Chapter 1

I knew something had gone quite terribly wrong when Tiny showed up at the fire station to take me out to lunch on a New Years Eve. Not that I have anything against having lunch ... or being seen in public with Tiny (all 6'4" of him), but Tiny was a fairly private sort of guy. We've been friends for over a year, and we had never actually gone out and done "guy things" or for that matter, even gone out for a meal. This changed all that — and I knew something was up, and unfortunately I just had an inkling of the cause ... and didn't have to wait long to hear it confirmed.

"Pete, Allison's drinking again," Tiny said without preamble just as I was taking my first sip of my lemonade.

"Shit. Are you sure?" Of course he was sure ... he had to be. Otherwise he'd have never ridden over here, collected me from work and the two of us sitting in some dump that probably hasn't passed a food inspection since the Paleozoic era. There is a reason why firemen are world class barbeque cooks, the restaurants near fire houses are usually gawd awful (not to mention they're also usually quite fire prone — it makes us too nervous to eat if we think our professional services might be needed at any moment).

Tiny continued, "I saw her on the back of Willis's bike leaving the Bert Wheelers on Beechnut with a couple of bags in her arm. I didn't think it was her at first, but I knew it was definitely Willis and his bike — that converted Honda job. I was a light or two behind them most of the way back to the apartments; he ran at least one red light, all of the stop signs and rode enough like an absolute idiot that I had no doubt it was really him. Finally I got just a good enough of a look at her that I'm sure it was Allison. I was really, really, hoping that I was wrong."

So was I, especially about the Willis part. I'd had a run-in before with him over much this same issue three months ago, and I thought it had been resolved ... I guess not. I had been so busy these last few months that I hadn't spent hardly any socializing time with Tiny at all. Tiny is an extremely private sort of guy and not the type to leave a note on your door or a message on the answering machine, even if he is your best friend. Apparently he had been trying to get hold of me for quite awhile but hadn't been able to catch me at home.

Willis, or rather Robert Jason Willis Jr, was the hapless nephew of some rich fat cat Dallas real estate developer whom, after his 2nd failed attempt at college, was shunted off to watch over one of the family's lesser investments, the cheap 20-odd unit apartment complex where Tiny and I rented (well actually Tiny gets his rent free in return for acting as an assistant manager and onsite "Security"). Since actually doing any hands-on managerial work is below Willis's dignity, he dumps most of the paperwork off onto Tiny. This leaves him with more time for attending to the 24/7 party that seems to run at his apartment, cultivating his drug connections, and his latest flummery - posing as one bad-ass "1%"er biker. I say it's nonsense, because no actual 'outlaw motorcycle gang' ™ would touch Willis with a ten foot beer keg hose. Tiny would know, because he knows every major piece of scooter trash in the city — he rode with them all for over a decade.

Tiny offered one last observation, "Sorry. Anyone else and I wouldn't have mentioned it ... but I owe you." He then started a lengthy examination of his hamburger to see if it needed a few jabs from his belt knife before it would remain still and consent to be eaten.

There are hundreds of stories about Tiny, and most of them are actually true the best I can tell, especially the most improbable ones, despite the fact that many would seem to be contradictions. At a looming 6'4," full heavy beard and weighing probably near 300 pounds, Tiny is never seen except when wearing his "colors" (the badge of a true motorcycle enthusiast), his worn & torn blue jean jacket bearing a large embroidered emblem of the Grateful Dead's "Ice Cream Kid" and the club name "The Fooles" (a club of one) and a US Navy SEALS patch on his right sleeve.

It's rumored he has ridden with both the Angels and the Banditos, but he's never said ... and anyone who knows for sure won't say either. Nowadays Tiny teaches bicycle safety classes for several different elementary schools, and organizes, seemingly effortlessly, charity bike runs to benefit any of a dozen worthwhile causes, or monthly "Fill the Helmet" fund drives for the Children's Hospital. He is probably the only person I've ever heard of who can get the outlaw clubs, civilian bike clubs and the police bike club all to attend the same functions with no pain, stress or itching desires to perform mayhem. Hurray for Tiny!

He won't talk at all about his past. I'm 99% sure that he was ex-military, Navy and probably something related to Special Ops. Probably SEALs due his jacket patch, but he keeps that part of his life very hidden. If pressed he'll say he did "bad," but had a life-changing experience and now tries to do "good." What his 'Road to Damascus' was, no one knows. Tiny certainly won't say ... and he doesn't talk much anyway. I've never ridden any bike bigger or faster than a 10-speed Schwinn, my ride is an EMS wagon, and that is where I first met Tiny.

