Chapter 11

Jessica’s turn:

“And Barry?”

“Yes, little one?” he replied.

“Don’t call me ‘Spinetti’ any more. I have a piece of paper and a ring and everything, you know.”

“I did that?”

“Yes you did. That’s two things you need to work on.”

“Two?”

“Yes. Two. First, you tell me EVERYTHING. You told me you were gonna start carrying, but you didn’t tell me you WERE carrying. Second, I am YOUR wife. You are MY husband. Get used to it. I am yours as long as you want me and if you stop loving me, I shall retreat to the seashore and pine away watching the waves roll in. Of course, you might be in the morgue, but that would be YOUR choice.”

“I made my choice, Mizz Harris.”

“Better,” I said. “Much better. Now, are you okay?”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, you shot a guy. On TV that means you need counseling and stuff.”

“TV’s full of pussies,” I said. “I protected my wife. I feel sorry for his stupidity, but I had no choices. A baseball bat’s a completely lethal weapon.”

“I feel bad, too ... Who thought that Justin had friends like that? I mean, partying hard, sure ... but wanting to come after me with a bat?”

“I know,” Barry said. “And now we really need to pay close attention to our surroundings. We don’t know what Roddy’s friends and family might think of.”

“I’ll pay attention,” I said. “Really. And I need you to show me how to handle the guns in our house and I need to get the paperwork started for my permit.”

“In the meantime,” he told me, “you need to carry a weapon like a knife or something. Any weapon’s better than no weapon. Keeps you from having to yank a guy’s balls off.”

We made love that night. I hung onto Barry like it was an act of desperation, of wanting, of needing, and when we finished that act itself, I couldn’t let him go.

“I think I understand all this, little one,” he said, holding me close, brushing my hair back from my face.

“You do. I believe you do, Barry.” No doubt about it – the guy adores me. I adore him right back.

Ah, Monday ... Barry’s out the door early. I hang around a bit. My actual shift starts at ten. I could do house work ... No, I look around. The guy was clean the first time I met him, now the two of us are clean, and other than the weekend’s dirty clothes and the breakfast dishes ... Okay, I load the dishes into the dishwasher. I can start it when it gets full.

Clothes – laundry. How domestic I am. That’s funny. Domestic Jess. Six months ago, I don’t know what I was thinking, but it wasn’t this. Wasn’t anything, really, just go to work, make money, blow it getting stoned and fucked and ... What a dumbass I was...

Sit down and drink a cup of coffee, open my laptop and check a few things – email, the local news station.

Barry’s in the news. Apparently getting assaulted in a parking lot by a bat-wielding dumbass is newsworthy, especially when you’re forced to perforate the doofus. I resign myself to the fact that Barry’s probably getting a lot of questions about it as it becomes public. At least the TV station didn’t send a reporter out to cover the event.

And a look on-line for the application process for getting the concealed carry permit. It’s right there. Not rocket science. Quick phone call. The local police department will give me a couple of fingerprint cards I need for the process. I change clothes and go by there.

Nice officer takes care of me. “Doing your concealed carry permit?”

“Yessir. Husband says I need it.”

He reexamined my cards, reading the name. “Harris,” he said. He looked at me. “Any relation to ... yesterday...”

“That would be my husband,” I said. “If he hadn’t, you know, that dude would’ve worked me over with a ball bat.”

“I sort of read over the report. How stupid do you have to be, I got a gun, you have a bat?”

“I dunno. I suspect that if they did blood tests ... The guy, I knew his buddy, pretty much into some strange stuff – drugs. I got out of that stuff a long time ago.”

“Good for you, little sister,” he said. “Now, relax your hand. Let me do this.” He carefully inked and rolled my fingers on the cards, then gave me some detergent wipes to clean off the ink.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. Pays to be nice where you can, I think, especially around police. Heaven knows that some of my ‘friends’ have yet to learn that lesson.

