Read Toward the Sound of Chaos Online
Authors: Carmen Jenner
Toward the Sound of Chaos
Toward
the Sound of Chaos
Carmen
Jenner
Toward the Sound of Chaos
Copyright © 2016 Carmen
Jenner
Published by Carmen
Jenner
All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or
mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.
This is a work of
fiction.
Names, characters, businesses,
organisations, places, events, and incidents are either of the author’s
imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for
your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are
reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use
only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting
the author’s work and for not making me set a very pissed off Jake Tucker on
you.
Remember: Pirates are
douches. Don’t be a douche.
Published:
Carmen Jenner May 13
th
2016
Editing:
Lauren McKellar
http://laurenkmckellar.com/hire-an-editor/
Cover Design:
© By Hang Le
Formatting:
Be
Designs
Contents
I
will remember the kisses
our
lips raw with love
and
how you gave me
everything
you had
and
how I
offered
you what was left of
me
–
Charles Bukowski
–
For single mothers and veterans everywhere.
Thank
you for your service.
Ellie
“
C
ome
on, come on.” I turn the key in the ignition, prayin’ it will spark to life before
I choke the living bejeebies outta it. My car, the evil spawn of Satan that it
is, coughs, sputters, and dies, and I slam my hands against the steering wheel
as I scream, “Stupid piece of crap chunk of metal.”
“Mamma
swore,” Spencer drawls from the backseat.
“I
know, I know.” I rest my head against the wheel and wish I could have a
complete do-over.
“Piece
of crap, piece of crap, piece of crap,” Spencer singsongs, getting louder with
each word. I turn my head and glare at him. He promptly shuts up.
Good
Lord. Why in the world did this have to happen today of all days? I only just
got Spencer dressed and out the door in time for our morning walk around the
duck pond—which I had to hurry him through as if the devil himself was chasing
us—and now we’re not only going to be late for school but I’m going to miss the
whole damn reason I get dressed each morning, fix my hair, and try and look
cute when all I really want to do is put on my robe and fluffy slippers, and
leave my hair à la bird’s nest while I grip my travel coffee mug for dear life.
Desperate
for some kind of miracle, I turn the key again and it backfires. Spencer starts
hollerin’ in the backseat about it being a “No!” sound, his hands pressed to
his ears.
“I’m
sorry, baby,” I say, and fumble with the radio to find a channel that’s not
running commercials. He hates those. I settle on one with a song that he
actually likes and the screamin’ stops so I turn back to the road and check the
dash for the time—8:32 A.M.
I
take hold of the key, close my eyes and promise the man upstairs that I’ll
contribute to the church bake sale this year in exchange for one little itty
bitty favor. A beat later the engine roars to life. I let out a whoop and peel
out of the parking space along North Beach Road.
Like
clockwork he emerges from the walking trail at the end of the street, wearing black
Nikes, black shorts, and a fitted grey Henley that sticks to every plane and
angle of hard-won muscle. How he runs in full sleeves in the summertime is
beyond me, but as sweat plasters that shirt to his body like a second skin, I
am not complaining. His dog, a monstrous black thing with a shiny coat—that
looks more like a wolf than any other breed I’ve seen—runs alongside him,
tethered to his waist by a long lead fastened to his belt loop. The dog also
wears a vest—Marine camouflage with the words Veteran Service Dog embroidered
on the side.
Obviously
I didn’t get all this from just one glimpse. It’s more like an accumulative set
of glimpses over let’s say a period of about ten months. Give or take. That
thing I was talking about earlier? The reason for me brushing my hair each
morning? Well, I’m looking at it.
“Good
Morning, hot Marine,” I whisper, and of course my son’s ears prick up. Spencer
may only be eight, but he can tell you every statistic worth knowing about every
war in history. He is fanatical. Especially about Marines.
