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| Henley Street Bridge, Knoxville, TN |
From
Half My Blood
Copyright © 2015 by Lauren Gilley
~*~
Blood
has been one of the primary flavors of my life. It isn’t now. Now, it’s been
over a year since it flowed across my tongue, all salt and heat, dark copper
chocolate. You don’t grow up at the mercy of a man’s fists without knowing well
the taste of your own blood, welling up from the splits in your cheeks, and
tongue, and broken lips. The taste was never what frightened me – it was the
sight of it. The way it shines in the sun when it’s wet, glassy on top. It
stops my heart every time – looking at spilled blood.
Usually.
But last week, I found a place at
the top of a page in Moby Dick, a little dark stain where the paper had cut
Michael’s finger. Not my blood. Not Mama’s spilled in dark rancid stains on the
rumpled sheets. Not Abraham’s in the snow. Dewey’s on the blade of the knife.
Jacob’s steaming on Cassius’s muzzle. I can still hear the dog ripping into
them sometimes, if I close my eyes and think about snow.
But this was Michael’s blood, and it
had spilled on accident, and it was just a little spot.
My husband’s blood.
The blood that makes up half of the
little girl in my belly.
My girl…
Holly
McCall
One
The Henley Street Bridge
The Henley Street Bridge
For Aidan, it wasn’t the University of Tennessee’s
sprawling brick campus, but the Henley Street Bridge that stood as signature monument
in his hometown of Knoxville. His father’s empire crouched on the banks of the
Tennessee River, and if he stood at the shore, the brackish smell of water
filling his lungs, he could look upriver and see the bridge, its soaring arches
black silhouettes against the ragged orange of the sunset. It had never been
the posh university scene to which he’d belonged, but to the industrial,
dirty-handed river side of the city. In a way, it felt like he’d grown up in
the shadow of that bridge. His ancestors hadn’t been the ones to build the
school – they’d built the concrete and steel miracle of infrastructure instead.
He
had no illusions about his bloodline.
He
didn’t kid himself about the picture he presented to the citizens of Knoxville.
He knew what they thought of him; no golden boy, him, no. A little wicked
curiosity from the young women, censure and fear from the old. Men both admired
and hated him on sight. No matter what Hollywood pretended, outlaws would never
be in style. It was impossible to be popular when your arms were orange and
blue and red and black with ink.
It
was early evening as he hit the bridge, a molten sunset sliding over the city,
flaring in car windows and glinting off street signs.
Behind
his shades, Aidan surveyed the opposite bank, and grinned to himself as he
gunned the throttle and shot across the river. His Harley always sounded a
little different when he was on the Henley Street Bridge, a strange echoing
with all that space between the biker and the water, separated only by the
asphalt under the tires.
The
water was jewel-toned in the fading light. The breeze was strong against his
face, whistling over his ears, pressing little lines into his skin – aging him,
just as it had aged all his brothers.
It
was wonderful.
Too
soon, he was clear of the bridge and heading into the bustling heart of the
city. He had nowhere to be; he was just cruising. Coming back from an errand
Ghost had sent him on – “Go see what Fish is up to” – and one that was clearly
just busy-work at that, he felt no rush to be back at the shop. Merc was there;
Merc was the best mechanic they had, and didn’t need overseeing. Aidan planned
on getting back in time so he could let his brother-in-law knock off early, go
home, have dinner with Ava and the baby. And he, single to his bones, would
work OT, pick up some extra change, have just enough dough to buy half-decent
wine to try and bribe Jenny Newsom into a date. And by date, he meant hooking
up on her sofa.
He
had no place to be, and was enjoying the wind in his face, and the sights and
smells of his city.
It
was his city, wasn’t it?
People
would have argued with him; said Knoxville belonged to the Vols, to its
law-abiding citizens. But like any marriage, could a man claim ownership if he
hadn’t seen and embraced the dark parts? He didn’t know; he’d have to ask one
of his married brothers about that. Not Mercy, though, because his sister was
just his sister, and didn’t count among his notions of married women.
Regardless, he felt at least a part-owner of Knoxville. And he loved this city.
It
was with regret that he coasted to a halt at the next red light.
At
first.
In
the left-hand lane alongside him sat a putrid yellow Mustang convertible. He
mentally berated the driver for both the color and his choice of a drop-top;
hideously uncool. Nearest him, in the passenger seat, a girl shook out her
windblown blonde hair and turned to him with obvious interest, a dazzling smile
splitting her suntanned face.
Aidan
smirked. It never failed; the ladies loved the bike.
As
he watched her, the blonde leaned over the door of the Mustang, giving him a
view down her shirt; she was squeezing her breasts together for effect.
“I
like your bike!” she called over the grumble of car and Harley, grinning again.
He
grinned back. “You wanna ride?”
