CHAPTER 15 – Sleep through the Static

“So how’s things?” Dave asked

“All good” said Tim.

“Just all good?”

“Could be better you know aye Dave, lot’s been happening” Jeff added “don’t really know who to trust these days and who’s gonna stab you in the back, you understand”

Tim and Jeff stood there large and intimidating, I could see the conflict in their eyes. They were seeing a man who had supported them and made them welcome in this community, someone they thought they could trust with their lives but now someone who had ripped all that away from them in just one morning. I decided to end the agony.

“I saw you this morning”

He looked at me with a frown on his face

“Really Jade? Where?”

“At an old military place right out the back of San Diego you were there talking to some guy”

Dave just stood still, he didn’t move, didn’t even blink.

Then he seemed to deflate, like a football going flat and he sat down on the sand his knees up by his chin looking out to sea. His face had gone pale almost ashen so I sat next to him, leaned against him.

“Remember how you told me about your daughter how she died in your arms was that a lie?”

“No of course not why would anyone lie about something like that?”

“Remember how you said I was like your daughter and how much I reminded you of her remember how I saw you as my Dad, someone I could trust, someone I could look up to”

He nodded

“So what’s the truth?” I asked

Jacinta and the boys sat next to him waiting as he composed himself. A light wind was blowing from behind us and I shivered. Tim put his arm around me and I snuggled into his chest, he felt warm, safe.

“After my wife and daughter died I changed” Dave began “for a long time I wanted to die too, suicide was on my mind constantly, I’d dream up scenarios of how to do it in my head, at one stage I came really close. I was hurting in a way no man should ever have to hurt it was an ache that started in my heart then just kept going it never stopped even when I was asleep I felt it. I’d lost the two most precious people in my life. It was at that point I guess I sought out relief, a way to forget and lose myself all at the same time. I met a guy who knew a guy, you know how it goes and before long well I had a needle and a bag in front of me and I didn’t care. The road to addiction didn’t take very long and before I knew, I was in so much debt I thought I was going to lose my business. The gang, the same ones who took you Jacinta, also owned me. I had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Anyway I was an addict for about two years then two things happened that got me off the drugs then after that another thing happened then well a fourth thing that pretty much turned my life around”

“Go on” said Jacinta, gently, kindly she’d been in his place not that long ago

“First I decided to go for a surf one day. It was rough and I was a bit strung out but I needed the head space. I went alone and the surf was broken and big no real pattern to it. Anyway I was out the back when I saw a monster coming. It was like a train and reared up so high it was one of those freak waves you get every now and then you know……..”

We nodded we had all seen them, monster waves that come along ever so rarely but if you could catch them it was like catching a tiger by the tail, once you were on the ride you had to see it through to the end or risk a mauling.

“Anyway I came off the lip and just went straight down the face looking to hit the bottom then sweep back up, you know how it goes but I wiped out dug the front of the board in and just went over. I remember going under, being dragged along smacking up against the sea floor, hitting my head, my ass, everywhere I was just tumbled like a toy. I must have blacked out for a couple of seconds then when I woke I was just floating and I thought this is it, the end, no more Dave McIntyre. In a way it kind of felt like a relief like I didn’t have to fight anymore that all I had to do was just give up and I could be with my wife and daughter. It felt like the easiest decision in the world. Little stars were exploding in my head, behind my eyes and I was pretty close to just blacking out for the last time.”

We all sat there, the cool wind, the sand beneath us forgotten as we listened to what it was like to die. I continued to cuddle into Tim, he seemed to really like it, like he was protecting me, I liked it too. I listened to the steady rhythm of his heart it felt strong. No one said anything just gave Dave time to continue. It was the strangest thing but I was feeling his story not just listening to it. I could feel his emotion as he spoke and I guess what I was experiencing was empathy but it was more than that. It was raw and powerful but it was also gentle and feminine. I think I was feeling what every woman feels when someone pours out their heart. It was a mixture of compassion and love. If this is what it meant to be a woman then the tide was turning. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back anymore.

“I woke up some time later, I was lying on the beach as the swash of the waves just broke around me, my lungs and the back of my throat were burning. I don’t know what happened or how I got there but I swear at one stage I felt hands around my ankles like I was being helped some way. You guys know I’m not religious but something was there that day or someone I don’t know but my time on this planet wasn’t over, there were more waves to catch”

He smiled ruefully

“After that I had a new sense of life like it needed to be lived not wasted, people around me mattered again”

“Go on” Tim said but we all could have said it, time was forgotten.

