Ridge Creek (7 page)

The first is that for over ten years I have lived with the
same man.  A man who if I even looked like I was going to touch another male,
or they were going touch me, would put an instant stop to it.  The second is
that this man is
hard.
  Every part of him.  Not an ounce of fat can be
felt.  Tony had been short and stout and
soft
in the middle.

Taking a few moments to enjoy the pure strength of Jake
between my arms, I calm myself.  Then I slowly tip my head back up to see him
staring down at me intensely again.  “How do you know Tony?” I ask in small
voice, fear ripping the strength of sound out of my voice.

“You’re all over the news sweetheart.  Arianna Lovett –
vanished into thin air a week ago.  Your heartbroken boyfriend Tony is begging
the world to help him find you.  It’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever
seen.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve got eyes on him.  He works for the mob, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re safe here Arianna.  I already told you that.  Just
because you’ve got an asshole ex-boyfriend who works for the mob doesn’t mean
he’ll find you here.  Right now most of the world thinks you’re dead and their
expecting a body to turn up.  We can work with that.  No one is going to expect
you to be wandering around in a small town, in another State.  We’ll protect
you.”

“Who’s we?”  I have to ask.  I can’t just blindly understand
a ‘we’ll protect you’ statement from a person who, until a week ago, I’d never
met or heard of.

“Me, Zane and the boys.  It’s covered, trust me.”

Squeezing him tighter in an attempt to transfer my feelings
of gratitude physically, I say, “I should tell you what I did to piss him off
shouldn’t I?”

He stops rubbing the slow circles on my back and sighs. 
“It’d help.”

“Okay.”

*****

Leaving me sitting on the bed, Jake promises to return and
vanishes out the door.  Arriving back a short time later carrying a bottle of
Jim Beam and two shot glasses, he places them on the bedside table.

Eying them off cautiously I mumble, “The last time you
bought in a bottle of liquor and two shot glasses, you were here to share bad
news.”

Ignoring me, he pours two shots and hands me one.

“I told you I drink wine.  Red preferably but at a pinch a
nice white will do.”

Tossing his shot glass back, he swallows the golden liquid
in one go.  Tipping his chin to the drink I am still holding he says, “You’re
living out the back of a biker shop now sweetheart.  You drink whiskey.”

“I’m only little, whiskey is a bit
strong
for me,” I
inform him.  “I once drank a whole bottle of red wine on my own and got so
drunk that I fell asleep on a train and ended up in Gippsland.  I also drank
half a bottle of vodka with a friend once and the amount of vomit I produced an
hour later belied the size of my stomach.  Plus I’ve been taking pain killers. 
Everyone knows you shouldn’t drink while you are taking pain killers.”

With a thoughtful look on his face, I watch as he nods.  He
then removes the shot glass from my hand.  Tossing it back, he leaves the room
and returns a short time later with a bottle of Heineken beer.  Smashing the
lid off the bottle on the corner of the bedside table he hands it to me.

“Didn’t you hear my statement about pain killers?”

“When did you take your last one?” He asks unconcerned.

“Four hours ago.”

“You’ll be fine.  Just drink the fuckin’ beer.”  He leans
across and pours another two shots.  “I’ll drink your whiskey today but you
are
gunna learn to drink whiskey.  Biker women don’t drink fuckin’ wine.”
Biker women?

Since when was I biker woman? 

Deciding to move on from that one I ask, “What’s the bad
news?  I think you should just hit me with it and then I’ll decide whether I
should drink the beer.  I don’t think much of beer either but in desperate
times it beats whiskey.”

“The bad news is that you’re about to relive your worst
nightmare by telling me all about it.  Drink the fuckin’ beer.”

“Right,” I suddenly agree wholeheartedly. 

So taking a huge pull on my beer, I swallow it down and tell
him my story.

My story takes longer to tell than I expect it to.  Two
beers and two full shots of whiskey later, I finish.  By this stage I am curled
in a fetal ball with my head in Jakes lap.  I don’t even remember him moving to
sit on the bed with me.

