Johnny Cakes (The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Read online

  “I don’t see Patsy’s Nova,” he said.

  I eyed the payphone next to the Gas N’Biscuit service building and two empty parking slots. Toying with the car keys, I waited for the pump to click before screwing the cap back into place. “Maybe we overreacted. Wanna call Patsy, see if she’s come back? Could save us a lot of trouble.”

  While Mitch walked a few paces to the pay phone, I drove the Galaxie into spot near the coke machine, bathrooms, and free air. Over at the payphone, he dug through his wallet and pulled out a scrap of paper.

  My backside leaned on the passenger door and Mitch rested a shoulder on the phone booth a few feet away.

  “It may not seem like it now, but everything is going to be okay.”

  He didn’t flinch and I wondered if he was listening. I wasn’t going “all parental” on him. It was just that I had experience with a larger than normal amount of life’s unexpected curve balls. Over the past few years, there had been more times than I care to count where I’d worked myself up into a doomed frenzy. But somehow I’d survived and in a way even become the better for it. Not that I’d chose to be run over by Katie Lee’s car or be chased through a swamp by a guy with a gun again, in my book, seeking adrenaline-rushing drama fell under lunacy.

  The black phone receiver fell out of Mitch’s hand and swayed on its cord like an abandoned playground swing after you jump off in search of something better. He walked toward me but his focus was across the street.

  “All this. It doesn’t seem like it right now, but things have a way of sorting themselves out. The important thing is to keep a clear head and not overreact.”

  “It’s been a lie,” he said.

  Mitch wiped his forehead and let out a swift exhale. “I’m so stupid.” His backside dropped to the curb where my car butted a grassy patch.

  I’ve known a few people who have taken the plunge off the deep end and my mom’s image flashed into my head. I hadn’t witnessed the exact moment when it happened, but feared that Mitch was headed down some obscure mental tunnel.

  I rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’ll figure it out.”

  “I can see her, on the porch. She has a cigarette in her mouth and a beer in her hand.”

  Okay, not exactly the behavior I’d be flaunting if I found out I was pregnant from a one-nighter.

  “Rachael, look.”

  Swinging around, I stared toward Mabel Milligan’s jam-packed porch. “How am I supposed to spot her in the dark?”

  “Under the lit sign. Blonde hair, red-checkered shirt, black shorts, and a bar apron around her waist.”

  I scanned the dense crowd that spilled all over the entrance until I spotted a blonde with big boobs near the corner railing. A man’s back blocked a portion of her silhouette. Mitch and I stood silently until she pressed her beer hand onto his neck and dipped her head in for a Dracula maneuver of suck face. From the backside, the guy looked decent. Blue jeans, black shirt, gauging from a distance, nice enough butt. Once the two unsuctioned, my eye trailed down her arm to the cigarette she took a drag off of. The smoke made me envious, but I thought better of lighting up near gas pumps where the smell of petroleum clung to the air.

  Gaining composure, Mitch sat upright and looked in roughly the same location I did. “Was she just making out with some guy?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his face beaming.

  Standing, Mitch grabbed my hand. “Come on. I want to pay Kelsie a quick visit.”

  Confrontation was not one of my strong points. It was something I went out of my way to avoid, and I felt a hesitant jolt in my chest. I adored Mitch McCoy. At the tender age of nearly eighteen, it appeared he had his emotional strings manipulated by a conniving bitch. Since I didn’t know her from a hole in the wall, yelling insults would just be obnoxious sport. I’d go along for support, but wait for what would obviously be a brief word exchange. I owed him that.

  Mitch’s stride was wide, and in seconds we’d crossed the street and wove in and out of the Mabel Milligan’s crowd. Glancing behind me, I noticed the Gas N’Biscuit lights flick off. Since I was a paying customer and all, I guessed it was okay that I left the Galaxie in the lot for a minute or two.

  I would have preferred Mitch to have his word exchange with Kelsie from below the elevated porch rail, but he opted for the more personal in-your-face meet and greet. If she had been alert, she would’ve noticed us. But she was busy working her magic on some fool whose face was shadowed under a baseball cap.

