Hard To Breathe, page 8
part #2 of Drake Cody Series
In the last minutes and seconds before Kevin's birth, part of his brain didn't get enough oxygen. His mind was good, but the control center for movement had been damaged.
Cerebral palsy.
Kevin's body defied control. Only through iron resolve and grimacing will did Kevin accomplish what was effortless for others.
For him, speech was an agonizing, halting struggle. Walking was a labor of flailing crutches and gravity-defying lurches.
Among Drake's early memories were his mother's words, “You've been given a gift—a blessing. You get to watch over your special brother. That's why God made you so strong.”
Kevin fell frequently and visited the ER often. Drake, inseparable from his younger brother, helped with communication and care. Kevin continually suffered bruises, cuts and fractures. He never quit. He never cried.
Drake and Kevin communicated without effort, sharing laughing fits or pain, often without exchanging a word. From earliest childhood, Kevin was the largest and best part of Drake's world.
Episodes of childish cruelty and abuse occurred. Drake dealt harshly with anyone who wronged his brother—even those older and larger.
The small circle of the Cody brothers' contacts and schoolmates knew how cool Kevin was.
Other places, gawking and ignorant comments were the rule.
“I'm j-just t-too g-GOOD lookING! Th-they a-aren'T u-used t-to IT,” was Kevin's response. He would flash his contorted grin.
Drake saw all and forgave less. The “talking down” speech and presumption that Kevin was mentally handicapped maddened him.
“You're not talking to a beagle, lady,” Drake had snapped at a clinic nurse when he was twelve years old. “He's way smarter than you are.” His mother had made him apologize. Drake was not one bit sorry.
Kevin entered seventh grade at the same public junior/senior high where Drake was starting the tenth grade. On their third day, they waited next to the auxiliary parking lot off to the side of the main school building. Their mom would pick them up any minute.
Three slouching twelfth graders with shaved heads stood by a trash dumpster smoking cigarettes and talking loud. They had a bad rep and were given a wide berth. Kids called them skinheads.
“C'mon Kevin, let's wait over there.” Drake pointed farther down the lot.
“B-but M-Mom s-said to b-be h-here.”
“You're right, but she'll see us. C'mon.” Drake put a hand on Kevin's shoulder.
“O-ho-KAY d-DRAKE.” Kevin started his ungainly movement away from the dumpster.
“Hey! What the hell is that?” came the shout. “Looks like an almost-human helicopter.” Coarse, biting laughter.
Drake slowed, muttering. “Brainless assholes.”
“D-Drake, i-it's o-kay.”
A second voice now, “What is it? A bird? A plane? No, it's Super-retard!” They howled.
The harsh laughter echoed off the brick walls of the school. Drake's face flushed hot.
“I-it's o-kay D-Drake! C-c'mon!” Kevin worked his crutches, struggling to distance himself from the hyenas. Their braying surged and moved closer.
“Hoo-hoo-hoo. What've we got here? Its retard boy and his keeper,” yelled the largest and loudest of the three as they stepped in front of the brothers. “ARYAN” was tattooed on his forearm below a grinning skull with lightning bolts coming out of the eye sockets. He finger-flicked his cigarette, bouncing it with a burst of spark at Drake's feet.
“You getting ready for take-off, retard?” said the vacant-eyed second skinhead.
“I think I'll try out those sticks, spaz boy,” said Aryan tattoo.
“Yeah. See if you can fly better than the wiggly retard,” sneered the tough-looking third skinhead.
Drake stood on the sidewalk where tree roots had heaved the concrete. A faint drumming started inside his head. The jagged crack and an uneven step-off of the sidewalk lay under his feet. The smell of cigarettes grew stronger.
Kevin stood, crutch-propped and weaving, the skinheads laughing in his face.
Time stretched. Drake's vision tunneled and edges sharpened. The drumming in his head intensified. His face burned as though he was standing too close to an open fire. His reflexes were trip-wired. His body electric.
Aryan stepped forward, grabbed Kevin's right crutch, and yanked, his laughter cruel.