“Well second I met someone who said something to me that was like a light bulb turned on in my head. He was a little English guy, kind of rounder than he was tall and he came into my shop looked at boards and stuff and we got talking. He ran a business and he said he’d never had an employee ever quit because they were unhappy and he’d never had to fire anyone. I was intrigued I’d never heard of anything like that, I asked him what his secret was. His answer blew me away. He said that one of his personal values was always to believe the best about someone. That the reality was that around him you could screw up and it doesn't bother him. He said that he would just make sure that his opinion of someone goes to a higher level anyway because he thought that is what life should be like. That we should give each other space and grace to become better. He believed the best way for that to happen is when someone sees you better than how you see yourself because then you have something to step into. From that time on I was determined to make that me. I had a reason to live again. That’s why I agreed to train you for the surfing competition Jade.”

He looked at me and I looked back steadily into his eyes, like I cared, which I did.

“Third well that was easy I met a family who knew how to love”

“Fourth one of that family became like a daughter to me and ever since I met her I’ve felt like a Dad again. That’s why she needed to be protected, why I was up at the Facility, that’s what they call it, ‘The Facility’ like they’re in some kind of spy movie. Anyway I’d come off the drugs but I still knew these guys, they are like leaches. I talked to the head honcho a guy by the name of Warren Melville. He’s a spineless piece of shit but he’s cunning. Gets others to do his dirty work for him but he makes all the money, doesn’t lift a finger to help anyone but himself. I told him I could get his money back and if I did would he be willing to call it quits just let you all walk away”

“So he knows about us?” asked Jeff “knows who we are?”

“He knows about you, knows that a family is sheltering Jacinta but he doesn’t know your names or where you live although he knows the general vicinity. His goons told him about the run in they had the other night, how you got away. They weren’t flavor of the month after that I’ll tell you. It would just be a matter of time before they found you though”

It was a sobering thought knowing that these guys knew about us. That we were on their radar, that we could be found at any time.

“What would they do to us if they found us?” asked Jeff

“They’d have no use for you guys or your Mom, you’d be lucky to be left alive after they got their money but they’d take Jacinta back and Jade, get them hooked. Probably relocate Jade to another part of the country, New York, Miami, Chicago. She’d be another young junkie working for a pimp.”

Scratch the sobering thought now it was terrifying.

“So what did this Melville dude say?” Tim demanded, he was angry.

“He wants his money above all else, all of it back. But he gave no promises said he’d think about it. Asked me how I could get it for him. I just said I had contacts in the community and that I could act in the middle, get it back, that the people involved were frightened just wanted it to all go away but that they would be protected by every surfer out here and was it a fight he really wanted. He agreed he needed me as the negotiator and he didn’t want the attention especially if the police got involved. All I can say is I’m hopeful”

“So we can give the money back and if we’re lucky we get away with our lives, if we’re not we could be killed and two of the people I love most in this life could be sold as prostitutes and forced into drug addiction” said Jeff.

Jacinta looked at him, two of the people he LOVED most. His statement wasn’t lost on her or on me either but then again I knew he loved me as much as I loved him. We were family after all.

“Pretty much” said Dave

“Fuck them! Fuck them all, no way am I living like this. They think they can frighten us, scare us into submission no fucking way!” I’d never seen Jeff like this, it kind of scared me but it also made me proud. My real Dad was gone my oldest brother was stepping up.

He continued

“We know where they are now and what they do. They infest our community with their drugs and make girls their slaves. Now they’re threatening my family. Whose side are you on Dave, will you help us?”

Dave looked him in the eye then over at me.

“Your side, I’ve always been on your side, I’ll protect you guys with my life”

“Yeah” said Tim “but we need help and time to plan”

“We have to go on like nothings’ happening, till everyone’s ready.”

‘How the hell was I going to concentrate on school now, on being a model on Wednesday when all this was going on’ I wondered.

CHAPTER 16 - Hope

When we got home I’ve never seen my mother so relieved as when we told her what Dave had said. She beamed for the rest of the day and even broke out into humming that little lullaby again as she sat and mended a pair of Tim’s shorts. She had been to see the police, had given them the photographs but all they said was we had some photos of a couple of guys and a building. Unless they had ‘just cause’ to search the building there wasn’t a hang of a lot they could do. Mom had suggested they do a stakeout like in the movies but they just laughed.

