Wild Ride (20 page)

As so often happened when his heart was heavy or full, an image formed in his head.  The lines of the image become more and more defined and the colors faded and separated until he could clearly see where to begin. 

Pulling out his art supplies and a blank canvas he headed to the area of his bedroom set
up for painting and began to work.

The image of Chuck kneeling near her mother with a gun pointed at his head replayed over and over in her mind until
Meredith couldn’t take it another minute. 

He’d seemed so cold and distant…
shut off from everyone and everything afterwards, she hadn’t known how to reach him.  She’d waited for him to come to her for comfort but he hadn’t.

Meredith lay awake staring at the ceiling and listening to the muffled sounds of the cleaning and repair crew downstairs.  They were obviously trying to be quiet as they worked and she only heard them because she was wide awake. 

They had shown up a mere two hours after the police had finished dusting for fingerprints, taking pictures and gathering evidence.  They had assured her mother that all would be as it was before by the time morning came.  A police cruiser sat outside in the driveway to keep an eye on both the cleaning crew and to ensure no more uninvited guests showed up.

With all the preparations
Carla had made for tomorrow’s cookout, especially the food, they had decided to go ahead with the party.  The sooner they faced questions from their friends and neighbors about what had happened, the better. 

Some of their closest neighbors had already talked to
Carla and been fed the same story Dickie had suggested. 

She was amazed that the simple story garnered barely any further questions from either the police or their neighbors.  It was almost as though no one wanted to delve deeper into what had happened.  Some gang members had broken into the house and then shot each other and were now dead. 

The world was rid of them… no need to question what many called a blessing.  Since the accident, and especially since meeting Chuck, she realized just how precious life really was.

Knowing it could have easily been Chuck’s blood that had stained the grout in the tiled foyer she felt sick to her stomach.  Heaviness settled into her chest somewhere in the vicinity of her heart and was slowly suffocating her like the hold Dickie had on the man who’d fired the gun. 

She hadn’t missed Chuck’s casual description to the police of the beating he’d suffered the night before.  She was amazed that her gut feeling that something was wrong had been so accurate.

Her mother had come to her room to try and talk with her after Chuck’s confession about painting the portrait in Grandpa Patterson’s office and some of his other artwork. 

Knowing his art was like a window to his very soul, a part of her wanted to see them while a separate part of her felt certain that those images might very well bare her
own
soul.  He’d apparently painted non-existent images of her father, as he’d done with her grandmother. 

The painting of her
grandmother seemed to keep the very essence of her alive and
real
.  She remembered the first time Carla saw it hanging behind Grandpa’s desk in his chambers. 

Her mother had been speechless and had to sit down.  The only explanation Grandpa had offered was that a child prodigy had done the painting for him
, even though he’d sentenced the boy to the Juvenile Detention Center for a serious crime.

The pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place as to why her
grandfather had taken such an interest in Chuck considering he was a gang member…
former gang member
… after his confession about the painting.  Between the images of her grandmother’s painting and the sketches he’d made of her… he
was
a prodigy.  There was no other way to describe him.

She’d talked briefly with both Lilly and Dana on the phone about what had happened and expressed her concern for Chuck. 

Dana had provided the most insight to Chuck, saying with his past experience in the foster care system he likely felt some level of mistaken responsibility for the situation.  He probably thought that he was no longer welcome or accepted by her or her family. 

Lilly had simply said to give Chuck some time and he would come around.

Somehow their words of encouragement were not enough as she watched the clock turn over past midnight. 
Damn It!
  She rolled over and turned on the lamp next to her bed for the second night in a row.  Pulling out her cell phone, she called Dickie.

“Hey
, sweetness… we have to stop meeting this way,” he answered on the second ring.

“I’m sorry
, Dickie,” she swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“Yea, well fortunately for you I wasn’t in bed just yet.  Dana ran over and checked on him a little while ago at Gran’s request and he’s fine…
just painting.  She made him eat a sandwich and then he went right back to painting,” Dickie said.  “He does that sometimes when something’s bothering him.”

She released a breath she’d been holding and said
, “I have all these thoughts and feelings just racing around in my head and I can’t seem to relax enough to go to sleep.  It is something like last night but without the urgency.  Sorry… I realize you are not my personal therapist, or Chuck’s for that matter, but I just had to know.”

“You are but one of a few beautiful women who call me in the middle of the night…
to
talk,
” he laughed at his insinuation. “You can call me anytime, sweetness, anytime.”

“My daddy used to call me that
,” she sniffed.

Dickie was quiet for a minute before saying
, “I can see why.  You get some sleep now.  He’s having a little meeting with your grandpa tomorrow afternoon in his office.  Anytime someone makes an appointment with Chuck, he seems to view it like a trip to the principal’s office.”

“
He gets all nervous and then paints and paints.  He’ll snap back in a few days once the shock of finally being free from that bunch of shitheads sinks in and he faces whatever punishment he thinks he’s going to get from the judge.  Just give him some time,” he finished.

“I didn’t think he was still involved with them…
I mean when would he possibly have time?” she asked.

“He
wasn’t
actively involved but those punks seem to think once a person’s in, they’re in for life… divorce is not an option,” Dickie explained.