  From inside, a live band snared a steady beat of Carolina beach music that vibrated the wood decking below my feet. Mitch’s clammy palm stuck to mine. “Sorry, Excuse me, Pardon me,” fired out of my mouth as he dove deeper into the layers of patrons. He’d dropped my hand and I ended up a pace behind him, shuffling left then right as people moved around me to enter the bar. Mitch’s eyes swept just above the foreheads of most and it surprised me that Kelsie didn’t look up until he stood behind her friend’s back, staring her in the face.

  Mitch tapped her shoulder. “Warm night. Makes me thirsty,”

  “M … Mitch.”

  In a flawless maneuver, he stretched his hands around the rim of her plastic beer cup. Struggling to steady his voice, he continued. “Beer and cigarette? There is no baby, is there?”

  Conversations around us stopped, and customers began to stare.

  Tears moistened her raccoon eyeliner and her shoulders drooped. “Mitch.”

  “Keep your games and lies to yourself.”

  He didn’t wait for an explanation. Turning to work his way out of the crowd, I was eager to follow, but my feet locked when I heard her say, “Jackson, I can explain.”

  Cement anchored my feet and flames lapped my chest. Edging around a stranger, the profile of the strong jaw of the man Kelsie accompanied struck a chord deep within. I should’ve kept moving. I should’ve ignored them both. But a primal part of my soul leapt out of my mouth and roared, “Bubba Jackson!”

  A smile lit his eyes. “Raz.” Taking two steps toward me, his hand slid up my arm, sending a wave of goose bumps through my organs. “You look finer than a dog’s hair split three ways.”

  My palm couldn’t slap his cheek fast enough. His beard stubble chaffed the underside of my hand. “Asshole.”

  The corners of his mouth curled. “You have my full attention.”

  His words paralyzed me. I told myself I hated him, but my body threatened to unravel the lies I told myself.

  From behind, a body drew in close and a warm hand freed my wrist away from his.

  In a no-nonsense tone, Bubba said, “Hey, Patsy.”

  I spun around. A silk scarf kept her hair out of her face and accentuated thin wire gold hoop earrings the size of a pickle lid.

  “Hey there, Bubba.” Turning her attention to Kelsie, a cloud of uncomfortable brewed between them. “Had plans for you and me to visit the little girls room so you could pee on a stick.”

  “What are you, Florence Nightingale? Mind your own business.”

  “Patsy, there’s no need for that.” Mitch said, pointing to the bag. “It was all a lie.”

  “You Bitch. Eat shit,” and like a snake striking, Bubba caught Kelsie’s wrist, causing her liquid ammo to drop to the floor. My eye followed the glass and the splotches that darkened the leather on her cowgirl boots.

  “Come on, Raz,” Patsy said.

  Following behind her, my brain went berserk. Bubba Jackson was a smooth talker, and I hadn’t thought about the other women in his life. Reality smacked me in the face. We had only been together once, but the truth stung. I wasn’t anything special. I’d just been available.

  Patsy and I didn’t exchange words until we landed out front on the sidewalk where Mitch stood.

  Reaching inside an oversized leather purse with a zipper tassel, she removed a Bynum’s drug store bag that held a pack of Marlboro Lights and a pink packaged pregnancy test. She offered me a smoke and while I waited for the lighter, I willed myself not to look
back. Like hell was I going to let him know that any speck of me had the least interest in any morsel of him.

  Beneath an exhale, Patsy asked, “Mitch. You okay?”

  He nodded. “How long you been in town?”

  “Couple of hours. Hung outside Kelsie’s. The place was empty.”

  Patsy’s fingers were splattered in neon paint and I suspected she spent her time doing more than hanging out. “Katie Lee and Hugh find you?” I asked.

  “They said y’all would be here, but stayed behind in case you were in route.”

  Mitch tucked his arms around Patsy and my neck. “Let’s get out of here. Where you parked?” He asked Patsy.

  “Two blocks past the Gas N’Biscuit.”

  Tired from the drive and drained from the whole build up of this confrontation, I enjoyed the nicotine I inhaled. “I can drive you to your car.”

  The three of us walked the short distance up the block and across the street. A car pulled out of a space on the street and another lined up to slip in. We strode across the dark and smelly, Gas N’Biscuit station lot. From behind a southern man’s voice shouted, “Raz, wait up.”