Spencer
is special. At two, he was diagnosed with Autism and Sensory Processing
Disorder. I knew there was something very wrong with his behavior. He didn’t
laugh like he had as a baby; he couldn’t handle crowds, fairs, or the farmer’s
market, and playgroup was completely out of the question. He stopped speaking
for a whole year, just out of the blue. Scared me half to death. His
pediatrician said I should encourage some of the things he took an interest in.
He’d been like a sponge when it came to anything military-related, and I’d
worked for months to afford a trip to Mobile for the weekend where we could
visit Fort Gaines, Fort Morgan, and the USS Alabama. He spent the whole time
riding a high of processed sugars while he took it all in with excited whimpers
and not-so-gentle taps at my thigh. I’ve been saving up my pennies to take him
again, but it hasn’t happened yet.
“That’s
Jake Tucker,” Spencer says, just like clockwork. I think the excitement of
seeing this recluse Marine is just as much a part of his morning routine as it
is mine. For different reasons, of course.
“That’s
Jake Tucker,” I agree, somewhat wistfully, and I put my foot down on the gas so
that we’ll be at the optimal spot for staring at those dark eyes and that
emotionless face hidden by all that hair and beard as he runs along North Beach
Road. Again, the eyes aren’t something I know of so much from seeing them up
close—because I don’t think he’s ever looked in my direction a day in his life—it’s
more from seeing the various news reports on TV and the paper and magazine
clippings from my son’s collections of Marine scrapbooks. I never could tell if
they were black or dark blue.
Three,
two, one
. His heel leaves the footbridge over the
duck pond and we’re moving toward one another. Time is suspended in the nanosecond
it takes me to drive past him and his dog.
And
then it’s gone. I keep driving, glancing between the road and my rear-view
mirror. My eyes roam over his butt, like they do every day, and then I notice a
black smudge on the back of his leg. I move closer to the mirror, squinting my
eyes in order to see better.
“Mamma,
look out!”
“Hold
on Spence,” I scream, as I try to take control of the wildly spinning wheel and
my poor little car careens through Beach Park, beside the duck pond, and comes
to a stomach-turning, metal-screeching halt between the footbridge and one very
large tree.
My
head smacks off the steering wheel and nausea rolls over me like a tide as I turn
to check on Spence. I catalog his limbs and head, all intact and no blood. “You
okay, baby?”
“Mamma,
you don’t look so good,” Spencer says.
“I’m
fine,” I murmur, sounding drunk. I open and shut my eyes a bit, and the little
green numbers on the dash come into focus. 8: 35 A.M. and already this day
couldn’t get any worse.
I
close my eyes and lean against the wheel, and then the sound of Spencer’s door
opening wakes me and I spin around in my seat so fast you’d swear I was
possessed.
“You’re
Jake Tucker,” my son says.
“Yes,
I am.”
“I’m
Spencer Mason. That’s my mamma, Ellie Mason.”
“Sit
tight, ma’am.” His gruff voice fills the tiny cab of my car. I turn my head
again to see what he’s doing, but everything goes black. “I’ll get you out.”
“I’m
fine,” I say, turning back to the door. I open it and attempt to get out of the
car, but something stops me. I glance down, clumsily yanking on the seatbelt
restraining me, but his face is there in my space. His whole body is as he leans
over to unbuckle my seatbelt.
I
climb out of the vehicle, but halfway to straightening to my full height of a
meagre little five-feet, one-inch, I get woozy in the stomach and wobbly in the
boot, and I sag against the car as Jake Tucker leans into me, his warm breath
on my face.
“I
got you.”
“Blue
eyes,” I mumble.
“What?”
he says. I didn’t expect his voice to be so low, gravelly. Sexy. It sounds like
warm whiskey on a cold winter’s day.
“Blue
eyes and whiskey lullabies,” I say, my head rolling back against the car door
rather drunkenly. I must have hit it harder than I thought. “I knew they were
blue.”
He
stares at me as if I’m completely crazy. “I think you have a concussion.”
“I’m
fine.” I attempt to push off the car, but the big sweaty wall of muscle stops
me from going anywhere. He grips my shoulders hard, as if his hands are the
only thing keeping me upright.
