Taking The Heat (22 page)

SYDNEY

Sitting on the couch in Cambio’s house was relaxing in a guilty kind of way. Regardless of what our feelings were for each other, our separation by living in separate homes allowed my mind to wander and eventually I would question just what it was we had together. Our frequency of seeing each other helped matters, but it did not eliminate the feelings I had in his absence. There was no doubt in my mind that a woman’s thoughts and a man’s thoughts progressed at totally different speeds when it came to the feelings of necessity to define a relationship’s validity by cohabitating.

“I don’t know if it will be as good, but I used your recipe,” he said as he handed me the glass of tea.

I smiled as I reached for the tea, “Really?”

He nodded his head and grinned, “Yep.”

“So I was thinking,” he said as he sat down beside me, “I’ve got a few things to do here. I don’t know, maybe a week or so, and then I think we should head up north.”

“Up north?” I asked as I placed the glass on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“To my parents place. So they can meet you,” he nodded.

I did my best to hide my excitement. To be quite honest, I suspected we might eventually go to see his parents, but only after a year or so of seeing each other. I realized he had mentioned it while we were staying at A-Train’s house, but I had no idea he planned on doing it so soon. Nothing confirms a woman’s position in a man’s heart like him introducing her to his parents. Considering Cambio’s current relationship with his parents, it made matters that much more significant.

“Oh, well, whatever you think is best,” I shrugged.

Fuck, Sydney, really?

“Do you not want to meet them?” he asked.

I shook my head and turned my body on the couch to face him.

I lowered my hands to my lap and tried to appear relaxed, “No, I’d love to meet them. I just don’t want you rushing into anything for me. I want you to take things at your pace, I’m flexible.”

He started to laugh, coughed, and covered his mouth. As he pulled his clenched hand down from his face, he grinned, “I don’t have a pace. This is all new to me. You know, I think I know what I want to do, but I don’t want you to wig out because I do something you think is inappropriate or something.”

“Wig out?” I shrugged.

“You know, flip out. I’ve got like zero experience at this shit, Sydney. I’m fucking lost,” he said as he stood.

“I know what I feel, and I know what I want, but I don’t want to do what I
think
I want to do, because I don’t know if it’s what I’m
supposed
to be doing. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of. I guess if it includes me, and it doesn’t jeopardize our relationship, I’m game for about anything. You aren’t going to do or say anything that I’m going to think is inappropriate. At least I don’t think so. What kinds of things are you talking about? Give me an example,” I said as I reached for my tea.

He began to pace in front of the couch and scratched his head almost frantically, “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to make you think I’m crazy or anything. I just know how I feel. I’ve always said we
think
some things and
feel
others, and sometimes when we think, we make mistakes, but when we feel, it’s genuine. I’m talking about feelings.”

To have him reveal his feelings to me excited me greatly. Most men never revealed what they were feeling to me unless it was in a fit of anger. Having him be apprehensive to share his feelings with me for fear he was moving too fast made me squirm nervously until I had settled against the arm of the couch and into the cushion, feeling almost trapped. As I nestled into place, I looked up and smiled.

“Okay, give me an example,” I said.

“Well, I just know how I feel, and you know. I don’t doubt it,” he said as he crossed his arms.

“Okay. That really doesn’t tell me anything,” I shrugged, “At least not about how you’re feeling.”

“I just told you,” he sighed as he shook his head.

“Okay, how about this. I used to always wonder about things all the time. And I’d ride around in the country with Otis or sometimes alone, and I’d just ride around and wonder. Now, I don’t wonder. Not about how I feel. Not now, at least now when it comes to us. Now, I
know
, and there’s nothing that’s going to change it. Well, nothing or no one but you.”

He uncrossed his arms momentarily, let them hang at his sides, and crossed them again.

Still feeling like he was a typical male who had no real idea of how he felt, or he had a real reluctance to
reveal
what he felt, I decided to continue to play along until I had received at least a small tidbit of information from him about his true feelings. So far, he had talked in a complete circle, making no sense whatsoever regarding what he felt.

“Okay, so you’re convinced how it is you’re feeling is how you’re going to continue to feel, unless I make a change. Is that what you’re saying?” I asked.

“Yep,” he nodded.

I shook my head playfully, “Okay…”

“What?” he snapped as he lowered his arms.

