Walk (Gentry Boys) (25 page)

At first I was confused.  Then a significant puzzle piece clicked into place, especially when I glanced at my brother and for a split second saw the angry, stricken look on his face. He bent his head, turned away and started walking toward the crowd. 

This time I wasn’t just going to sit there and watch him go.  Neither was I going to heed his advice and leave, not even if it meant a bad outcome might be waiting. This couldn’t wait another day, not another minute. 

I got right up in his face.  “He’s your friend, isn’t he?”

Conway had assumed a bored expression.  “Yeah.  When he’s not being a drunk cunt head that is.  He doesn’t know what he’s even saying.”

“Bullshit.  He’s your friend and when he was sent to Central you found out he was in my unit so you asked him to have my back.” 

He deflated, just enough for me to see.  “So?” he whispered. 

“
So?
  So you don’t hate me the way you pretend to.”  I looked him in the eye.  “Obviously you care.”

There.  Just for a second before he could look away and hide it.  It was pain.  It was confusion. 

“Never said I didn’t care,” he mumbled, right before he pushed past me.

The spindly dude with the glasses, the man who’d won the last race, was waiting for him.  They talked for a few minutes and I could tell by Con’s body language that he didn’t like the guy.  He spit into the dirt before he turned away and two barely dressed women sidled up to him.  He had just shoved them off with impatience when Bash appeared. 

“Looks like you found him,” he noted. 

“Looks like it.” 

“You get a chance to talk?”

“Not long enough,” I muttered, watching as Con stalked to a silver Mustang and got behind the wheel.  The crowd parted as he pulled it over beside the waiting blue Camaro.  The Camaro driver gunned his engine.  Conway responded by revving the pedal himself.  The sound send chills up my spine. 

“So this is it?” I asked Bash. 

“Apparently,” he said.  “Probably racing for a stack of green.  Sometimes they even race for titles.” 

“There’s a title for Biggest Prick in Drag Racing?  Does ESPN give out a trophy for that?”

“Not that kind of title.  Loser signs over title to his vehicle.” 

“Shit, you weren’t kidding about high stakes.” 

The crowd was getting excited.  A low grade buzz ripped through the lot of them and money changed hands as bets were laid out.  Some beefy dude the size of your average pro football offensive lineman strode casually over to the cars and briefly spoke to each of the drivers. 

I saw Con lean out and touch knuckles with the man, then he pulled up to the painted line while the big guy withdrew a pistol. 

No.  This wasn’t happening.  I’d be damned if I was going stand on the sidelines while my brother risked his neck for some asinine street cred. 

“Stone!” Bash called because I’d impulsively broken into a run. 

“Get the fuck off the track!” howled the lineman as I reached the passenger door of Con’s vehicle.  Luckily it was unlocked.  If it hadn’t been I would have smashed the window with my fist to get inside. 

Conway stared, dumbfounded.   “You dick, you got a death wish?”

“Do you?”

Con gripped the steering wheel and faced forward.  “Get out.” 

“No.” 

“Not fucking kidding, Stone.  In about ninety seconds that pistol’s going to fire and when that happens I’m taking off.”

I strapped on a seatbelt.  “Go ahead.” 

Con was seething.  “The fuzz might be waiting around by the time we get back.” 

“I’ll take the chance.” 

“You miss your cell so much you can’t wait to get back there?”

“Conway, I missed
you
so much I’m willing to risk it.” 

He slumped in his seat and set the brake. 

The hulking lineman came around and poked his ugly mug through the window. 

“One minute, Ford,” Con choked out. 

“One minute’s all you got, Gentry,” Ford growled before withdrawing. 

Conway’s face no longer seemed carved out of ice.  He was just grim and sad.  I went to touch his arm and then thought better of it. 

“We already know how bad this can end, Con.” 

“Don’t fucking lecture me.” 

“Don’t be a fucking bonehead and I won’t fucking lecture you.”

“Get out, Stone!” 

“You want to do this, you’ll do it with me beside you.  But before you turn that engine on you ask yourself what the hell you’re risking both our lives for.” 

He looked at me then.  “It’s too late,” he said mournfully. 

I paused, not knowing if he was just talking about tonight or if he was being more philosophical.

It was too late to save Erin. 

It was too late to relive the last four years. 

It was too late to return to the arrogant yet innocent boys that we’d been before. 

But it wasn’t too late for us to pick up the pieces of what remained. 

We remained. 

As long as we were still here there was a chance. 

“No,” I told my brother. “It’s not.” 

There was the sound of a gunshot.  The Camaro sped off into the darkness but Conway turned his engine off.   

“It
is
too late for this race,” he said wryly and opened the door. 

I exited the passenger side just as Ford started loudly bugging out over Conway’s failures. He bobbed around and said Con would never have a place on his circuit again. Con dealt with it by ignoring him.     

Meanwhile, Jackson emerged from the confused crowd. Since he could rival Ford in size and was likely quite a bit rougher, a few stern glares got everyone to shut up. 

A horn honked and I squinted into the glare of headlights as the Camaro returned.  The driver jumped out as soon as the car stopped moving. 

“What the hell is this?” he demanded.  

Conway shrugged.  “I forfeit.”

The man wagged a finger like a cartoon villain.   “You forfeit and you lose your paper.”

“I know the fucking rules,” Conway muttered.  He reached into his glove box, withdrew an envelope and handed it over.  “Cash and title, all in there.  Count it, asshole.” 

The man flashed a gold-toothed grin, looked through the contents of the envelope and then tucked it under his arm.  “Been a pleasure, Gentry.” 

