Bookmaker, The (12 page)

Tears were now rolling down her cheeks as she pulled me closer to her. The kiss was pure passion. When our tongues met, rather than dart about quickly
, they stayed together and danced slowly as one, moving rhythmically with our bodies. It was a happiness I had never known. It was exactly what I wanted, and she wanted me too. The world shut off, it was only us, and then…it was gone.

She abruptly pulled away. I watched her as tears of joy became tears of pain. “No, not now, I can’t.” She stood up and moved away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked desperately.

“I can’t…I’m damaged goods. I can’t be with anyone. I’m sorry
, Trent. I can’t do this. It’s not you. I do care for you, I do, I swear. But I can’t do this right now. Please understand.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you keep calling yourself damaged goods, you’re not, and if you care for me then why—?”

She wasn’t listening, and took off running back down the path. I didn’t bother to follow her. I just laid back into the grass and never wanted to get up.

I don’t know how long I laid there,
I didn’t care. I was finally roused from my self-pity when I heard the familiar voices of Matador and Jay moving along the path toward the fields. They were jawing back and forth like old friends, laughing and bullshitting away. I didn’t want to explain my presence there so I disappeared into the woods, and once they were lost in the crops, I slipped away down the path back to my guesthouse.

As I walked back, I talked myself into feeling a little better about what happened with Corynne. It wasn’t a flat out rejection. She was interested, hell, she kissed me. And she did claim she cared about me. This could have been worse
, I convinced myself. What bothered me more was Corynne’s self-image issues. Why did she think so little of herself? What was with the damaged goods crap? I’d heard her say that twice now. Who’s filling her head with this shit? Didn’t she have a mirror? She had to know the reaction she got from men. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and starting feeling sorry for her.

The banging at my door was incessant. I was half asleep and ignored the banging, but whoever was out there wasn’t going away.

“Open up, T, open up!” Jay was manic when I let him in. “They gave me my own key, said I could stay as long as I want!”

“That’s great
, man.” I grabbed my smokes off the nightstand. “So, you gonna do it, you gonna stay?”

“Hell yeah, it’s a pretty sweet deal they’re offering, I just need to run it by Dayla. But I told them about her and they said she could come and stay too. These guys are awesome
, T. Thanks for hooking me up.”

“No problem
, man. I’m just glad you’re gonna be out here with me, just like it should be.”

“Come on, show me my place.”

“Sure, probably gonna be exactly like mine, let’s go.”

Jay was very pleased with his new home—going through every room taking it all in, even opening drawers and turning the water on and off.

Then it occurred to me. “If you’re moving out here too, what are we gonna do about our place back home?”

“Fuck it, that’s Nate’s problem now. We’ll give him one more month’s rent then he can find two more suckers.”

“What about Wade Boggs? What about all our shit?”

“Look man, I’ve already thought this through. They’re gonna fly me back in a couple days. Hopefully, I can convince Dayla to come back with me. Then I’ll pack up my truck with the essentials: TVs, stereos, CDs, clothes, all the shit we can’t live without, then I’ll grab whatever shit you left behind, and Dayla can drive your truck out here with Wade. Sound good?”

“Actually, it sounds perfect.”

“By the way
, that Corynne is smoking; I think she’s got a thing for you, bro. You gotta get moving on that, single mom or not.”

“I wish,” I stammered.

“Oh shit, T, you like her. And let me guess, it’s gonna be classic Trent—you like a girl and then you don’t do shit about it and regret it later. Just like Denise Gessner, just like Stephanie Klamath, just like—“

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a loser.”

“No man, just the opposite, chicks dig you, you just got no game. You’re too worried about being rejected—you gotta learn to say ‘fuck you’ to rejection. That way of thinking will only hurt, it will only hold you back from what you want, it never helps.”

This wasn’t what I needed to hear, not after what happened to today. “Thanks
, bro,” I said.

“No problem, now get ready
, we're going out. Preston and Matador are gonna meet us at the front of the house in about an hour.”

Matador was going to drive us into town. Corynne wouldn’t be coming along.

“She’s not feeling well
.” Preston didn’t bother turning around in his seat. “This one will be a boy’s night out.”