“Nothing, sorry. I’m just thinking. So, that’s
how you
feel
?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he responded.

I stared down at his boots, narrowed my eyes, and shifted my gaze upward until our eyes met, “That doesn’t really tell me how you feel, though.”

He crossed his arms again and exhaled, “I just told you and you said it right back to me.”

Exhausted I decided to try a new angle, “Okay. So now we know how you feel, what is it you’re thinking might make me wig out? What were you afraid would wig me out?”

He scrunched his brow and looked down at his boots, “I was uhhm. I was thinking, maybe it’d be like. I don’t know, might be a good idea if…”

He gazed upward with his face still contorted. He looked like he’d just eaten something extremely bitter.

“If uhhm. I think you should. Well, you should consider maybe moving in. Moving in
here
. With me. I think you should consider that.”

Absolutely what I wanted to hear, but nowhere near what I was expecting, I sat, stuffed into the corner of the couch, and stared. I was at a loss for words. Try as I might, I could not speak. I, too, knew what I felt for Cambio, and I knew the feelings were genuine. The way he made me feel when we made love was beyond compare. It was as if we were meant for each other, placed on this earth for no other reason. Living with him would finally give me the feeling of having a family I had never had.

“See, you’re wigged out,” he huffed.

“No, no I’m not,” I said as I stood.

“I was shocked,” I said as I opened my arms.

He raised his hands and turned his palms upward, “Same fucking difference, Wigged out. Shocked.”

“Shocked in a good way. It’s exactly what I wanted, but not what I expected,” I explained as I walked his direction.

“So, when would you want to do this, if we decided to?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “I mean here pretty quick.”

Feeling maybe as if I got the cart in front of the horse so to say, I tried to settle myself down slightly and prepare for the rest of the story. As always, my interpretation of what he was saying, and his intent was two totally different things. Now settling back down onto planet earth, I decided to pry for a little more definite answer. I stepped in front of him, pried his arms apart, I raised my hands up to his shoulders.

“I see. Like how quick?” I said.

He leaned down, kissed me, and shrugged. He turned toward the window and stared out at the street. After walking away from me, and leaving me standing in the center of the living room like an idiot, he peered out the window and into the sky. He turned from the window and smiled.

“We probably still have, like I don’t know, three hours of daylight. We could get it done tonight if you want?” he shrugged.

I licked my lips, swallowed, and squeaked out my response, “Tonight?”

“If you want, yeah. You don’t have much stuff. I just. I don’t know. When were together, I’m all happy and shit. And when you go home, or I go home, I just sit and look at my watch and try and figure out when I’m going to see you next. Hell, I fucking hate phones, and I’m staring at mine even thinking about calling you and shit. You know, just so we can talk. It’s kind of dumb if you ask me; you being in one place and me being in another. It’d be kind of like me saying I have a bike, and I’ve got the bike here, and the motor over in Otis’ garage. It’s just dumb, you agree?” he asked.

As strong as I am, I’m still a little girl. I had always told myself I never had a chance to be the little girl I always wanted to be. Now, I felt I was having a chance to be the little girl I never had an opportunity to be. Robbed from my childhood, and never having a place to call home, now I felt like a little girl with the offering for a home to call her own. I stared at Cambio and fought back the tears of the little girl in me, and for a moment attempted to be a woman. Even though I had been in several relationships in the past, I had never been in love. I never even once suspected I was. I was simply filling a void in my life left by my parents, and later my brother. Now, after spending a period of time without anyone, and becoming accustomed to it, having Cambio in my life was something new, something special, something I not only desperately wanted, but something I had spent an entire lifetime without. He was my father, my brother, my mother, and my lover, all wrapped up in one.

He was now doing what he said I was doing to and for him.

He was unbreaking me.

“I agree. It’s just plain stupid living in separate places. Let’s do it tonight,” I nodded.

“Thank God. I was afraid you were going to say no,” he sighed.

And I was afraid you were never going to ask.

TOAD

Contrary to what I had always believed, being in love didn’t make a man less of a man, or make him soft, if anything, it made him more apt to stand up for what he believed in, all in an effort to preserve his beliefs and protect his understanding of those beliefs for him and the person or persons he loved.

