Page 47 of Road Refugees

Since then, we had been clinched in a few hot makeout sessions, but that was it. Our focus was on Mickey Finn, Linus, and the shrooms. From sterilization to inoculation was twenty-four hours. Then, from inoculation to full colonization was two weeks. There was always something to be done with the fungi. I quite liked playing with them in the fruiting chamber, the air humid and pungent. Town took himself to a VA appointment. I whined at him to allow me to come with, but he was adamant about going alone. Later, he would just tell me they did some imaging. I asked if there was anything that could be done surgically. He had three cracked vertebrae in his back.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

I knew he played things close to the vest. Like with his family in Philly, his mom and dad. In an intimate moment while we dined by candlelight out back, I asked about them.

“Do you think you will see your parents soon?”

Town was silent for a long time, and I dreaded that I’d made a mistake bringing them up. However, he eventually said, “No. Last time I saw them, I’d turned down an important position with the government because it meant riding the train, engaging with people in an office every day. I knew I couldn’t do that in my agoraphobic state.”

I nodded eagerly. “Of course not.”

“To me, I’d gained the courage to accept the reality that was my life. Not so to them. My mamma shook her head with disgust and left the room. Papà got in my grill and said, ‘you are not going to be one of those wounded warriors.’ He thought I was causing my own grief, my own pain, and he refused to allow it.”

“But didn’t he know you were wounded in Syria?”

“Of course. He got the usual call in the middle of the night. Somehow, he didn’t accept that these wounds were still happening. He just thought I was wallowing in self-pity.”

“Shut the front door.”

Town sipped his mineral water. “If I was a real man, I’d snap out of it. My PTSD diagnosis was just some weak, lameass excuse.”

I dared to ask, “So what’d you do?”

“I wanted to scream the roof down, to tell him what I thought of him. But I was almost too angry to ream him out. You know, the army’s betrayal sliced through to my heart, but losing the respect of papà just fucking . . . ran a sword through my soul, you know? That was when rage took over and my Syrian memories consumed me. That night I felt supremely alone. Without my family, there was nothing to keep me tethered to the dock, so to speak. That’s when I went back to my Colorado condo and drank myself into a stupor.” A smile flitted over his mouth when he looked down at Linus. “I don’t have real parents, but I’ve got this guy tethered to my side.”

“Literally, sometimes,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

But he seemed to want to talk about it. “Mamma would snipe at me. ‘Why you want to tell that story? Why you want people to know you have problems?’ For her, it was something to be swept under the rug.” Again, his face softened. “I wanted passion back in my life. I’d been withholding any sign of affection from them and isolating myself. I reached the point when I wanted to fling my arms around a dog. The love comes back to you a thousandfold.”

That was the night I convinced Town that it would behoove us to sneak in a visit to Byron Riddlesberger’s puppy mill. At the dinner table, I took another spoonful of mashed potatoes. Town always said I was too thin, and I was doing things to stop that.

He tried to dissuade me from my idea at first. “The club has their own plans for that jagov, Heaven. We can’t be messing around in their plans.”

Reaching across the table, I covered his hand with mine. Was I using sex as a weapon? “Oh, but Town. We’re just going on an intel mission. We can hand them whatever we discover. We can pretend to be people interested in buying a dog.”

Town covered my hand with his, but he scoffed. “Riddlesberger knows us. Remember? We’d have to put some heavy-duty disguises on. I’d have to put on Mandalorian armor.”

Although I had no clue what a Mandalorian was, I got into it for a second. “I’d have to be Mata Hari. Wear a beaded bra and hat.”

Town lifted a hand to point at me. “No! Not a word about it, Heaven! I’d need to bring my Glock just to protect you from those scum-sucking rat bastards.”

“Did someone call my name?”

Slappy Lomax ambled up, the candlelight casting a vampiric look to his features, his Mohawk. He cradled a cold bottle of beer. I remember looking at it, and for once not coveting one.

Town glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “If your name is rat bastard, then yes. Heaven here wants to do an op over at Riddlesberger’s puppy mill. I’m trying to talk her out of it.”

Slappy put his beer on our table, grabbed a chair, turned it around backwards, and sat, like a real he-man. He tipped an imaginary cap at me. “That’s quite a good idea, lady. We can map the op.”

Town had to admit, “Slappy here was very good at mapping. Anywhere outside the wire, he’d be able to measure the ground in his head and place outbuildings, guns, or IEDs right into his mapping software, without a drone.”

I made an impressed face. “You think it’d help the club if we mapped this place, scope it out? I think so too.”

Slappy nodded vigorously. “That way, when they go in guns blazing, they know exactly where to go. Won’t waste time breaking down barn doors and scaring more animals. We can map out where Riddlesberger’s bedroom is.”

“See?” I told Town. “If we do a run-through, the club will scare less animals.”

Town rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell. I’m not putting you in any more danger, Heaven.”

“There won’t be any danger. We’ll just sneak onto the property and like Slappy said, scope it out.”

Town was stubborn. “There’s a new law in Arizona that forbids pet stores from buying from puppy mills. They have to be licensed, have less than four breeding females.”

I was ready for that. “It’s actually a step backward. The USDA doesn’t have enough inspectors to make sure of that. You wanna bet Riddlesberger has more than four breeding females? Of course he does.”

So eventually Town relented. “Tango Mike!” Slappy said, raising his bottle to his former commander.

I glowed with pride that I now knew that meant “thanks much.”

I held Town’s hand. “I love you,” I said, sort of quietly so Slappy wouldn’t overhear.

Town heard—his boyish eyes went all moist, and his nostrils trembled. I didn’t want him to feel obligated to say it to me again, so I brushed off the moment by acting kind of corny. “You’re gold, Ponyboy.”

That was one of the few books I’d read as a teen. The men in the story were rebellious, outcast, strong.

Just like Town.