Apparently this was an unusual event because the spectators were buzzing.  Conway snubbed a few of them who called out his name.  He stalked right through the center of the throng and seemed headed for the crude parking lot. 

“You lost your car?” I asked when I caught up to him. 

“Just one of ‘em,” he grumbled. 

“Conway.” 

He kept walking. 

“Conway!” 

He spun.  “WHAT?”

“Come with me.”

He shook his head and sighed. 

But when I took a step closer he didn’t back away or tell me again to go fuck myself.

“Just come with me,” I said. “Right now.  Tonight.  If eight hours from now you don’t want anything more to do with me I’ll stop stalking you.  I swear it.” 

He didn’t nod or scowl or do anything.  He appeared to be thinking as he stood less than two feet away.  We were exactly the same height, almost nose to nose. When he did speak again he didn’t sound hostile.  Only weary. 

“What do you want from me, Stone?”

“Nothing.  I just want to take you to see a girl.” 

He raised his eyebrows.  “A girl?”

“That’s right.” 

My truck was parked a few yards away.  I walked over there slowly, Con watching me the whole time, and opened the passenger door. 

“Do this and I’ll never ask you for anything ever again.” 

We faced off for another moment.  I thought he was going to refuse.  He’d storm off into the night and I’d be back at square one. 

He didn’t refuse.  He walked over and climbed into the seat, slamming the door behind him. 

“Stone?” Bash appeared, in the company of Judd and Judd’s girlfriend.  “You okay?” 

“Hey, can you get a ride?” I asked him quietly. 

“Sure,” he shrugged.  He nodded to the truck, where Conway sat, staring stoically ahead.  “You taking off now?”

“We’re going for a drive, me and my brother.  Look, if Evie’s still at home tell her everything’s fine.  Tell her I’ll be back in the morning.”   

He nodded.  “No problem, buddy.”  He seemed about to say something else but changed his mind and turned away. 

It was strange climbing behind the wheel with my brother beside me.  We’d shared a bedroom since the day Conway was born.  We were a matched set, far closer than most typical brothers.  All those years and we never spent more than a few hours apart.

And then it all fell apart into ugly, jagged pieces. 

“Damn you both to hell.” 

That was the last thing he’d said to me and Erin, before he backed away from us.  His face was contorted with agony and Conway, who hadn’t cried since grade school, let out a raw sob that shattered my heart.  In that moment it seemed like watching Conway standing there in anguish was the worst thing that could happen. 

I was wrong about that.  So very wrong. 

We hadn’t betrayed him.  Erin and I had spent years at odds and then finally put our differences aside, for his sake more than anything else.  We became friends. However, Erin had problems of her own and lived in a world of hurt that had become self-destructive.  Con was everything to her.  She’d come to me that afternoon, distraught and stumbling to my front door, half collapsed from heat exhaustion and grief.  They’d had a fight when she stopped by the garage where Con was working.

I’d known Erin almost my whole life.  When I leaned over and kissed her forehead I hadn’t meant anything more intimate than friendship.  But Conway saw. And he thought he was seeing his worst fears in the flesh.  It was a defining moment that set in motion an irrevocable tragedy. 

Erin lost her life. 

Con lost his heart. 

I lost four years of time. 

Now here we were, finally.  By the time the sun rose he might hate me for real but I wasn’t going to fucking squander this.  I couldn’t. 

Conway opened his window and leaned an elbow out.  He switched on the radio and turned the volume up as some heavy metal screeching blared out.  I promptly switched it off.  He chuckled and lit a cigarette. 

“So this girl we’re going to meet…” he began as he exhaled an obnoxious cloud.

“Yeah?”

“She’s important to you?”

“Very.” 

He took another drag but blew the smoke out the window this time.  “I met her already.  Your girl, Evie.  Man, she didn’t like me much but I guess that was my fault.  I suppose she told you all about it already.” 

I didn’t answer. 

Conway sighed and snuffed out his cigarette on his heel.  “Sorry if I scared her that night on the street.  I was a dick but I really was just trying to help.” 

I still didn’t answer. 

Conway removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, not that there was much of it anymore.  When we were kids our mom was always chewing his ass over the shaggy hair that hung over his eyes.  He kept it short now. 

I was waiting for him to notice something but he must have been lost in his own thoughts because another ten minutes of awkward silence passed before he stiffened in his seat. 

“Dude, you’re heading away from the valley.  Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Emblem.”

“Jesus, what the hell for?”

“Told you.  I’m taking you to see a girl.”

“Look Stone, I know I said I’d come along on this joyride but I sure as hell wouldn’t have agreed to go back to fucking Emblem.  And anyway Evie didn’t strike me as an Emblem girl.” 

“Evie’s
not
an Emblem girl.  That has nothing to do with the fact that a family field trip is overdue.” 

He glared.  “You realize I could jump out the fucking door the next time you stop at a light.” 

I took my eyes off the road for a second and looked at Conway.  A thousand times we’d fought as kids, just those every day knock around battles that brothers do.  The man beside me now looked like he might pop off and catch me with a fist at any second.  After all, I was carrying him back to the scene of his best times and his worst times.  The town of our childhood loomed just beyond this dark stretch of desert.  Inside its limits there could be no hiding from the memories.  The look on his face – anger with a wince of pain – begged me not to paint his biggest agonies on a billboard and force him to read it.  Yes, he could very well jump out of the car and refuse to see it all, refuse to see me. 

“But you won’t, Conway,” I said softly and then kept my eyes diligently on the road.  “You won’t jump out.”