Down 'N' Derby (5 page)

             
“I hope you didn’t waste one of our kids’ names on this little guy,” I whispered back. 

             
“Nope, those are locked in the vault.” He pointed to his head.

             
My back was still turned to Nellie and she wouldn’t let us have any slack.  “You’ve got three seconds to tell me what’s in the box or I’m gone.”

             
“Look,” I turned around and showed her the bundle of cuteness that I held. 

             
“Holy shit on a stick,” she said and cooed her way towards Falcon, ripping her own bundle of joy out of his hands. 

             
“That one I named Maple,” he said as she opened it.

             
She nestled and cuddled it for all of five seconds before turning her version of the stink eye on him.

             
“Alright, what’d you do,” she asked.

             
He laughed and kissed her temple, “Nothing, it had just been too long since I bought either one of you presents.  I saw these little guys in the window of the pet shop across from the bookstore and decided we could all use some cheering up.”

             
Nellie looked out of the window and for once in her life got very serious. “Ain’t that the damned truth.”

Chapter 9

Nixon

I hate when people have hair on their earlobes.
Come on people, that’s why wax and tweezers were invented.  Gross.

              Mad was back in full force.  He was actually smiling and having fun.  We took a detour through Denver and then headed South towards Colorado Springs.  He looked like he could breathe again—which was good and bad.

             
The good was he seemed happy again.  The bad was, he wasn’t giving me a moment’s peace so I hadn’t called Reed in almost a week.  I knew she had to be freaking out but it just couldn’t be helped.  I couldn’t get away from him for one second.  He had gone to the other extreme on me. 

             
Finally the next Saturday after we’d left Omaha, he bottomed out from hitting the Red Bulls too hard.  He was knocked out cold and this was my opportunity to call her.  I ran outside and hid behind the Rover and called her.  It was really late at night but I hoped she wouldn’t get caught.  Mad and I both knew that we were putting her at risk but he needed her lifeline and I needed a reprieve from the constant guilt clutching at my chest like a vice.  I could at least say that I tried to keep them informed even though it was the wuss’ way out. 

             
“Hello,” she answered and I could hear her shuffling through rooms and open what I assumed was a door that led outside. 

             
“Hey, no dad in Omaha.  We went through Taylorville, Kansas and then detoured through Denver.  We are now in Colorado Springs.  We go to see if his dad is here tomorrow.  He’s fine.  He’s kinda having a good time.  I’m sorry it took so long to call, I just couldn’t get a break from him.”

             
“Ok, thank you Nixon.  I appreciate it.”

             
“Dude, no calls to girls, remember,” Mad was coming around the corner towards me. 
Shit, I’m caught.

             
“I was calling my mom, shut up.” I hung up on Reed, hoping that she heard him intercept me and knew why I’d done so. 

             
“Well, what’d she say? Is she pissed?  Did she hear from my parents?”

             
“She was just spouting out questions, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise then she had to get off the phone.”

             
“Huh—well, I left my earbuds in the car,” he said.

             
I unlocked the passenger side for him and he got the earbuds and went back towards the motel room.  “You comin’,” he asked.

             
“Yeah,” I answered and made my way in.  I hope Reed understood and would know what to do when the time came because I could tattle tale with the best of them but I would not be able to face Chase or Sylvia Black by myself. 

Chapter 10

Mad

I wanna wear my pants backwards today like
Kriss Kross.  What?

              We woke up the next morning and the days of ignoring my nervousness came to a head with rolls of nauseated waves.  I took a shower and this time not only could I feel the temperature but the droplets of water crashed into my skin like tiny shards of glass.  I got out as fast as I could and wiped the steam from the mirror. 

             
In the reflection, though my brain kept pounding me with the knowledge that I wasn’t really a Black, I saw it.  I was the perfect mix of Falcon and Owen.  I had the complexion of Owen.  I chuckled remembering that Nellie once called his face a baby’s butt plastered to a skull.  She was so weird—in the very best way.  My hair was just like Falcon’s, coffee black and straight.  It was weird to think how much I looked like them even though I wasn’t technically their brother.  Maybe the Big Guy had this in mind all along. 

             
I put on a pair of gray cargo shorts and a white t-shirt, walked into the room and planted my face in front of the air conditioner.  If I didn’t get cold soon, I was gonna lose it.  I wafted my shirt in front of the blowing air and willed myself to calm down.  He probably wasn’t even here.  This whole blasted thing was probably one big goose chase—one big mistake.

             
“Ma’am, can I get you some cold water to help with your hot flashes?” Nixon smarted off from the other side of the room.

             
“You can get some ice for your busted lip,” I popped back at him.

             
“My busted lip—oh I get you, nice threat.” He shook his head and then took his turn in the shower. 

             
He took the longest shower in the history of mankind and then took even longer primping in the mirror.  “Hey, Vanity Smurf, let’s go.”

             
He rolled his eyes at me and began posing in front of the mirror.

             
“Do these jeans make my butt look big,” he asked batting his eyes.

             
“I knew I should’ve killed you and thrown you out for gator bait.” I said back. 

             
We got in the Land Rover and he wanted to eat but I insisted on going to the apartment first.  I couldn’t even fathom eating while my stomach felt like a ball of swamp grass.

