Page 22 of Absinthe Dreams
“Thanks for entertaining me on this,” he said, like he’d asked for something more than to scope out the back and walk the alley length around to his bike out front.
“Seriously, it’s no problem,” I said with a laugh. “I get what you’re doing.”
We reached the end of the alley, and a car approached from our left. He threw out an arm and tucked me behind him as it passed, but it was just a woman looking up and out of her windshield, starry-eyed at the splendor of the Garden District. A tourist, judging by her Tennessee plates.
When he judged the coast to be clear, he captured my fingers with his and towed me along.
“C’mon,” he said, and we walked down half a block or so, and turned right to go back up my street in the front. His bike wasparked against the curb in front of my little cottage, and I felt a frisson of excitement.
I missed riding.
The nostalgia was real and almost instantaneous as the pipes roared to life beneath us. That familiar thrum zinged my tailbone only to reverberate up my spine, tickling out along my central nervous system in a rush to my very fingertips. I loved the feel of old leather and patches beneath them as I held on to the man in front of me, and I had to remind myself – this life was nothing to play with, romanticize, or have feelings about.
The reality was often brutal, and held a deep well of pain when it came to separation and estrangement – whether that be from lengthy prison sentences, or worse, the grave.
This was a hard life that was lived on the ragged edge, and these men were dangerous. Dangerous to a point where I’d fought hard and won my place outside of the danger and the constant knot of dread in the pit of my stomach every time my dad had gone out the front door, or my favorite “uncle” in their faded leather and denim cuts with their dirty patches to do something else potentially hazardous or stupid.
I wanted normalcy, so I’d thought, and I’d achieved it – but it’d been at a price. Were my dad and all of my uncles proud of me? Oh, most definitely. They’d cheered and whistled louder than anyone when I’d crossed that stage to pick up my diploma. They’d whistled, and a few of my uncles had even cried. Big, burly men that I’d never seen shed a tear once in my entire life sopped the moisture off their faces with their deep blue bandannas even as they hollered their pride across the convention center’s floor.
I felt a clashing sense of joy and deep sadness in my chest as the cracked and warped streets passed beneath the wheels of Chainsaw’s Harley. While it was wonderful to have my knees in the breeze once more, with the familiar snug weight of the brainbucket on my head, I longed for the past I hadn’t been able towaitto escape fifteen years or so ago.
An echo of what one of the social workers would tell our domestic abuse survivors in the ER came to mind –when you find yourself out on your own and all you’ve known is a type of violence for the home you grew up in, it’s only natural to land in a place or a dynamic that feels the same and to want that. When you find yourself out on your own, your heart tends to seek a love that feels like home…
I could feel my heart longing for that. For home. It was my job, as someone who grew up in the same dynamic, to recognize that and to caution my adult self against it. There were reasons I’d wanted to leave that life behind – and good ones at that. Thus, as much as I let myself enjoy this one little part of things and feel free in the singular moment that was the ride to wherever we were going, I knew I needed to keep it in the moment, you know?
In the moment, it seemed to include a ride down into the French Quarter and a stop near Café du Monde. He pulled up against the curb as it was early enough yet that parking wasn’t entirely impossible to find, though it was getting close.
“Breakfast,” Chainsaw called out as I stood by and worked the strap on my helmet free to take it off.
“Sorry, if I’d known, I would have fixed something back at the house,” I said. “I’m just a cup of coffee in the morning type of girl.”
“All good. This was a preordained breakfast meeting with Bennie, one of my brothers. Come on, let’s get another coffee and some fresh beignets.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and I fell into step with him, only slightly behind and to the right of him. He reached back with his hand, and without thinking, I took it – at which point he pulled me up even with him.
“Always right beside me, or just ahead of me – never behind me,” he said gently and let go of me. I felt myself blush and nodded dumbly, unsure of what to say. He smiled and winked at me.
We went into the Café. He held the door for me, even though I reached it first. He simply reached past me and hauled it open before I could.
The line was long, as it always was at the French Quarter location, and Chainsaw got into line, asking me, “You know what you want?”
“Ahhh…” I perused the menu over people’s heads. “A Café Au Lait and Beignets,” I said, adding, “And I’ve got it.” I reached into my small purse slung crossways over my chest, but Chainsaw stopped me with a hand over mine.
“You saved my life, Doc. The least I can do is buy you a cup of coffee and some breakfast.”
I blushed again, this time from the intensity of his gaze.
“I was just doing my job,” I said humbly, and his smile grew.
“And I’m doing mine, as a man, so don’t argue.”
“Okay, objection withdrawn.” I held up my hands in surrender, and he laughed.
“Thought you were a doctor, not a lawyer,” he said as we moved up in line, and I smiled at the light banter.
“Might as well be both with the way insurance companies are and how the American healthcare system works.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” he said, and he looked thoughtful for a minute.
