Meet Me Here (12 page)

“Call my brother a coward? The night before he goes in? Are you fucking crazy? I’d kill you for less.”

Will looks terrified as Jake pins him harder against the ground. And he should be worried. I’ve never seen Jake so—so out of control.

“Thomas, do something!” Mallory screams, pushing me toward Jake. But how do I stop this? How can I do anything for Jake? I try to pull him off, but Jake shoves me away.

“Hell, no, Thomas. He can’t do this, not after everything I’ve tried to do to keep you safe.”

I don’t have a chance to figure out what Jake has done for me; how he could possibly think he’s kept me
safe
.

“Let him go,” Mallory yells, trying to pull Jake off Will. But he’s on a mission, singular in his focus.

“You’re going to apologize,” Jake tells Will, raising a fist. Mallory screams again, and Will starts talking fast.

“I’m sorry, I’m
sorry
. But what do you expect me to do? She’s out with him all night, and I don’t even get a reason.” Will turns his head to face me, pleading. “We’re supposed to get married tomorrow, man. And then she tells me it’s
not happening; just like that, it’s over. And then she spends all night with you.”

Time—the world—stops moving. Even Jake looks at me. Mallory’s face is as blank with shock.

“What was I supposed to do?” he says.

Jake returns his focus to Will. “That doesn’t excuse shit.”

He puts his fist in the air, and Will closes his eyes, bracing for the impact. Before he can throw a punch, Wayne tackles Jake, followed by Sinclair. I’m still trying to process everything as Jake brushes them aside and starts back at Will.

Wayne yells my name, waking me up. “Get Jake the hell out of here. Now!”

Jake picks Will up off the concrete, both fists in his shirt as he pushes him against the window. Will keeps repeating the same word—
please
—over and over again. Mallory runs to Jake, trying to get Will loose, but he ignores her, too.

“Jake,” I say. Then again, louder. When I put my hand on his shoulder, he spins around with his fist raised.

“Leave him alone,” I say.

“Hell, no. This doesn’t happen,” he says. “Not tonight.
Not right before you go in. Not when I haven’t taken care of
this
.”

He shakes his backpack in my face, as if proving a point. When he turns back to Will, I grab the backpack off his shoulder.

“What the
hell
is this?” When I go to open it, he spins around and pushes me hard.

“Drop it!” His eyes go from anger to panic, and when I don’t answer him, when I start to open the backpack, he hits me. One shot to my eye, like a strike of lightning.

Will bolts away from the restaurant, grabbing Mallory and making a run for the church van. When he gets the van started, they peel out of the small parking lot. I expect Jake to chase them onto the highway, into the night. Instead, he spits, picks up the backpack, and then walks inside the restaurant.

I try convincing myself to start walking again. Walk until the sun comes up, until I hit the state line. If it weren’t for my leg, I would, I tell myself. So I lean against the side of the building, refusing to look through the windows at Jake or Wayne or Sinclair.

Wayne comes outside and hands me a washrag filled with ice. “For the eye,” he says.

He works a toothpick between his teeth for a minute before saying, “Okay, so Jake calmed down. It’s all I could do to keep that waitress from calling the law, let alone get Jake to sit down. I think you should probably come in there and talk to him.”

“He can go to hell,” I say, carefully putting the ice against my eye. It will be black, that’s certain. And only now, as the adrenaline is beginning to wear off, do I feel the pain. The weight of Jake’s fist against my face. How pissed I actually am.

Wayne cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, well—” He pauses and then says, “How about I drive you guys somewhere?”

I make myself turn and look at Jake over my shoulder. He’s sitting across from Sinclair, stiff as a board. Same as always. It’s like he turned off the power, which gets my blood going even more. There’s nothing I could do—punch through the glass, jump into traffic—that would even register with him right now.

