Twitch and Die!

Ch.3: Chloe's Angel

Chloe O’Brien eased her boot back and forth. The half-frozen mud of Main Street both crunched and slurped. She breathed deep, stretching her neck. Gordon, Texas, was doing well. Many of the small buildings were brick—a Ford dealership, a mercantile, hardware. Stolid, they squatted, soldiering on against the cold, the gray, the mud. They looked how she felt.

The storefront Angelo Tucci had disappeared into moments earlier had no current markings, but she could see where the word ‘saloon’ had been lazily scrubbed from the brick. She shrugged. Maybe it still functioned as such, maybe not. Small town Texas didn’t seem to notice prohibition one way or the other, although the Eighteenth Amendment seemed to have given her local host gainful employ. Maybe it wasn’t all bad after all.

Inevitably, this line of thinking brought her back to her father, who’d spent more than a year in prison on the trumped up charges of inciting a riot over the issue. Really he’d been protesting the government’s attempts to rule on people’s moral and private lives—people like Chancho. She’d heard that in parts of the U.S., crime syndicates were using prohibition to rise to prominence, but only a self-righteous rube wouldn’t have seen that coming.

A few wooden steeples rose above the flat commercial roofs. She knew it wasn’t fair to judge all Christians based on the behavior of some. Calming her own self-righteous tendencies, she reminded herself that Chancho was about as Catholic as they came, and he seemed pretty reasonable. Then she rolled her eyes at her own dubious assessment of the man who’d become known as the Motorcycle Mexican.

For the millionth time she marveled at how Chancho’s run from the law had gotten him elected to public office, while her dad had been thrown in prison for helping him. And here she was, fifteen months later and still helping him. Why? The man was exasperating. She knew he loved her father, and was doing all he could to help. It wasn’t that.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, not wanting to think about Chancho or her father. Instead she gazed from hillside to building to the skeletal structures of dormant hardwoods dotting the sleepy town.

A weekday morning, and barely a soul stirred. Those who did seemed oppressed somehow. Chloe forced herself to draw another deep breath. The gray of winter had settled over central Texas before Christmas and stayed past the new year.

She studied the town more astutely. Gordon hosted three cotton gins with multiple gin ponds on the hill south of town. Tugging her boot from the mud, she sauntered across the railroad tracks running east and west, bisecting town. No doubt Gordon was usually more energetic.

A man, hat brim pulled low, hurried past her.

Chloe could have ignored him, except for the little boy in tow. Dangling from his father’s iron grip, the boy’s feet skimmed across the muddy ridges of the road. Twisting by his wrist, he swung his legs vainly for purchase—for one satisfying dip in the muck.

The father only held him higher. Giving up, the boy went limp. Briefly she and the boy connected eyes, sharing the utter injustice of the moment. He doubled the drastic downturn of his pouting lips before disappearing into the merc.

Chloe looked down at her trembling hands. In broken gasps she drew a deep breath. Near hysterics, the instinct became impossible to ignore. She closed her eyes and pressed the bridge of her nose, forcing back the tears.

Instantly, she knew the obvious answer to the question why she’d come to Gordon, why she followed Chancho everywhere. But the answer only forced a new question. Was he really the one, or just a convenient means to an end? And for God’s sake, why didn’t her desires ebb and flow in a logical order like other women?

Eyes still closed and with a final girding, she confessed her deepest need. “I want to be a mother.”

“Why signora, we have a just barely met, and dis hardly seems de time or de place.”