Everybody Falls Read online

  Everybody Falls

  J. A. Hornbuckle

  Dedication:

  To Jazz and Jess, as always. Love that you're mine.

  To Lori and Reese, along with Margarita, Jenny and Rita. You are always there when I need you. As Beta Readers, you're indispensible and as friends you're worth even more.

  For those that have been with me on this journey…Thanks for the memories!

  And those that are still on their way…Where've you been? My heart's been waiting for you.

  Chapter 1

  The old woman heard his feet on the stairs, his hands squeaking on the banisters and she knew he was only hitting about every third step with those long legs of his. She tried to gauge his mood just from the sound of him bounding down the creaking staircase of the ancient house.

  Happy, she decided.

  "Mornin', Grams," he offered, moving quickly to the coffee pot and pouring a cup before holding the carafe towards her in silent question.

  "Mornin', Hot Stuff," she shot back and held her cup still as he refilled it. "You sleep?"

  "Some, not a lot," he replied in that black velvet voice he'd inherited, leaning his ass against the sink, sipping carefully at the hot, monkey-piss his Grandma called 'coffee'. They'd gotten into it a couple of times about the strength of the coffee and she'd always won so the brew served was just about the color of ice tea.

  "Was that you playin' I heard last night?" she threw out. Edie knew it was him since they were the only two in the farmhouse in the middle of the night.

  "Yes ma'am. Sorry if I woke you," he said finally, finishing his cup, putting it in the sink. He moved towards the back porch that led off the old farmhouse kitchen.

  "Finish it, Jax," she said calmly but firmly from her chair at the breakfast table.

  The younger man stopped and looked at her like he didn't know what she was talking about before he back-tracked to the sink to rinse his cup and put it in the dishwasher. He caught her smile and grinned back before retracing his steps to the back porch for his shoes.

  "What's the plan for the day, then?" She asked as he came and sat in the chair next to her to put on his chucks and lace them up.

  "Run, then shower," he said as he finished tying his shoes. "You said we needed to sort through the garage today."

  "You need to get some good running shoes, Jax. I don't think them things you've got on are right for running even if they're 'in' at the moment," she commented as he stood up, towering over her.

  He didn't reply with words but bent the long way down to drop a kiss on her short, fluffy white hair before taking off for his run.

  Yep, happy, she thought hearing the back door open and the slap of the screen door as he left. That's a full week now, the longest he'd had gone without even a flash of temper, attitude or a bad mood, much less the tears making an appearance since he'd been back in her house.

  "Pete, I think we're finally making some progress, here," the old woman said, lapsing into her habit of talking to her dead husband. A habit that she tried to curtail when Jax was within hearing distance.

  She didn't want her grandson to think that his mental issues were inherited. At least not from her side of the family.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Jax stood on the gravel path that led from the back of the house to the driveway and began his mental warm-up as he pulled his long raven hair in a ponytail. "My name is Jackson Bennett Wynter. I live in Auburn, California. Today is Tuesday, March 20th, 2012." He knew it sounded weird, that recantation which he repeated every day.

  Every fucking day.

  But, it was important.

  When Jax first landed on the farm, he was so far from reality, so far away from normal, he couldn't take a breath without wondering if it was going to be his last. His last conscious thought before reality left. The real of what was actually real could've gone running at any moment when he was still so lost in the miasma of the loss of his brother, his job, his fucking life. And being fucked up on prescription pills to boot?

  Yeah.

  Disaster had been just itching to get it's claws into him; was fucking waiting to happen.

  When he'd first started running at the advice of his local therapist, his mental warm-up was a lot longer and he'd find himself having to repeat it throughout the day. Sometimes even checking the calendar two or three times to make sure he had it right. The small calendar emblazoned with California wildflowers that his Gram had push-pinned to the side of the cabinet next to the phone in the kitchen. A calendar that had been his lifeline to the "real" world when life had been so fucking unreal at the time.

  He took a deep breath of the chilly air, smelling the sweet grass that graced the space between the house and outbuildings, the scent of the dust and trees temporarily muted. He loved the smell of Auburn, especially in the morning, before the sun began to share its heat with the foothills the small town was nestled in.

  Jax began his physical warm-up as preparation for his run, stretching each of his long muscles. It'd taken a couple of episodes of severe cramps to teach him the lesson of a good warm-up and slow cool down; a lesson he was determined not to repeat. Plus, the stretches had helped make him more flexible. He was finally able to touch his toes after weeks of inching his way down from his knees.

  Bending over, Jax ran his eyes over his chucks and considered Gram's suggestion about the shoes. She just may have a point, he thought, wiggling his toes as he came up out of his hamstring stretch. They needed to be replaced anyway since the soles were starting to pull away at the toe portion. Maybe he'd hit the sports shop in town after they assessed the garage later. See about getting something more appropriate.

  Especially since he didn't have anyone to impress anymore and hadn't had for coming up to a year now.

  He started with a fast walk, continuing to stretch as he moved.

