Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (30 page)

“I need to figure this shit out,” I counter, hoping he’ll see this my way and take me home, but I have a feeling it won’t work.
 

“Figure what out? You don’t even know who called you or why they called you, so what exactly is there to work out?” He sighs. “Look, if you can give me one good reason for us to not go through with our original plan, then I’m all ears, but Calvin, you’re not alone, this isn’t something you have to fight on your own.”
 

“I can listen to the message,” I tell him and he just shakes his head.
 

“If you wanted to do that, you would have done it already, your phone is right there.” He nods toward my phone sitting under the radio between us. “But you haven’t because you don’t want to deal with it, you’d rather hide from it, so rather than secluding yourself in your house, come to my house and when you want to know what the message says, I’ll tell you.”
 

I sigh, of course he has a good fucking point. “I feel bad,” I tell him honestly.
 

“So you’d rather run away from explaining to me why you ‘feel bad’? Well, I’m pretty sure I can guess why it is that you feel bad, but the bottom line in this equation is that what happened earlier is in the past, it was a learning lesson for both of us, it was…well, it wasn’t easy to deal with, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you run away from me because you think that’s what I want.” He looks at me as he comes to a stop at the light, “Calvin, I didn’t stay with you all afternoon and tonight because I feel sorry for you. No, I stayed with you because I wanted to be there.”
 

“But you were so pissed,” I tell him as I look away, the light changes and I nod, indicating that he should go.
 

“Of course I was, but I wasn’t pissed at you.”
 

“Then why?” I ask in a rushed whisper.
 

I watch as his knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. I’ve riled him back up again. This isn’t going to be good.
 

“It’s never you, Cal, never. I was pissed off because of several reasons. One, there are motherfuckers on this planet that are capable of the things they’ve done to you. And two, because they fucking did it to you. They fucking took you away from…”
 

“From you?” I breathe.
 

He sighs. “No, yes, maybe, I don’t know, but if they hadn’t done that to you, either you would have already found your happily ever after…”
 

“If they hadn’t done that to me, Eric, I would have never learned to play guitar, I would have never gotten good enough at it to be who I am today. Without the guitar, without the delays in things like getting my GED and getting into college, I would have never met you, Talon, Dex, Kyle and we would have never formed a band, and you and I would have never met.” I turn in my seat to look at him. “I never thought that I would ever think of what happened to me as a good thing, not until now. But if you think about what I’ve been through and how it’s gotten me to this, sitting in the car with you after a wonderful date, it was meant to happen to me.” I reach over and pull his hand from the steering wheel and intertwine our fingers as he looks at me briefly.
 

“It doesn’t make what I went through any easier, it doesn’t steal away the pain, the panic, the things that happened to me, but they certainly make me see that there was a higher purpose to it all,” I tell him.
 

“Fate,” he breathes.
 

I smile. “Exactly.” I rub my thumb along his knuckles. “Until tonight, walking on the beach, doing something romantic, I never thought about things from the other side before. For the last ten years, I’ve let that conditioning define who I am, but now, now it’s different. Everything is changing between us and…” I pause, looking down at our hands. His hands are meaty, mine are smaller, softer. The contrast is almost startling, but there is a comfort, a warmth that comes from looking at our hands. “And I don’t want this to stop.”
 

He gives me a small smile and he looks at me from the corner of his eye, thankful that he’s distracted by the road.
 

“Tell me,” My voice is hesitant.
 

He looks at me with alarm. “Tell you what?”
 

“What the message said.”
 

He sighs. “Can’t we wait until we’re back at my place?”
 

“No, I’d like to know now. I’d like to process it before we get back to your house, talk about it in the parking lot or whatever, but I don’t want it carrying over into your house.”
 

He gives me a quizzical look. “I just mean that when we walk into your apartment, I want it to be me and you, nothing else,” I tell him softly and I mean every word of it.
 

His hand squeezes tighter around mine. “Do you know a Mary Beth Pickens?” he asks and I’m immediately back home mentally, racking my brain through people, names, faces, places.
 

“I knew a Tommy Pickens. I went to school with him. He was a year younger than I was, total nerd…he didn’t have a sister, I don’t think…his mom maybe?”
 

“Does church ring a bell?”
 

I shudder, remembering that hell hole of a church. Okay, the church was nice, but the people in it were from another world. Hell, they all thought a lot like my father, but I seem to remember, someone around my mother’s age, though I couldn’t pick her out of a line up…”I don’t know, maybe? I quit going to church after my mother died or ran off or-” I drop that subject, because well, it’s going to dredge up too much garbage. “My father had gone for a few years afterward, then eventually he started drinking way too much and he could barely get out of bed before noon on a Sunday, but that’s irrelevant. What did she want? Why was she calling from my father’s house? Is that motherfucker dead?” I can’t help the contempt that drips from my voice.
 

“Not yet.” He sighs. “She lives there, at the house.”
 