Drake grasped Kevin's shoulders, and smoothly lowered him to the curb. He took the left crutch strut, slipping the reinforced aluminum forearm ring free of Kevin's arm.
Aryan pulled hard on the right crutch, dragging Kevin.
Kevin's eyes pinwheeled, the whites showing large. His face contorted as he resisted. “Nuh-nuh-NO!”
Aryan launched his leg, the sole of his boot driving towards Kevin's face.
The crutch whistled as it sliced through the air. It struck Aryan in the middle of his face with the sound of an ax biting into a hardwood log. Aryan pitched backwards, his nose collapsed and his face a volcano of erupting blood.
Out of the corner of his eye, Drake saw the second skinhead advancing. Drake pivoted, shifted his grip, and drove the crutch, tip first, into the belly of the second aggressor.
The skinhead gave an “Ooofff!” as he jackknifed to the ground, arms hugging gut, legs bicycling in the air.
Drake glimpsed, too late, the third skinhead's incoming punch. The fist struck his face like a thrown brick. A lightning bolt of pain lanced his jaw and the taste of pennies filled his mouth.
He was on his back, away from Kevin. He slid toward unconsciousness, blackness reaching. The puncher straddled his chest and pounded his face.
Clinging to consciousness, Drake drove his hand through the storm of punches and found the attacker's throat. His fingers closed. As the blows rained down, he squeezed.
Rage and instinct fueled his grip, his fingers hydraulic. From his hand the sensation of twigs snapping and he heard a strangled bawl. The punches stopped. The drumming in his head thundered on. His arm supporting a limp weight.
And still he squeezed.
A flapping on his arms, clutching fingers and Kevin's voice cutting through the drumming. “N-NO! D-draAKE! N-noO!”
Drake released his grip, discarding the gurgling body. Turning, he saw the other two skinheads on the ground. He met his brother's wild eyes and wrapped him in a hug as they lay on the cracked sidewalk, Kevin's body quaking with sobs.
Drake held his brother tight to his chest. Pain spiked his jaw with each word. “I've got you, Kevin. We're okay, brother. We're okay.”
***
Drake's broken jaw required a steel plate and screws. He wore an ankle bracelet under house arrest for the three weeks between his discharge from the hospital and the criminal proceedings.
The Aryan tattooed assailant's face would be left with permanent deformity. The attacker that broke Drake's jaw had almost died.
At the trial, Drake's charges read “felony assault with weapon resulting in grievous bodily injury.” The father of the assailant that had broken Drake's jaw was the largest highway construction contractor in the state. Drake's “victims” wore sport coats and ties. Their hair had grown to crew-cut length. Their past records were inadmissible as they were not on trial.
Drake's mother had no money. The novice public defender looked scared, and his voice trembled on the few occasions he spoke at trial. He didn’t consider Kevin as a possible witness. He allowed the prosecutor to introduce hearsay reports of Drake's previous “assaults” of those who “kidded” with his brother.
For Drake, it was as if the proceedings were a TV program—it didn't seem real.
The prosecution closed their case with a psychiatrist whose only contact with Drake was a ten-minute interview in a holding cell. Drake later learned that the doctor’s only “practice” involved delivering testimony for pay.
The psychiatrist wore a fine suit, wire-rimmed glasses, and a trimmed goatee. “The accused uses a delusional sense of responsibility to legitimize a hunger for brutality. Innocent schoolyard horseplay provides an excuse for him to indulge his lust for violence.”
The timid public defender did not even cross-examine.
When the verdict was read, Drake's mother fell to her knees, dropping the rosary she'd clutched throughout the trial. The bespectacled, balding black judge spoke over her quiet tears and the braying sobs and writhing protests of Drake's brother.
“You are convicted of one count of assault with a deadly weapon.” He glanced at the trio of alleged victims and then at the rookie public defender. He gave an exaggerated sigh.