  The running had started after he'd complained to the therapist about having to take the plethora of horse-pills they'd prescribed to help 'keep him calm'. They'd kept him calm alright but he'd floated through the days with no sense of who he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

  When questioned, Gram would calmly respond that he was 'healing'. Whatever the fuck that meant.

  Dr. Norton had told him that if he could commit to exercising daily for at least an hour, then she'd take him off the meds.

  He'd done it, too.

  The first couple of weeks were tough--harder than hell, actually. Coming of the legal-by-prescription stuff was almost worse than the detox regimen in the rehab place. Luckily, he'd made it through both.

  Had survived both, was a more accurate way to say it, though.

  Jax had been in such piss-poor shape when he'd first started, he'd only barely been able to walk the quarter mile to Gram's mailbox and back in a half-hour. However, doing that twice a day met the one hour goal. It took him about a week and a half before he could push himself to do the damn double trip in one go.

  He rapped his knuckles on the mailbox as he passed, and picked up his pace. That knock on the metal receptacle had become a ritual; his way of honoring where he'd been, where he was and a promise that he could, eventually, go further.

  Every morning, every time he ran, he made a point of performing that knock of honor.

  It was true he'd been a mess when Gram met him at the tiny Sacramento airport when they'd finally released him from Glen Oaks, the rehab facility in Ojai, last October.

  The flight was still fuzzy, like something out of a dream, but he remembered waiting to be the last person off the plane; waiting until security gave the all clear before he could disembark. When he did, wearing both a baseball cap and a hoodie, with the hood up, along with his dark, dark shades, he saw a short, roly-poly old woman standing all by her lones
ome holding a piece of cardboard that simple read, 'J.W.'

  "Hello, Jackson," she said beaming up at him as he stopped before her. "I'm your Grandma Edie. They're getting your luggage and they let me park at the curb. So let's get a move on and get you home."

  The security people led the way and Grams had pressed her key-ring into his hand when they were approaching the electronic doors. "I drove here. You can drive back."

  Jax remembered stopping and moving his eyes from the old woman to the keys pressing into his palm before he uttered his first words to her. "I don't drive."

  Still moving forward, the tiny woman glanced at him over her shoulder as she cleared the door. "Well, Hot Stuff, you do now."

  And, he had.

  He'd tried arguing with her, citing that he didn't have a license and that he was on strong medication but nothing he said fazed her. It wasn't until later that Jax realized the old woman had purposefully riled him up enough to talk to her. He hadn't even noticed he'd driven the entire way to the farm without panicking. White knuckled with fury at the tiny but strong willed woman, he'd done it. Not anxious, not panicked. Only fucking pissed as all get out to realize she wasn't kowtowing to the great Rock God which Jax and the rest of the world considered him to be.

  That he used to be.

  He smiled as he remembered his holier-than-thou attitude the old woman had been able to manipulate, had navigated in those first few weeks. Yeah, Grams had slapped his attitude right out of him without even raising one of her well-worn hands.

  He passed ol' man McNally's mailbox and continued to smile remembering how the neighbor's mailbox had been his goal for two solid weeks. He took another deep breath, smelling the greening of the fruit trees, still bearing a whiff of whatever insecticide the old man had tried this week in order to keep the bugs off his apples and cherries trees.

  At first, just to make it to the neighbor's mailbox and back doing that small-stepped jog had been his biggest goal. It had been a really big motherfucking deal the first time he'd done it. God, how he'd wheezed and sweated, legs shaking, before turning and going back to the farmhouse.

  Man, that seemed so long ago.

  Back then, he'd wear his leather jacket when he'd run due to the chill in the air. Eventually he'd learned that his body might be chilled at the beginning, but he'd be dripping sweat when he'd return to the place he'd started.

  The locals that had driven passed him always did the surprised, eyebrow lifted glance when they went by. At first, he was afraid they'd recognized him until Gram told him they were probably only looking at the durn fool running for exercise in a leather motorcycle jacket.

  He'd still get the look from them now, though, he was sure it was because of the tattooed sleeves, both arms fully covered in ink, that caught their attention.

  Shit, if they thought his arms were wild they should see his fucking back.

  Jax thought back to the look on Gram's face when she'd first seen him without a shirt.

  "You did that on purpose?" she'd asked skeptically. "Paid money to have somebody draw on your skin?"

  When he assured her he did, she looked at him and simply shook her head.

  It was her look, that certain deadpanned, measuring gaze, with the head shake, he had become very familiar with in the time he'd lived with her.

  Jax ran, his pace now sure and full, beginning the long curve that would take him into 'Old Town', noticing the faint green just on the edges of the trees lining the road. Almost full spring. Jax tried to imagine how the tree-line would look all filled in.

  Would that happen in summer?

  Summer.

  When summer came, it will have been a year since Denny died.

  Jax felt his knees and thighs begin to tense with the thought of the anniversary of his brother's death. The tension chopped his steps and the cadence of his feet, which had been beating in the 'run rhythm' he loved, faltered.

  Okay, so that was still a no-go area to think about, and Jax took in a long breath to help release the tension. In and out, he breathed as the therapist had shown him. As he breathed in, he could smell the water of the little brook that ran adjacent to the road and soon could even smell the copper on the wet rocks that lined the small waterway.

