Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance (9 page)

“We understand,” my father cut in. “I think Homer just meant we don’t want to risk your health over reaching this deadline.”

Homer spit a wad of his tobacco in a tumbler resting on the arm of his chair. “One missed load ain’t gonna make or break us in the long run. We should focus on what we can get.”

It wasn’t what he said that was wrong. It was the way he threw the matter aside with his tone. This was how people lost their way, taking short term pleasure over long term achievement.

Even as I indicted him, my brain flashed an image of Rosa’s face slack with ecstasy.

I shook her from my thoughts. That was a different matter.

“So what else can we get?” I asked my father. Homer might stray, but my father could pull him back.

“We were just talking about our preparation,” my father said gently. “We’ve been buying gold with about a third of the profit Homer and the Soldiers pull in. That said, we can make much more in the long run if we reinvest some of that into growing their distribution further.”

“Grow distribution?” I was almost slack-jawed. “You enlisted my help by telling me the Soldiers just wanted to get rid of what they had in storage. You called it a singular event.”

“That event
was
a one-time thing,” Homer said. “We didn’t have the manpower to move the product we had at the time. That’s why we need to grow.”

“I was shot in front of your facility by the Cartel,” I growled. “They knows where it is. They’ve sent their message. Do you want to start a war?”

“Calix,” my father said. “There has always been a war. There will be more before we achieve our end. And wars need soldiers, training and financing. Increasing distribution is the way to build all three.”

“Distribution of drugs,” I said. “Of meth. That’s what we’re talking about.”

“Actually what we were talking about was expanding beyond meth,” Homer said.

“You’re on board with this?” I asked my father.

“It took some time, but now I am. I made up a list of drug markets, actually.” My father gave a bashful, almost ashamed smile.

At least he had some sense of how messed up this shit was getting. How far we were from the goals he had instilled me.

The goals we had formed to give meaning to my mother’s murder.

I stared out viciously at the green backyard. Nothing there offered a handle for my anger.

“Who are we going to be if we go down this path?” I asked. “What’s the difference between us and some ghetto hoods or those barrio gangbangers?”

“Why, we’re white,” my father said. “This doesn’t change that.”

Homer spit into his cup. “Sure as hell doesn’t.”

“Does being white mean nothing?” I said.

Neither of them spoke and I was left with my own question. I had known how to answer it once. Now, no words leapt to my lips.

Finally, I said the only thing I was certain on. “I did not spend two years risking my life to help arm a drug cartel.”

“Calix,” my father clapped my shoulder. “We all admire your discipline. It is a true asset to our organizations and to the white cause. But we must gain power to spread our message. As long as this mongrel nation stands, the color with power is not white, but green.”

“And we’re talking a whole lot of green with this plan,” Homer said. “It wouldn’t be on the table otherwise.”

I could see the green. His blue eyes had turned to dollar bills.

“Is this what you want Mom to see,” I said. “If she looked down, would she like what this family has become?”

My father twitched with sudden rage. I had never crossed this line. I had never had reason to.

“Your mother…” he started. “Was a gentle woman. She was not made to withstand the cruelties of this world. We both saw that. She might not have been able to see through to true cause of her murder, perhaps. But we can not let her softness dull what we seek to accomplish in her name. This entire family-”

He stopped and corrected himself. “You and I have a mission that extends beyond what we do this day or month or even year. We must open our eyes to all the paths before us and choose the one with the best overall outcome. Do not invoke your mother’s name in a curse, just to cloud us from your stubbornness.”

I quietly sipped at my tea. Homer had the sense not to speak.

Once, it had been so clear that all of this was done with righting the wrong of my mother’s death. My father’s words had rung true in my years when I was young. They had been a welcome melody even after I came back from Afghanistan.

Now, I saw just how easily he could twist his words to sell a ride down the wrong road.

“Well I’m not going to be involved in transporting any more of your drugs,” I said. “I went along with what you asked because I thought I didn’t understand. It turns out I understood just fine. I have too much to lose for this.”

Homer sat up straight. “Does the army suspect anything?” he asked. “Have they been trying to dig into you.”

“No.”

“That’s good.”

“So what’s my purpose then?” I asked my father. “What is there left for me to do?”

“Just stay on the path you are on,” he said, his voice soothing once more. “The weapons you provide are extremely useful. There is no doubt on that. Your position within the military structure is highly advantageous to us. Do everything you can to keep it and keep those supplies coming.”

I sank in my chair and nodded. I was being marginalized. I was actually grateful for it. I didn’t want a part of this new path they were forging.

I had no energy for more fights. In fact, sleep seemed entirely preferable.

“I’m going to get some rest upstairs.” I gulped the rest of the tea and shoved to my feet.

“Good call, brother,” Homer said. “You’ve earned it.”

I opened the screen door. A hand landed on my wrist. I looked down to my father.

“Sleep easy, my boy,” he said. “You are our righteous sword, and we need you. But keep an open mind.”

I stared unblinking then continued in. In my head, I pictured sheathing myself in Rosa over and over.

Oh, my mind had opened. I wasn’t sure what remained inside.

I dropped the glass off and headed for my bedroom. As I walked up the stairs, I passed frame after frame of photos. Many were big ones of my mother smiling alone or with my father or holding a much younger me. Other frames held a dozen pictures in each window.

Many of the slots on these smaller ones lay empty. In fact, there were large rectangular plots in the wall still left vacant, even after two years.