It was a Wednesday, only my 3rd day on the job with the Houston Fire Department (HFD), Emergency Medical Services division. I, Peter Wells, was a newly hired Emergency Medical Technician straight from the Fire Academy and still used to civilian life. I had just finished 4 years of duty as an Army Medic and was an alumnus of the infamous 'Goat School' at Fort Hood. The final exam is they shoot a real live bleating goat — if you can keep it alive for 30 minutes you pass, if not you fail. They don't do that anymore ... much too politically incorrect, but I admit it was good real life training.

The HFD at that point in history was having trouble getting and retaining EMT's due to the buereaucratic attitude that they were 'Firemen first and EMT's a very distant second'. Accordingly they were running trained firemen through their EMT training later as an afterthought ... and with a low success rate, so there was a constant critical shortage.

I was part of a new pilot program where they recruited ex-military medics and nurses who had the right attitude and training to get all of the endless EMT training and needed certifications then run them through Fire School. A good idea that worked ... they should have kept it (but that's another story).

Riding to the scene of an auto accident that day we received an update report on the radio: a car in a hurry to get his wife in labor to the hospital runs stop sign and doesn't see the guy on the motorcycle currently already in the intersection; they collide, and the car (as usual) wins. Bleeding badly from his right arm, shoulder and leg the cyclist (Tiny) staggers over to the car undoubted looking like some grim Viking refugee from Valhalla to see if they are alright. The driver of the car, the husband, sees Tiny and is certain that he's going to get clubbed like a baby seal ... pisses his pants and then faints. The wife, whose water broke about the time they hit Tiny, was screaming like the Furies and started to do the bludgeoning herself, whacking her unconscious husband with her handbag in an attempt to revive him.

Bemused, Tiny was still standing by the door when we pulled up with all of the sirens wailing. He then calmly asked for us to "check on the pregnant lady first, it looks like she's in some distress," and then he immediately passed out onto the pavement. Come to find out, in the crash he suffered a cut to his Axillary artery and was in some danger of bleeding out. I tended to Tiny, got him stabilized and an IV hooked up while my senior training partner looked on, and once he could tell I had the situation well under control he went to check the vitals of the woman (still shaking and beating on her husband) and then reviving him. We then called for the backup EMS unit from our station to come and pickup the pregnant lady while we took Tiny to the hospital.

That should have been the end of the matter, but this was merely the start. Later that afternoon while cleaning and restocking at the station, I noticed that in the hurry to check Tiny's shoulder wound and locate and clamp off the bleeding artery, I had pretty much cut off his denim jean riding jacket, his "Colors." They were bloody, pretty much soaked actually, and a ragged mess. Anyone else would have thrown them out without a second thought, but I had learned just enough of biker culture from hearing dorm chatter while in the Army that I knew this was extremely important to him. It took three washings to get most of the blood stains out, and I found that one of the 3rd Unit crew had a wife that sewed and got her (for $20) to reassemble the jean jacket from where I had cut it all apart. By Friday evening I had the repaired jacket back and I took it with me to the hospital after my shift ended.

Tiny was doing well. Except for a few nasty cuts and the resulting blood loss, there was nothing broken and no internal damage. He had been waiting for the final doctor's ok to release signature on his forms and was otherwise ready to leave the hospital, so it was excellent timing. Upon seeing his Colors, more or less clean and reassembled, he nearly cried and gave me a huge bear hug that nearly squashed me (I'm nowhere near his huge size) and he vowed eternal thanks and obligations of future debt. Wow, just seeing him that happy made it worth the time (and the $20 I didn't really have at the time).

We talked a bit about ourselves and our jobs, I mentioned that I was new to the city and had just left the Fire Academy dorms and was renting a dump efficiency apartment by the week that was probably smaller than the hospital room we were in. Tiny gave me the address of the apartments where he worked and then showed me the choice of the two available units that were in the relatively best condition, and offered a sweetheart of a deal on monthly rent. I chose the upstairs one with the recently repaired plumbing and a decent working AC unit and moved in the next day. I assumed that we were now even. Silly me, we weren't even close.

After a few weeks on an intense OJT (on the job training) schedule where I was essentially nearly always on duty and lived for a full week at a time at the station, things started to finally calm down. My direct shift trainers had a good look at my skills and prior training and reported back to the chef instructor that I knew my shit and could be trusted with sharp instruments without injuring myself or others. Soon I was on the normal schedule for a Unit Crew, three days on (24/7) at the station day and night, and then three days off. It was surprising the number of classes and seminars that always seemed to get scheduled for those days off, but I still managed to start putting together a home life (ok, studying usually, but at least I was home). In six months or so I felt I could get completed with the last of my training requirements to become an intermediate EMT-I (most folks usually took a year to get out of "training" status) and then start another hard year of classes and training to test to EMT-P (Paramedic) which was pretty much the top of the normal EMT tree.

I didn't go to bars or have much nightlife. I worked, came home, studied some more and occasionally visited Tiny every week or two, watched a game together on TV and discussed the importance of first-rate home brewed root beer (Tiny's one remaining vice). So things went for a couple of months, and then I meet Allison Blair.