“My
purse,” I shout, turning back to my door. He tightens his hold and stops me
from going anywhere. “I need to call Olivia to come get us.” I look down at
Spence who watches us closely and the world twists on its side, my stomach
clenches, and I puke all over Jake Tucker.
Since
he came back from the war a year ago, I’ve imagined meeting this recluse mountain
man in a number of ways: down at the Piggly Wiggly, at the Coffee Loft, and
even right here in this very park. What I hadn’t imagined upon first meeting
Jake Tucker was that I would mumble some gibberish about his eyes and how his
voice sounds like a whiskey lullaby, and then puke all down his shirt. I hadn’t
imagined falling into said puke-covered shirtfront either, but I do. Right
before I pass out.
You
know when you think to yourself that this day couldn’t possibly get any worse?
You’d be wrong. The universe always has a way of slappin’ you upside the head
and showing you just how much worse it can really get.
***
“I
still don’t understand how you wound up wedged between the footbridge and a
tree? What in the world were you doing?” Olivia, screeches from the driver’s
seat of her minivan. She’s taking Spence and I home after we spent all day
running tests that I couldn’t afford in a hospital I didn’t want to go to in
the first place.
After
puking all over Jake and passing out on him, the man had called an ambulance.
Then he’d rifled through my phone and called Olivia. Fairhope, Alabama was a
small town, and if you didn’t know everyone, you knew of everyone.
Olivia
runs the local shelter and training center, Paws for Cause. She rescues dogs
from death row, trains them to be service dogs, and pairs them up with eligible
candidates from all over America. Olivia Anders is my best friend, and just
like with an annoying older sister who is always right and way too fond of
saying “I told you so,” I divide my time spent with her between wanting to hug
her and wanting to squeeze the living daylights outta her.
“Mamma
was watching Jake Tucker in the rear-view mirror.”
“Spencer
Mason, you hold your tongue,” I snap.
“You
were not?” Olivia asks, her mouth agape.
“No,
I wasn’t.”
“Mamma’s
a fibber donkey,” Spence singsongs, and I can’t help the smile from bursting
onto my face even though it hurts my forehead as I laugh.
“Jake
Tucker. Really?” Olivia asks as she pulls into my drive. I really wish I could
just grab Spence out of the car and disappear into the house to avoid her
questioning, but I don’t see that happening on account of the fact she’s
sleeping over to keep an eye on me. Damn doctors.
“Don’t
act so surprised,” I say, gathering my purse and the Minute Maid Lemonade she
bought me from the drive-through at Sonic.
Olivia
holds her hands up in surrender. “It’s just that I’ve never heard you talk
about Jake. I didn’t even know you knew him.”
“I
don’t. Not that it matters much now anyway because I just puked all over the
man.” I get out of the car and open Spencer’s door. He climbs out, forgetting
his juice as he races for the end of the drive and waves to Mr. Williams across
the street. Olivia chuckles.
“It’s
not funny.” I wave at Mr. Williams who’s squinting at us.
“What
happened to your head? And where’s your damn car?” Mr. Williams drawls from his
front porch stoop. He never goes any farther than that last step. Even the
mailman comes up the walk because he knows Mr. Williams won’t go down it. He
was a Marine aviator in the Korean War and went on to spend twenty years in the
military. The man is as old as time. He’s also a terrible landlord on account
of his agoraphobia, but what he lacks in repairs, he makes up for in time spent
with my son. On the porch, of course, ’cause I can’t see him ever leaving it.
“Oh,
it’s in the shop.” I wave the notion away as if it’s no big deal.
“Mamma
crashed it into duck pond bridge ’cause she was too busy watching Jake Tucker,
and now she’s got a goose egg on her head.”
“Okay,
Spence. That’s enough.”
“Was
she now?” Williams leans forward on the stoop, like this is the most
fascinating news he ever heard. I throw my hands up and walk inside, leaving
them all to their laughter.
Stupid
hot Marine
.