  Torqueing her neck, Patsy announced, “It’s Bubba.”

  Bending her elbow tight, Patsy made a show of flicking her lit butt into the air. It landed a fair distance beyond us in a street gutter. Without warning, I heard a womph and a stream of fire raced along the gutter, toward my parked car. Everything moved in slow motion. Mitch had Patsy’s hand and they darted right. Turning one eighty, my feet sped into Fred Flintstone car driving mode. A flash later, I flew through the air like a rag doll, landing with a thump on a musky scented southerner. Bubba rolled us over and into the ditch below the sidewalk. Behind us, the bar crowd had fallen silent. Glass popped and metal clinked until there was just the muffled music and the roar of flames that lapped my car.

  Cradling my head, Bubba pressed his face into mine. “Raz. Talk to me.”

  “I hate you.”

  The corners of his mouth curled “You know how to string a guy along,” he said and pressed his lips against mine. In my moment of duress, my lips double-crossed me and kissed him back.

  NOTE TO SELF

  New Bern is not a healthy town to visit.

  CHAPTER 8

  Rootin’ in a Rock Pile

  I’d ridden in an ambulance once, but lying in the back bed of a flatbed truck, below a gun rack and in between empty dog crates, as the vehicle blew through every traffic signal, was way more of an adrenalin rush. Luckily, I had company. Squashed in the middle, Patsy’s knees crouched against her chest, and her chin rested on them. She held one of my hands and one of Mitch’s. I’d determined it was more for her benefit than ours. “I could’ve killed us. Did I kill us? Maybe we’re already dead and driving around hell?”

  “Patsy,” Mitch said. “We are not dead.”

  Mitch’s statement was true. I knew I was alive because of the sharp pain in my thigh and the debilitating ache that ran down the left side of my lower back and into my glute. “Bubba Jackson’s the devil,” I announced.

  Hugging her knees, Patsy began rocking front to back. “Bubba’s not the one who littered a lit cigarette into a gas station.”

  In hindsight, I should’ve kept that last remark to myself.

  Nearby, sirens roared. We all knew where they were headed.

  Patsy spoke to the night. “We’ll be fine once we get mended.”

  I didn’t ever remember skinned knees being this painful.

  Under the starry sky, I could see the white of Mitch’s eyelids that sharply contrasted with the black soot smeared on his face. With his back against the passenger cab of the truck, his left arm rested awkwardly across his stomach and his shoes were missing.

  Besides Patsy’s mental state, and her hair that looked like it had taken a spin in a KitchenAid mixer, she faired the best. “It was just a butt, barely lit. Y’all, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even think that it would. KABOOM.”

  I tightened my grip on her palm. Cigarettes got flicked near gas stations all the time and I wasn’t convinced that she’d been the trigger to the inferno. “It was an accident.”

  Bubba slid the window between the interior and the truck bed open. “Be there in five.”

  “Thanks, Bubba. Appreciate the lift,” Mitch said.

  My physical pain messed with my ability to hold thoughts inside my head. While anchoring my left side into the truck bed to compensate for the speed bumps at the hospital entrance and the corners he rounded faster than he should, I closed my eyes. My throat pricked as though I’d been screaming at a concert all night. Despite my gravelly voice, I verbally sorted the thoughts that floated inside my head. “Service stations sell gas. Pumped from underground storage tanks.”

  Jackson pulled under a covered entrance way. A red illuminated light read emergency. Leaving his door open, he bolted inside, then emerged moments later with a swat team of men and women clad in baby-blue scrubs.

  Mitch’s eyes widened. “Someone must’ve pulled a nozzle out too quickly with the trigger down and flooded the damn lot.”

  “That’s dumbass.” Patsy said.

  Two hospital orderlies flung the back of the truck open and asked, “What happened?”

  It hurt too much to move. With clinched fists, I lay still on my good side. Jackson hopped onto the tailgate, the rocking motion gave a rolling bounce beneath me, causing my molars to clamp together.

  “Explosion at the Gas N’Biscuit. She’s got cuts down her bare leg, maybe some glass or metal.”

