Free Donnybrook: A Novel by Frank Bill Page B

female voice was feather-pillow-soft with worry. “Marshal Pike just wanted to know if I’d seen or heard from you. Wondered why you’d go and rob a gun shop for one grand. Not take a penny more and leave the shotgun.”
    “What’d you tell him?” Jarhead asked.
    Tammy said, “Last I seen you the sun was rising. The kids was crying with shitty diapers.”
    Jarhead was restless and a bit worried. He hadn’t beat on a bag nor run for conditioning since the robbery. He needed to expand his lungs. Feel some flesh give. Bring some hurt. He needed to make some tracks toward Orange County. And he wasn’t real comfortable with what had happened a few nights back. Worried about the county officer he’d beat, the man he’d choked out, the cops he’d outrun. What if they’d gotten the plate number of the truck he’d fled the scene in with Tig? He told Tammy, “It’ll be over soon.”
    Tammy asked, “Promise?”
    “Promise. After this coming weekend I be the winner of the Donnybrook. I’ll send someone for you and the babies.”
    Tig and his cousin had given him a place to rest his head, a spare room with a cot and soured sheets. In the night Jarhead heard a lot of men coming and going from the basement. But he ignored whatever it was they did besides siphoning fuel. They were his transportation to Orange County this evening.
    “Why not you?” Tammy asked.
    Jarhead told her, “Can’t risk being seen in or near Hazard after what I done did. I win, none of that’ll matter no way. Be more money than either of us ever did see in our lives.”
    Tammy got quiet. A child sneezed in the background. She asked, “What if you don’t win? What if they’s someone meaner and tougher than you? Then what we gonna do?”
    There was always a what if? . Like the first time Jarhead threw a punch. What if that man hadn’t seen him do it? Knock that other boy silly for bullying another. What if he’d not seen something in Jarhead? Taken him under his wing. Learned him how to fight. Throw a punch. An elbow. A knee. How to work his hips. Rotate and turn a fist. Where to hit and how to hit. The kidneys. The liver. Heart. How to take care of his body. Be confident, not cocky, like the man he’d never known. His real father. A marine who’d served in the Vietnam war and boxed in Puerto Rico. The man that his mother had nicknamed him after. She told him she’d left Miles before Johnny was born. That his real father, Miles Knox, spoke with the dead. Had a violent streak and a hankering for the bourbon. His mother had given him her maiden name, not his father’s.
    Johnny often wondered if Miles was alive or had passed away. He’d never tried to make contact. His mother had confessed all of this to him just days before the dark cloud hit and she’d committed suicide after his stepdaddy had passed from black lung.
    “Honey,” he said, “they is always someone meaner. But the smart fighter is the better fighter. I’ll win. I’ve no other choice. Then I’ll send someone for you.”
    Tammy questioned once more, “You promise?”
    “I done told that I did.”
    “Wanna hear you say it again.”
    The gloom in Tammy’s tone was killing him. He had to stay focused on their future, not her uncertain sadness.
    “Promise.” Jarhead changed the subject. “How our babies doing?”
    Tammy’s voice cheered up. “Little Caleb is getting the sneezes. Zeek is sleeping.”
    “How about you, got enough Oxycontin for your pains?”
    Tammy had lower-back spasms from an uncle who’d raised her with knuckles, knees, and slats of busted pine to her body after her parents disappeared with the traveling fairs. From her childhood to adulthood, all she knew was pain. Till she met Jarhead. Who took her away. Paid the uncle a late-night visit. Made sure he’d never touch anything breathing again.
    She said, “Yeah, but not enough to drown my worry for you.”
    She was so sweet it made her love tart, and that made Jarhead love her that much