“The verdict disturbs me, but based on what transpired in this courtroom,” he looked over his glasses at the public defender, “I have no technical grounds to reverse the decision. I must, by mandate, remand the defendant into custody for the minimum sentence allowable: twenty-four months incarceration in an Ohio juvenile correctional institution for violent offenders. I note, for the record, that this result offends my sense of justice.” His eyes met Drake's. “I remind the convicted that he has the right of appeal.” The gavel struck.
***
Drake entered the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility for Violent Offenders in Franklin Furnace County. The “Furnace” had six times the frequency of violent events as the worst of Ohio's adult maximum security prisons.
Drake was a white boy entering an institution that was eighty-five percent minority, overwhelmingly gang affiliated, and a segment of which were criminally insane. He was a lone dog among wolves. Separated from his mother and Kevin, he feared for them and himself. Loneliness and depression extinguished any light in his life. He submerged into a black place, his life nothing more than a grim struggle for survival.
In the Furnace, the weak were mercilessly abused. Only strength protected the victims from the abusers. He'd been forced to savagery. To become someone he was not.
His capacity for violence kept him alive.
He learned to recognize those who enjoyed preying on others. These heartless predators were missing a part of what made others human. They deserved no mercy.
Others who needed help sought him out. He did what he could to protect the weak. Behind bars, turning the other cheek guaranteed further abuse or destruction. Survival meant hurt or be hurt—or, potentially, kill or be killed.
He tried not to, but sometimes he'd think of his brother—worry about him, miss him. The pain of their separation was like a hand held over an open flame.
He was alone, soul-aching sad, worried about what he was becoming. He could not believe any God would create a place like the Furnace or allow the abuse and suffering that occurred there.
He thought of giving up...
The Juvenile Court judge's on-the-record comments had left open a door to action by a pro bono criminal justice oversight group aligned with the University of Cincinnati Law School. It took time, but they secured Drake's freedom.
Four months and seventeen days after being delivered into the hell of the Scioto Furnace, Drake was released for time served.
His release came twenty-one days too late. What he'd done hid in a chasm deep within his mind.
He was released from jail, but his sentence would never end.
Chapter 17
Calhoun Beach Condo, Unit 6A
Dan Ogren rolled over. A quilt as thick as a down jacket covered him. His thoughts moved like wet cement. Memory clicked into place—his weekend of women, drugs, and booze had crashed.
He should never have gone home. He’d been high and screwed to near exhaustion. Beth had started flapping her jaw. He still couldn’t believe the trip to the ER had ended up with the police and then jail. Disaster.
After finally getting him free last night, Mesh had insisted Dan not go home. He said Dan needed to stay away from Beth. The little attorney had been pissed and said Dan had screwed up big this time. Dan had to bite his tongue. Mesh was the smartest person Dan had ever met, but the straight-arrow little attorney too often forgot his job was to get Dan out of trouble—not tell him how to live.
Dan had called Clara around midnight and bless her horny little heart, she'd obliged him. As if there'd been any doubt.
He spied the clock. Shit! He'd missed his scheduled court appearance. He’d put himself in even deeper shit. Mesh would be blow-his-stack angry. But if anyone could smooth things over, it was his uptight but smart-as-hell lawyer.
Coming to after a long stretch of booze and drugs always sucked, but today set a new low. Thirty seconds or so of reflection exceeded Dan’s typical stretch. He didn’t waste time looking backwards. Whatever. Time to get up and get it on.
He climbed out of the bed and looked around Clara's room. The huge comforter. Giant pillows. Shag carpeting. Everything puffy. All either pink or white. A poster for the rock group ABBA on the wall. Hadn't they been like a million years ago?
He shook his head.
He'd met Clara at one of the hospital charity affairs a few months back. Beth, clearly the best-looking woman in the place, had been on his arm. When they were introduced to the hospital's “most capable administrative head,” the drab but intense woman had looked at him like a starved dog eying a steak. Not skinny, but she had the lean, slightly hollow-eyed look of a distance runner. Not a beauty, but that worked for him. The princesses and babes think everything is about them.
Women came on to him all the time, but he’d long ago learned to distinguish the duds from those who had that special hunger. The freaky, lonely ones were the best ones to take advantage of. They'd been on the sidelines so long they'd do anything to be in the game.
