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“The river, I guess,” I managed to say. He didn’t look at me, but he nodded, and he opened his arm out, inviting me in. I went to his side and let him bury his nose in my hair, his lips meeting my scalp.
“Let’s go,” he said, and started towards the door. He stopped mid-step, looked up the stairs, and told me to wait at his Vincent. He forgot something. I didn’t wonder what it was. I didn’t care. I had too much shit to care about already. No room for anything more. And a minute later, he was back, and I had my arms around him, and we were leaving the cabin behind. Someone would come and take care of Sylvia’s body. Someone would come and clean up after us all. But I’d never go back there. Never in a million years.
We went straight to Cross’ apartment, and then straight to bed. But for once, we weren’t all hands grabbing at each other, undressing and entering and thrusting and coming. Cross left me long enough to brush his teeth, then was back at my side, just lying there, holding me, half-dressed. My fingers traced the ink decorating his chest and arms, lingering on the newest ones, the ones I couldn’t tell the story of.
I wanted to be able to tell each and every story.
So I asked him to tell me.
And it helped. Lying there, he talked for hours, telling me about the shark with two dicks and the flowers from Alberta and the typewriter from The Shining and the pin-up girl straddling the devil’s tongue. I even got him to laugh here and there, and had a few moments of my own. We fell asleep when the sun was about to touch the sky, and slept straight until the sun set. And then we didn’t have time to heal; there was work to do. Enough work to keep us distracted until the wounds healed on their own.
Bex
I stood at Cross’ side, holding his hand, on a day that held the first nibble of autumn’s bite. The summer was almost over. I was warm enough in my new jacket, stitched up with Property of Cross on the back. One of the first things to change, in those days after Dutch took flight, was my status. I graduated from his woman to his old lady. It was a good time for it, too. He needed me, then.
We watched the coffin lowering into the ground. Grinder’s body hadn’t been fit to display, and we didn’t have Hunter’s body at all. I don’t know if the funeral director at Gordon & Sons knew what he was getting into when we walked in to make the arrangements, but it was the sort of funeral that Grinder would have loved. Hunter, too, probably, though I didn’t know him as well as Cross and the boys did.
The day we buried them both – Grinder literally and Hunter in spirit – the elegant, paisley-carpeted funeral home was full of hooting, hollering, strong drinks and curse words. A rebel’s burial if there ever was one. The boys might not be headed to heaven, but we made sure to raise hell. We rode in a procession to the graveyard, and baffled the preacher with our laughter, story after story after story honoring the man in the coffin and the boy at the bottom of the river.
Even some of the Blackhawks came to pay their respects. Lip and his men didn’t stay long, but they were there, which meant a whole hell of a lot. The truce was back on, though it had taken a healthy chunk of the Crusader’s profits for the years. Money couldn’t repay shed blood, but in the criminal world, it was close enough. Paying off the Blackhawks assured us all of a more peaceful future. Just as long as Blade, the new President, didn’t go crazy enough to follow in Dutch’s footsteps. And with Cross acting as his Vice President, keeping him in check, I was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.
Now, most of the Crusaders had gone back to Blade’s house, since the clubhouse was still devastated. Re-construction would start soon, but that would take time, too. The party would keep on going, long into the night. Grinder’s name, and Hunter’s, would go on the wall of honored dead, one of the few parts of the clubhouse that survived the fire. Their cuts would go to the next of kin – in Grinder’s case, that was Cross, who elected to bury his old man in his colors.
Cross and I lingered awhile at the grave, watching the gravediggers work, saying our goodbyes. Cross squeezed my hand and turned to me, kissing my temple, telling me it was time to go without having to say a word.
The next day, after a party fit to raise the recently dead, I woke up to Cross’ snoring. He only snored like that when he was properly drunk, and it would have been funny if it hadn’t been annoying – I wasn’t feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed myself, and could have used a few more hours sleep. But it wasn’t my father with fresh dirt on his grave, so I made my peace with being awake and went to start coffee.
Cross slept through the morning and into the afternoon. By 2pm, I was antsy to do something besides drink coffee and wait for him to wake up. I’d gone through most of the books on his shelves already, and his television only got three channels. The apartment was coming close to getting messy, so I decided to do something about it.
