American Outlaw (32 page)

——

That very evening, she moved back into my house. She marched her clothes back into the closet, marshaled her lipsticks along her side of the bathroom sink.

“I
missed
this,” Janine said, kissing me gently. “I missed making a home with you.”

I shook my head, still not knowing what to think or how to feel. “Janine . . .”

“Yes, honey?” she asked, turning on the television, settling back onto my bed, as if she had never left.

“This is all happening way too fast for me,” I said. “I had sort of gotten used to the idea of . . . well, of us having
separated.
”

“We did separate,” Janine said patiently. “But,” she wagged her index finger at me, “we didn’t divorce. And aren’t you happy now that we didn’t? That would have been a bunch of unnecessary paperwork, huh? I mean, now that we’re getting back together.”

“What?” I said.

Janine raised herself up on one elbow and looked at me oddly. “Honey, we’re having a child together.
Of course
we’re getting back together. It may take some work, but I’m willing to do my part. Aren’t you?”

“Shit,” I stammered, “I don’t know. I mean . . . maybe . . . but if I’m going to do this, there’s got to be some rules, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Janine said. “Like what?”

“Like, no more crazy
fighting.
I can’t deal with it, Janine!”

“Um, I
hate
to say this,” Janine said, calmly, “but
you’re
the one who’s yelling right now.”

I tensed my fists. “Look. I just need this to be different than it was. I don’t want to have the same kind of marriage that my folks did. I can’t stand battling against you all the time. I can’t stand being scared to bring my
kids
around someone who I’m supposed to be in love with . . .”

“So, hey, hey—just take a deep
breath,
baby,” Janine said, laughing. “I mean, your blood pressure must be going through the
roof
! Wow, what the hell’s got into you since I’ve been gone?”

“What’s got into me?” I whispered.

“You look
frustrated,
” she said. Her eyes crinkled sympathetically. “I think you need to lie down next to me. Come on.
Calm
yourself. Take a second to think about this little baby we’re having. Don’t you want it to come into a sweet and relaxing world?”

I looked at her, shook my head back and forth, pulse racing, words failing me completely.

——

Despite any misgivings I might have had, I knew that the decision was a done deal. She was pregnant with my kid. I had to try again. No matter how bad Janine had screwed with my trust, I was going to have to get over it, and quick.

“My girl’s back,” I mentioned to Bill, as we began to wrench on a new custom chopper. “She moved all her stuff back into my house.”

“Huh,” he said noncommittally. “How’s that working for you?”

I cranked up the blowtorch and, sighing heavily, dropped my safety goggles over my eyes. “To be honest, I’m kind of relieved.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Gives us both a do-over. We got another chance to make things right.”

“Well, remember,” Bill advised, “nobody’s marriage is perfect. But hell, you’re a survivor! I believe in you.” He clapped me on the back. “Now go to war.”

Janine and I circled around each other uneasily for the first few weeks back, like two lions staking out territory. Out of the corners of my eyes, I studied her, just waiting for her to snap and betray me. But to my surprise, Janine stayed calm and levelheaded, even seeming apologetic for her past indiscretions at certain moments.
Soon, enough trust had returned to where I felt okay bringing my children back into the house while she was there.

“Janine!”
Chandler said, tossing her backpack onto the living room couch. “When did you get back?”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Janine beamed. “It’s so nice to see you!”

“Where did you go?” Chandler asked again, hugging her. “Why weren’t you
here
for such a long time?”

Janine shot me a glance. “Oh, darling, I was . . . taking a long trip.” She pursed her lips, then rubbed my nine-year-old daughter softly on the back. “I won’t be going away anymore, okay?”

Chandler smiled, pleased. “Do you want to see the drawing I did?”

“Of course I do!”

Janine had it in her to love a child, that much was obvious. Tentatively, I began to envision us redefining ourselves as a couple, from a dysfunctional duo to a husband and wife who were fit to make a stable home for our baby. The reality of the situation was that there was a new life growing in my wife’s belly. In under a year, that life would take shape in Long Beach. She and I were going to spend a great deal of time together learning how to raise it correctly, so we might as well do it together, as a team.

