Jem…40

Chapter 40

*Mike…

The show was good, way more of a mellow thing than I though and yet I still really enjoyed the show and the whole little angry song hyped up bit for the crowd that Angel did for Adam was good but…

I slip over to her why she’s counting out the tips. “Hey, Angel?”

“Yeah Mike.” She stops and smiles at me. That’s one of the great things about Angel. She tends to smile a lot and she has a nice one but she will also stop what she’s doing and give you her attention. People respond to that.

“Look this was a really great show but just be careful okay? Adam’s already got a hate hard on for Jason we don’t need him getting violent with you. I’m pretty sure he knows you’re connected to Jason somehow.”

“Of course he knows and he’s pissed at Jason for not just lying down and rolling over. Well I know he’s putting things together hopefully wrong since a Marshal doesn’t do manual labour.”

“I just don’t want him taking Jason out on you.”

“I’m not backing down even dressed like this, I’m tired of his shit Mike, he sexually assaulted me last time.”

“Just be careful, violence used against women is a lot more different than on men.”

“Okay…I will…I’ll try…I don’t want the girls in his sights either.”

“Okay, Thanks Angel.”

“Hey, you’re just looking out for us, that’s very cool…you’re a good man there Mike.”

I’m blushing a little bit and more when Brooklyn comes up and wraps her arm around my waist and leans on me. “Yeah he really is.”

She and I hang while Angel and they do their thing. I’m helping her tear down her section of things and she’s something really special you know. She’s really professional too careful with her cords and cables wrapping them in neat rings. She’s got a good trick with those by holding them together with these cheap big clothespins. She wipes down her guitars before putting them away and the same with her amps.

And God the way that she looks. Brooklyn’s a red head and that’s always been a thing of mine. She’s not the freckly red head either but the pale milky skinned type with the real fiery red hair and she does have a few freckles more like beauty marks but they’re in all these cute places.

And her hair…copper kissed with lie a hint of something deeper…red currants…yeah…that’s it and she’s got these killer eyes, I love hazel eyes…she’s skinny to which is okay I guess I think she’s gotten most of her meals at the school and cheap microwave stuff at home until Angel had moved in.

I’ve seen her house where she grew up, she’s a table scraps girl. I can see whatever was really good in that house going to the boys when it wasn’t the bottle and her and her mom making due with what was left.

I have seen so many girls like her just end up exactly where their mothers are or worse. I’m in awe of her for bucking her family and getting out of there. I’m going to find out more.

I look at her before I grab some of the gear and I kiss her gently. I don’t say it because it might freak her out… but in my head and my heart. ~I’ll make it better Brooklyn, I’ll try my damndest. ~

………………………………………Okay Danny Pizza was a surprise for me. My first inclination of the place was an old dive restaurant. You know the kind with the pizza with so much grease that you can lube your car with it.

But Uncle Remy rarely steers a guy wrong.

Really great pizza, and I loved the pinball machines and I was playing and having an orange cream soda in a mug for my first time when I saw her looking at the pictures on the wall and smiling.

She’d mentioned her grandfather had lived up here. I went and joined her and the pictures were really interesting, mostly faded some even black and white but most where colored.

“I love this kind of stuff; the whole amateur detective stuff get’s me into all of this stuff.”

“All of it? Like what?”

“I’m that guy that’ll actually stop and read those faded yellow newspapers you find when people pack stuff up. I’ll buy them at flea markets because they’re interesting.”

“Huh…okay?”

“Weird?”

“Yeah to me but that’s good weird not like creepy stalker, porn freak weird…so what else?”

“Old books, I have a thing not just about old books but anything with a signature on the inside. Old records I try to save a lot of those. They’re heading to be really eclectic stuff with even CD’s getting less popular. And I collect used cassettes but not the actual studio tapes but I like listening to someone’s mix tape from whenever and try to figure them out.”

“Okay, you sure you don’t want to date Angel instead of seeing me?”

“I’m definitely sure of that Brook, actually you’re kinda scary.”

She looked over at me and bit her lower lip. “Me…why?”

“You’re the first woman I’ve wanted more with.”

“Mm..More..?”

“Yeah, a relationship, dating…and like more than just once or twice but taking the right amount of time for all of the good stuff the little things.”

She’s staring at me. “Oh…”

“It’s why I’m…”

“You’re…?”

“I’m staying…I mean if you think that you’d want me to stick around…after all of this I want to stay and Uncle Remy said that I could live with him instead of having to move around all the time with Dad.”

She pushed herself into me and hugged me. “Definitely, I definitely want you around…god just the thought of you leaving was so sucky I was trying really hard not to think about it.”