That was fine with me. Our destination was Johnny Rebs—the same bar I walked to when I left the hospital a few days ago. I learned this was Preston and Matador’s local bar. Preston led the way and we all bellied up to the bar. Matador helped Preston get up on his stool. The same bitchy bartender softened up when she saw I was with Preston.

“Welcome back, honey, no blue laws today, order whatever you want. How you doing Preston, Matador?”

Preston gave her a smile
. “Hey there, Rhonda, how’s about we start off with four shots of Jack with a scotch rocks back, Blue Label.”

“Sure thing.”

Jay was having a blast, talking up a storm with anyone who would listen. I’m pretty sure he was new to scotch too, but he took right to it, not even a wince. You could tell Preston and Matador liked Jay. He had a way of ingratiating himself with people when he really wanted to—he could be a charming bastard. We all sat at the bar like we’d been working at the same factory together for years and were getting a drink after work. The talk grew louder with each drink. Preston and I talked football; Matador and Jay talked horticulture. Next thing you knew, three hours had passed and we were all three sheets to the wind. Preston brought up that it might be a good time to head out before Matador became too intoxicated to drive, which was funny because he’d been keeping up with us all night.

Before we even got off the stools, Duane walked in with the moron twins.

I was about to say hi when Preston yelled, “Hey, fat boy, get over here!” The sight of a six-foot-four, three-hundred-fifty-pound behemoth shitting his pants because a sickly septuagenarian called him over was comical.

“Yessir.”

“Duane, right?” Preston rolled his empty glass in his fingers with calm menace. Jay watched on with a sinister smile in eager anticipation.

“Yessir.”

“So my granddaughter tells me you’ve been giving her a hard time and now you go hittin’ my boy Trent here.”

Duane started his stuttering explanation, the twins began backing away. I tried to jump in, “It’s cool Preston, he apologized, it’s all good between us.”

Once Jay heard he’d hit me, he was in the mix with Duane, dwarfed but unfazed. “What the fuck, you punched my boy you fat motherfucker!”

Duane was still stammering for answers, looking back to his friends for help. They were gone.

“Easy, Jay, it’s cool, just a misunderstanding.” I stood up and tried to get between them.

“Yeah
, we good now,” Duane muttered. “Trent and I talked it out a few days ago.”

“Fuck that man!” Jay
said.

Preston managed to get off the bar stool and put his arm in front of Jay. Jay backed down. I had never seen anyone have that kind of influence on Jay before.

“Now explain yourself, boy. First you start talking rumors about me and my family and that piece of shit that left my granddaughter and their baby, and now you’re roughing up my guests?”

Then Duane became emboldened
. “Yeah, well what did happen to Trigger? It ain’t like him to leave like that.”

The bottle violently
broke over his head, shards of glass spread in all directions, except for one large piece embedded in his forehead. Duane didn’t go down easy. He just stood there dazed and bleeding. The next bottle that Matador bashed against his head dropped him. Once he was down, Matador kicked him hard in the ribs, but it was pointless. Duane was out.

“Jesus Christ
, man, that was fucking nuts!” Jay yelled, giddy with admiration.

Preston nodded to Duane’s two buddies and they came over and dragged him outside. Rhonda turned back around and went back to work, pretending it never happened.

Once things calmed down a bit I said, “Preston, that wasn’t necessary.”

Preston sat back down on his bar stool and turned to me
. “Trent, you don’t need to be telling me what is and isn’t necessary. When it comes to my family, I’ll decide what’s necessary.”

That shut me up and I sat back on my stool. Jay
, practically jumping up and down, was patting Matador on the back. He couldn’t have been more impressed.

“Howsa ‘bout another drink?” Matador said
, wiping beer off his face.

I didn’t remember crawling into bed, but that’s where I woke up with my shoes still on. My mind was lost in a smoky haze of boozy violence, partial memories came and went—the sound of bottles breaking was preeminent in my mind. I decided it was too early and I was too hung over to analyze the situation
, so I made some coffee—it was 9:30am. I mustered the energy to put some clothes on and head next door to check on Jay.

