded.

“Moved us all over kingdom come. I never finished out a school year in the same school I started it in. And he, um, wasn’t the nicest guy. At least to my mom, I guess. I don’t really know, I wasn’t born then but my brothers remember it. He’s not that way now but back then…”

“Wait,” I interrupted, “how would your brothers remember it if you don’t?”

“Oh, I have two older brothers in addition to the two little ones at home with my mom. Dan and Ebby. They stayed with my dad after the divorce.”

“Ebby?”

“Short for Ebenezer.” My eyebrow shot up. Family name? “And Dan’s short for Daniel,” he finished distractedly.

I suppressed an eye roll. “Daniel. Got it. Keep going.”

“Well I guess this story starts with my dad but really it’s about my brothers. Dan’s eight years older than me and Ebby’s seven. They lived through the worst of my parent’s marriage. My dad was a bad drinker and got pretty violent – used his combat training against my mom. That was one thing, I guess, but when he started doing the same things to my brothers – told my mom he had to toughen them up before the world did – that’s when she left. I was just a baby so she took me but it was one of those middle-of-the-night escape things and so she left my brothers. She knew my dad wouldn’t kill Dan and Ebby but she was pretty sure he was gonna kill her.” He swallowed a couple of times before continuing, “She says she’ll regret that to her dying day and maybe after.”

“I’m…so sorry,” I muttered. His life was an Oprah novel. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m not,” he said adamantly. “That was the best thing that ever happened to my dad. He joined AA, quit the poison for good and became a new man. A few years later he and my mom got back together. It was good for awhile, the two little guys were born then, but my mom never could quite get over what had happened in the early years and by then Dan and Ebby were teenagers and giving them all kinds of problems.”

“Like how?”

“Oh, well, they got into a lot of trouble with the law – drug stuff mostly, some weapons offenses but nothing stuck more than a few months since they were juvies. My mom was out of her mind, worrying one moment they were going to kill somebody, worrying the next they were going to get killed, all the time blaming herself for all of it. It was a lot of strain.”

“I bet,” I chewed my lip and tried to imagine it. But I couldn’t.

“So yeah, basically my brothers were psychopaths. They liked hurting people just to, well, see them hurt. They got a big kick out it. My dad tried to talk to them but they were set in that life.” He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, “Here’s the answer to your question, Leigh.” Unconsciously he squeezed my hand until it hurt. “My brothers hurt me. Pretty bad.” His voice was low and soft and toneless. I shivered and clenched my jaw, preparing to take whatever he had to say. “It was…a nightmare. But I learned from it. I learned to fight. And I learned I had to fight. It was the only way. And then one night my mom found me lying under Ebby’s bed holding a kitchen knife.”

“Ohhhh,” I whispered, my chest tight.

“ I would have done it too, if she hadn’t found me.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” I whispered breathlessly. He was too good, too kind!

He gave me a sharp look, “Don’t say that Leigh. You don’t know what it was like in that house. I think I really would have killed him and probably Dan too if I could’ve got to him before he got to me. I’d had it all planned out for days.” He dropped his eyes and stared at my fingers. “That’s what turned her heart the second time – she saw the damage was done. The next day she took Darius and Mickey and left for her mom’s. Dan and Ebby chose to stay with my dad, of course.”

“Where did you go?”

He laughed humorlessly, “Well that was the tricky part. My mom didn’t want me around the younger boys ‘cause she figured I was already tainted like my brothers. But my dad didn’t want me to stay ‘cause he knew that Ebby would kill me for sure then. So I went to the state.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven. I was eleven.”

“Oh.” Kent was twelve and hadn’t even been able to do the week at scout camp alone. My mom had to pick him up a day early.

“I bounced around foster care for a couple of years until I ended up in a half-way house for troubled teens.” He licked his lips and rubbed my hand with his thumb. “That really was the lowest point in my life. I’d gotten into drugs, and the poison, of course. And I had a reputation, mostly deserved, for being a vicious fighter. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted me. So basically I was in this locked-down house with a bunch of kids even crazier and meaner than I was and the only thing standing between me and the life were a couple of counselors that just wouldn’t let go.” My heart suddenly lifted and I wanted kiss those counselors, whoever they were. “That’s when I found my family, where I finally claimed edge.”

“Okay, what does that mean?” I blurted. “Everyone keeps saying it and I totally don’t get it!”

“Edge?” He looked surprised and pointed at the elaborate X tattoo on the back of his neck. “Come on, the ink, the music, the buttons - I thought you knew! sXe. Straight edge.”

A little light went on in my head. “Oh, right. Like Goths?”

Sighing, he shook his head, “No, not at all like Goths. Or punks. Or skaters. Or whatever. Straight edge is a mentality, it’s a code.”

“Um, okay. So these counselor guys were straight,” he gave me a funny look and I quickly corrected myself, “or edge or whatever and then you’re their family?”

“It was the closest to family I’d ever come. Basically they showed me how alcohol is poison and so are any drugs used for recreational or numbing purposes. They also showed me that there are other ways to channel my fighting instinct, like hardcore music and two-stepping and all that. Seriously, they saved me. The sXe guys in that house all had each other’s backs and you knew they would be there for you, no matter what.” Nodding thoughtfully, he finished, “And I’d never been able to say that about anyone in my life before. It felt really good.”

“Yeah,” I said, in awe of what he had been through. And really, so many things made sense now. “Sounds like it saved your life.”