I hold her tight in this big hug. “This…this is awesome Brook; I have wanted just this for a long time…”

We sway together without music but still sort of walking too looking at the pictures and she’s telling me about her grandfather, her Grampy…I’m not bullshitting about needing this either. I need the connection; I want someone real in my life and not have to move around from town to town. I want to put down some roots; I want to actually stay at a school long enough to graduate from there. I want….i need someone that I can hold.

Yeah that’s right, I can say it. I need someone that I can wrap myself and my arms around and hold.

Some guys do dream about that as much as girls do about having someone to hold them.

…………………………………..A little later after pigging out we watched the videos and while I’m not as involved as the others the emotions on the girls, on Rave, Kim, and Brook was just…Fucking Summer…really, she did a number on the three of them and I get why too.

Well not why but I get the motive. Summer’s one of those people that take people that she meets and she finds ones that are one…damaged in someway that she can manipulate and two useful to her. She put the band together and all three of the girls have their issues and Summer strung the along feeding them just what they needed.

She’s like Adam only she uses people’s feelings as the currency that she uses with them instead of just cash.

Well fuck her.

The girls say that they’re going to decide what to do with the songs after awhile but I already know what I’m going to do.

We escort the girl’s home after the pizza and Dad gets Angel her ID’s and they have the talk, the big C.I. talk and I give her a smile and a nod before helping Brooklyn set up their stuff in the living room/band area.

This’ll be interesting to say the least really. We stop almost from necking with the others there but Rayne/Raven took Angel into the kitchen and Kimmie go to shower and clean up looking like her super charged batteries have finally run low.

God she’s just…

Way smarter that she gives herself credit for.

Just setting up and showing her how she’s picked up half of it just by watching me and Angel but she’s still got this thing in her that I can see. When she’s not good at something or just doesn’t know it she’s beating herself up inside about it.

I’m trying to make her feel better bit by bit.

She walks me out to the car and she kisses me goodnight. I reach into the car and take a present out of the glove box and she looks at me. “Mike?...you didn’t have to get me…anything…”

“Hey, I know that you’re not one of those girls. But I was at a yard sale and I seen this and I thought of how you might just like it.”

She opens it and looks the DVD over. “The Commitments?”

“It’s kind of a musical movie and it’s really decent, lots of old tunes in it like Mustang Sally and stuff.”

“Wow…thanks…” She steps in and she kisses me while holding it to her chest like it was a teddy bear.

She breaks the kiss and I walk her from my car to her door. Yes I know sort of redundant but hey whatever right?

She opens the door and I take a step down, I heard this helps sometimes…her being taller than me, me taking some of the set in threat image out of things. I read a lot of psyche books for what I do…they help…plus I help teach women’s self defence classes.

“Brooklyn…” she turns and looks at me. “Yeah Mike?”

“Kiss me?”

She smiles and she tuck’s the DVD in behind her waist band of her jeans which is kind of hot in a butchy way and she steps close and she leans down and she kisses me.

It’s a really good kiss. She breaks it and as she goes to give me another I reach up and cup her face. “Brook…you’re better than her.”

“Than who?” she sort of blinks at me.

“You’re so much better that that voice in there telling you that you’re not good enough…you are…you’re so much better than that…”

I push up sort of tip toes or a stretch up but I push up into a long kiss with her…she does this thing with her hands out to her sides where she’s making fists over and over again sort of shaking before she stops doing that and she grips my face with both hands and she kisses me and it’s long and over and over and over and part of me just cracks…that whole macho guy shell just cracks as some of her tears fall on my face.

She breaks the kiss and she’s not a pretty crier, but she’s stunning anyway. “Dammit Mike, just…dammit…you’re too good to be real you know…I do…”

I kiss her again to keep her from saying something negative. “No…don’t say it okay…please? Just…every time you feel that, hear that voice telling you that…just…just please remember this please beautiful?”

I kiss her but I do it slowly…tasting her ain this letting my lips not just press into hers but to slide over the surface of them first few times from top to bottom, slightly off to one side…then almost breaking the kiss to trace her lips with mine back and forth before kissing her again.

She’s crying again and in step down and away. “Sweet dreams okay Brooklyn…I’ll see you later.”

She’s nodding and wiping at tears and smiling and sort of hugging herself and honestly I sort of feel the same way and really don’t want to leave but I have to leave for both our sakes…I need for this all to sink into both of us.

I head home and take the long way with the windows down to clear my head and for awhile I’m pretty sure there’s a set of truck high headlights following me. I lose them after a few deliberate turns. So they either weren’t following me or they knew they got made and gave it up this time.

Right now likely both. I get back to the house with out any problems and head inside to get showered and get some rest.