The note stuck to my shoe as I closed the door
behind me. It was on simple college-rule paper and read one word,
Sorry
, written in typical big and loopy girl-script—all girls wrote the same. I crumpled it up and threw it as far as I could.

I knew Preston wouldn’t be up for anything
, and Matador would either be busy in the fields or sleeping it off, so the day was free. I hadn’t been here long, but I was getting a good idea of how things went. Preston called it a southern pace—I took right to it.

Jay and I were both worn out. He wanted to see the town
, so we took the convertible in for a greasy breakfast at the Oxford Café then lazily walked the downtown square. Jay wasn’t too interested in a history lesson and I wasn’t in the mood to give him one and by noon, our hangovers were raging, so we decided to slip into a bar for a little relief. The bar was The Oxford Blue. We chose to avoid Johnny Rebs. The couple of beers we had weren’t much help so we headed back to my house and watched Fletch on cable until we both nodded off.

The next day the heat and humidity made for a sticky ride back to the airport. Once we got out onto the highway
, Jay laid out his plan. He’d spend a few days back home packing up our stuff and loading everything onto our trucks. He’d then inform Nate that he was on his own and give him next month’s rent in advance to give him a free month to find new roommates. Dayla, always up for an adventure, had agreed to temporarily come out and stay with Jay, but she’d still keep her place in downtown Huntington Beach, just in case. And Jay said he’d swing by Otto’s and pick up the money he was holding for me. That was it, it was that simple. In three days Jay and Dayla would be packed up and headed east. Dayla also agreed to take Wade back with her, so before I dropped him off, I gave Jay $100 to buy the nicest cat carrier he could find.

By 3:00 that afternoon I was back in Preston’s office. He wasn’t happy with the progress we’d been making—too much dilly-dallying
, he complained. Actually, I was eager to get back to work as well. I wanted to hear the rest of his story regarding the destruction of his family. It had to be juicy if it caused the man to go on a killing spree. He asked me to make us some drinks. I made his stiff and watered-down mine, promising myself I would take it easy this time. I rolled him a joint and we eased back onto the couches, facing each other.

Preston took a slow hit from the joint
. “I got to tell you, that Jay character is something else. He may look different, but he is definitely one of us. Just goes to show ya...”

“Goes to show you what?” I asked
, trying not to sound defensive.

He looked a little annoyed and quickly answered, “You know, judging a book by its cover and all that.”

“Yeah, he’s real excited about coming out here and getting those crops up and running. He’s already been telling me his plans.”

He placed the joint in the ashtray
. “Your boy’s got more tattoos than a Maori tribesman. How come you’re not lit up like that? You got a moral objection to tattoos, or you can’t handle the needle?”

“What about you?” I snapped back. “I thought all you old-timers got a little ink back in the day.”

“Us old-timers, huh?” he lifted up his right shirtsleeve, exposing a faded and greened-out tattoo that I couldn’t make out. I looked closer, it was that same symbol I‘d already grown tired of looking at that hung over our heads above the fireplace. The circled parting of the Red Sea with the words “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God” framing the image.

“That same seal is right on the wall behind us. What does it mean?”

“You can call it my motto, how I’ve lived the last fifty years of my life.”

“But what does it mean?”

He looked at his arm then back at me. “My take on it is, if you do what you know is right, but it just happens to be against the law, then the law is irrelevant. I choose to answer to a higher source and He knows and condones what I do.”

“
Interesting philosophy,” I said.

“I mean
, look who they got on the Supreme Court nowadays. We got a porn-loving nigger and a couple bleeding-heart liberal broads, and one of them is a Jew. I mean, come on.”

In an attempt to not start an argument
, I said, “Well, your tattoo’s pretty cool looking.”

“You’re goddamn right it is. So what about you. You got any?”

“I got a couple.”

“Well shit, I showed you mine. Let’s have a look.”

I took my shirt off to show the entire tattoo on my back. I noticed him staring an instant longer than necessary; I stood up and turned around.

“Well
goddamn…would you look at that? I’ll tell you what, son, that might be the largest consonant I have ever seen. How long
that
take?”

“Four
, five-hour sessions. It was the filling it in that took so long.”

“What’s that other one on your shoulder? That black hollowed out skull? I noticed Jay had the same one.”

