CHAPTER 12
It was a quarter after six by the time I finished with Lyle and sneaked my way into a basement room in the downtown courthouse, about a five-block walk from the newspaper.
The room was crowded with the most diverse group of females I’ve ever seen outside of a baseball game. Baseball and fear, the great equalizers. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, senior citizens, teenagers, suburban housewives-all these women had one significant thing in common: They were terrified of something.
Hudson Byrd, the man at the front of the class, a military contractor who witnessed horror shows in Iraq and Afghanistan, who once melted his hard body around mine, was teaching them to respect that feeling.
I spent forty-five minutes in a folding chair in the corner while they took turns imitating Hudson’s simple defense moves on training dummies lined up at the front-slamming the chin with the heel of a palm, jamming the eyes with their thumbs, thrusting a knee to the groin.
Hudson roved around. “Come on, folks, we need a little less Jennifer Aniston and a lot more Angelina Jolie. Make damn sure he can’t continue his gene pool when you’re done with him.”
With every jab and poke and giggle, I had time to doubt the sense of showing up here and getting Hudson involved. I glanced at the door. Maybe he hadn’t spotted me yet. As if he read my mind, he caught my eye and winked. He’d known all along, probably from the second I walked in.
Sadie said he showed up at Daddy’s funeral and sat at the back of the church, that I just didn’t see him. It would be rude to go.
Damn Sadie. Damn her for telling me Hudson was back from the war zone, for finding out that he was teaching this class tonight as a favor for a friend, for writing the time and location on a piece of paper she shoved in my purse, for reminding me without saying a word that I’d never come close to finding any man I loved better.
Eventually, most of the class was exercising serviceable moves. The granny in the back row with a cane and an ass-kicking left leg was the one I’d bet on in a dark alley.
“Knees, eyes, throat, groin,” Hudson said. “Repeat it back.”
“Knees, eyes, throat, groin,” they chirped obediently.
“Those are your target spots. Don’t forget it.”
For the last fifteen minutes of the class, the women sat cross-legged on the carpet and listened to Hudson’s no-holds-barred lecture on weapons laws in Texas and the advantages and disadvantages of carrying guns and pepper spray.
They were rapt because Hudson had that effect on women. Sadie put him in the category of guys you could take home to Mama, but Mama would be shocked if she knew what he’d do to you later that night.
When his mouth was curved up, emphasizing crinkly lines around his eyes and deep dimples, he was irresistible, James Franco and Clint Black rolled into one, a magnet of sexual energy and charm and intellect. When it didn’t, when his mouth formed a tight, inscrutable line, you took a step back.
I stepped back a long time ago and kept on stepping.
“You shoot a gun in self-defense and the bullet hits somebody, that’s just the beginning of your problems,” Hudson was telling the women, holding up his hand amid a spree of protests.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re completely justified. You’ll have to hire a lawyer for the investigation. When you’re cleared, you’ll have to keep him for the civil lawsuit the ‘victim’ will slap you with.” He grinned. “Hey, ladies, that’s life in America, home of the free.”
When he was finished, a teenager, her iPhone on the floor inches from her leg in case of a Facebook emergency, stuck her hand in the air.
“Should I get a gun?”
“No,” Hudson said.
She made a face and glanced down at a flashing text message. “Should I carry pepper spray on my key chain?”
“It depends,” he said. “How pissed off do you get at your boyfriends?”
“My parents are making me take this class.”
“Yes,” he said, pointing to a thin woman with wire-frame glasses who had raised her pencil, briefly halting her compulsion to write down every word he said in a black notebook. She had a bruise around her right eye. “You have a question?”
She cleared her throat. “What specific kind of gun do you recommend that I carry?”
“I don’t recommend that you carry any gun at all,” he said gently, “unless you’ve practiced with it until it is like a glove in your hand. That said, a lot of women like.32 caliber revolvers or 9 mms. Some of them carry.380s. They’re all effective, fairly easy to shoot. With a lot of practice.” He paused. “Never, ever use a gun if you’re afraid of it.”
She wrote this down.
Who would be safer tonight when we drove home, I wondered, her or me?
I wanted to beg her not to return to the man who delivered that punch.
A thirtyish woman, poured like cake batter into a pink tracksuit, waved her diamond rings vigorously.
“OK, what about this situation? A man is coming toward me with a gun and I don’t have one. What should my first move be?” She chopped her hands in the air, karate-style.
“He’s got a gun?” Hudson asked.
“Yes, a big one.” She couldn’t help herself. She lowered her eyes to his crotch.
“And you don’t?”
“Right. What should my move be?”
Hudson crossed his arms and propped himself against the blackboard that listed two reputable shooting ranges, one that I used to frequent every Sunday night.
“Your move,” he drawled, “should be the same as mine. Haul ass.”
The class erupted in laughter, the teenagers helped up the old ladies, the suburban moms swarmed Hudson for a few extra questions, and I waited in the corner, wondering how to smother the heat coming off my body before he got too close.
Finally, when the last woman scooted out the door and Hudson moved deliberately toward me, all I could think about was how he’d looked on the top of a bull, a moving sculpture of grace and power, fighting for his eight seconds.
His archnemesis was a one-ton creature called Drill, Baby, Drill, a name that had nothing to do with oil and everything to do with West Texas testosterone.
Hudson and I met on the competitive rodeo circuit the year I turned eighteen. Eight months of daredevil riding, passionate arguments, and sex that disturbed the horses. It was the most alive I ever felt. Now he was inches from my face for the first time in six years, and I could barely breathe.
“So Tommie with an ie,” he said, drawing out the words slowly, “what can I do for you?”
For the first time in two weeks, I wished I looked better, as his eyes roamed my face, makeup free, which is the way he always said he liked it.
No prelude, I just spit it out.
“I need one of your cop friends to let me into the downtown jail tomorrow to meet the murderer who might be my real father.”
“Done,” he said. “If you buy me a couple of shots of Dulce Vida.”
An hour later, we sat in a heavily graffitied wooden booth at The Rope bar, breathing the cloud of smoke puffed our way from a guy who looked like Santa Claus with a black leather fetish.
Underneath a studded jacket, Santa wore a T-shirt that read, “You never see a motorcycle parked outside a therapist’s office.” I didn’t take it personally.
The downtown dive catered to cops and Harley riders who shared an unlikely bond after years of drinking beer and twisting on bar stools together. I didn’t want to know what kind of life-and-death issues were decided in this room as the two tribes handed tips back and forth. Regardless, sitting here felt pretty damn safe.
After an intent half-hour of listening to my spew of emotion and wild facts and then reading the letter for himself, Hudson made a few calls. My wish was granted. Tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. Everyone, it seemed, at least those in Hudson’s network, either owed him a favor or wanted Hudson Byrd to owe them one. Now I could be added to the list.