Tales of the Sea

He’s a big man with scars on his face and large hands that he shows off when he showily cracks his knuckles. You should be intimidated by him but you’re too busy hurling insults at your boyfriend’s face like the local kids hurl water balloons at strangers who pass through the neighbourhood before giggling and speeding away on their bikes.

“You son of a bitch!”

“You what, you pawned me like a fucking watch?”

“Thought you could pick a winner? You can’t even pick your fucking dirty socks up off the floor, you lazy bum!”

“Fucking piece of shit!”

Clint just stands there while you yell and scream, not saying a word or moving a muscle until your boyfriend finally tells you to shut up and raises a hand like he’s going to hit you. Then he’s as quick as a snake unfurling to strike, pinning your boyfriend to the wall with one of those large hands around his throat before you can even blink. Your cheek faintly stings with the phantom slap, but it’s nothing compared to what Clint is currently doing to him. His eyes bulge and he claws inefficiently at Clint’s wrist while thick fingers squeeze his windpipe until the only sound he can make is a faint wheeze. Clint studies him silently for a moment before he turns dark eyes to you.

“That bike parked out front, is it his?”

His voice is surprisingly soft for someone in his line of work.

“Yeah,” you say, your arms wrapped protectively around your middle. The motorcycle is his pride and joy, his baby.

Your boyfriend’s face is a purple as grape Hubba-Bubba when Clint turns his attention back to him.

“Change of plans, I’m taking the bike instead. Keys?”

“He keeps them in his leather jacket,” you tell him, grabbing your purse and booking it for the door with a few more choice words thrown over your shoulder at the man who’d offered you up so he could bet on a “sure thing trifecta” that turned out to not be such a sure thing after all. Clint makes no move to stop you, he even gives a tiny wave with his free hand with the other still wrapped around your boyfriend’s throat when you take one final look back.

You just miss the bus, seeing it pull away from the curb as you sprint down the sidewalk waving your arms and calling to the driver to wait, please, fucking wait! You hope he sees you giving him the finger in his mirror when he drives off, leaving you to wait for the next one. Thankfully your cigarettes were in your purse, you go through three matches before you finally get one to light and take furious drags that ring the filter fuschia with your lipstick.

Clint rolls up to the bus stop on your now ex-boyfriend’s ex-motorcycle, wearing your ex’s leather jacket over his own plaid shirt,

“Need a lift?” he asks.

You should say no, but the next bus isn’t for another thirty-seven minutes so you grind out what’s left of your cigarette under your heel while imagining it’s your ex’s face and hop on, sliding your arms around his waist. The bike roars to life underneath you and you feel him pat your hand before he takes off into the night.

It’s more reassuring than you expected.

He takes you straight home, no detours, no funny business, and you watch him leave before you go into your apartment. He gives you that little wave again, and this time you return it before he drives off. Once inside you kick off your shoes and make straight for the fridge, taking the phone off the hook as you go so your ex can’t call. You leave the handset dangling by the cord and the dial tone fills the silence while you rummage around for ice cream or alcohol or both.

Fuck. You were all out of Rocky Road.

A while later there was a knock on your door and somehow you just knew. When you open it you see Clint has come back. The bike is nowhere in sight now but he’s still wearing your ex’s leather jacket.

It looks better on him.

Much better.

“Hey,” he says. “Wanted to stop by and make sure that dickhead hasn’t come over to bother you.”

You shake your head. “No. He blew his whole check at the track, he doesn’t even have bus fare left and it’s not like he’s gonna walk his lazy ass all the way over since he seems to have lost his wheels somehow.”

That was the first time you saw Clint smile, the corners of his lips lifting with amusement.

(you find out later that after you left he’d threatened your ex with much worse than the loss of his bike if he came near you again and knocked him out cold, so he knew damn well that he hadn’t “come over”, the sneaky bastard. He gives you that smile again when you learn the truth and you think about being mad about it and making him sleep on the couch, but you settle for sending him to the video store to rent your favorite movie instead.)

“Still,” Clint drawls, hands shoved deep in his pockets and giving you the same look as a stray dog sniffing around for a bone, “maybe I should hang out here for a bit. Just in case.”

“Hang out for a bit” turns into sharing a joint he pulls from the jacket that had also been your ex’s along with the bike (and you) while you sprawl on the rug and play records to drown out the dial tone still coming from the phone. Clint starts out sitting on your couch, before he joins you on the floor to pass the joint back and forth more easily and eventually (inevitably) he winds up naked in your bed.