“That’s the Crimson Ghost. It’s the symbol for the punk band The Misfits.”

“So is that what you boys are? A couple of punk rockers? Where’s the mohawk, the green hair, the pins through your face, all that shit?”

“I don’t think we classify ourselves as anything. We’re just fans of the band and like the skull. Nothing more.”

“The Misfits, huh?”

“Plus, I don’t think anyone’s dressed like that since 1977.”

“Maybe you guys could play them for me sometime.”

“Anytime.”

“Well all right,” he said
, then changed the subject. “Now, with Jay coming out it should be a real nice fit, and I understand he’s bringing his old lady out here?”

“Yeah
, Dayla’s great, you’ll like her.”

“It never hurts to have pr
etty young women around does it? It’ll be good for Corynne to have another gal to pal around with.”

“Yeah it should work out fine,” I said
, sliding the recorder to the center of the table.

He got the hint
. “All right now, where were we?”

“Audrey’s death and Kick Kennedy,” I said
, darkening the room.

“Thanks for reminding me.”

I lit up a smoke.

* * * * *

“You know how Josef Goebbels was Hitler’s minister of propaganda? Well another tyrant had one as well. My father was, at this point, Ambassador Joe’s right hand man. This mainly consisted of running the show behind the show; making everything Joe did look clean and professional. But the job was killing him—long hours, endless travel, and dealing with Joe’s moods was never fun. He basically became his whipping boy, and my father took it for the sake of his family, mainly his wife. Amongst his many duties, Father was PR man and speechwriter as writing was not Joe’s strong suit and my father had a knack for it. But more importantly, he could be trusted above all else to be Joe’s mouthpiece. His job was to make Ambassador Joe Kennedy look good, and that was a tall order.

“As you can imagine
, Audrey’s death left us all devastated, but no one took it harder than my father; he was a broken man. Audrey was the light of his life—his beautiful baby girl, and now she was gone, and Joe Sr. was to blame. My father became consumed with despair, then revenge. After her death, other than for her funeral, he didn’t get out of bed for a week. We didn’t know what was going on in his head, we were worried about him. What we didn’t know was that he was plotting away, coming up with different methods to destroy his boss. The obvious wouldn’t work, any random act of violence would only turn either Joe or his family into martyrs, thus making the public embrace them even more. No, he needed Joe to destroy his own career, to become a villain in the public eye. He wanted Joe to throw away everything he’d worked for, everything he had planned for his great family—his great legacy. Finally he had it; he found a way for Joe to shoot himself in the foot, to destroy himself.

“When Audrey died, under my father’s orders
, we were told not to let the Kennedys or anyone else know that we knew the truth behind her death. And Joe wasn’t about to stand up and admit responsibility. It went down as an unfortunate death of a girl who caused her own demise through loose morals. She became a cautionary tale parents tell their little girls while tucking them into bed. ‘You see? You see what happens if you’re not a good girl?’

“After a few weeks of grieving
, my father went back to work; receiving the requisite pity from the staff and an unusual amount of compassion and support from Joe. Father took it all in, biding his time.

“It wasn’t a secret to anyone close to Joe that he was…to put it politically correct, an anti-Semite. Truthfully, he hated Jews. When referring to Kristallnacht
, he said, ‘Well, they brought it on themselves.’ He wasn’t bothered by the fact that Germany was doing away with their Jews. He just wanted it done in a quieter fashion. Joe was more concerned with the bad publicity the Nazi regime would get in the west. He was wary of the ‘Jew Media rousing the Americans into war with their overblown accounts of Nazi aggression towards the elimination of the Jew problem.’

“In Britain, rather than siding with the popular Churchill
, who would never compromise with the Nazis, Joe aligned with Neville Chamberlain in his search for an appeasement between the two countries. The fact that by 1940 the Luftwaffe bombed Britain on a daily basis wasn’t enough to push for war. Joe attempted to meet with Hitler numerous times ‘To bring a better understanding between the U.S. and Germany.’ Before the Americans entered the war, Joe was strongly against giving aid to the British, which, as you could imagine, made him very unpopular in his host country. It was Joe’s unpopular leanings and his obstinacy that would be his downfall. He was so arrogant that he thought he was above reproach. My father had found his vehicle for Joe’s destruction.