“Fuck this,” I say, trying to stand up. The combined pain from my leg and eye makes me nauseated. Wayne says something else about Jake, but it barely registers. I have no idea what I’m going to do now or why I even cared about what was happening with Jake. I should’ve joined the chorus of our family, the rest of this town: he’ll be fine. Don’t worry.

I drag myself over to the side of the building, where nobody can see me, and throw up. Wayne comes running up behind me.

“Shit, are you okay?”

I fall back against the building, my body hot on the bricks as I lean my head back. Along with all the food, the water, I got rid of any fight I have left. I’m done.

The door opens, and I still think I’m going to hear a voice from the past. Jake telling me to get up, to be tough. All the same bullshit. Instead, a woman speaks.

“He’s not drunk, is he?” the waitress asks. “Because if he is, you guys need to go. I should’ve called the cops when they started fighting.”

“I’m not drunk,” I say.

This is an all-natural debilitation. To think you don’t even need to drink or do drugs to feel so shitty, so helpless. As if to convince her, I look up and try to smile with conviction. Anything to get her back inside the restaurant.

“He really got you,” she says. “I can still call the cops if you want.”

I shake my head, everything spinning. “No. He’s my brother.”

The waitress looks confused for a second but then says, “Was it about that girl?”

I can’t help myself, I laugh. “No.”

And for a second it’s like Jake isn’t sitting in the
restaurant—a robot, a mannequin—and suddenly it’s only Mallory. Mallory, who’s getting married. Who’s spent the last months, all night, pretending, just like me. I don’t know if I should be angry or impressed by the fact that we both are so good at it.

The waitress gives me another strange look, sighs. “Well, if you’re not drunk and you promise there won’t be any more fights”—she motions to the restaurant—“then come inside and get some food. You probably need it.”

“Thanks,” Wayne says, winking. “Is that on the house, good-looking guy discount?”

The waitress doesn’t turn around as she says, “It’s full price, the dumbass high school boy special.”

Wayne chuckles to himself. He sits down against the building and rubs his hands together. My stomach rumbles, from hunger or sickness. Wayne looks over his shoulder, up through the glass windows of the restaurant.

“She’s going to give us a discount,” he says. “Trust me.”

I don’t say anything, and Wayne keeps rubbing his hands together nervously. He starts and stops a few sentences before sighing and finally saying, “So, you and Mallory. You’re not hitting that, right?”

“No,” I say.

Wayne looks relieved. “Okay, at least this isn’t
really
fucked up. I mean, it’s definitely fucked up. But if you and her were getting it on?” He shakes his head. “They’re getting
married
.”

When I don’t engage, he goes back to rubbing his hands and sighing. “Listen, I realize you and Jake aren’t exactly down with each other right now. But I can’t leave him here. What happens if he, um, well, you know? Freaks out again.”

Then he’ll have to deal with the consequences. Or even better, Mom and Dad will have to deal with it. But at what cost? I look into the restaurant. It’s full of men and women in blue work shirts, their names stitched above their pockets, all of them from the hosiery mill two blocks north of here. Most look older than they should, cracked and worn under the fluorescent lighting. Some laugh; others pull unlit cigarettes from half-empty packs sitting on the table, bringing them to their lips by habit. Every one of them looks tired, and not because they work the swing shift. It’s the kind of tired I’ve felt for months, the kind that doesn’t go away no matter how much you sleep.

Wayne studies my face before clapping his hands together. “Well, hell. I need some food to soak up all this alcohol. What do you say?”

Wayne stands up and, offering me his hand, pulls me to my feet. Inside, Jake is ignoring a plate of eggs. Maybe Sinclair ordered them, or maybe the waitress just brought them out. Either way, it doesn’t matter. If this is how he wants to be, that’s on him. I can’t hold any of this together, and I’m not going to try anymore.

“I don’t want to eat,” I say. “Let’s get him in the truck and get out of here, okay?”

Wayne nods and takes a step toward the restaurant as I limp behind him. Before we walk in the door, Wayne stops me. He looks inside, then back to me.