Snuffling my tears as he strokes my hair, he murmurs softly,
“We need to change your look sweetheart.  Although it kills me to do anything
to your gorgeous hair, it’s gotta be done.  You’re gunna have to cover up those
eyes too.  He’s looking for a knockout golden blonde with cornflower blue
eyes.”

Knockout? 

I’m most definitely not a knockout.  I’m a short blonde
woman with light blue eyes. 

Nothing special.

He’s too kind.

Lifting my head from his lap, I shuffle my body upwards and
tuck myself into his armpit.  “Okay.”

“Dingo’s wife is a hairdresser.  I’ll get her to come here. 
If you can get the Internet on that fucking piece of shit on the front desk,
we’ll order some contact lenses too.  What color do you want?”

“Green,” I mumble against his chest miserably.  Moments
later I realise what he has just said and I perk up a little.  “Did you say
you’ve got a computer?”

“Yeah, there’s a laptop out front in the shop.  People sitting
at the front desk use it to play cards.”

“And it’s got Internet capacity?” I ask with a small glimmer
of hope building.

“It did have, until Reggie’s kid got on there and played a
game that gave it a virus.  It’s fucking useless now.”

“Ohmigod…” I breathe the word out.  “It’s got a virus? 
I
can work with that.  Have you got a credit card?”  He nods as I excitedly
plow on.  “You can pay it off with my money when it arrives.”

I squeal with excitement and launch off the bed.  “Internet
and a credit card means
shopping! 
I can get clothes, make-up, contact
lenses, even furniture.  Yes!  Furniture! I need a bed for Em’s new room.  I’ll
get it all delivered and I won’t even need to leave the building.”

Clapping my hands together I start pacing the room excitedly
as I plan out all the things I need to buy.  Through all my pacing and ranting
I fail to notice that Jake remains sitting on the bed staring at me with an odd
look on his face.  Stopping to look at him for a few beats, I decide I can’t
decipher the look properly.  It’s somewhere between a smile and a ‘what the
fuck?’.

Deciding to ignore his look I ask, “Can I look at it now? 
The laptop?”

“There’ll be someone playing cards on it right now
sweetheart.  The shop front is open.”

“Oh,” I respond glumly as I feel myself deflating.

Standing slowly he crosses the room and takes my hand.  “But
I’ll kick them off and shut the shop. Have at it darlin’.”

*****

After kicking what looked to me to be one scary looking
biker out of the shopfront, Jake settles me in front of his laptop.  Reaching
into his back pocket, he pulls out his wallet, flicks it open and slides out a
black credit card.  Handing it to me, he tells me he’s got ‘shit to do’ and he
leaves me to it. 

Closing the door behind the counter behind him, I am left
alone to reconnect with my electronic world.

Quickly flicking through some screens on the laptop, I
chuckle softly as I locate the virus checker and find it’s already clocked the
virus but is just waiting for manual approval to remove it.  Setting the
cleaning software off to do its thing, I decide to wander the shop floor.

Like just about every room in this building, it’s a mess. 
There’s half a dozen shiny Harley Davidson’s scattered around the room with
piles and
piles
of Harley memorabilia stacked around them.  Much of the
memorabilia is not displayed because it has not yet been removed from its
wrapping.  There are no prices to see, no shelves for displays and there are no
real walkways.  Everything is just stacked on the floor and shoppers are
required to weave about between it all.

I’ve seen opportunity shops and car boot sales that are
better organized.

Appalled at the disorganised mess, I wander through picking
up and putting down items mentally rearranging the room and imagining it
organized with display shelves and aisles.  I marvel that they manage to sell
anything,
ever.

The only part of the whole show room that appears to be even
remotely organized is the front window.  Here someone has taken the time to set
up the two main motorbikes with a few larger items of memorabilia.

Picking up a cool looking Harley Davidson tin sign, I wander
back to the desk and lean it up against the wall next to the computer.  With
one small item on display, the front counter already looks better.

 Returning my attention to the laptop screen, I am thrilled
to discover the virus cleaner has done its work and the laptop has rebooted. 
It’s ready for action.

