Brothers In Blood: For Country

Homecoming...

The clean-up took almost two weeks to complete. Rachel had told Mac before the vows, that he’d better take care of the mess before she and the kids arrived. The Tribe decided as a whole to not let anyone else help out. It would raise too many questions.
The first order of business was to cremate the bodies and to bury the ashes as far away from the house and the streams as possible. All weapons were removed and thrown into a pile on the deck for Mac to deal with later. The pyre was just stacked logs with the corpses arranged inside. Joe found some unused incendiary bombs and threw them in with them. Then they doused the whole thing in gas and lit it up. It burned for two days, more wood added every few hours, thrown haphazardly so to break any whole bones left.
While the fire was burning, they made all the repairs they could to the roof. Bullets had pierced the thick wood in at least four places, letting water drip through. GD, who had worked for a contractor during his summers in High School took control, ripping up the surrounding shingles and replacing the wood underneath.
Inside, Mac left the plywood over the window in the workshop. All the other windows had escaped harm, and they ripped the wood out and filled in the nail holes. Scud scrubbed the roof stairs where Flash had bled out, and the floor below. they replaced the door, and sanded down the jagged edges left on the observation decks by the firefight.
The fifth day it rained, forcing them all inside and washing the majority of the ashes away. The men washed everything and demanded that Mac wash all his clothes before Rachel got there. They set up a play room in the basement, with space set aside for Lego’s, blocks, action figures, cars, whatever they could think of. Jack ran into town and picked up a colored light ball that they installed in the ceiling. They completely finished off the basement and painted the floors with splashes and splatters. The whole project took them two days before they emerged from the concrete playhouse.
They cleared brush around the house, including the bushes Jack had decimated with his machine gun. “Never really liked those things anyway,” was all Mac had to say. They widened the driveway back down to the main road, and used the trees they cut down to build the kid’s a tree fort, Amish-style. No nails, just huge interlocking wooden beams and thick wooden pegs. Then they moved their efforts inside again. They cleared out two rooms and set them up as bedrooms for the two boys.
Day thirteen came and everything was done, finally. They threw together a shed and stashed the pile of weapons in there for Mac to sort through later. Jennie arrived that afternoon and made Mac wash all his clothes again. Then she started cooking, and threw everyone out of the kitchen.
Kyle and James were bouncing around in the back seat, looking frantically, excitedly out the windows, taking in the fresh mountain scenery. They were going to see Daddy and their new house. Rachel smiled at their excitement and answered their questions as best she could. “Will Uncle Hank and Uncle Donald and Uncle Joe and Uncle Greg an Uncle Jack an Aunt Jennie all be there?” Kyle asked.
“I think so, honey. Why do you want to see them again?”
“Yeah, ours uncles is really awesome!” Then he grew quiet. “Mommy, is Daddy a soldier-man?”
Rachel looked at him in the mirror. “Why do you ask, Kyle?”
The boy leaned against the car door, gazing through the glass at the world whizzing by. “Well,” he said, “Daddy’s got cuts an stuff on his face, an his hair is really short, an he’s real strong, like a soldier-man. Is he?”
“Yes, Kyle, Daddy’s a soldier-man.”
“Is he gonna go away, like Tommy’s daddy?” It was James who asked now.
Rachel pulled off to the side of the road and put the car into park. She turned around to face her sons. “I really don’t know if Daddy will be leaving like Tommy’s daddy, but he’ll always come back. Not like Rick, okay? Daddy won’t leave unless he absolutely has to, and even then, he won’t want to leave. Got it?” Her voice was soft, quiet, almost pleading. She hated the man who had fathered them and held her as his captive for years, and she hated the fact that they knew him.
“We gots it, Mommy.”
She turned back to the road and prepared to merge again. “Why don’t you ask Daddy about being a soldier when we get there?”
“Okay, Mommy, when we gonna get to see Daddy’s house?”
She turned onto the log-lined driveway and felt the car wrestling to pull itself up the steep grade. It was wider than she remembered, but she was sure that this was the right one. A tree fort came into view as it mounted a rise. the boys practically snapped their seatbelts. “Look Mommy! Its a tree house, like the Swiss cheese Robinston family!”
She smiled at their enthusiasm. They turned the corner and the house came into view through the trees. The men were lounging on the porch, reading comic books and leafing through car magazines. When they saw her pull up, Mac vaulted over the railing and ran to the car. He opened the rear door and pulled James and Kyle out, feeling them cling to him. “Hi Daddy!” “We’re here, Daddy! We had a really long ride, but we makes it, didn’t we Mommy?” They held his hands, looking at the woods, stretching out in every direction. Rachel got out of the car and pecked him on the cheek. He kissed her back, then jerked his chin towards the house.
“Think you can talk Jennie into letting us back in?” She bent over and looked the boys in the eye. “James, Kyle, why don’t you two go see if Aunt Jennie needs any help in the kitchen? I’m sure she could use some big strong boys like you.” They raced off towards the house and darted through the door almost too fast to follow. She looked back at Mac. “You okay, honey?” “Never been kicked out of my own house by someone else’s wife before. Its a little different.” His eyes brightened. “Let me show you what the boys pulled together!”