Then it’s off to work. I suspect that I’m walking into a fire, so I steel myself. First contact is the morning manager. We exchange the normal stuff – equipment status, deliveries, who’s called in to tell us they won’t be in for their shift, that kind of thing.

Then, “Well, are you gonna tell me about it?”

“Tell you what, Tony?”

“Oh, marriage. Heard that one. And a shooting. Everybody’s heard about that one, too.”

“I didn’t shoot anybody. I definitely DID get married. We honeymooned Saturday and Sunday in Galveston.”

“But there was a shooting. And last week...”

“Yeah,” I said sadly. “There was. They’re related. Guy tried to rape me, he’s in jail, his bud came after me with a baseball bat, my husband shot ‘im.”

“Wow! All that.”

“Yeah, Tony,” I said. “Ups ‘n’ downs. Anybody else know?”

He avoided a grin. “Everybody knows.”

“Oh, well, beats getting famous for partyin’ all weekend ... I guess...”

“You think so now. I remember when you first started workin’ here,” Tony said.

“I know. Old me, though. This is the new me, and the new me doesn’t like the baggage that the old me brings along. This crap is some of it.”

“Well, be careful,” Tony said.

“I will.”

Tony picked up his backpack and left me with the restaurant. I walked out of the office. Time to survey my kingdom. I knew the workers on this shift. They knew me. I generally had calming things to say. Day shift doesn’t have any noobs during the week. Most of the people here have been here for a while. Each knows his job.

Today, though, the banter I usually hear is subdued. I catch different looks.

“It’s okay, folks,” I said loudly enough for the staff to hear. “I’m okay. We can talk when you take your breaks.”

“Sure, hon,” a female voice said. “I’ll talk with you at ten.” That was Amy, thirty-ish, two kids, no husband, a hard worker, but not going anywhere as long as she did her self-medication thing, at least that’s what I understand of her. I had a college student, too. And a couple of others, one a mom helping her hubby out, trying to get some money ahead, another that was all too much like me, make a paycheck, blow most of it, crash with friends ... Plus there’s usually a couple of floaters that show up in another hour to help with the lunchtime rush.

I scoot back to my office and attend to some administrative tasks and answer a couple of company emails and then the day starts moving like a normal day.

By eleven everybody’d cycled through, asking questions, received the short answer. Lunch was lunch, food flying across counters and out windows, all in a very organized and trouble-free manner. Sometimes it’s like this. Sometimes I’m surprised. The big event is one of the evening crew calling in sick and me arranging for one of the day crew to stay over and for a late night guy to come in early.

A quarter to six and I pass the torch on to the evening manager. I know Barry’s already home. I punch my phone and give him a call.

“Hi, sweetie,” I chirp when he picks up.

“Hi, darlin’,” he replies. “Was your day as crazy as mine?”

“We’re not talking about work, are we?” I asked.

“Yes. Police report had my name on it. I’m notorious.”

“Everything’s okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Barry said. “Boss called me in, asked me what went on. We had a long talk.”

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“Nahhh. I told ‘im next time I’d make sure I was wearing the company logo.” We chatted a bit longer than we hung up so he could drive.

When he got home he pulled me in for a hug. “Why don’t we sit down. We still have a few minutes before the rice is done.”

“Recliner,” I said. “You sit. Me on top. If you can stand the smell of fry grease.” Spending a day in a fast food restaurant means you come home smelling like a deep fat fryer.

“Nope,” he laughed. “Makes you smell like French fries.”

“You’re terrible,” I giggled.

“Terribly glad that you’re home. I missed you.”

“I miss you, too, you know. All of a sudden I’ve gotten an awfully poor attitude towards males my age.”

“And I’ve had to rethink that whole idea of the mindless bimbettes of my daughter’s generation,” he told me back, kissing me before I could comment. Kiss. Forgot what I was gonna say. Probably would’ve been something stupid about classifying people in groups. Barry’s a group of one, as far as I’m concerned. “I’m mindless,” I purred. “Feed me, give me a good scrubbing in a hot shower, then physically abuse me.”