…………………………………Morning comes early and I’m up and I’m logging online and whether the girls are going to do something or not I upload the videos onto the internet at some of the Face Book pages of some of the Starlight Butterfly fans with a “Like OMG, that Skank Summer’s been ripping of these songs for like her band.”

That’s all I have to do and they’ll run with it.

No classes today but I get up and I go and do my work out and work the striking gear until I hit my heart rate target and keep it up for a half an hour. I get my stuff and the things I need to download from the stuff I set up in school and I head in to pass in some assignments and while I’m there…

“Huh.”

I tilt my head looking at this poster with K&T on it and a decent picture for the poster and it says that they’re playing as the official “House.” Band for the school?

“How the hell did she pull that off? She’s not with it enough to get along with the administration here.”

I see a lot of them all over the place and I head to some of the classes I’m taking and drop off my assignments and get some others to be assigned plus the reading materials and walk around at ten o’clock break “Texting” actually I’m retrieving the stuff that my toys have picked up. I’ll go through it later.

I do stop by the computer lab and use the computer to do a leaflet for Starlight Butterfly’s shoe tonight and when and where they can catch it online and I print off some and go to the student store and get some photocopies made in yellow and pink and green colors and put them up around school before I leave and head out.

I go to Tim Horton’s and I get three boxes of Timbits (Doughnut holes/centers.) and a tray of coffee’s and then stop and get some gas and a mountain dew slushie and a can of Red Bull and I head to Brooklyn’s school and I wait for the bell to ring for lunch. I go inside and stop in at the office and sign myself in.

I find her in this sort of nice outdoor courtyard just off the cafeteria with benches and tables and lost of maple and birch trees and not being in a uniform I stand out. There’s her and some girls and Kimmie and I smile at her and she smiles and she waves with this smile…

I swear she just made the sunshine a little brighter and the day a little warmer. I come over and lean down and hiss her. There’s a chorus of Ooooo’s from the girls and I set down two of the boxes of Timbits for them. “I came bearing gifts.” I kiss her again and she’s kissing me and I slide a coffee into her hands and we break as there’s this loud “Hrump.” There’s one of the teachers there and she’s sort of trying to frown at us with that whole you shouldn’t be doing that.

I hold out the tray of coffees. “Bribe?...uhm sorry I meant coffee.” Pretty boy smile, bite my lip just a little and blink, blink stare.

She looks at me and she does that thing that all middle aged women do around me when I’m doing that cute puppy dog boy thing and she takes the coffee with a chuckle. “Okay…I’m not looking but you stay where everyone can see you.”

“Yes miss…” Uh-huh yeah I went there. She just chuckles and rolls her eyes at me and for a married gal in her forties there’s a little extra swish to her walk, some of that I still got it strut.

Brooklyn asks me ash I turn back. “This is a nice surprise so…why are you here is everything okay?”

“Better than I just wanted to come and spend your lunch with you.”

There’s some awww’s that make me blush and I pass Kimmie her slushie and her Red-bull and she hugs me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she dumps the red bull into the slushie cup which I only filled up with enough stuff for her to do exactly that.

We just sit and eat and talk and she’s pissed about K&T getting that school gig and that she must have blown someone to get the job. And wow…there’s about six girls at this table and the two nearest ones and suddenly it becomes open season on Summer.

“Wow…I take it you’ve all met her before?”

“Oh yeah, she used to go her to school before she was tossed out.” One girl says.

“Tossed out?”

“She was fucking one of the teachers.” Another one say’s.

Another one yet is gesturing wildly with a Timbit. “Hell she was caught in bed with the old headmaster.”

Jessie shows up taking a seat and some Timbits and wow…she really uhm altered the skirt on her uniform. “Bitch was a massive drama queen she broke up a lot of people while she was here.”

I get the skinny on a lot of Summer’s bad shit and apparently she’s a good con, heart on her sleeve sometimes even and able to fake cry at the drop of a hat and she snowed a lot of people here but was able to keep them snowed until she got the boot. Once she wasn’t able to work her marks she had her scams slowly unravel.

“Raven dodged a bullet really when she left. Y’know most people don’t get that most sociopaths aren’t always violent, Summer is a sociopath and wow…I honestly don’t think that I’ve met a more narcissistic douche.”

Brooklyn’s texting and nods. “Oh yeah that’s why she went after Angel, one Angel’s threatening her sense of “Me” and two she’s bigger than Angel is…oh she says hi by the way.” She’s kind of excited and she’s not a texter.

“Yeah she had I’ll Kill You all over her face until you slapped it off of there, Honey…what are you doing?”

“I’m talking with Angel! She and I are writing a song! I mean can you like believe that she’s getting me…Me! To co-write a song with her!”