As I stepped out of Tater’s truck and toward the house, I feared I would spend the rest of my life preserving my beliefs, protecting the ones I loved, and doing what I believed was best not only for me and the ones I loved, but for society. Some things, I guessed, would never change. As Ripp said, a wolf will always be a wolf.

“Sure you’re up to this,” Otis asked as we walked up the short sidewalk.

I patted my back pocket and nodded my head, “Just like we discussed.”

As soon as we stepped onto the porch, I reached for the doorbell. After ringing it twice, I heard footsteps coming toward the door.

“Something I can do for you?” the man said as he opened the door.

He was dressed in camouflage pants, a wife beater, and flip-flops.

“Actually our truck started running out of gas about a quarter mile back,” I said as I pointed over my shoulder, “Damned thing doesn’t have a working gas gauge. We’re just trying to get back to Wichita. Probably a gallon or so might get us to Winfield to a gas station. I can pay for it…”

“Come on it,” he said as he stepped aside.

“Nice place you got here. What’s all that fenced in area out back? Turkeys?” Otis asked.

“Dogs,” the man responded flatly.

“Must be quite a few, they all yours?” Otis asked as we followed him toward the garage.

“Yep, Pits,” he responded as he stepped down the stairs into the garage.

Otis turned, glanced over his shoulder and winked. After rolling his shoulders and stretching, his arms rearward, he expressed interest in the man’s response.

“Pit Bulls?” Otis shrugged.

As the man turned to face him, Otis swung a two punch combination into his stomach and chin. As I expected, the man collapsed onto the floor of the garage, unconscious.

Quickly, I pulled the zip-ties from my back pocket and zipped one around each wrist tightly. Another zip-tie tying each of the two together provided a cheap set of handcuffs which would be all but impossible to remove.

“Legs?” Otis asked as he pulled him to his feet.

“No, fuck it. It’ll be good if he tries to run. Add to the excitement. I’ll open the garage door,” I said.

I reached for the remote mounted on the wall, and pressed the button. After the garage door opened, I walked out to Tater’s truck, reached in the back, and removed the grocery sack. As I began walking back to the garage, the man was regaining consciousness.

“What the fuck,” he hollered as he realized his hands were bound behind his back.

“Shut the fuck up,” Otis growled, “Listen carefully, and I do mean carefully. Your life depends on it. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re only going to get one chance to answer me. Only one. Understand?”

“What the fuck’s going on? Who are you two? If you’re here for that money I owe Pedro, I’ve got it. In fact, I got it all,” he whined as he alternated glances between Otis and me.

“Shut he fuck up. We’re not here for money,” Otis said, “Again, I’m going to ask you once, and only once. Answer truthfully, and you get to live. Lie, and I’ll fucking kill you, so you decide. All I need’s the truth, and I can assure you, if you provide it, I won’t kill you. Got it?”

Sitting on the floor of the garage, the man looked up, studied Otis for a second, and then studied me. After a few seconds, he turned toward Otis, “Yeah, I got it.”

“Pit Bull pup was shot outside of town maybe a month back. He was six months old or so, I don’t know. Brindle colored pup with white under his neck. He was shot three times with a 9 millimeter. Did you shoot that dog?” Otis asked.  

The man stared at Otis for a long moment and swallowed. After glancing in my direction, studying the sack in my hand, and turning to face Otis, he responded.

“Don’t matter what I say, if I tell you the truth, you’ll let me live?” he asked.

“I won’t kill you if you tell me the truth,” Otis nodded.

“Yeah, I shot him. But there was a reason,” he said as he tried to stand.

I planted my foot on his shoulder and shoved him back onto the floor.

“Let’s hear it,” Otis said as he glanced in my direction.

I nodded my head.

“Pup cost me a lot of money. Couldn’t fight for shit,” the man sighed.

“All I needed to hear, you got anything?” Otis asked.

My blood boiling, and ready for the next step, I shook my head and reached into the bag, “Hold him still.”

Otis pulled him up from the floor and placed him in a choke hold. As Otis held him from moving, I opened the packages of hamburger and stuffed the pockets of his pants with the meat.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he howled as I shoved the pockets of his pants full of meat.

“Hell his shirt’s tucked in, drop some inside,” Otis chuckled.

I opened the last package and shoved a handful of the bloody meat inside his shirt and pressed it into his chest.  As Otis began to lead him outside the garage, he realized what we were planning.