“So, this is all because of the war? I guess I didn’t realize it was that bad, but when he went after Will? When he hit you? Damn.” He moves when a truck driver and his wife come through the door. Wayne smiles at both of them, nodding until they’re out of earshot.

“I don’t care what’s wrong with him,” I say, and the muscles in my stomach clench. “He’s fucked up, and I guess that’s the end of it.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

“Nothing. What can I do?”

The bluntness, the flat way the words come from my mouth, surprises Wayne. “What about your parents?
Are they going to do something?”

“What do you expect them to do?” I ask. “What would happen if Jake had to go to the head doctor? What would people say? Suddenly he’s not Jake the hero. He’s Jake, guy who beats people up in the parking lot of the Waffle House.”

Wayne looks away, picking at some dead skin on the side of his thumb. My instinct is to apologize, to couch my sudden honesty with a reassurance that yes, everything will be okay. Jake will be okay. But I don’t want to do that anymore. And more important: I don’t know if it’s true.

“Let’s just go and get him,” I say.

I limp into the restaurant, and a guy in the corner, drunk off his ass, stands up and starts clapping. He throws a few punches before falling back into his booth, laughing it up with his friends. When I get to Jake and Sinclair, I don’t sit down.

“We’re going home,” I say.

Jake stares at his eggs, and it pisses me off. He rubs his face, and it pisses me off. I grab him by the arm and try to pull him out of the booth. When he puts his hand up, I’m ready for him. I want him to try to hit me again.

“Whoa, whoa!” Wayne jumps between us, pushing me down beside Sinclair, who nearly chokes on a piece of sausage as he tries to get out of the way. Wayne turns to the waitress, holding up both hands as he says, “They’re just playing around, I promise.”

She gives us one last look before turning to a group of men sitting at a table across the restaurant. Wayne sits next to Jake, the smile slowly falling away from his lips. “What the hell is your problem?”

I don’t know if he’s talking to Jake or me, but it doesn’t matter because neither of us answers him. I don’t take my eyes off Jake, daring him to look me in the eye. To explain even half of what happened tonight.

“You’ve got nothing to say?” I ask Jake. He doesn’t look up, just plays with the paper napkin on the table. I pull it away from him. “You’re seriously going to sit here and not say anything?”

Jake’s eyes dart to mine as Wayne says, “Thomas, c’mon.”

I ignore him. “I’m tired of this bullshit, Jake. I’m tired of covering for you every single time people ask how you’re doing. Every time they get a glimpse of how fucked up you are. Do you realize how exhausting that is?”

Nothing. He picks a scab on his knuckle, expressionless. I slam my hands on the table, rattling the plates and the sugar caddy, the windows, it seems. Everybody in the restaurant looks at us, but I don’t care.

“And what were you doing over at Clem’s?” I ask, my voice growing louder. A couple of guys in the corner stand up and start walking toward us. “Can you answer that? Can you say
anything
?”

Jake looks up, his face clear and angry. Like he’s going to take another swing. Before he can swing or speak, a man wearing a VFW hat covered in brass and silver pins, easily old enough to be my grandfather, puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Y’all are getting kind of loud over here.”

I try to shrug him away, but his grip is iron. “My friend and I are trying to have a conversation, and all we can hear is you fellas carrying on.”

“You know what?” I turn and face the man, to tell him exactly what he can do with his complaints. But as soon as I move, he locks his hand harder on my shoulder. Immediately Jake is up and trying to get past Wayne. The man laughs.

“Boy, you better sit back down. You don’t even know
the shit I’ve been through in my life.” He holds out his free hand. “Semper Fidelis” is tattooed in slick black ink across his forearm. “If you don’t know what that represents, I’ll be happy to give you a free lesson.”