“Yes, I told you I can believe it beautiful, you can do anything.” I lean over and in front of her and I kiss her and there’s another round of Ooooo’s.

Kimmie say’s. “The Claw.”

It goes over so many heads but she makes me laugh with that one.

The lunch hour doesn’t last long enough and I’m lucky enough that the duty teachers in the hall let me walk her to her first class of the afternoon holding her books. We get coughed into breaking up the kissing and I’m getting so many stares I’m blushing and still laughing at Kimmie’s joke especially seeing all of them staring lined up in their desks.

This completely made my day really so far but now it might get worse….

I drive to her parent’s house and I watch while going over the stuff from the school. There’s a lot of minor stuff. Teen drama, some of the gossip and there are some instances of Adam’s cronies or wannabe cronies doing the dirty work for him.

Stuff I might be able to parlay into playing it to them so as to force them to get or reveal some evidence about Adam.

Not a lot, not yet he’s cagey. And he’s got that habit of not actually getting his hands dirty.

I mostly watch the house. Brooklyn’s dad he doesn’t work, he’s on “Disability.” The house is really run down even for this area and it’s just got that thing hanging around it of don’t care, don’t give a fuck.

I use the telephoto on my camera to look through the windows. He’s always has a beer in his hand and he’s a big guy just like his boys are. Then I see something that just….

“Fuck…I really didn’t want to see this.” I snap some pictures.

It was her mother still looking tired, beaten up some but she has the scratching sores on her arms and her dress was hanging right off of her in that way, too thin way and she had a glass pipe out and she was on his lap lighting up crystal and they were sharing the smoke.

I wait and I watch and sure enough I see them using and while not partying it’s bad, heavy drug use and he’s well in the bag. He’s an ass from everything that I’m seeing and honestly she’s been doing this awhile herself…I see where Brooklyn might really have ended up.

He get’s loud when he runs out of his booze, beer keeps tweakers semi level making them drunk enough to sort of function. If he’s on it I’m going to say that her brothers are too.

“Fuck, fuck, dammit…you assholes!”

I wait though as pissed and frustrated as I am I wait. Yeah sure enough he’s staggering outside and he pulls out of the yard peeling out. I snap his plate and take out my phone and call the office number for RCMP local.

“Hey yeah, I just saw this guy he cut me off and was swerving all over the road down on Elm and Main street he swore at me too he’s like pretty fucked up…..yeah here’s his plate number.”

I hang up that cell phone and switch the sim card out and do the same for 911 and the same for crime stoppers. Three different calls by three different phones or what they’ll read as three different phones they’ll have to move on it.

A DUI fine or more would suit him just fine.

I get out of the car and I walk over to the house and knock on the door.

I knock again.

She comes to the door opening it again. “Who’re you.”

“I’m a friend of your daughters.”

“Don’t got a daughter.”

“Brooklyn.”

She spits at me and slams the door. I stick my foot in it and fight hard not to kick it down. “I don’t want nothing to do with that little lezzie bitch.”

“She’s your daughter.”

“She took off on us she left us and betrayed us.”

“Uh-huh, how…”

“What…?”

“How?”

“Nothin…”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not on your best fucking day thirty years ago.”

“Asshole….(Sniff)…got any rock…glass.”

“No, got cash though.”

“Gimmie, I blow you good.”

“No…How’d she betray you?”

“She left and she was a good cook.”

“So you wanted her to cook crystal for you and she took off.”

(Sniffle.) “Yeah, little lez-cunt her and her Jap.”

“Yeah, I’m here for her stuff.”

“Fuck you. She ain’t never getting it. She’s gotta come back for it. Little bitch and her restraining order.”

“Five hundred.” I dig into my wallet and pull out my work cash. She snatches at it. I yank my hand back. “Her stuff.”

“It’s in da garage.”

“Lead the way.”

She takes me out to this garage that’s falling apart but I can smell the reek her of burned candy and ammonia. The cooking stuff’s not here though. She points to a padlocked deep freeze.

“Keys?”

“Henry’s got them.”

“Here.”

I give her the cash, she snatches it and takes off inside. Yeah…go ahead and call Henry, he’s going to be busy awhile. I grab a pipe wrench and stick the handle in the handle of the deepfreeze. Yeah it won’t break the lock but it’ll break the handle.

I see boxes inside, some old, some new and….

I leave and get my car and back it up to the garage as fast as I can and start loading her boxes, some things smell like old urine, some things jingle like they’ve been broken. I don’t care I’m taking it all.

Including….

I get out of the garage and I see two familiar hulks swaggering up their clothes still wet with fish blood and guts.

Huh...I guess she didn’t just call Henry.