Abused. I am soooo abused. And loving it.

Barry’s turn:

We made it through the week. My first week of marriage to Jessica. Our work schedules mostly match. She does a 10 AM - 6 PM thing, I do 7:30 to 4:30 and that means that I get home and start something for dinner.

In the days of Barry living alone, I was prone to quick one-dish meals, sometimes soups, or any of a dozen quick pasta dishes. I kept olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, half a ton of pasta (okay, small exaggeration) and such. I mentioned such things to Jessica.

“As long as you don’t try to get me to eat a hamburger or fries, I’m good. You know the kinds of places we’ve gone to eat.”

So Monday when she walked in, it was a simple gravy made of sausage and onions, a pot of rice and some frozen peas on the side.

The second day – pasta all aglio e olio, freshly grated parmesan on the side, a green salad, along with a a bottle of chianti.

“You’re killing me,” she said.

“No, but your co-workers might. I didn’t think about the garlic.”

“Screw ‘em,” she giggled. “This is wonderful and I don’t care...”

Okay, maybe the first glass of her wine went down a bit fast. Still, happy meal together, mutual response to clearing the meal’s detritus, then the shower and a movie on TV, and off to bed.

I did have a dream – nightmare, actually – about the shooting. I sort of relived the thing in my mind’s eye up to the point that I stepped between the guy with the bat and Jessica, the reach for my waistband, and having nothing. The guy was younger and I’m no martial artist. Me against a baseball bat – poor odds. I reached again in the dream, found the plastic grip of that pistol, in slow motion saw the eyes of Roddy’s friend widen, but I distinctly saw Roddy’s eyes narrow in a look of determination. I woke up, feeling the diminutive form in bed with me. My touch in the night, she rolled towards me like she depended on me for security.

The object in my arms was mine to care for and protect and if instinct had me putting myself between her and danger, I’m awfully glad that somewhere in the past that instinct was put into my deep memory. I took a deep breath, drawing in the fragrance of clean, short, black hair, and I went back to sleep. The dream didn’t come back.

Little thing’s perceptive, though. Over coffee at the breakfast table, she looked at me with those exotically-shaped green eyes. “You woke up last night. Bad dream?”

I nodded.

“About... ?”

“You know...”

“I guess I do,” she said softly. “You held me so tight...”

“That was after.”

“I was holding you right back, in case you didn’t notice...”

“I noticed.”

“I’m sorry, Barry...”

“For what?”

“Dragging you into the shit that was my life.”

“First, I love you, and you didn’t drag me anywhere. You may have failed to notice that when you showed up, I was like a puppy, tongue hanging out and everything. Second, NOT your fault people want to act like animals...”

“I hung out with a bad crowd,” she said sadly.

“Nope. Probably just a normal crowd, some good, some bad. YOU were in it. Maybe you were the bright spot. Doesn’t matter. We’re together now.”

“I promise it will be better, honey,” she told me.

“Little green-eyed girl, it already IS better.”

“Before me, you weren’t doing shoot-outs in restaurant parking lots.”

“Didn’t have anybody to defend, little one. You’re worth it.”

In the evening I introduced her to handguns by way of a plastic AirSoft gun. Weighs the same as my carry pistol. Shoots a quarter-inch plastic pellet that won’t pierce a section of newspaper at fifteen feet. I know what the trainer is going to show her when she does the training required for her carry permit. I want her to know a bit more.

“Close range. Just find your front sight, put it on the target, squeeze the trigger.” A few minutes of that, she was reliably hitting a saucer-sized area on a standard silhouette. Safety – several times I cautioned her, “Your finger’s OFF the trigger until you have your target on your sight,” a lesson punctuated by a plastic pellet bouncing up from the carpet.