She
laughed and sat back, tossing her hair. “I dunno…” She gestured to the driver
next to her.
The
guy was dark-haired, and looked like he lived in a gym. Tight t-shirt and
Oakley shades. Typical prick.
Aidan
gave a dismissive snort she probably couldn’t hear. “Fuck him,” he said. “He’s
got a goddamn yellow car.”
He
couldn’t hear her laughter, but could see it in her wide smile and convulsing
shoulders.
And
then her boyfriend noticed what was going on, and shot Aidan an ugly scowl
across the car. He said something to the girl Aidan couldn’t hear, and the girl
tossed her hair and shot him back a dirty look of her own.
Aidan
couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face.
The
boyfriend glared at him again, and then came the most universal invitation
known to competitive mankind. He revved his engine.
It
didn’t sound bad – clearly, he had a V8 under the hood on his yellow travesty
of a muscle car. But all the major US automakers had long since leashed their
muscular beasts, and it wasn’t the indomitable throaty growl of Mustangs long
past. It sure as hell couldn’t compete with the sound of Aidan’s pipes as he
answered the revving with one of his own.
Cross-traffic
was slackening in the intersection in front of them. The light was getting
ready to change.
The
douche in the car gave Aidan a level stare over the top of his girlfriend’s
head. The blonde turned and folded her arms over the ledge of the open window,
openly watching Aidan, grinning like mad.
Aidan
had no doubt that if he whooped this guy’s ass bad enough, that girl would be
on the back of his bike in a heartbeat.
He
sent his competitor a challenging grin. His hands tensed, fingers twitching
inside his leather gloves. The soles of his feet tingled in anticipation.
The
cars were stopping at the balk line.
Green
light coming in five…
He
cranked the throttle.
…four…
The
Mustang growled in answer.
…three…
The
Harley’s rear tire screamed; Aidan could smell the acrid stink of burning
rubber, and knew he was kicking up a vaporous cloud of smoke.
…two…
“Eat
shit, dickhead,” Aidan called, and the blonde’s mouth opened in silent
laughter, painted lips stretched wide over white teeth.
…one.
The
thing civilians didn’t understand about a Harley Dyna Super Glide is that it
was fast. They always expected to get whipped by crotch rockets, but
they never counted on the sinister black Harley showing them up.
Aidan
got the jump on the Mustang, thanks to lightness alone, and then his engine put
the leashed fuel-efficient V8 to shame. If it was Holly McCall’s Chevelle SS he
was running against, he might have had a problem, but not now. Now, he flew off
the balk line and laughed as the Mustang surged along his flank, trying to
catch him.
He
and Tango had raced at this light before, from it to the next one, and it was a
little over a quarter mile, and arrow-straight. He knew this stretch of
Knoxville road like he knew the tattoos running up both arms; he could have run
this race with his eyes shut. And so he risked a glance back over his shoulder,
to see the blonde’s hair whipping around her head, to see the driver glaring at
him, lips moving as he muttered curses. Aidan grinned at them, and thought he
saw the blonde wave at him.
Then
he faced the road again…
Just
in time to see a tow-headed little boy dart off the sidewalk and into his path.
The
world stopped.
It
simply ceased to exist.
His
friends, his family, his club. His bike and his tats and his favorite gloves
curled tight around the grips, the flaring chrome of his handlebars. The beers
he wanted to drink, the pool he wanted to shoot, the girls he wanted to bed.
The things he wanted to prove to his father. All of it gone, in that instant.
He wasn’t Aidan Teague – the biker, the Lean Dog, the son, the stepson, the
half-brother, the club-brother – but a weapon bearing down on the oblivious
child chasing his dropped toy out into the street.
In
the vacuum, in those few seconds when he lost all touch with himself, Aidan
noticed so many details. The woman on the sidewalk, obviously the boy’s mother,
lurching after the boy, face contorted in a horrified scream. The faces turned
toward him on the other side of the coffee shop window, their features blurred
by glaring sunlight. The pale whitish streaks in the boy’s hair; hair pretty
enough to belong to a girl, styled in an unfortunate bowl cut. The grit and
glass-glimmer of the pavement. The sweat trickling down his temples, his head
too hot beneath his helmet.
A
photographic moment, one that seemed to last hours, rather than seconds.
I’m
going to kill him, Aidan realized.
The
boy turned his head, and the sunlight fell on his soft-featured face, eyes
glinting like blue marbles as they opened wide at the sight of the bike bearing
down on him.
No,
Aidan thought. I’m not. And he lurched heavily to the left, swerving
into the other lane. The Mustang’s lane, he remembered, the same moment something
clipped the back of his bike and a shudder went through the machine.
The
last thing he saw, before the blackness closed in, was the bright blue dome of
the sky overhead, arching over the building roofs, pouring sun down into his
eyes. It was beautiful. It felt like he was flying.
And
then nothing.
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