He'd got her number that night.
A little older than most he used, but so desperately hungry for it.
She got off so hard the first few times he thought she might be having a seizure. And she liked pain.
He'd found himself going back.
A glance out the south-facing window showed Lake Calhoun under a gray sky. The lack of snow left the lake a two-mile sheet of dark glass. Two risk-takers were skating near the middle of the lake's ice.
Shit. That's what he was on—thin ice. Should’ve never gone home to Beth yesterday. All his problems had become more complicated. Never should’ve hit her in the face—but hell if she hadn't asked for it.
And now he'd missed the court appearance that Mesh said he absolutely must not miss.
Screw him. That's what Dan paid him for. Last night Mesh hadn't got him free of the police for hours. Then he'd acted like Dan should kiss his ass because he'd done his job.
Dan walked into the bathroom. Fluffy white rug, white porcelain, and everything else lime green. Smelled like Lysol. He raised the toilet seat, hung out his member, then loosed his stream. He delivered a jet like a fire hose. He got a kick out of standing next to the eunuchs in public restrooms, hanging his hose out and unleashing a torrent. Some dudes got so shook their sphincters locked. They'd fidget, eyes averted, then zip up and leave as if they'd completed their business.
He thought of Kline. The day they'd first met at the country club they'd used adjacent urinals after a round of golf. Kline had leaned over and stared. From day one, the guy had been like one of the rich, old jock-sniffers who hung around when Dan had been a university hockey star.
Kline walked around the country club like a big man. Treated the caddies like shit. Always talking about big money deals. Dan didn't like him, but Kline was good at things Dan was not. He understood accounting, had contacts, and knew how to move money around. He could get things done. A bit like Mesh but without the hang-ups. The hotshot CEO Kline had definitely failed Dan in the ER yesterday. His business advice had been for shit as well.
Dan opened Clara's medicine cabinet and scanned labels. Nothing good. No uppers, sedatives, or narcotics. A bunch of antibiotics.
He turned on the shower. As the water warmed he caught his naked image in the mirror. No surprise that the wenches couldn't get enough of him. One incredible stud.
Almost from the start, Clara had talked all drama-voiced about their “relationship.” How their love would overcome everything.
She might be a medical whiz, but in other ways she was dense as dirt.
On the positive side, she bought into the importance of not being seen together or letting their “relationship” be known. She thought it could be an issue with her job. Most of his sex cows couldn't wait to tell their friends. Or worse, be seen with him in public. He treated them all like shit, but it had never stopped him from finding others who were eager to let him do whatever he wanted.
He'd had a continuous hard-on since high school. Women made themselves available and he took them. Most he didn't have to do a thing—they were all over him. Some he charmed, some he got stupid drunk, and some he took against their will. There was an endless supply and like the song said, “Ever since the first I had, the worst I had was good.” Like the autos he sold, they’d all get you from point A to B, but style, performance, and features could make for a better ride. He liked riding them all.
When he met Beth it had been different. There was something about her that he had to have. He'd read part of an article in a magazine lately. It talked about special pheromones, the angle of a chick's hips, their cycle, and some kind of link between the DNA of potential mates. Primal stuff that left a guy primed—damn near helpless. Whatever it was, that's what he'd had for Beth. He'd been a stallion in rut. He had to have her. And she'd said it had to be marriage. Somehow it had made sense.
She was prime, but she wasn’t enough. He'd been screwing around on her almost from the start. An incredible babe at home and more whenever he wanted it—a perfect set-up.
For his recreational screwing, he'd learned that it worked best to get in, get the freak show on, then clear out. His “screw and dump” pattern took care of his needs and had kept Beth from suspecting.
But lately she'd finally started to catch on.
With Clara's commitment to discretion and can’t-get-enough sexual appetite, he'd found himself returning. He'd used her for almost two months now. Not exclusively, but regularly. On a couple of visits he’d even shared some of his personal business with her. He’d never done that before, but this woman was smart and could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.