The worst thing about living with Cross, by far, was the fact that he didn’t seem to understand the purpose of a laundry basket. He would walk through the door and start stripping off his clothes, leaving a trail of jeans and shirts from the front door to the bathroom. Clean or dirty, it didn’t matter, it ended up on the floor. Hell, sometimes he’d be standing in the bedroom, right next to the goddamn hamper, and throw his dirty t-shirt on the floor. I’d watched him do it so many times that I didn’t even bother trying to stop him anymore.
So I started at the door, gathering t-shirts and undershirts and the occasional sock or boxer, winding my way down the hall to the bedroom. Once there, I tip-toed around the room, trying as hard as I could not to make too much noise. Tossing my handful of clothes into the hamper, I started on clearing the bedroom floor.
I was picking up one of his three pairs of jeans when I heard it. The rattle. The rattle I knew all too well. For a second, I was suspended in confusion. That was a sound I related, mostly, to my childhood. And then my marriage. But it was a sound that could mean anything, really. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, I told myself it was aspirin.
I even tried to convince myself that it was something else as I turned the orange bottle around in my hand, looking for the label. Vicodin.
My heart stopped beating for a full pulse. I dropped the bottle to the floor, my lip quivering. No. He wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t do that to himself. He wouldn’t do that to us.
“Cross,” I heard my own voice say, not looking at his sleeping form. I heard him turn over, but he didn’t respond. So I said his name louder. “Cross!”
“Wha’! Shit, what! Oh…fuck, baby, my head,” Cross came awake with a shout and a groan. I still couldn’t turn to look at him, my eyes completely transfixed on the fallen bottle. “What time is…”
“Where’d you get them,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady.
“What? Get what? Baby, wh…”
“The pills, Cross,” I said, finally forcing myself to look at him. He was barely sitting up in the bed, blinking slowly, his face still. “Where’d they come from?”
He took a quick inhale, and I could read his face perfectly. He was considering whether or not to lie. Because that’s what addicts do. They lie.
“Don’t you fucking dare lie to me,” I spat. His eyes darkened. He was getting mad. I didn’t care.
“My father died,” he said. “I watched my father die, Bex.”
“And you thought those would help?” I pointed to the bottle, my stomach turning over and over again. “What were you thinking, Cross? You thought you would just take them once or twice? Is that what you thought? How long, Cross? How long have you been getting stoned, lying to me?”
“Get off my fuckin’ back, Bex,” he roared. Hungover, probably wanting a fix. Angry. I shook my head slowly, trying to find my man in his eyes and failing.
“You know what that shit has taken from me,” I said softly. “Mama. My husband.”
“Your husband, Bex? You tryin’ to tell me you still…”
I put my hand up to stop him. He was trying to turn this on me.
I wasn’t going to let him. I was done letting drugs walk all over me. Because it wasn’t the people who did it; it was the drugs. You know what they say about dancing with the bear? Once you start, you don’t stop until the bear lets you stop.
“Don’t you dare,” I said. “Don’t you fucking dare, Cross.”
“Jesus, Bex, you’re overreacting. It was a couple of pills. Just to take the edge off. Just to…”
“It’s never just a couple pills, Cross,” I said, my anger bleeding into sadness. Because he wouldn’t understand. Right now, he couldn’t understand. He was with the bear, now. “I…I can’t be here.”
“Bex,” he said, now rising from the bed and trying to make it to me before I walked away. I knew that once he grabbed me, got his hands on me, I wouldn’t have the strength to walk away. Cross was my drug. He was my bear. And no one was going to stage an intervention. I had to do it myself.
“No,” I said, backing away. “No, Cross. I’m leaving. I can deal with the club. I can deal with being afraid for you. I can deal with a lot of things, Cross. But I won’t deal with that. You can’t make me deal with that. Not again. Never again, Cross.”
He stared at me. I turned around, started walking. Each step, I went a little faster. Each step, I got a little farther away, and the tears came a little closer. By the time the door slammed behind me, I was powerwalking. And once outside, in the open air, I was bawling as I strode, almost jogging, down the block. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t have anywhere to go.
This time, I noticed him. Or, at least, I noticed the car, and the way it was driving slowly beside me. But I didn’t have room in my mind to wonder about it. I was too busy praying that Cross wouldn’t follow me, that he wouldn’t come running up behind me and grabbing me the way he always did and…