“Absolutely. For a lot of guys, like Jimmie, claiming edge just means being in on the hardcore scene and avoiding the poison but there are some that take it a step further – to keeping your body free of any contaminants. That’s the kind of edge I claim. So, no drugs, no alcohol, but also no meat and no promiscuous sex.”

“Ooooh,” I said, finally getting it. “And I was beginning to think you were just Mormon,” I kidded, slugging him lightly.

“Actually, I’m one of those too.”

“What?” I almost fell over. “But I thought you were edge or whatever.”

“I am. Straight edge isn’t a religion, it’s a code of ethics. Lots of sXe’s aren’t religious at all. Some are.”

“And you’re…Mormon?” I still couldn’t quite grasp it. He was so unlike the clean-cut guys in dark suits that knocked on our door every so often or the Landers that lived two blocks over and had seven kids or even those families on the cheesy commercials that always make my mom tear up a little.

“Actually, they prefer the term ‘LDS’, for Latter Day Saint.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. My dad converted, actually, after my mom left him the last time. He was so gung-ho about it that when my brothers finally moved out of the house, he took me to live with him just so he could tell me about it. I could tell he was a totally different person; the change was amazing. And I love my dad, I really do, so I got baptized too. Nothing I’ve done has ever made him happier.” Van smiled wanly. “But things weren’t working out for me in Cali. My brothers were still around and the old neighborhood and all that so my mom agreed to let me move in with her up here to finish out high school. She’s not LDS though and so I kinda just stopped going to church and stuff, you know?”

Again, I didn’t know. My family’s never been particularly religious. Oh, my parents are good liberals, and are all ‘live and let live, this is a free country’ but that god business never got far in our house. “Oh, sure,” I said lamely.

“But I miss it. I mean, I really do. Down in Cali I pretty much just went for my dad but since I’ve been up here, I feel like something’s missing in my life. I bet that’s it.” His eyes took on a new light, as if he’d just remembered something really important.

“Maybe you just miss your dad,” I said quietly. I’d never really thought about it before but this whole Mormon thing kind of gave me the heebie jeebies. I mean, they’re really kind of weird.

“I do, totally,” he looked sad again. “But I think I also miss going to church.” He looked surprised. “Because you know what?”

“What?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“It’s true.”

“Huh.”

“That church is true. Somehow I’ve always known it. I guess I just…forgot for awhile.” Grinning at me, he jumped to his feet and pulled me up. Wrapping me in a rib-cracking bear hug, he kissed my lips, my cheeks, my nose. “Thank you Leigh. I don’t even know how to thank you. You are the first person that I’ve ever told any of this to.” His gaze was piercing, “And I feel a lot better.”

“I’m glad,” I smiled and kissed him back. It was good to see him back again.

“You were right. Thanks for making me talk. Thanks for trusting me. And, most of all,” he paused to examine me again in the early morning glow, “thanks for being, um, trust-able.”

“It’s trustworthy. And you’re welcome.” We started back across the beach towards the van, walking the minefield of passed-out partiers. “So, you think Jimmie’s up yet?”

“If he’s not, I know how to get him up!” Van grinned wickedly and grabbed a child’s forgotten sand bucket that sat half filled with water and sludge.

………

“So that’s his excuse, huh?” Katie finally said when I finished relating the night’s events to her.

“Um, huh?” I was more than a little tired and feeling kind of strung out, edgy.

“The reason why he’s such a freak.”

“Katie!”

“A straight edge Mormon.” I could hear her shaking her head through the phone.

“It’s LDS,” I said automatically and then blushed. “And so what? He’s still the same person he was before.” I tried to sound like I hadn’t had similar thoughts at first.

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It is for me,” I said defensively. “And you should hear what he’s been through. I mean, he’d been through more stuff by the time he was ten years old than most people go through in a lifetime!”

“So that gives him a license to be a nutcase?”

“He is not crazy.” Ok, so no one could quite argue that. “Well, at least not in a bad way.”

“He’s not harmless, he almost knifed you.”

I sighed, already wishing I hadn’t told her so much. I should have made something up except I was just too tired by the time I got home to care. “I’m safe. In fact, he makes me feel more safe just being with him.” Katie snorted. “And he could definitely kick your boyfriend’s butt.” It was a low blow and I knew it.

“A bad boyfriend is not better than no boyfriend,” she said sternly.

“He’s not bad,” I matched her tone. “You don’t even know him!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Troubled. Excuse me.”

I sighed again, wondering why I was even bothering talking to her about his. “Look, Katie, I just called to tell you thanks for helping me out last night.”

“I dunno,” she said hesitantly, “I’m not sure I did you any favors but it’s too late for that. You’ll just do what you want, I guess.”

“I guess I will,” I said tightly, resolving to talk to her only in the presence of Stella or Wally in the future. “So, bye.”

“Wait,” she said hurriedly, before I could hang up.

“…what?”

“I just don’t get it.” She sounded human for the first time since this conversation started.

“Get what?”

“Why you like him. I mean, you are a great girl – not gorgeous,” I winced, “but pretty enough. You could definitely do better.”

Van thinks I’m gorgeous. “Actually, I don’t think I like him.”

“What?” That stopped her.

“I think I love him.” Oh, it felt amazing to say that! Like flying. Or falling. Or both.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Katie yelled. “You know what I think? I think I don’t even know who you are anymore!” I hung up.
- posted by Charlotte @ 8:09 AM