I shudder at the idea of my father with anyone long enough to move in, but Eric continues, “She says that he’s sick, ‘real sick’.” He uses air quotes with his free hand. “She said…” he trails off, not wanting to tell me the rest.
 

“We’re nearly to your house, Eric, spill it, please,” I encourage him.
 

“He’s really sick and…” I squeeze his hand, hoping to convey to him that I would really like him to tell me what he knows. “He’s asking for you.”
 

That bomb drops just as Eric pulls into the parking lot of his building and I drop his hand. My body begins to vibrate and I am overcome with anger, frustration, panic and an overwhelming need to snap something in half. “Stop the car.” He doesn’t stop. “Damn it, stop the fucking car,” I growl.

“Let me park.”
 

“No, stop the fucking car,” I growl louder.
 

Eric screeches to a halt and I climb out of the car and growl at the top of my lungs.

I throw the car in park and climb out, racing around the car. “Calvin, come on,” I say as I round the trunk and charge toward him before he does something insanely stupid, like punch something. He goes charging in the opposite direction and I pick up my pace, running after him until I’m able to wrap my arms around his chest and hold him to me.
 

“Let me go, motherfucker,” he growls and struggles to get free of me.
 

“Not until you calm down,” I tell him calmly.
 

“Let me go,” he growls again but he starts to settle a little bit.
 

“What are you so pissed off about?” I ask him, hoping to make him think before he keeps going half-cocked.
 

“Fuck off.”
 

“Fuck you, Calvin.”
 

“Fuck you,” he grunts back as he fights me once again.
 

“Gladly,” I murmur in his ear and he softens.

“He’s dying, Eric.”
 

“And? Why does that piss you off?”
 

“Because he’s not dead yet.” He stills in my arms completely, defeated, and he deflates.
 

“Is that what you want? Is that what will make you feel better?”
 

“Yes.” His voice is harsh, but I feel his complete conviction.
 

“So are you pissed because she called to tell you that he’s dying and not that he’s dead?” I can’t help my confusion of the subject, though his father is far from any person I’d want to meet face to face. I certainly can’t promise not to kill him myself.
 

“Yes, and that he’s fucking asking for me. That cocksucker sent me away to an institution when I was a teenager, then never spoke to me again. I didn’t even know he knew how to reach me, and now, after all these years I get a call from his fucking bitch mistress trying to tell me that he is asking for me. Where the fuck does he get off even asking for me in the first place?”
 

I sigh and release him. I know he’s pissed but I think he’s calmed down enough to avoid doing anything stupid. “Do you think it was a ploy?” I ask in hopes of keeping him talking.
 

“No, I just don’t see him asking for me.” His voice is very matter of fact and I can’t say that I blame him. “He’s wanted nothing to do with me since the day my mother died. At that point I became a burden to him, hindering his drinking, at least until I was old enough to do his dirty work on the farm. Then I was okay again, but seriously, he fucking has no clue what he’s put me through in my life, not just what he did to me. And he wants to fucking see me? I don’t think so.”
 

“Then your problem is solved. You don’t have to see him, you don’t have to talk to him, Cal, you don’t have to do anything. Just let it go. Let the bastard die alone and without your sympathy.” I’m not sure if that’s something he can truly live with for the rest of his life, but that is his choice. I can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.
 

“I can’t go to him anyway. We leave tomorrow.”
 

“Do you want to go to him?”
 

He turns on me with the glare of thousand daggers. “Fuck no, I don’t.”
 

“So then what’s the issue?”
 

He sighs, “I guess there isn’t one.”
 

I give him a small smile. “Good, now get back in the car.”
 

“Can I walk? I need some fresh air.”
 

I nod. “Sure. I’ll meet you at my car?”
 

“Yeah,” he says sadly and I get back in the car. I don’t want to leave him alone too long but I also know that I can’t force him to talk to me if he doesn’t want to. I also don’t want him being pissed at me or himself for the information he has and I sure as shit don’t want him holding it against me someday if he doesn’t go see his father before he dies.
 

I pull into a spot right next to his car, afraid that he planned on running toward his car and taking off. I don’t want him to be alone ever, but certainly not tonight. I climb out of the car and I can see him off in the distance. We weren’t all that far away, but it looks like he’s really just taking his time. I rub my palms on my thighs, the urge to smoke is getting stronger than I can possibly handle. I haven’t smoked regularly for a few years, but sometimes, situations are just too stressful and I need to take a moment to myself.
 

I crawl back into my car, hoping to find the pack I’d bought the other night on my way to Calvin’s house. I thought I was going to need it and rather than smoking myself stupid, I got drunk instead. I find the pack and a lighter in the center console, and I open it, pulling out the first cigarette that I’ve had in a few months and lighting it before I get back out of my car.
 

Calvin is standing on the passenger side, closest to his car. “Can I have one?”
 

I raise an eyebrow at him, but decide not to argue with him and slide the pack across the roof of the car. He catches it, pulls one out, looks at it and lights it up before tossing the pack and lighter back at me. He takes a drag and looks at the cherry, not saying anything.