Clicking on
Windows Explorer
, the
Google
screen appears and I let out a squeal of excitement.  Ready to shop I realize I
need one more thing.

Without a second thought, I jump off the chair, fly through
the door behind me and before I realize what I’ve done, I’m standing in the
main room with half a dozen biker men staring directly at me.

Fuck.

Casting my eyes around the room, I recognize some of the
faces from earlier today but there are a couple of new ones too.  Not one
single biker utters a sound. Not one of them smiles. 

In fact they all look just a little bit
angry.

Scaaaaaary.

I consider my alternatives and ponder backing slowly through
the door so as not to startle anyone and perhaps cause some sort of biker
display of… whatever it is that bikers
do
when they display their
bad-ass-iness.

Hoping that Jake would not have left me alone next to a room
full of …
baddies
… that were worth worrying about, I clear my throat and
announce, “I’m looking for Jake.”

A huge man with a bald, tattooed head and a long black curly
beard smiles at me.  He’s got a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth and he’s
missing a couple of teeth.  I almost physically recoil in horror at his mouth
but hold my ground because I realize he is
smiling.

An improvement on the general mood in the room. 

I think.

“He’s not here sugar, can I help?” He asks in a scratchy
voice that sounds like he’s smoked about two thousand packets of smokes too
many.  As he speaks I watch mesmerized as his cigarette bounces on his lips,
untouched by his hands.

“Um…”  I hesitate unsure what to do.  Deciding that I only
need one small piece of information to get me headed back out to the shopfront
and impending shopping bliss, I continue.  “What’s the mailing address here?”

“Jake and Zane’s Harley Shop, Ridge Creek,” bald guy
announces still not touching his cigarette.  I watch as it bobs along to each
word and decide it’s a God given skill to be able to talk without removing your
cigarette from your mouth.  Then I decide that Jake and Zane’s business naming
skills are just as bad as their product display skills.

“Um… does it have a street number?”

“Fucked if I know,” bald guy announces looking confused. 
“Anyone else know?” He asks helpfully as his eyes scan the room.  This sets of
a series of mutterings and grunts that eventually bring the group to a
consensus that no one does.

“Shit,” I mutter to myself as I reconsider my shopping
spree.  I can’t order anything online if I don’t have a delivery address. 
Racking my brain for ideas on how to find the street address for ‘Jake and
Zane’s Harley Shop’, I have another idea.

“Do they have website?” I ask hopefully.

This question meets complete silence and a room full of
stunned stares.  Bald guy grins at me and finally using his hand, he snatches
his cigarette out of his mouth.  Throwing it in a gutter ashtray below him, he
throws his head back and
roars
with laughter
. 
And when I say
roars, I mean
roars. 
As in as loud as one badass lion telling another
badass lion to
get ye gone
before I rip your heart out.

Feeling my mouth drop open in shock, I watch as the entire
room bursts into gut-wrenching laughter with plenty of fist pounding on benches
and tables as well.

Listening to them all laugh their asses off, I wait for a slight
dulling of the noise levels before clearing my throat.  In as loud a voice as I
can I muster I announce, “I’ll take that as a
no
then.” 

With laughter still echoing about the room, I decide to give
up.  It is but half a second after I turn to exit back the way I have come that
the room falls silent.   All laughter ends and I swear that if one were to do
so, they would hear a pin drop. 

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as the eerie
silence falls on the room.  I can almost feel waves of some huge dark force
smashing through the room.  A familiar deep, gravelly voice breaks the
silence.  “Who the fuck said what and who do I have to beat shit out of?”

Semi-relieved that I’ve found Jake, I delay my departure and
turn back to the room.  Jake is standing in the doorway at the other side of
room looking like he’s about to commit murder.  Not a biker in the room will
look him in the eye.

Striding across the room towards me he continues, “I warned
you fucked up bunch of miscreants not to scare her and not to be fuckin’ rude.”

More silence follows.

Reaching me in what I swear is only half a millisecond, Jake
throws an arm around my neck and pulls me tight against his side.  In a softer
voice he asks, “Sweetheart, who said what?”