“You know,” I said to Janine, as we were driving to the doctor’s again a week or so later, “I think we’re capable of doing this.”

“Well, finally,” Janine said, smiling. She reached over and took my hand in hers. “I’ve been waiting for you to come around.”

“I’ve been watching you,” I admitted. “And I can see it in your eyes. You want to be a mom so bad.”

“Oh, sweetie, it’s true,” she said proudly. “I just can’t wait.”

We arrived at the hospital and went inside. After a short wait, we met our doctor. She was a friendly, goofy-looking little woman who shortly instructed Janine to disrobe and place her legs in the gynecological stirrups for a pelvic exam.

“Do you need me to leave?” I asked.

“No, you can stay,” the lady doctor said genially, patting a chair for me to sit on. As she turned away from me, I noticed the doctor’s hairstyle. It was business in the front, and nothin’ but a party in the back: a
mullet.
On a female doctor, no less. How funny was that?

“Now then, have you two decided on a name?”

“Oh, we’ll probably have to mull it over for a while,” I said, winking at Janine.

Janine shot me a dirty look. As she struggled uncomfortably to place her legs in the stirrups, she appeared to be sweating. “My husband’s just trying to be funny,” she said.

The doctor looked confused. “Oh?” she asked.

“Don’t mind me,” I said. “It’s a very important decision. I’m just trying to
mull it
over in my head.”

We completed the exam without further incident. Then, as we walked out to the car, Janine turned to me and said, “I can’t
believe
you!”

“What’s the big deal?”

“That whole ‘mull it’ thing? What the
fuck
were you going on about?”

“She had a sweet hairstyle,” I said, laughing. “Look, I was just having some fun, okay?”

“I was down there
naked,
” she hissed at me. “That was not the time or the place!”

We reached our car. “Give me a break, all right?” I said. “It’s not that big a deal . . .”

“You don’t
know
what a big deal
is
!” Janine cried, digging in her purse. “That’s always been your biggest FUCKING PROBLEM!”

She found her big ring of keys, gripped them in her fist, and threw them directly in my face as hard as she could.

“OWW!”
I yelled, dropping to my knees in the parking lot. “
Janine!
What the hell was that for
?
”

“You think this is all a joke?”
Janine screeched, standing over
me. “I’m going to have your baby! And you want to treat me like some
fucking joke
?”

Slowly, my breath heaving, I picked up Janine’s keys from the ground and handed them to her.

“Drive yourself,” I said. “I’m walking.”

——

I slept at the shop that night.

I can’t go on with this woman,
I thought to myself, rolling uncomfortably on the futon I kept in my office, trying to steal an hour or so of sleep.
There’s just no way.

But I seemed to have little choice in the matter. I was boxed in with nowhere to go.
She’s going to have my kid!
I thought, desperately.
And yet . . .

And yet I’m afraid she could run me over.

I rolled off the futon at six o’clock sharp the following morning, having gotten about forty-five minutes of rotten, dreamless shut-eye.

“Hey, Jesse. Good morning!” My custodian, Dennis, was a mentally challenged guy about my own age—like Boyd, I’d kept up the tradition of employing developmentally disadvantaged adults. Dennis never failed to raise my spirits and keep me humble at the same time.

But this morning, I didn’t want to hear anything from anyone.

“Hey,” I said shortly, brushing past him to go wash my face in the restroom.

“Did you
sleep
here?” Dennis asked, giggling.

I didn’t answer, just slammed the bathroom door hard behind me and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and underscored with dark rings.
Fuck,
I thought.
I’ve aged ten years the last ten months.

I splashed cold water on my face and tried to come back to reality. There was business to take care of. Soon everyone would be
arriving. As always, I had to be ready to take the wheel of the ship. Pretend like I knew what I was doing.

“Jesse,” my assistant began, as soon as she settled in. “Season two of
Monster Garage
is going to start filming in three weeks. Thom Beers called. He wants to get together ASAP, to bat around ideas.”