             
We got to the apartment complex and we repeated the ritual.  We sat across the street for a good thirty minutes when Nixon’s phone went off. 

             
“Who’s that?” I nodded towards his phone.

             
“It’s the thirty minute alarm; that means you get your butt out of here and go see if it’s him.”

             
“You seriously put an alarm on my freak out time?”

             
“Yup, elbows and assholes, let’s go.”

             
“What, are you coming with me?” 
God please let him not come with me, he’s liable to blow their mailbox up with firecrackers.

             
“Yep, I’m coming with.”

             
Perfect.

             
We walked through the maze of apartment turning right and left and finally climbed a flight of stairs that led to the ‘G’ apartments.  This Einer Macon was in apartment ‘G4’ and we found it immediately. 

             
He knocked and I looked at him with wide eyes.  He did
not
just knock before I was ready.

             
“What you wanted to wait for thirty more minutes?  I ain’t got all summer.”

             
A young Hispanic boy answered the door and we tried to ask for his mom, or his dad and I’m pretty sure Nixon told him ‘Merry Christmas’ in our lousy Spanish.  “Let’s go ask the manager.” Nixon suggested after rolling through all of his Spanish words including taco, burrito and mesa. 

             
“Mesa means table you moron.” I said as I slapped him in the back of the head. 

             
“I know what it means, damn, I was just spitting out words.”

             
We plowed through the maze again and found the manager’s office.  He was an older man with a very impressive moustache.  We asked about apartment ‘G4’ and he said that an Einer Macon lived there about six months ago but had moved somewhere in California.  I knew I had found one Einer Macon with an address in Venice Beach, California and my gut told me that was the place I needed to be. 

             
Nixon stood behind the man as he spoke to me and while the man wasn’t looking Nixon said, “Are you sure Einer’s not hidden in his…” and then he pointed to his upper lip, running it from one corner of his mouth to the other, signaling that somehow my father must be hiding in this man’s massive ‘stache.

             
I started laughing, more of a release of nervous energy than a response to Nixon’s comedy.  The man brushed us off and slammed the door in our faces.  I didn’t blame him one bit.  Nixon didn’t say anything as we got back in the SUV and drove away.  I knew he was pissed again.  I had once heard him call California the ‘Land of fruits and nuts.’ 

             
“So, Venice Beach, huh?” He said but he didn’t sound as pissed as I had imagined.

             
“Yeah, you don’t mind, do you?” I cringed as I said it.

             
“Do I mind going to the place where half of the girls stroll around all day in string bikinis? Um, let me think about it—NO!”

             
“Did Nixon Black just admit to chick staring? I’m shocked! Anyway, we still have the rest of the summer, so we can take our time getting there.”

             
“Good, now switch back to Fun Maddox and let’s go eat. And after that we’re going to see those cool sculptures.”

Chapter 11

Falcon

I hate feeling distant when she’s right here next to me.

              This was not the first time she’d pulled this middle of the night stuff but I chalked it up to her Aunt Elaine calling or maybe Farrah.  But lately it was getting more and more frequent.  Her phone would ring and it wasn’t a ring that I recognized. 

             
It reminded me of when she was homeless.  Sneaking around, trying to keep secrets—she wasn’t really good at it either.  But I refused to be that guy.  I refused to be the male who distrusted his girl just because she was sneaking around.  But damn him if he wasn’t whispering in my ear.  If Maddox ever decided to drag his sorry ass home, she would be my wife and this secret shit needed to stop. 

             
I closed my eyes and tried to look asleep as she crawled stealthily into bed.  After a few minutes she turned her face into the pillow and I knew she was crying.  Whatever these phone calls were—whatever was making her distant, it was making her heart heavy.  If she would just let me, I would take it from her, bear the burden myself—anything to cease her pain and worry. 

             
I knew I was supposed to pretend to be asleep but letting her weep without holding her went against everything in my being.  It just wasn’t possible.  I moved closer to her side of the bed and she stilled, thinking she had woken me.  “If you’re gonna cry and not tell me the reason, at least let me hold you.” I whispered against her ear.  She rolled over facing me and snuggled into her spot, face against my chest, arms and legs knowing their place.  She shivered as she continued to cry a deep, slow, heartbreaking gesture of sadness next to me.  And I felt absolutely helpless to stop it.  All I could do was be her buoy through this ocean of hurt—something to hold on to when the waves got too rough. 

             
After she fell asleep I moved her left hand, she had it crushed against my chest while she cried and now a four pointed diamond shaped indention tingled on my pec.  She used to twist her rosebud earring when she was nervous or upset but now she took out her woes on her ring.  I watched her put her earring in her jewelry box one day and said she wouldn’t wear it again until her wedding day.  But I took it one step further.  I took the earring and had it made into a pendant.  That way it would be visible in our pictures.  Her wedding dress hung in the closet down the hallway.  It used to hang in our bedroom but after Mad pulled his disappearing act, she moved it down the hall. 

             
I heard a rattling from the other room and I detangled myself from her to go get Oak from his cage.  I held him for a while and then put him back.  He woke up once in a while at night but it didn’t bother me.  In fact, it was kinda cute.  Nellie hated that Maple woke up at night and when I reminded her that babies wake up at night she punched me.