Bones by the Wood (16 page)

“Hey, Mama.”  Josh was speaking to her, but his eyes were all for Dizzy.

“Hey, bud.  We’re gonna go on an adventure for a couple of days.  You up for it?  We’ll be stayin’ somewhere new.”

Her little boy who was beginning to find his path to begin his journey to being a man looked up at her with wide eyes.  “You’re comin’ too?”

“Sure am, bud.  Come on, hop in the car.”

Josh was still pretty much frozen in place, darting glances at Dizzy as if unsure whether to turn his back on him. 

“Hey.  I’m Dizzy.”  Dizzy put out his hand. 

Josh looked at it for a long moment then took it and gave it a firm shake.

“Hi, my name’s Josh.  Dizzy’s kinda a si...sorry... you’re really called that?” 

“Yes I am.  My name’s Stephen, but all my friends call me Dizzy.  It’s nice to meet you Josh.  You and your mama are goin’ to be stayin’ with me and my friends for a couple of days.  It’s gonna be a bit like a big crazy party, but I think you’ll like it.”

Her boy nodded mutely.  Dizzy, who was still smiling indulgently, pushed away from the car and went to his bike.  Thea put her hand on Josh’s shoulder to guide him around to the passenger side door.  Once he was seated, she settled herself into the driver’s seat.  She checked that Josh had his seatbelt on and checked in her rearview mirror that Dizzy was ready to go before she pulled away.

They weren’t far from the clubhouse when Josh asked, “Why’re we goin’ to Mr. Dizzy’s house, Mama?”

“It’s not Mr. Dizzy, it’s just Dizzy, bud.  And it’s not his house, it’s a place he stays with all his friends.”  She didn’t know if he was living there or somewhere else, but she was stalling for time.  “They’re havin’ a get-together for the weekend and they invited us.”

“Like a party?”

“Kinda.”

“Will there be fireworks?”

“No, bud.  I don’t think so.  It might be kina borin’, but it’d have been rude to say ‘no’ and we don’t like bein’ rude, do we?”

“No.”  Josh paused again.  “Will there be other kids there?”

“No, but Aunty Annelle’s there.  And I think I saw an Xbox hooked up to the TV.  If you ask nice I think they’ll let you play.”  Thea had seen the games console and hoped like hell that she wasn’t promising anything beyond the bounds of reasonableness, and that they had some games that didn’t involve stealing cars or shooting zombies.  Josh had gotten to know Annelle as Thea’s friendship with the older woman had grown.  He’d met some of the girls from the club, too.

“Okay.  Mama?”

“Yes, bud?”

“This is kinda weird.”

Thea couldn’t help but laugh, almost hysterically so, at her son’s blunt statement.  She swiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand as she turned onto the road that led to the clubhouse.  “Yes, bud.  Yes, it is.  But it’s just for this weekend and it should still be pretty fun.”  Thea hoped she wasn’t lying to her boy.  They had lives to carry on with.  She wanted them safe, but she hoped fervently that they wouldn’t be living under a shadow for weeks or even months.

Thea parked her car in the same spot that she’d left it in originally.  While she was making sure that Josh didn’t forget his school bag and as she was retrieving the bag of their belongings, Dizzy and Fitz backed their bikes into the line in front of the clubhouse.  There weren’t any gaps.  It looked like the girls had heeded Dizzy’s instruction to be quick.

As they were walking to the door of the clubhouse, under Dizzy and Fitz’s watchful eye, Josh stumbled and nearly tripped.  Thea saw that he was too busy staring at the impressive row of Harleys to watch where he was walking.  It was a mass of black and chrome, some matte, some shiny, and one was actually a very dark blue, but they all managed to look completely individual.  It was worth a look or two, and Thea could understand Josh’s avid observation.

She put her palm behind his shoulders, without actually touching him, to guide him through the door, and then let her hand drop so that he couldn’t accuse her of destroying his street cred.  She decided to aim for Annelle, but she’d gone a step and a half before she realized that Josh had pulled up short.  When she turned, he was standing stock still. His eyes were wide and he was a little pale.  Thea looked around the room and realized what the problem was.  It wasn’t that Josh wasn’t used to crowds, but he wasn’t used to this many men, big men at that, all of whom were openly carrying guns and knives on their persons.  A couple of them were humongous, and would seem bigger to a ten-year-old.  Thea mentally kicked herself for not thinking to warn him better about what he would be walking into, and then kicked herself all over again that he’d had the kind of life where a few men gathering in a room caused him to freeze.

His street cred be damned.  She put her palm on his shoulders at the nape of his neck.

“It’s okay, bud.  They’re all friends.”

“Hey, Josh.”  Dizzy had appeared on Josh’s other side.  “How ‘bout I introduce you around?”

Josh gave a small, tight nod, but didn’t speak.

Thea let Dizzy lead Josh around the room as he introduced him to all the patches first, then to the women that she didn’t know.  It was useful for her, too.  Shaggy and Fitz she knew now.  The short man with the curly hair was Cage, the other shorter man of the bunch, although that wasn’t saying much in a room full of semi-giants, was Easy.  Shaggy’s darker twin was Scooby, and Lyla’s man was, seemingly quite appropriately, Ferret.  The local, whose name Thea still couldn’t remember, was introduced as Nut.  They all nodded and smiled ‘hello’ to Josh. 

By the time her boy returned to her, he was much more relaxed.  Josh turned his face up to look at Dizzy.

“Why’d you call him Nut?”