“Yo, Jess,” Bill Dodge yelled, “we got two CFL frames to get chromed by next Tuesday—are we ready to send them over to the shop in Riverside?”

“Jesse,” apologized Melissa, my secretary, “I don’t want to alarm you, but retail’s been experiencing a
ton
of shoplifting lately. Are we going to go forward with installing those electronic scanners by the door, or what?”

Leave me alone, guys. Please, fucking leave me alone . . .

“Jesse, we’ve got a big show set up in Japan for you to make an appearance at this November. They’re still waiting on your decision. Do you want me to tell them yea or nay?”

“Jesse! Walmart’s looking for a quarterly update on the menswear line. Do we have anything new?”

I hid behind my desk, feeling completely overwhelmed.

——

When I got home, the house was empty. Exhausted beyond belief, I sank into my couch and switched on the television. I watched fifteen seconds of a basketball game, then fifteen seconds of cable news. Then some cheesy murder mystery. And on and on. My stuttering mind wove the random TV snippets into a singular saga, a story bearing a nonsensical plotline that nevertheless seemed to make more sense than my own life.

I waited for Janine to show up, but she never did. I went to sleep uneasily, and woke up alone.

Her absence continued the following day. Janine was nowhere to be seen.

When, on the third day, she still failed to appear, I began to relax.
Maybe it’s over,
I thought to myself with some relief.

The following week, I was scheduled to have surgery on my shoulder. Over the years, the accumulation of injuries sustained through football and as a bodyguard, including my stage dive at the White Zombie show, had just gotten too painful to deal with on a daily basis. After consulting the X-rays and running me through a battery of tests, my doctor advised me to go through with the surgery.

“How long will the rehab be?” I asked.

“You’ll be in a sling for six to eight weeks. Then you can start physical therapy,” he said, smiling. “By my estimation, you should have a pain-free shoulder in under a year’s time.”

I sighed. “Well, that sucks. Timing’s not good. We’re going to start filming the next season of my show soon.”

“Timing’s never good for going under the knife, is it?” he said. “I strongly advise this surgery.”

Bill Dodge drove me to the hospital.

“Are you nervous?”

“I hate hospitals.”

“You’ll be just fine, man. I’ll pick you up when you’re done.”

The doctors put me out and began the long process of removing old scar tissue that had collected around the head of my humerus. When I awoke, I was alone.

Bill took me home. I slept for what seemed like days. It wasn’t quite like coming back from my knee surgery when I was twenty; this time I felt almost unnaturally tired, older, and weary in my bones.

Finally, after about a week of lying around, sluglike and depressed, I pushed myself back into gear. The kids were staying with me for the weekend, and it was up to me to step it up and act like a parent.

“Daddy, what
happened
to you?” Jesse Jr. asked me. He was
five years old, and at the stage where every word out of his mouth seemed to be a question. His hands played against the blue sling that covered my left arm and shoulder.

“I hurt myself playing around too much,” I said, hugging him to me with my good arm.

“But is it ever going to get better?” he asked, looking concerned.

“Of course it is,” I said, laughing. “Very soon. Right now, Daddy just has to be patient and let it heal, okay?”

Being on my feet energized my spirit. I looked at the house around me: it had been several weeks since Janine had disappeared. She’d never bothered to call, so I just figured she had no intention of coming back.

I called Bill Dodge.

“Bill,” I said. “Look, can you help me out with something?”

“No problem, man. What is it?”

“I need you to rent a moving van for me, and then come on over here. Get a couple of guys from the shop to help. We’re going to get rid of Janine’s stuff.”

It was time. I needed to clear my home of her.

Bill showed up soon thereafter with the van and the extra sets of hands, and we got down to work. My kids watched us curiously as we carefully loaded all of Janine’s possessions up into the van.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” asked Bill, grinning.

“It’s just time,” I said.

We were about three-quarters of the way done with the job when Janine showed up.

“What the hell are you
doing
?” she cried.

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” I said calmly. “So we’re moving you out.”