Like Tiny, I met Allison 'professionally', but fortunately this time she wasn't the patient. She worked the retail industry as an Assistant Manager at an upscale woman's clothing store that was part of a small but growing chain. She had called 911 when a customer collapsed in the store (nothing serious fortunately, probably just dizziness due to low blood sugar) and after the embarrassed customer had left I had a few minutes to chat with Allison at the checkout counter while filling out my paperwork.

Since by nature I tend to be extremely shy and I'm conscious of my relative shortness as a male (I'm only about 5'8," and I would have preferred to have gone into the Navy instead of the Army, but I was scared I'd get immediately sent off to Submarine School) so I tend to compensate by coming over to women as extremely self-assured with a cocky attitude. In my defense, I'm also in excellent physical condition due to my military experience and the uncertain needs of my job (firemen probably pump way more weights than police do). In her case, I was awed by her exceptional good looks. She was a stunning beauty nearly 6 feet tall with long "dirty dishcloth blonde" hair, at least a 9 on anyone's scale and obviously totally way out of my league. Even with no ring on her finger, I doubted I had even the slightest chance with her, so I did the only thing I could think of to do under the circumstances ... I immediately jokingly proposed marriage to her. To both my delight and horror she instantly accepted.

Mercifully we didn't actually run out like the two love crazed kids we were and immediately tie the knot, and we actually managed to have a few dates before her personal items started to slowly, but surely, drift into "our apartment." Within a month, she had given up her own small apartment and we were living together, but it was almost over between us even before it really began.

When two people start a close relationship the first few months are really all about learning what things the other person does that bug the shit out of you. In my case, I'm a compulsive "neat-freak," where she definitely tended towards being a slob. She was also rather emotionally 'high maintenance' who felt the need that we ought to be doing things together every time we were home together. My work hours (or rather days — three on then three off) meant that I'd only be home half the time — I also usually worked every single major holiday (the highest peak periods for calls for EMS service). She was also extremely impulsive and had an unfortunate tendency to job hop. Every few months she would decide that the path to becoming a full Store Manager was always a little better or easier at some other company and she would suddenly change jobs without any prior discussion between us. These were all rather annoying to me at times, but I thought I could deal with that. We constructed some rules about housecleaning that both of us could live with but there was nothing I could do about my work schedule and she understood and tried to accept that.

Then there was the matter of Allison's drinking, an ongoing crisis that only I seemed to recognize or acknowledge the existence of, which caused regular problems for us throughout our entire relationship.

Looking back now, much older (wiser?) and with 20/20 hindsight, I'm inclined to blame much of her problems on her relationship with her father (also an alcoholic and who may or may not have abused her as a child). She was definitely raised in a troubled house where both her parents drank like fish and fought seemingly endlessly. She was smart and very pretty but also lonely and troubled. A small legacy from an aunt plus a minor scholarship was enough to get her out of the house and into a state university. There she scraped out a degree in English and learned to party like there was no tomorrow. Fine, that's what college (and military dorm life), is for ... but after college was over the old habits didn't die off. She started the day with a drink, had more as soon as she got home from work and wanted to drink until either late at night or early in the morning or until she passed out. Not good.

I will admit, I had noticed that if she had a few drinks in her, she was considerably more affectionate. Hell, with a few drinks in her she was a raging tigress in bed. She would frequently initiate lovemaking eagerly giving me head and swallowing my cum as if it were the finest liqueur then getting me hard again she would ride me to her own climax, seemingly for hours. After a few more drinks, she would admit that she enjoyed anal sex and she would take it in her ass nearly indefinitely (if I could get hard again a 3rd time). I must admit that after having little to no sex life for the last few years, I was enjoying this experience, and willing to accept her drinking habits ... if they could be moderated somewhat.

I need at this point to mention that I'm certainly not an anti-drinking zealot. I enjoy wine with dinner and don't mind having a beer or two when watching a game on TV. But as a working EMS tech I've seen the carnage that a drunk driver can cause, and I've pulled at least one drunk (or their victims) out of a wreck car nearly every week of my career. I was determined that I would not have this occur with the woman I loved.

Moderation became the burning issue. I decreed and remained firm with these rules: absolutely no drinks in the morning (especially before driving to work), no stopping off with the gals after work nights when I was working (again, no drinking before driving), and no late night drinking at home if one of us worked the next morning. She would agree in principle, promise to reform, but always somehow fail and suffer a lapse. When I repeatedly caught her, she would deny or misrepresent the facts. When those failed to sway me, she would have emotional outbursts and throw such a fit that things would remain chilly between us for a few days. I would be accused of trying to manipulate and ruin her life like her father, but I would never get provided with much in the way of details. After one extremely bad scene where things got bad enough where I actually started to pack some clothes to go and stay at the fire station for a few days, she was broken to tears and pleaded with me not to leave her. She vowed to control or severely limit her drinking and, for awhile, I think she really tried.