  Patsy scooted out and a stretcher was pushed forward. I pinched my eyes tight hoping that not seeing meant not feeling. An orderly who knelt next to me spoke in a bluesy drawl. “You’s in safe hands. On the count of three, I’m going to lift you onto the stretcher.” Without hesitating he counted, “One, two, three.”

  The night air blanketed me in warmth, but inside a nagging chill hovered down my spine. The orderly, a large black man whose hair grayed above the ears, and haloed an inch above his scalp, never stopped talking as he and another hospital worker whisked me onto a rolling cart that moved toward the fluorescent light inside the building. “You have good friends. They brought you here real quick. Friends like that are worth keeping.”

  From behind, I heard Mitch tell a woman in scrubs, “I’m not sure. A break or sprain.”

  I’d never been ‘accident prone,’ until I attended college. And like the ‘accidents’ freshman year, this one was not my fault. What was it? The company I kept, the location? If Dad found out he’d haul my ass back home. My mom, whom I didn’t see much since she’d run away with a ‘friend,’ to deepen her inner psychic self would probably chalk my mishaps to a galactic magnetic force being misaligned with my zodiac sign and the planetary rotation.

  I searched deep, to make sense of what I’d done for the night to end up like this. Statistically speaking, gas stations that blow up are not a normal occurrence. I can’t remember ever hearing about this sort of incident on the news. The orderly put the rolling gurney in a hallway next to a wall. It must have been a slow night because a woman with a clipboard and a young intern immediately zoomed to my side. The two exchanged glances, putting an uh-oh knot in my throat. “Name,” The nurse asked.

  From behind, Bubba emerged and filled in the blank. “Raz O’Brien.”

  He didn’t even remember my first name.

  “Rachael. She’s Rachael O’Brien,” he corrected.

  Bubba moved toward me. His normal bad boy self didn’t look so good. There was a dent in his hair from where his baseball cap had been and a scrape across his left cheek. Plus, the bottom of his t-shirt was torn, but I wasn’t sure if that fashion statement was pre- or post-gas station explosion. Looking down at my leg, he shuddered and his face went whitish. “It’s... You’re going to be okay. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen.”

  Funny thing, I’d heard those exact words out of his mouth only last year and they hadn’t done a lick of good in saving
my ass from his creepy ex-business partner Billy Ray. The kissy face he participated in with the girl who’d tried to fool Mitch using the oldest lie on earth erased the nobility of the buffer he’d provided for my landing.

  “Thanks for the ride. Have a nice life.”

  His mouth opened slightly and he seemed wobbly on his feet.

  “Ah, Rachael, heard you were in town. You’ve made quite an entrance, I see.”

  My body stiffened. “Dr. Brown. How’d you know I was here?”

  “Got a call from Katie Lee. She’ll be here shortly.”

  “Sorry for waking you.”

  He smiled, but the creases beneath his eyes looked concerned. “He pinched a pair of tweezers and began to inspect my leg. “Flesh wounds, some are a little deep. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “Three C is available,” The nurse with the clipboard said, as she and Dr. Brown pushed me back.

  As I rolled away, a dazed glare crept onto Bubba’s face, and he slumped backward. The nice orderly who’d moved me out of the truck caught him just before he met linoleum. “Hey Gracie, got any smelling salts back there?”

  My life was fine, until I stumbled upon him. Now, like a reoccurring bad dream, trouble began.

  NOTE TO SELF

  Dr. Brown must think I am a complete doof, prone to catastrophe. Will be surprised if he lets Katie Lee continue to live with me.

  Am convinced that Bubba Jackson is a catalyst of complication. As long as he’s out of my life everything is normal. Ish.

  OCTOBER 1988

  CHAPTER 9

  Pay Them No Nevermind

  Like the slow roasting of pork barbeque and the mulling of mint for a julep cocktail, everything southern, especially the weather, took its time to transition. Down here mother of nature kicked back and strung summer along, seemingly in no rush to relinquish the ninety-degree temperatures and the sauna-worthy humidity until October. The pigment in the veins on the oak tree canopies beyond my bedroom window darkened as the leaves lost their bright green effervesce, giving way to mustard yellow and muddy reds.