The Song of David (3 page)

I’d been here for months. Through Christmas, through New Year’s, and into February. Three months in a mental institution. And I wished I could stay.

“Come with me,” Tag said, tossing down his napkin and pushing his tray away.

I reared back, stunned. I remembered the sound of Tag crying, the wails that echoed down the hall as he was brought into the psych ward the night he was admitted. He’d arrived almost a month after I had. I had lain in bed and listened to the attempts to subdue him. At the time, I hadn’t realized it was him. I only put two and two together later when he told me about what brought him to Montlake. I thought about the way he’d come at me with his fists flying, rage in his eyes, almost out of his head with pain in the session where we’d met. Tag interrupted my train of thought when he continued speaking.

“My family has money. We don’t have much else, but we have tons of money. And you don’t have shit.”

I held myself stiffly, waiting. It was true. I
didn’t
have shit. Tag was my friend, the first real friend, other than Georgia, that I’d ever had. But I didn’t want Tag’s shit. The good or the bad, and Tag had plenty of both.

“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get smashed. I’ll hire you to spend every waking minute with me until I figure out how to stay clean without wanting to slit my wrists.”

I tipped my head to the side, confused. “You want me to restrain you?”

Tag laughed. “Yeah. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the crap out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive.”

I wondered for a moment if I could do that to Tag. Hit him. Throw him to the ground. Hold him down until the need for drink or death passed. I was big. Strong. But Tag wasn’t exactly small, not by a long shot. My doubt must have shown on my face because Tag was talking again.

“You need someone who believes you. I do. It’s got to get old always having people thinking you’re psychotic. I know you’re not. You need somewhere to go, and I need someone to come with me. It’s not a bad trade. You wanted to travel. And I’ve got nothing better to do. The only thing I’m good at is fighting, and I can fight anywhere.” He smiled and shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t trust myself to be alone just yet. And if I go back home to Dallas, I’ll drink. Or I’ll die. So I need you.”

He’d said that so easily. “I need you.” I’d wondered how it was possible that a tough kid like Tag, someone who fought for the fun of it, could admit that to anyone. Or believe it. I’d never needed anyone. Not really. And I’d never said those words to anyone. “I need you” felt like “I love you,” and it scared me. It felt like breaking one of my laws. But at that moment, with our release looming large, with freedom at my fingertips, I’d admitted it to myself. I had needed Tag too.

We made an odd pair. A mixed-race delinquent who couldn’t stop painting and a big Texan with too much attitude and shaggy hair. But Tag was right. We were both stuck. Lost. With nothing to hold us down and no direction. I just wanted my freedom, and Tag didn’t want to be alone. I needed his money, and he needed my company, sad as it usually was. And so we went. We ran. We didn’t look back.

“We’ll just keep running, Moses. It’s like you said. Here, there, on the other side of the world? We can’t escape ourselves. So we stick together until we find ourselves, all right? Until we figure out how to deal.
”
That’s what he’d said. That’s what we’d done. And Tag Taggert became my best friend. When I needed him most he held on to me, and he didn’t let me go.

So now I have to find him.

The thing that scares me the most, is maybe he’s found his answers. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing. Exactly who he is. Maybe he’s figured the world out. But we’d made a deal when we were eighteen. And as far as I’m concerned, a deal is a deal.

“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get shitfaced. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the shit out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive,” he’d said. He’d wanted me to keep him alive.

I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

MY BAR IS called Tag’s because it’s mine. Simple as that. When I bought it, I thought about the name for a couple of weeks, trying to think of something catchy, something intelligent, but in the end, I just slapped my name on it. Makes sense, doesn’t it? When something is yours, you give it your name.

As a recovering alcoholic, owning a bar could be considered masochistic, but I don’t own it for the booze. I own it because every time I walk in, look around, tend the bar or pour a drink, I feel powerful. I feel like I’ve conquered my demons, or at least beat them back. Plus, I’m a man, and the bar is a man cave to surpass all man caves. Flat screens hang on walls and in thick clusters overhead so that customers can keep an eye on several games at once, with sections of the bar dedicated to different sports. If you come in to watch a particular fight or a football game, there’s a screen tuned in just for you. It smells like expensive cigars and leather, like pine needles and stacks of cash, all scents that make a man grateful for his testosterone. The décor consists of rock walls, dark wood, warm lighting, and pretty waitresses. And I’m extremely proud of it.

But I don’t just own the bar. The whole block is mine. The bar on the corner, the small indoor arena where local fights take place every Tuesday night and once a month on Saturdays, the gym beyond that, and at the end of the block, a sporting goods store, filled with Tag Team gear and equipment with my label emblazoned across every surface. My own apartment and two others, occupied by people of my choosing, sit above the training gym. The city block is my whole world, a world of my creation. And it’s all connected, each business playing off the others.