The sex was better than the drugs. Your ex always bought shit weed though. Clint has faded tattoos on his arms and fresh bruises on his knuckles, he eats you out and then he fucks you from behind with his large hands on your hips and his knees keeping yours spread apart. You expect him to leave immediately afterwards with some bullshit excuse that you’ll pretend to believe, but he lights up two cigarettes from the pack in his discarded jeans instead. One for himself and one for you, lying back against the pillows with an arm behind his head and filling your bedroom with a blue haze that hangs in the air like the question you ask him.

“Did he really put me up as fucking collateral?

You hate the way your voice breaks just a little bit when you say it, anger leaking into sadness as your eyes burn from something other than the cigarette smoke.

There’s a long pause, and then a sigh from beside you. “Yeah. He did. I’m sorry, baby.”

You take a deep drag on the cigarette Clint gave you and blink away the tears. He’s not worth it.

“Asshole.”

A large hand closes around your free one where it lays between you on the mattress and gives it a squeeze.

“Yeah,” Clint agrees.

You didn’t know it then but it was the same for him, only in his case it was his father who traded him for debts he couldn’t pay when he was too young to understand what that meant and by the time he did, it was too late.

************

  Clint shows up again the next night, late, knocking at your door with a bag of greasy takeout and really good weed. The sex was still better though. He fucks you on your couch this time, face to face with his jeans around his knees and a dark lock of hair falling on his forehead as he thrusts between your legs. When Channel Six signs off for the night and the Star Spangled Banner starts to play he’s still on top of you, TV turning to the only snow you get in Oakland and his soft breath in your ear while you lay under him and run a hand up and down his sweaty back. He’s heavy, but you don’t mind the weight.

He was the heavy, the muscle, the guy sent by “The Guy” to collect debts and break fingers when they welched on the payments. You don’t mind that either. Everyone has to hustle to survive. Clint never asks you out on a date, never asks you to be his girl, you just are. He keeps coming by, with food and weed and videos from the place on the corner, you toke up and have sex and watch movies with your head resting on his shoulder. Soon he’s dropping you off and picking you up from work in his car so you don’t have to take the bus, keeping a toothbrush in your bathroom next to yours and his favorite beer in your fridge.

You prop your feet up on his dash when he drives you to get late night milkshakes, or to the schlocky double features at the old drive-in just outside the city limits where you give him head in the backseat and ignore the movie. He smiles and slings an arm around your shoulders when you walk down to the video place together, you take cigarettes from his pack and he lights them for you, and the catcallers and the gangbangers in the neighbourhood all steer clear when they see you coming cause no one messes with Clint, and word has spread that you’re Clint’s girl now.

His girl, his baby, he never calls you by name, it’s always “baby” when he knocks on your door with takeout or picks you up from work, when his dick is in your mouth and when you’re arguing over what to rent at the video store.

“Baby, I’m here.”

“Baby, you ready to go?”

“Baby, yes, fuck yes.”

“Baby, no, not fucking Back to School again.”

He’s not really much of a talker though and listens more than he speaks. Unlike previous boyfriends like your asshole ex who got tired of your voice and told you to shut up and be quiet, Clint actually likes it when you go on about movies and music and read articles from the magazines he buys you out loud in the car while he drives. You casually stuff the latest Cosmo into his glove box alongside his gun and kiss him goodbye when he drops you off at work. When he picks you up again after your shift he might have new bruises on his knuckles, a fresh stain on his shirt that you have to wash in cold water when you do his laundry at the Supersuds next to the video store, but he also always has a smile for you.

Clint doesn’t even actually ask you to marry him, doesn’t do the whole “down on one knee” thing, he just drives you all the way to Reno on your day off and stops the car in front of a wedding chapel. It looks like a real church with a steeple and everything, except you’re pretty sure real churches don’t have signs out front offering a bottle of champagne and ten dollars in free slot play with every ceremony.

“What the hell?” you sputter, turning in the passenger seat to look at him. “Clint, you’re not serious.”

He fishes a ring carefully out of his pocket and gives you that smile again, the one that always makes you weak. It’s the one that got him into your apartment in the first place and was definitely responsible for your current predicament.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t make an honest woman of you, baby?”