Things were much better between us for the next few months, enough so that I started to consider making my proposal to her real, and I quietly started to look for an engagement ring.

The week before the Fourth of July started out well for me, in fact things were going quite fantastically for me. I was officially off of training status (at least 6 weeks earlier than any of the other new EMT-I's that started at the same time I did. I was greatly surprised by this because it definitely seemed to me that the Captain in charge of training for all of the EMS units in our district was not particularly enamored of me. When I was called into his office I wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that I was going to either be staying on training status or even be let go entirely. Instead he surprised me by giving me the good news in person and I would also be getting a not unsubstantial pay raise — not bad for city government work.

Talking with him privately, I found out a few interesting things. First, he had been quite hard on me (and would probably stay so) because the quality of my work was markedly above average (trauma patients in my care had a statistical 20% higher chance of survival than the citywide EMS average!). Not quite all of our upper management was composed of mouth-breathing idiots he warned. There were some clever Fire Station Chiefs or EMS Division Directors out there who would be trying to poach me and get me transferred to their stations. Expect it - it would be likely to happen in the next six months or so and probably to a higher trauma incident district, such as a bad neighborhood with higher crime with regular stabbings and shootings. This could be good for my career if I concentrated on getting my advanced certifications to become an EMT-P (a full Paramedic and then the additional certifications to become a Trainer). If I pushed myself aggressively, he told me, I could easily be sitting in this Captains seat within 10 years. Not bad for a short unpopular kid that never had the bucks to go to college!

Thrilled with this news, my station boss sent me home a day earlier than my shift would end to celebrate and with a newly enlarged paycheck in my hand, I paid a visit to all of the local jewelers until I found what I thought was the perfect engagement ring. With a few last stops for a nice bottle of wine, the fixings for a fine surf & turf meal with a rich dessert and a bouquet of flower I was on my way home. Getting home nearly 24 hours earlier than expected I was looking forward to a four day weekend we would always remember ... just not the way I would have anticipated.

Getting home around 5 p.m., I started to assemble the makings for dinner but delayed the final cooking steps until after 6, as I was expecting Allison sometime after 6:15 p.m. Time passed and it became after 7 p.m. Concerned, I called her store, hoping to get the Evening Manager or one of the staff and was told, to my surprise, by the salesgirl who answered the phone that Allison had stopped working there a few weeks ago.

I was flabbergasted. I had known nothing of this. On the days when I had been home, that she would have worked, she had dressed normally as for work in her suit dress and left at the normal time. Job hunting, I now supposed, or else she had already started work for another retail chain once again. By 8 p.m., dinner was pretty much ruined and I was in a panic. I was worried about her absence and fearing the worst (this was back in the late 1980's when cell phones, and even pagers were still uncommon). I had called everyone I knew to call and no one had seen or heard from her. Sometime shortly after 9 p.m., I became too nervous to remain in the apartment and I started walking back and forth to the parking lot to see if I could see her car coming.

Sometime about my 4th or 5th trip, I noticed that there was a party going on at Willis's apartment. Not much of a surprise. There was a party there every weekend but it was a bit louder than usual for a Thursday, even for him. I didn't like the guy much (I had heard lots of stories about him and his lifestyle from Tiny) but he stayed out of my way and we only rarely saw each other in passing. About the 6th or the 7th circuit to and from the parking lot I was agitated enough that I thought I would finally go disturb Tiny and see if he knew anything about where Allison was or what she'd been recently up to.

I started over towards Tiny's apartment on the other side of the complex and, in doing so, I had to pass right by Willis's. His unit was downstairs, on the back side of the Management office, in the center of the complex. As I got closer the sounds of blaring metal rock grew louder along with the sounds of people laughing and having a good time. The patio window was wide open letting out all of the noise but, because there was an eight foot privacy fence around the patios of all of the downstairs units, I could not see anything inside. I had almost completely walked past when I stopped dead in my tracks, I thought I heard Allison's voice ... or rather the husky screaming voice Allison used when she's potted to the gills and getting royally fucked!

I moved back to right up against the fence but the problem was there were really too many different noise sources. A booming stereo, a TV blasting what sounded like a porno video, and six or eight other different voices yelling and laughing. I just couldn't be sure it was her! I gave up and walked around to the front and knocked on the door. Heck, I just about had to beat the door down to get anyone to hear it. Eventually some weedy guy I never seen before, shirtless in jeans holding a beer answered the door. It took three tries to get him to hear that I was looking for some chick. He didn't know her name, but yeah there was some chick here. He then shut the door and went to check. I should have followed, but some tiny spec of self-preservation stayed my hand and I stayed outside and waited.