Jake pauses, and for a second I think he’s going to jump over the table. If the man didn’t have me in such a vise, I’d already be between them. Jake rolls up his sleeve, all the way to the shoulder. And I can’t believe it. Or maybe I can, but the tattoo is still shocking. The words are done in thick block text: “Death Before Dishonor.”

The man laughs once. “A soldier? What, were the marines not recruiting the day you decided to join?”

“Nope,” Jake says with a casualness I haven’t heard from him in months. “I just wanted to be with the real men.”

The man smiles bigger this time. “Well, it could be worse. You could be air force.”

They both laugh. The man turns and yells to the waitress, “Doreen, Ray and I are going to pull our table over here. You good with that?”

The waitress nods, but her eyes flit over all of us nervously. Whether that’s because of us or them I don’t know. When VFW Hat’s friend stands up, he’s got a prosthetic
leg underneath his jean shorts. He’s maybe ten years older than Jake. They’re both wearing the same blue work shirt with “Hickory Hosiery” stitched on the chest.

“This is Ray, second Iraq,” VFW Hat says. The man smiles but doesn’t say anything or reach a hand out. “I’m Phil, Vietnam.”

The waitress brings a pot of coffee and six cups to the table, but Phil shakes his head. “Leave the cups, but you can take that coffee away.” He pulls a mason jar from his coat and puts it on the table. As soon as Doreen sees it, she shakes her head.

“Do you want to get arrested?” she asks. “What if Brickwell shows up?”

Phil ignores her, telling us: “Lawman. Good dude. But probably wouldn’t be too happy seeing a jar of ’shine on the table.” He shakes the mason jar’s clear liquid and then looks at Doreen. “As soon as I see him pull up, it’s gone.”

When she doesn’t object, Phil slaps the table and unscrews the jar. The odor hits my nose like fire.

“Well, this should get interesting,” Wayne says as Phil starts pouring the homemade liquor into the coffee cups. Everybody takes one. Sinclair swallows his in one shot, his
eyes watering as he puts the cup down. When I reach for mine, Jake stops me.

“You’ve got to ship in the morning,” he says. It gets a couple of groans from the table, Phil telling Jake to “let the boy drink, and that’s what’s wrong with the army, not a set among them.” I pick up the cup, matching Sinclair’s move and downing the liquid in one quick gulp.

It feels like I’ve swallowed fire, a sword, some kind of carnival trick, and I’m hacking, unable to talk as everybody at the table laughs.

“This boy’s greener than a new dollar bill!” Phil says.

“I thought I was standing up straight, Sergeant,” Ray says, slurring his words and making them all laugh harder. Even Jake smiles. “Exxscccuse meee.”

“This boy needs another swallow for sure,” Phil says, pouring me an even bigger helping, which I ignore. Pretty soon the conversation at the table is shooting back and forth, person to person, in one cloud of noise.

Phil seems to be laughing the whole time, pointing and talking animatedly about whatever subject comes up. But more than anything, I can’t take my eyes off Jake. He hasn’t taken a sip from his drink, but the
anxiety and tension are slipping off his body like a pair of oversize pants.

“And then—God Almighty as my witness —he comes in and says, ‘Cap
-
Captain, I swear it was there when we started!’”

As Ray finishes telling the story, the entire table falls apart with laughter. The whole of the Waffle House is watching, but who’s going to say anything to these guys? To us?

Sinclair starts to tell us a story, but then Jake speaks up, as if he can’t hear anything else that’s happening. “One time we were out on patrol, foot patrol. And it’s hot. Like over a hundred at nine in the morning.”

The rest of the table grows quiet as Jake continues. It’s the most alive I’ve seen him in months. He’s rising up from his chair, moving his arms. He almost looks happy.

“So we’re all sweating our asses off. Just dying. There’s bugs everywhere, and there’s this dude, a reporter—I don’t even know who he was with—but anyway, he’d just shown up a week before.” Jake starts ducking, twisting his face into funny mock expressions of terror. “You know what I’m talking about.”