The emptiness had once held my younger brother, Vaughn. But he had done something worse than die. He had left us for a black woman. He had walked out on the entire movement in front of the world.

I wondered what would be left on this wall if my pictures had to come down too. Just my father and his dead wife.

No, that was the meds talking. The meds and too many years pretending I wasn’t who I was.

I headed to my old bedroom, still full of baseball posters and youth versions of the white nationalism messages below. I had lived elsewhere after high school until I enlisted.

Maybe staying here would show me the path back to who I was. I had to find it myself. My father seemed lost in wayward dreams of his own.

I had seen the different paths you could walk while serving overseas. You could hate the people you fought. You could simply serve your country. Or you could fight for the culture you wanted these people to have.

This last idea had driven me. It was a cause I understood. For some, white nationalism was about hate and power, but I’d put it down in the Storm’s Soldiers wherever I could.

The movement was not meant to be about beating others down. It was about finding refuge for our own people. I might be gathering weapons, but it was a means for defense, nothing more.

I lay in bed and thought hard, but I still could find no room for what I’d done with Rosa. There was no room for her and me to be together. I could only hope not to hurt her.

As I drifted off, though, my mind chose its own path. It threw images of a dark tender body, beating hot under my grip. It reminded me of her soft lips and the way her laughter had brushed my ear. It showed me the fiery temper which she had fought me at the hospital, and the tenderness with which she had held me when I was wounded.

I could walk away from all that, it was true.

But if I wasn’t lying to myself anymore, if I could give myself the truth - Forgetting her would hurt me at least as much as it hurt her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rosa

My morning-afters always went by like a sugar rush, and this one wasn’t an ounce different. The bright and cozy end-of-summer day just doubled the dosage.

I went bouncing into work like I’d been drinking gummiberry juice. I smiled at people on the MARTA. At work, I danced through the hallways saying ‘Hi’ to everyone like I was a Disney princess.

I even greeted Lilly with a surprise hug at the upstairs nurse’s station. I knew full well that would let the cat out of the bag. I just didn’t care.

“Oh boy,” she groaned, bending me off. “Which member of the rogue’s gallery got lucky yesterday?”

“What ever do you mean?” I asked, fluttering my eyebrows.

She cupped her chin and studied me like an x-ray image. “Let’s see. Last guy was a bookie. The one before that was some underground street fighter. Who can top those two?”

“Oh, come on. Mark wasn’t that bad. He only used his fist on other guys.”

A lull sank over the normal buzz of our little nook. Lilly cleared her throat.

“I mean he used fists to beat them,” I explained, looking around to the other nurse. “He beat up other guys. Outside of his fights, too. Ok, fine, he was a loose cannon.”

“So this guy is probably a full-on gangster?” Lily asked.

“Uh, no,” I said. “He’s actually a soldier.”

“A veteran?”

“Nope. A big, burly, active duty soldier. He’s down in Fort McPherson.”

“Wow, you found a legal fix for your cravings. You sure he’s not like a war criminal or something?”

“War hero, actually. He’s got a purple heart and everything.”

Lilly’s brows arched. “Damn, that’s legit.”

“Hell yeah, he’s legit. He even -”

I was going to make up something around him being injured in the line of duty and ending up here. Then, I realized I didn’t want people knowing I was dating a former patient. I might have already revealed too much, but Lilly apparently hadn’t given Calix’s file the attention that I had.

Anyway we weren’t even dating. He’d given me his number as he left, but maybe he was just looking for a proper lay when his leg healed. That didn’t sound so awful to me. It wouldn’t be much worse than what my other relationships turned into. If it didn’t crash and burn, it’d even be a step up.

My mood sank a bit. Were my expectations
that
low?

“Even what?” Lilly asked. “Did he help hunt Bin Laden or something?”

“No. I was just going to say he even spent a couple years in Afghanistan,” I said.

“Well, duh, where else is he getting a purple heart?”

I pumped myself back up. “Anyway, I’ve got a good feeling about him.”

Lilly squeezed my hands. “He does sound like more than a good lay.”

“He is,” I said. “Though I want to be clear that he’s also a good lay.”

“Mmmhmm.”

I scooted my chair closer to her. “Speaking of that,” I said. “How’d it go last night with Paul?”

“You know pregnancy tests don’t work right away,” she said.

“But did you have a good feeling?”

I immediately wished I had picked that moment to shut up. Lilly’s hands fidgeted on the keyboard.

She bent over and whispered. “I don’t think so. Paul just didn’t seem into it. I think I’ve made this whole thing so clinical it’s turning him off me completely.”

“Just play it cool then,” I said. “There’s no rush right?”

“No.” She flicked her lip. “I’m just really ready to be a mom. The last thing I want to do is scare him off. But I don’t want to act like I don’t care about something that’s so important to me either.”

“Paul’s not going to run off,” I said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Used to look at me.”

She slumped onto a hand. Her mood was infecting mine hard, but I wasn’t about to walk away.

“Just ask him if he’s really ready for the change,” I said. “He probably is but you’ll get some peace of mind. You’re probably right that baby making is turning sex into work.”

I thought back to the feel of Calix’s wet heat surging up into me. I couldn’t ever imagine that not being all fun. I wondered if the little pill I took this morning was really enough to fight a load that size.

“So communicate better?” Lilly said. “That’s Rosa’s sage advice?”

“I didn’t say it was an original answer. I’m not the next coming of Oprah.”