“He never told me they were giving him a hard time.  In fact he never mentioned the gang at all.  I knew he was affiliated based on the tattoo on his neck but it just didn’t register I guess.  Today was the first time I really saw his situation for what it is…
what it’s like for him,” she said.

“I mean he’s Chuck and he’s kind of a wild man but he’s fun, dependable, and talented.  That’s what I normally see when I look at him.  Today I saw someone fighting to live…
not sickness or injury… but fighting for a better life.  In the same moment I saw him willing to give his own life for mine and my mother’s.  Why would he do that?” she cried.

“The same reason you’re calling me night after night at well past midnight.  He loves you and you love him.  Where ya’ll go from here I can’t answer…
that’s more of a Gran question,” he replied.

He loved her?
  Oh she loved him… more and more with every look, every phone call, every touch, every sketch, every laugh and every breath.  But could he possibly love her right back?

“I can hear the wheels turning up there in that pretty little head of yours but you should get some sleep.  He’s fine…
now sleep,” Dickie finished and then disconnected the call.

She’d always been close to her father and losing him hurt much worse than losing her foot.  Gretchen hit
the nail on the head with that one.  Though talking to Dickie was in no way like the conversations she’d had with her dad, something about him was equally as comforting and she found herself finally drifting off to sleep.

Chuck
finally fell asleep around four in the morning only to get up some five hours later so he could go by the bank and then to the shop to finish up the final coat on one of the paint jobs he needed to have done before they left for New York.  He had two other jobs he needed to finish no later than Thursday. 

He had to laugh a little bit…
if Judge Patterson decided to lock him up he wouldn’t be painting
anything
… let alone worrying about deadlines. 
No painting and no Meredith.

He worked for half a day and then headed home to shower and change before heading to Judge Patterson’s office downtown.  His stomach was in knots…
he’d gotten beaten in a couple of the foster homes he’d been in and remembered the taste of childhood fear well. 
This was worse.

After parking and making his way inside he knocked on the door.

“Enter
, Mr. Reynolds,” Judge Patterson said.

He entered the man’s office and closed the door behind him and immediately his eyes were drawn to the painting of Meredith’s grandmother on the wall behind the
judge’s desk.  Judge Patterson was turned around in his chair looking at the painting.

“Meredith favors her a lot
,” Judge Patterson said.  Then after staring at the painting a few seconds more he added, “Have a seat.”

Chuck
sat down in a chair facing the judge’s desk and looked at the old man.

“Tell me everything
,” the judge said.  “Starting with why those men came after
my
family.”

Sighing loudly
, he knew it was time he told the whole story and though Judge Patterson was a hard ass, he deserved the truth.

“When I was thirteen I was placed in
this foster home with a bunch of younger kids.  I was the oldest and was labeled as ‘unruly’ which meant the state paid the foster parents more money for me.  The man and his wife didn’t give shit one about me or any of the other kids for that matter… even the really little ones,” he started. 

“
The man used to drink pretty heavily and would often sell the food vouchers for cash to fund his addiction.  I started sneaking some of them from the wife’s purse and keeping them for those times when the food ran out along with the vouchers,” he continued. 

“
One night he found my stash of vouchers and accused me of stealing and knocked me around a bit.  I took off and JC Combs found me sleeping under a bridge,” he finished, eyeing the judge.

“Go on
,” Judge Patterson prompted.

“JC hooked me up with a place to crash, food and money of my own in exchange for running dope for him and other odd jobs.  When I turned fourteen I hit a growth spurt and grew like six inches in no time and bulked up as well
,” he continued the story. 

“
JC decided that since I was bigger than him at that point and no longer looked like a young kid it was time I earned my keep.  He started having me jack cars and then moved on to robbing places.  Once I’d proven my skill with picking locks and covering my ass, he moved me up to the harder jobs.  The mini mart job you sentenced me for… was my first big job,” he finished nervously.

The Judge didn’t look any too happy but he had wanted to know…
and sometimes it was best to start the story at the beginning.

“When I got out of
Juvy I wanted to make a clean break so I took off in the opposite direction from those guys.  One night a bad storm hit and I broke into Dickie’s shed to get out of the rain,” he said.

“
He caught me and gave me two choices… work off my crime or he’d turn me in.  I spent the next week at Bobby Jackson’s shop working for Dickie and every night he fed me and let me crash on his couch,” he continued upon seeing the judge’s raised eyebrow. 

“
At the end of the week Bobby offered me a part time job at the shop and invited me to a party at his house.  His grandmother, Edna, pretty much took it from there,” he said with a smile reserved solely for Gran. 

“Then when I got on full time at the shop I got my own apartment…
in south side… and almost as soon as I moved in, here come JC.  I managed to blow him off for
years
until a rival moved into my complex and started taking pot shots at me a few months ago.  I got a weapon from JC and after that whole mess went down at the shop with Lilly and it got confiscated… he came around looking for payment,” he finished, looking expectantly at the judge.

“I see
,” Judge Patterson said, leaning forward.  “However, I also remember asking you where you got that weapon when you came before the court on that probation violation.  Why didn’t you tell me all this then?”

“I still lived in south side then…
diming out JC would have been as effective a death sentence as if I walked out of the courthouse and wandered straight in front of a speeding bus,” he replied indignantly.