“This is real life lady” the officer had said and threw the photos into a tray that was already full to overflowing. Mom had shrugged her shoulders and left wondering what had happened to our justice system.

Dinner of course was spectacular, the Enchiladas Jacinta and I had made weren’t eaten by Jeff and Tim as much as they were inhaled. I had so enjoyed making them with her and we had laughed and squealed and giggled all the way through the process. I was becoming really close to her and she kept calling me her ferocious little sister. The boys of course had been kicked out of the kitchen while Mom pottered around looking over our shoulders offering the odd suggestion. As a boy I hadn’t really thought much about cooking, to me meals just magically appeared at just the right time and my job was to help clean up the mess afterwards. As a girl making a meal and cooking was curiously therapeutic and I enjoyed it greatly. Perhaps it also had something to do with my fellow chefs.

I rang Jaz after dinner and filled her in on all the gossip but didn’t go into any details about what was happening to our family. We talked about boys (Phil) and hair and movies and makeup. We squealed and giggled and she told me what she thought of him. It felt good to have a friend to chat with and hey we were 15 year old girls, well nearly 15 anyway. As I put the phone down Mom came in and picked up a hair brush. She had gotten into the habit of brushing my hair at night and I had fallen in love with her doing it. She had a knack of getting the knots out easily and by the end my hair looked and felt like spun silk. Over the two and a half months since my transformation it had grown very thick very quickly and fell down my back.

“Mom do you think I’m pretty” I asked her as she pulled the brush through my hair.

The brush stopped and I could see her looking at me in the reflection of my mirror. She had one of those expressions on her face that said ‘are you stupid of course you are.’

“Don’t be silly Jade, you’re not just pretty you’re beautiful”

“Yeah but Mom, honestly”

“Jade every young girl goes through this, they all wonder if they’re attractive enough, whether they’re too fat or just right. It’s just natural I did it, you’re doing it and if you have a daughter she’ll probably do it”

A daughter, I hadn’t considered that. I might actually have a daughter or son or even both. I’d heard about childbirth in my health ed class but now as a girl it was real, one day I’d be going through it, I put the thought out of my head. Although actually I kind of hoped if it did ever happen one day I’d have a kid like Tyler. I wondered how he was I hadn’t seen him for a while. Mom kept brushing.

“Thanks I guess it’s just this is so new to me and I know I can’t go back to my old life anymore so I just need to know I’m going to fit in, that I actually you know look like a real girl.”

“How many times have you been into a women’s restroom now?”

“Ahh I don’t know heaps”

“Has any other woman ever told you to leave that you don’t look ‘female’ enough to be there?”

“No, never”

“You look like a real girl Jade, trust me” Mom was so logical. I giggled

“If you could go back would you?” Mom asked “back to Jayden”

“Actually I was thinking about that just today in fact and you know what Mom for the first time the answer was no. I don’t think I would. I kinda like being a girl, its cool.”

“I’m glad darling, you’ll find there are huge advantages to being female Jade, the world is opening up for women, you can be anything you like, be who you like. I don’t suppose’ She cleared her throat “you’ve thought about boyfriends or ummm girlfriends have you?”

“I like boys Mom, actually there’s ummm a boy who kind of likes me, he wants to take me out tomorrow for coffee or a soda or something”

“Really!? That’s…..nice. What’s his name?”

So I filled my mother in on Phil, how he was Lauren’s brother, how he was a photographer blah blah.

She ummed and ahhed as I told her while she brushed my hair out then proceeded to give me advice on boys as if I didn’t already know I mean I had been one. She repeated herself at least a million times (no exaggeration) about what boys really want and to be careful while I assured her I wasn’t even going there.

“We’ve just met Mom we’re just friends”

“That’s what all the girls say Jade. Just try not to be alone with him tomorrow, please, for me, go to the Mall or something”

“Sure, of course”

She got up to leave and gave me a big hug after putting the hair brush away

“Just off now honey, gotta go out”

“Huh go out now, what for” I asked with a frown it was late

“Just have to go buy that shotgun I was talking about the other day”

I fell back on my pillow and laughed my hair cascading around me, my mother would probably do that too.