The doctor had told you three days ago, after you puked every morning for a week straight and thought you just had the flu.

Clint reaches over and places his hand gently on your stomach. You don’t see the bruises on his knuckles, all you see is the man who knocked you up and didn’t run away screaming, who already bought a teddy bear with a big bow tied around the neck.

“Okay,” you nod, your laugh filling the car. “Let’s get hitched then. You know that means you’re stuck with me forever though, right?”

Clint grins. “No baby. That means the both of you are stuck with me forever now.”

He marries you in the little chapel that same day, and trades the champagne you can’t drink now for a 2-for-1 buffet coupon instead.

“You’re eating for two so it’s really a 3-for-1 coupon. Much better deal,” he says with a wink.

**********

  One last job.

That’s what he calls it, the guy with the grey hair and pale suit.

The Guy.

He shows up and says he’s got a job for Clint, one last job for him to do and then he gets to walk away, clean slate, all debts paid in full. He smiles but it’s not like Clint’s smile, it’s cold and sharp as a knife when he glances over and adds that he’ll stay and keep you company while Clint is gone.

It’s not an offer.

You’re the insurance policy.

You’re the collateral.

“Oh,” he slyly adds with a pointed glance to your swollen stomach, “and congratulations.”

You both are.

Clint has no choice, he has to leave you there and take the job, with your dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting in his glove box as he drives off. You’ve been reading it to him on the way to and from Lamaze class at the hospital. He goes to the corner market to get you Rocky Road ice cream whenever you get a late night craving, rubs your achy feet, and rents your favorite movies without complaint every Saturday night.

You taste something sour in the back of your throat and almost puke right on the guy’s polished shoes.

He tries to make conversation like he didn’t just send the man you love, your husband, the father of your child, out on a job that could get him killed or sent to prison for the rest of his life. This isn’t a standard beat-down, this is something big, something serious, and the sour taste doesn’t go away. It only gets worse. The guy finally gives up with a shrug and a, “suit yourself, sweetheart,” turning the TV on. He laughs uproariously at Cagney & Lacey even though it’s not particularly funny, while you watch the clock on the wall instead, waiting for Clint to come back. Through the news, and Carson, the minutes tick by somehow both too fast and too slow. You rub your stomach, and wait.

He’ll come back.

He has to.

When he finally does he’s got a duffel bag over one shoulder and blood dripping down his face. It fills with relief when he sees you, only to harden again when he looks at the guy.

“You tried to set me up. Take the fucking fall for you,” he spits.

The guy gives him that switchblade of a smile. “Like I said, one last job. It’s just business Clint, you’ve been getting sloppy lately. More of a liability to me than an asset. Probably cause you’ve got your head so far up her cunt now.”

He jerks his chin in your direction while smoothly pulling out a gun. Clint’s gaze darts to you again with sheer panic in his eyes.

“Nothing a little murder-suicide won’t fix. You’re still gonna take the fall.”

The sour taste is flooding your mouth and the baby suddenly kicks, hard. You go all Linda Blair in a blink, projectile vomiting everything in your stomach right at the guy. He flings his arm up to try to avoid the spray and his gun goes flying. Clint dives towards the floor, and a moment later a single shot rings out.

“Baby!”

Clint is at your side, one hand sliding protectively over your belly. His now ex-boss is on the floor, covered in half-digested Rocky Road with his brains splattered against the wall. If you had anything left in you, you’d probably puke again at the sight. The baby kicks again, a smaller one this time. Clint feels it too.

“She’s a little fighter,” he smiles.

“Just like her daddy,” you say.

He grabs the duffel bag on the way out, slinging it over his shoulder and wrapping his other arm around you to guide you to the car. You can see the cash peeking through where the zipper isn’t fully shut, enough to finally get out for good.

You leave Oakland with Clint the next morning, heading east. He packs the essentials in the trunk, including the teddy bear he bought when you first told him you were pregnant, the one with the big pink bow tied around its neck. When he pulls onto the highway you pull What To Expect When You’re Expecting out of the glove box. A receipt from the video store sticks out to serve as a bookmark, you never did return that last movie you rented and you’re going to get one hell of a late fee on your account.

Not that it really matters now.

Clint has one hand on the steering wheel, wedding ring flashing in the sun. The other rests on your stomach.

“You good, Baby?” he asks, rubbing against where his daughter is currently kicking against his hand.