Even the bar and the fight arena are connected, and on the nights when there aren’t fights, the arena seats are cordoned off by a wall of metal accordion doors, and the cage becomes a stage in a back room, a private alcove filled with a dozen small tables and booths, the bar easily accessible just around the corner, and waitresses keeping you comfortable and in your seats. Four nights a week, the little arena is home to a totally different kind of show, a completely different kind of sporting event. A pole is erected in the center of the cage and there are no fighters allowed inside, just one woman after another, spinning and writhing on the pole in time to the throbbing pulse of music that is muted throughout the rest of the establishment. I keep it classy—as classy as stripper poles and half-naked ladies can be. The girls dance, they don’t strip, and they don’t mingle beyond the cage. But it’s just hot enough, just risqué enough, that I keep it separate from the rest of the establishment. It’s the back room for negotiations—I do more business there than anywhere else—and the cherry on the top of an establishment that caters to hard-working men who feel appropriately sheepish and grateful just to be there.

Tag’s opened two years ago, corresponding with the launch of the clothing line and my first big fight, the fight where I beat someone I had no business beating. I knocked him out cold and became a hot commodity. I timed it all, capitalizing on one success to launch another. I was a rich kid turned businessman, a cowboy more suited to riding a wave of adoration than riding a horse, and more interested in taking on the world of ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts than in taking over my father’s holdings. I could have. It was a golden-paved path that stretched out before me, a road of privilege and entitlement. But it was a road I hadn’t built, and I’m convinced you can’t ever be completely happy walking on someone else’s road. Someone else’s path. The way to true happiness is to forge your own, even if your road isn’t straight. Even if there are bridges to build and mountains to tunnel through. Nothing feels as good as paving your own way.

I’d come to Salt Lake City ready to start building roads three years before. I had money—some of it my own, money I’d earned with Moses, and some of it money I hadn’t earned. I was a rich kid, but I wasn’t a stupid kid. I knew I needed capital to build an empire. Sometimes it takes money to make money. So I took the money my dad gave me and promised myself that I would give it back before I died or before I turned thirty. Whichever came first.

At twenty-six, I didn’t have much time or wiggle room. But I was on track, and the bar was doing extremely well. The evidence was all around me when I walked in the front door that Monday night—typically the slowest night of the week—to full stools and tables, to the happy thrum of relaxed customers. The place hummed and my heart warmed to the music. Two of my waitresses pranced by, dressed like ring girls in Tag Team booty shorts and halter tops, delivering rounds instead of announcing them. They sent identical smiles my way and tossed their hair, almost as if it were part of the job description. Maybe it should be . . . or maybe it was just common sense. You always smile at the boss.

I wasn’t there to flirt, though I smiled automatically. Instead, I calculated the mood of the room, the number of men bellied up to the bar, the number of tables filled, the flow of the alcohol and the efficiency of the wait staff. When I approached the bar to touch base with Morgan, my manager, a pulsing beat began to throb from down the hall, from around the darkened corner where the girls danced and the music was louder.

“Who’s dancing tonight?” I inquired, not really caring, but asking anyway.

“Justine. Lori. And the new girl.” Morgan smirked like he had a secret, and I was immediately suspicious. He slid a Coke in front of me as I sat down and I took a long pull before I gave him a response.

“Oh yeah? Judging from that shit-eating grin, I’m guessing there’s something you need to tell me about the new girl.”

“Nah. Nothing. She’s beautiful. Great dancer. Great body. She’s been on the schedule for the last two weeks, though you’ve missed her every time. She’s always on time, never says two words. She dances, doesn’t drink, doesn’t flirt. Just how you like ‘em.” Again with the smirk.

“Huh.” I pushed my Coke away and stood, knowing I might as well go see what he was up to. Leave it to Morgan to dress up one of my Tag Team fighters and put him in the cage in a bikini. He loved a practical joke. But he was a damn good bartender . . . even if he drove me crazy with the pranks.

I called out to a few customers, shook some hands, kissed Stormy’s cheek as she delivered icy bottles of cold beer, and waved to Malcolm Short, who obviously hadn’t taken the time to change after work and looked slightly ridiculous in his three piece suit and his Utah Jazz ball cap. But the Jazz were playing, and he was getting in the spirit, happy as a clam sitting on his stool, eyes fixed on the screen. He was one of my Tag Team sponsors and it was good seeing him happy.

I was almost as good at working the room as I was at working the octagon, though I’d rather be fighting any day. But my thoughts were on business as I strode across the room and through the arch that separated the dancing girls from the sports bar. My eyes went straight to the cage, expecting the worst. But it was Justine at the pole, finishing her number with a swivel of her hips and a final turn around the cage. Justine strode off, hips swaying arms waving, as if she’d just announced the next round, and the lights went dark.