  He concentrated on breathing the large breaths out and felt the tension ease.

  He wondered if the brown-haired girl would be on the steps this morning.

  Would she be alone or with the redheaded older gal? Maybe the miniscule blonde with the wild hair would be there, too, although she had only been there a couple of times that Jax had noticed.

  His eyes were mainly on the pretty brown haired girl.

  She was there most mornings, sitting on the wooden steps at the front of the historic wooden mall, sipping something hot from a large mug that she held in both hands.

  She was pretty cute from what he could see in his place on the other side of the paved road. A road that wasn't framed with gutters or even sidewalks. Just a small two lane paved road on the far side of the historic district before it met the other roads which took you to roads leading out to houses and farms.

  Funny how each of those roads held different views, different smells. And he should know since he'd spent a lot of time exploring them on his runs.

  When he'd first seen her, he just ran passed trying to keep his eyes off her. A couple of weeks later he'd acknowledge her with a chin-lift.

  But he never got a response.

  Not when he ignored her.

  Not when he tried to be cool.

  It was recently he'd tried a flick of his wrist, his version of a wave, and saw her lift her fingers from around her mug in response.

  Progress, however slight, still counted.

  As he ran through the Y-juncture that separated the residences and farms from the old, historic portion of Auburn, Jax looked and found her in that same spot on the steps. Today she was wearing the soft pink sweats and sipping out of the blue mug. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder, tumbling down her breast, hidden behind one of her bent arms.

  Today, she turned her head to watch him as he ran down the road, each stride bringing him closer to her.

  That was new.

  The head turn.

  She really was very pretty, Jax thought, wondering what color her eyes were. The pink of the sweats highlighted the pink of her full mouth and high cheeks.

  He probably should've been minding his feet and the road more than staring at her.

  Because it was then that his foot hit a fallen, forgotten pinecone which threw him completely off his game.

  Both mentally and physically.

  *.*.*.*.*

  There was something precious in the mornings here.

  A renewal, a rebirth.

  Especially when the sun was first coming up, but, with all my windows except in the kitchen and bathroom facing west, I really shouldn't have been aware of the coming dawn.

  Each morning I was awake before the light began to make itself visible in my bedroom.

  Even though Deja, my next door neighbor and fellow merchant at the historic mall, wasn't around this week, I still did my routine greeting of the morning by taking my coffee outside on the steps.

  I made coffee in my second hand machine up in my apartment over the store and freshened myself while I waited for it to brew.

  This was the way I started my day, every day.

  And, everyday, I missed having Grandma to start it with.

  Her passing so suddenly, it still hit me like a ton of bricks every awakening; an unfilled hole in my heart echoing her loss daily.

  Pouring a cup, I went downstairs and out the front door of what used to, at one time, be a biker bar. I sat on the worn, wide steps that welcomed people into the old-fashioned, old-time strip mall. Too early for either customers or other store managers, I sipped my brew and watched the dawn light twinkle on the different trees that lined the other side of my street.

  Grandma had told me all their different names but I could
only remember Ponderosa Pine and Incense Cedar. I wished I remembered more.

  All I know is that I couldn't start my day without my coffee or greeting the morning light on the trees.

  Inevitably, I heard the slap-slap of his chucks on the pavement.

  The man came by every morning like clockwork, running as if his life depended on it, instead of the gentle jog that other people used to get their exercise in.

  Nobody in their right mind exercised in chucks.

  They were too thin. Not enough sole, enough support, to run in.

  Yet, every day, there he was.

  Running the street in his chucks, his long legs reaching and eating up the asphalt. His broad shoulders and muscled, inked arms keeping a counter rhythm as he ran.

  At least he'd lost the leather jacket that he used to wear.

  He'd become such a fixture of the morning scenery, the sounds of his feet on the asphalt keeping time to whatever was in his head. I had taken to putting on music that had a beat to match his cadence. Today, my MP3 in the store was playing Soundgarden's 'Black Days'.

  The low volume of such a rock anthem was probably illegal in more than a few states.

  In fact, the hard-driving rock anthems seemed to be my music of choice when I waited for him. There was something about the set of his shoulders, the tattoos that fully covered his arms spoke to me of deep pain when I watched him run, but I couldn't have told you why.

  Normally, he'd run right by me with only a quick wave, which was more than alright by me.

  Today, he'd stopped.

  But, not by his own volition.

  He tripped, wind-milling his way past me on the porch steps. Taking giant, wobbly steps trying to find his balance before failing, before falling.

  Before doing a skidding face plant on the asphalt not ten feet away from me. Just there on the other side of the road, yet still on the asphalt. That cold, hard surface, sprinkled with the various pinecones from the beautiful tall, tall trees on the other side.

  "Arrg," he shouted as his face had hit the ground.

  I placed my new bright blue mug on the worn piece wooden step and made my way slowly to his still figure sprawled on the blacktop. I could see his back rising and falling with his breaths, so I figured he was, at least, alive after his dive. That would've been a horrible epitaph, 'Death by Pavement'.