“Joe had his opinions but
, when it came time for public speeches and on-the-record interviews, they were never brought to light thanks to my father, who either wrote, censored, or coached Joe’s vanilla speeches and canned remarks. It was time to take the leash off.

“The interview was with the Boston Globe during the German Blitzkrieg of London. My father advised Joe that it might be a good time to go on the record with his true feeling regarding the war. He told Joe that he was right. The bombings wouldn’t stop until England surrendered, and England’s only chance for salvation would be to reach an accord with Hitler. It wasn’t about saving democracy from the Nazis; it was about saving their British
ass. And the U.S. should see the writing on the wall, or they’d be next.

“My father prepared a statement and coached him on some answers. Now was the time to side with the Nazis. Their defeat of Europe was imminent, and if Joe put that on the record now, he would come out smelling like a rose. He’d be a visionary politician, possibly even a
president who could lead America into a future with a Nazi-controlled Europe. Joe was hesitant, but just arrogant enough to believe it would work. And you have to remember, during the Blitzkrieg and the early part of the war before the U.S. joined in, an Ally victory seemed far off.

“The plan was brilliant in its simplicity. Just let Joe be Joe
, and he’d hang himself. He just needed the go-ahead from his most trusted advisor that now was the time to announce his private thoughts and make them public. Joe was finally right, and the world needed to know it.

“The journalist from the Globe started with the obvious question:
‘What is it like to live in war-torn England amid all the bombings, and should the U.S expand their role in the war?’

“Joe answered, ‘It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time. As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that Britain is fighting for democracy; that's bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it.
’

“The journalist
s couldn’t believe what they were getting. The Ambassador to England stating that England wasn’t fighting for democracy but only self-preservation, and the U.S. would be next.

“
It was Joe’s next statement that finished him off. Feeling emboldened by finally stating his true feelings, he topped it off with, ‘Democracy is finished in England. It may be in America as well.’

“With that
, my father knew Joe was finished. The reporters knew he was finished. The only one in the room who didn’t realize he had just committed political suicide was Joe himself. The reporters ended the interview immediately; they had a story to get out. And when Joe looked around for his right-hand man for support, he was nowhere to be found.

“The public outcry was swift and loud. When the Americans and the British read Joe’s quotes that democracy was finished and the whole war effort was bunk, they wanted Joe’s head. And they got it, within a month President Roosevelt asked for his resignation and Joe could do nothing but acquiesce. It was over
: the presidential ambitions gone, the Kennedy name mud. He couldn’t even get elected mayor. His career and his name had been destroyed, and according to Joe, it was all Dixon Walker’s doing.

“The confrontation took place a week later. Joe was cleaning out his office. He cornered my father
, who was doing the same, and asked if it was a deliberate sabotage. My father told him it was retaliation for Audrey’s death. He told him he knew it was Joe’s doing and this was payback. Joe’s punch landed squarely on his jaw. That’s when my father lost it and began to pummel Joe within an inch of his life; if it weren’t for some staffers who broke it up, he might have killed him. Joe staggered to his feet, cursing the day he met him. He made it to his still-cluttered desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a stack of papers. There might have been thirty or so letters written in cursive on colorful stationary.

“Joe threw them in my father’s direction and said, ‘Here, read these. That bitch was one hell of a screw, although her blowjobs could use some work.’

“My father collected the letters and began to read as his life became meaningless.

“Father somehow made the drive home in his ‘39 Duesenberg Coupe. All traffic laws were ignored, stop lights were an afterthought. Nothing mattered anymore. His world was shattered; the stack of papers strewn on the passenger seat mocking him only affirmed this. He pulled the car onto the front lawn
, left the car door and the front door wide open, and ran upstairs. He was sure to find Mother at her vanity, applying her makeup at this time of day. I came out of my room to greet him, but he walked zombie-like past me through the halls and into the bedroom.

“I heard the whole thing from just outside their bedroom.

“‘Dixon, you’re home early.’ Mom said. ‘Dix, honey, are you okay?’”

“He nonchalantly placed the stack of letters on her vanity table and walked into the closet.