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“Okay, yeah, Ahanu. He’s a doctor? Perfect. He fits. He found his way, and he belongs. There’s a need for the man that he is, for the things he is good at and for the work he is passionate about. In a world where things can be run or controlled by a flip of a switch? He’ll make that work.”
“And the others?” Maggie asked. “The ones that don’t fit? Can they ever find a way to make it work?”
“The men who don’t fit, will never fit,” Prosper explained. “We belong to another world, to an older puzzle. We belong to a place in time when there were things that we could do … were born to do … that nobody or no machine can replace. We run faster and think quicker. We’re strong, aggressive, tough, risk-taking motherfuckers. We were given courage and an intrinsic set of values. A sense of morality that keeps us on the edge of society. Maybe that’s why I like being on the road so much, the freedom to go and feel and think wherever I want, whatever I want, whenever I want.”
“I can see that. I can understand why you see it that way.” Maggie nodded, enthralled by Prosper’s unique view of the world.
“Sounds like such a damn cliché, but it’s true. Someday, computers and machines will do all the work,” he told her.
“But we will always need men to run those machines,” she answered.
“Ah, darlin’, sure we will. But what the hell does that take? A few guys sitting at desks punching keys? That’s not the kind of work that requires strength or courage or an inch of independent thought. I have no place in that world, Maggie. A lot of us don’t. So, me and my boys? We’re set on making our own set of rules and creating our own place, and that place exists outside the margins of polite society. The rules I find on the road are rules I help create, rules I understand, and rules I can live by.”
“But any world, any society will always need men, Prosper … What about babies?” Maggie frowned at him.
“Darlin’, I like the way you think.” He grinned and winked at her then.
Maggie blushed. “I’m serious!”
“Honey think about it. All you need to make a baby is some poor slob jacking off into a cup, right? Then some ‘white-coat’ takes care of the rest. Most men don’t take their time anyway. Women are always complaining about men being rotten lovers, so there ya go … not much loss there in replacing sex with science.”
Maggie blushed slightly at his words. “So, you? You consider yourself an outlaw?”
“Only when I have to be, darlin’.” Prosper took Maggie back in his arms and gave her a kiss that made her forget all about outlaws and science and things that did not fit.
On Friday, after they made love, Prosper began the conversation that they had been doing their best to avoid.
“I’m gonna head out in the morning. Gonna go meet Jack in Mississippi and tell him how it is. I’ll make him understand, make him see this is the way things have got to be. Then I’ll come back for you and Raine. Or you can come with me. We’ll tell him together if you want. Whatever you want, Maggie. However, you want to handle this, that’s what we’ll do.”
She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. “He won’t understand, Prosper. He won’t. I don’t think there’s a man in this world who he loves more or respects more than you. Jack won’t be able to wrap his head around this … this kind of betrayal. That’s the way he’ll see it, and I know what that will do to him. It’ll break him. He doesn’t have the kind of character or strength to get through it.”
“So what? This is where it ends?” Prosper shook his head. “Is that what happens next, Maggie?”
“That’s not what I want,” she said sadly. “But I keep going back to remembering what you said about where you belong and what your purpose is. You, Prosper Worthington, are an exceptional man: a strong, brave, free-thinking warrior. And I believe you have found your world, your puzzle. But a wife and a baby?” Maggie shook her head. “There’s no room for that. I’m baby food and vegetable gardens and lists of household repairs. And you? You’re wind and road dust and sunrises in faraway places. That’s what I want for you. That’s how it should be. I love you enough to want that for you.”
“Maggie—” Prosper started to speak, but Maggie stopped him.
“Prosper, I need to say this and you need to hear it. I want to go with you. A part of me wants to jump on the back of your bike and ride off to find those sunrises with you. But I have responsibilities here, I have a child. And that child has a father. Jack loves us. In his way, he loves us. I am not sure he would survive my leaving him under any circumstance, but this would be so much worse. He would have to live with the fact that the two people he loves most in the world …” Maggie’s voice trailed off. “I can’t be the person who destroys him, and I know that you can’t be that person either.”
“Maggie …” Prosper reached out to her, but Maggie slid out from under his arm, and out of the bed.
She tagged her dress from the floor and slid it over her head. With eyes bright with tears, she implored him, “Please, don’t ask me again, Prosper. Not again, because I don’t think I have the strength to say no even one more time. If I went with you, the thought of what I’d done to my family … to Jack by leaving him, and to Raine by taking her away from her father, those thoughts would haunt me. They would torture me and twist me. And the kind of man you are? The honor that you have? That guilt would eventually kill you, too, and I think you know that. The blame we’d carry would wreak that kind of havoc. It would change this into something different than what we have now. It would changeus.”
When Maggie began to cry, Prosper went to her and held her while a storm of emotion raged inside of him. He knew she was right. The guilt would tear at her and gnaw and gnash its razor-edged teeth until there was nothing left but pain. No matter how much he loved Maggie or how angry he was at Jack for leaving her, he couldn’t do it. The man that Prosper was could not take the wife away from the husband, or a child away from her father.
“All right, Maggie. I understand. But I want you to know that I’m gonna head down to Mississippi and I’m gonna find Jack. He and I are going to have a man to man.”
“Prosper…” Maggie looked at him in alarm.
“Notthattalk, Maggie, but a talk. I’m going to give him a chance to be the man you deserve and the father Raine deserves. If, after that talk, Jack doesn’t get on his bike and come home to you, then there ain’t gonna be a home for him to come back to. He either wants this and he’s going to make a stand for it, or he loses it. Jack doesn’t get any more time to play it both ways. So, after we have that talk, there’s going to be a decision that he has to make. I’ve already made mine.”
Prosper paused and looked at her long and hard. His voice was a low growl when he said, “So, it’s either gonna be me who will be coming down that road in a few days or it’s gonna be Jack. But either way, you are not going to be left alone to deal with this shit any longer.” Maggie wrapped her arms around Prosper and buried her head into his chest while tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.
Prosper held her close and his tone gentled, “Don’t cry, Maggie. Please, honey, don’t cry. No matter what happens, I want you to always remember that I want it to be me. I want it to be me who comes back for you. But if it’s not, if it’s Jack who comes down that road? I want you to know that nothing will ever change the way I feel about you. For me, it will always be you. Always.”
Their lovemaking that night was poignant and passionate and agonizingly tender … filled with soft whispers and fervent touches. At dawn, Maggie fell asleep for a little while, and when she woke up, the spot next to the bed was empty. Halfway down the hallway, she heard Prosper’s Harley rumble to life. Maggie raced through the kitchen and out the back door just in time to see his bike roar down the dusty road. Her heart beat fast in her chest as she felt the world sway and crumble around her. The pain of his parting brought Maggie to her knees, and she clutched at her chest, afraid she was dying.
Prosper Worthington locked the door to his small three-room apartment. He carried a leather saddlebag packed with a couple of changes of clothing, some wet-weather gear, a wad of cash, a bag full of dried fruit and beef jerky, a couple cartons of Camel cigarettes, and a loaded gun. He shoved his license to carry and some more cash into his wallet, then attached the wallet to his hand-tooled leather belt. Prosper wore faded Levi’s, a black t-shirt, black riding boots, and a black leather jacket. He glanced at his watch and headed down to the shop on the ground floor.