“It’s short for Wing Nut, ‘cause his ears stick out.”

Josh screwed his face up.  “But that’s really cruel.  Calling people names like that is really nasty.”

Thea bit back a grin as she watched Dizzy try and come up with an excuse.  She could have taken over and thrown him a lifeline, but it was just too amusing watching him struggle.

“You’re right.  It is bad to call people names when you’re tryin’ to hurt them.  But this ain’t like that.  It’s kinda a nickname.  He knows we’re not bein’ nasty.”

Josh didn’t look at all convinced.  Dizzy turned pleading eyes to Thea.  

“Don’t you have some homework to do, bud?”

“Yeah.”  Josh’s tone was utterly despondent.

“Right, well, let’s get you set up doin’ that while me and Aunty Annelle sort out dinner.  We’re havin’ hotdogs.  Oh, and Clarice found your science book in her flat today.  You must’ve left it there.”

Josh didn’t look any more pleased that his lost textbook had been returned.  Thea looked at Dizzy as she spoke, asking with that look if she was speaking out of turn; she didn’t know if the book was needed as any sort of evidence, but he nodded and left her to settle Josh to his homework tasks.  She saw him disappear through the double doors, and by the time she had Josh set up at a table, Dizzy had brought the book over and tucked it safely into Josh’s bag.

Satisfied that Josh was occupied, Thea joined Annelle and Alex in the kitchen to prepare the evening meal.  The advantage of this meal was that it didn’t strictly require cutlery, or even plates much beyond a paper napkin, so everyone was able to eat without moving from their seats, and there wasn’t a mountain of pots to wash afterwards.

Once everyone had eaten, and the cleaning that was required had been done, Josh coerced Shaggy into playing a racing game, although Thea couldn’t say for certain that there was an awful lot of coercion involved.  The huge man and her young son we soon yelling at the screen.  With his hooked nose and heavy brow, Shaggy had appeared to be the caricature of the rough biker heavy, but seeing him now, cackling with laughter, as was Scooby, who was perched on the arm of the sofa that Josh and Shaggy shared, Thea was charmed.

Everyone found some way to occupy themselves.  Some people played cards, others were chatting.  Thea noticed that there were one or two bodies missing.  There were none of the blatant sexual acrobatics that she’d witnessed when she’d visited the clubhouse in the past, and she thought that perhaps, in deference to the presence of a child in the room, people were being more discreet.  She’d been sitting quietly on her own, watching them for a while, when Dizzy joined her.

“You know, when you said you had a boy, ‘til I saw the picture, I would’ve thought Josh would’ve been younger.  You don’t look old enough to have a kid in grade school.”

“Thanks for the compliment.  I think.  I was nineteen when I had him.”

“He got a daddy?”

“I don’t know.” 

Dizzy gave her a look that started off shocked and ended up expectant.

“Hey.”  Thea was a little offended that he seemed to be making assumptions.  “It ain’t like that.  His daddy was a junkie.  I didn’t know how bad until after I got knocked up.  He’s somewhere on the other side of the state.  Could be dead for all I know.  He never tried to contact me or Josh after I left.”

“He let you walk away with his son?”  Even shaded by his hat, Thea could see Dizzy’s brows draw down in disbelief.

Thea shrugged.  She’d gotten past the anger and sadness that had once hurt her so much.  “He cared about the junk more.”

They were interrupted when Cage called Dizzy over, from the looks of it, to mediate a dispute in a game of cards he was playing with Ferret, Lyla and Alex.  After what appeared to be an extremely animated discussion, Dizzy came back to her. 

Before he could sit down, Thea asked, “Are we crashing on the sofas tonight?  Only, I think Josh is about to pass out on Shaggy over there.  I really should get him into bed, or into... whatever.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, you and your boy have a bed.  You’ll have to share, though.”

Thea had expected that might be the case, if they were lucky enough to warrant a mattress.  “Of course.  Thank you.”

“Come on, you get your boy and follow me.”

It was a strong indication of just how tired he was that Josh only protested half-heartedly when Thea extracted him from his new friends.  She made sure to thank Shaggy and Scooby, she was sure there were more... adult pursuits that they would rather have been, well, pursuing, but they hadn’t complained once about entertaining Josh.

Dizzy led them through a door off the main room which led to a corridor which was lined on one side by a series of doors stained the same dark hue as the furniture in the main room.  He led them to the door at the end of the corridor, pulled his key chain out of his pocket, selected a key, and unlocked the door.  He opened it, and waved them into the room beyond.  Thea was surprised, but pleased, to see their bag of belongings in the center of the bed.

“Thank you,” Thea said gratefully.  She was exhausted from the adrenaline highs, the stresses and the sheer fullness of the activities of the day and had no intention of doing anything other than lying down on the bed with Josh and falling into a coma.

“No problem, sweetheart.  You sleep well, you too, Josh.”

Josh mumbled something incoherent, being almost fully asleep on his feet.  He listed strongly to one side, but Thea caught him before he fell.  Dizzy chuckled and left them to their room without further distraction.

Thea half-carried Josh inside and managed to get him onto the bed.  She moved their bag to the floor, tucking it under a cheap, black veneer desk that was situated against one wall next to a matching set of drawers.  The basic double bed was pushed against the other wall, and in the third wall was a door which mirrored the one that led into the hallway.  When Thea investigated, she found that it led to a small bathroom.  The walls were white-washed, like the ones in the corridor and the main room.  It was obvious that whoever had been responsible for the changes hadn’t particularly cared about interior design aesthetics.