“Oh fuck no, you can’t toss me to those dogs, not with this meat all over me. They’ll fucking eat me. Seriously, dude. Dude, I’m fucking begging you, they’ll kill me. You said. Holy shit dude,
no
.
No!
You said you wouldn’t kill me. You said that,” he cried as Otis drug him toward the dog kennels.

The fenced in area had kennels on each side, and a fenced walkway in between that the kennels opened into. It would allow a dog to be taken from a kennel, and into the walkway without coming into contact with the rest of the kennels. All the kennels, however, could be opened into the walkway at the same time, releasing all of the dogs to roam freely throughout the walkway. Each end of the walkway was shielded from an exit by a gate.

“Just like we said,” Otis nodded as he dragged the man into the walkway.

After dragging him to the far end of the walkway, the dogs began to bark and howl. I stood at the close end and watched as Otis shoved the man onto the ground and zip-tied his cuffed hands to the wire fence. Now covered in meat, and tied to the fence, the man didn’t have a prayer. The dogs, at least in our opinion, would rush to the far end of the kennel after the meat, allowing us to leave without incident.

Although the man lived outside of town, Axton had already spoken to the local police chief regarding our plan, and learned the city had jurisdiction of the area. After we left, we were to call Axton, and he would contact the police. They would respond to a domestic call in the area, and find the dogs mauling him. They’d give him the option of keeping his mouth shut and seeking medical attention, or telling his version of the story to the Fed’s while they processed him for fighting Pit Bulls. According to everyone’s beliefs, the dogs wouldn’t kill him, but having a jaw pressure of over 200 pounds per square inch, the dozen hungry fuckers wouldn’t do him any good, either.

As Otis walked past each gated kennel, he opened the door. After opening the last one, he hurriedly walked to where I stood. As the man screamed, I opened the gate, let Otis pass, and stood back to watch the show.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Otis said.

I shook my head, “I want to see this.”

Slowly, the dogs came from their kennels into the walkway. After the first one stepped into the freedom of the 100 foot long fenced are, several others followed. All the dogs appeared scared and extremely shy. At virtually the same time, they lifted their heads and sniffed the air. Slowly, one began to walk toward the man. After a few steps, he began to run. The others immediately followed.

As they began to maul him in an effort to get the meat from his pockets, immediately things changed from a really good plan to a really disgusting event.

“You sure you want to watch this?” Otis said over his shoulder as he turned away.

“Can’t do it,” I said as I shook my head, “Fuck, won’t be anything left for the cops to find.”

I turned around and began to walk to Tater’s truck. As Otis and I reached the truck, I turned toward the kennels.

“God damn, didn’t quite go as planned, huh?” Otis said under his breath.

“Sure don’t look like it,” I responded, “Serves the cock sucker right.”

“I agree. But holy fuck, huh?” he shrugged as he opened the door to the truck.

“Don’t look like the cops are gonna be able to clean this mess up, fellers. Maybe one of ya ought to get a pair of tin snips or Dutchman’s out of my tool box, walk around the back of that pen, and cut them ties of that fellers arms; from outside the pen, you know. And the other go close the front door and the garage door. Maybe they can make it seem like he went out to feed them dogs, and it went to hell in a handbasket. Hard to say it’s an accident if his arms are cuffed to the fence,” he said in a slow southern drawl.

Otis turned toward the kennel, “Fuck I’ll do it. Yeah, looks like if they’re gonna haul him to jail, they’ll need a bucket to carry the pieces in. God damn.”

I didn’t argue with Otis’ offer.

As Otis walked to the bed of the truck and opened the tool box, I walked to the house, careful not to turn toward the kennel. The sound of the dogs alone was more than I was prepared for. My statement to the vet still held true, I didn’t kill the man. If Otis got the zip-ties removed through the fence he was tied to, it would truly look like an accident happened during feeding.

As I walked back toward the truck, Otis began walking from the back side of the kennel. We met at the truck at the same time.

“Can’t say it enough,” he sighed as he leaned onto the bed of the truck.

“What’s that?” I said as I opened the door and crawled into the truck.

He reached around the cab of the truck and held the four zip-ties in front of the window for me to see, “Devil looks after his own.”

“Amen,” Tater nodded.

Amen.