After carrying her over the threshold, as per tradition, he sneaked past the hall to the kitchen. Rachel crept in and stifled a laugh. James and Kyle were perched on the counter, their faces covered in blue frosting. She darted back to the main hall before they saw her. Mac took her hand and walked her down to the basement. It was dark. “Where are the lights?” She patted the walls, looking for them. Mac clapped his hands and a colored disco ball whirred to life. Dots of color did little to illuminate the room. He flipped a switch on the wall next to him and green lights lit up the room. They went off and he flipped another switch. Blue. Then yellow then orange then red and finally white. “A color for every adventure.”
He eagerly pointed out every box, every section of the basement, its proposed purpose, the reason for having it there. Rachel cooed over the homemade blocks, stacked so neatly into a giant WELCOME HOME sign. They went back upstairs to see the boy’s rooms.
A blank white wall with red oak paneling on the other three walls, with a place by the door for a corkboard. each room had twin beds, one on each side. “Why two beds? And the blank wall?”
“Wasn’t sure what they were used to, a room to themselves or shared, so we set up for both, just in case. As for the wall, when the kids get settled, and I get a feel for what their interests are, you and me‘ll come in and paint whatever it is they want.” The ceilings were painted with different constellations, and the bureaus were set at the end of the beds, dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars. A single shelf ran around the entire room, just high enough for the boys to reach without having to stand on anything.
Jack peeked in on them. “Oh, good you’re not making out. Jennie just called for lunch.” he stopped and looked at the room and his face grew somber.
“So what you’re telling me, Doctor, is that I can’t have kids.” Jack was staring out the window, talking to the man across the desk. “There’s something wrong with me, some genetic crapshit and if I had kids, if I even had a wife, they’d be better off dead than alive.” Tears ran down his face. The doctor nodded, so sterilized and practiced. Completely devoid of pity or emotion.
“You okay, brother?” Mac shook his shoulder gently. “Kind of spaced out there.” Rachel sensed that something was wrong and slipped past them and went into the kitchen. Jack was staring at the floor. He looked up, not daring to look Mac in the face. Tears started streaming down his face. Mac guided him into the observatory and shut the door. Jack stared out the huge window, tears still running down his face. “Jack, what’s up?”
He turned from the window, his eyes filled with pain. “What’s it like being a father, Mac?” His voice cracked. “I know they ain’t really yours really, but they are. They got a mother and a father now, and they’re gonna be okay.”
“So what’s up with you?”
Jack took a deep breath to compose himself. “I can’t ever know what its like to have a wife, and I don’t want kids who have to grow up without a mother.” Mac looked confused. Jack looked back out the window. “Doctor’s say I got some kind of genetic defect, like a virus, that if it gets into anyone else, they’ll degenerate so fast, its not even funny. And any kids I have, that come from me, they’ll either be carriers like me or be wasted bodies with dead brains in their skulls.”
The picture in the medical book was extremely graphic, the detail the artist had drawn incredible and painful. A baby born with the disease, emaciated and shriveled with a collapsed skull and sickeningly twisted facial features. Straight out of the womb, barely nine months old, barely a pound. Stretched over a 10 inch skeleton. “Still born, with a few exceptions, but they lived a few hours before they too passed on.” The doctor turned the page and a photograph of an infected woman and the stages, measured in days instead of months. She was thin to begin with. MRI scans showed the degeneration of the brain. It was still mostly whole. By the fourteenth day, she was down to bending bones and paper-thin skin. The MRI showed little brain matter left.
“I could never live, knowing that I did that to someone.” Jack rested his forehead against the window and started sobbing. Then he snorted. “Kind of funny, huh? Old Jack, the eunuch.” He sighed and looked at the sky. “Why me, God? Why me, Mac?” He turned and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I’ll never be able to have kids, to be able to put that kind of effort, to have that kind of love for a kid, a son, a daughter... a wife. You’ve been to my house before, right Mac?” It was a question that really needed no answer. All the boys had been to everyone else’s house at some point. “Remember that swing set I got set up in the back yard?” Mac nodded. “Got that right after I found out. Thought it would give the neighborhood kids something to play on, somewhere to go when they got tired of playing at home. Got a kind of kid mission house, where they can come and play, or spend the night with friends or whatever. But this whole damn world just keeps stealing them away.”
Jack shifted his legs, stretching them out. “School steals ‘em, the streets steal their souls, growing up kills their innocence.” His head sank down to his knees. “I hate seeing kids grow up too fast and not being able to do anything about it. If I can’t have kids of my own, all I want is to help the ones I see and do what I can for them. I hate seeing the dealers on the corner, patronizing the kids I played Monopoly with the night before. They seem like idealistic heroes, rich with pretty girls hanging on their arms, the fancy cars, all a false face. They’re stealing the kids, younger and younger, getting them hooked. I had one kid, five years old walk into the house right before I got the call from the UN (Bastards) drunk, flat out drunk. Poor kid was throwing up all night.”
“What do you want to do about it?” Mac crouched next to his friend and put his hand on his shoulder.
“I want to teach them that they aren’t invincible, that these kids can live without the crap these jerks are selling. It ain’t even in the cities, Mac, its Suburbia, Massachusetts. I want to fight back, its a battle for these kids lives. And they don’t see the monsters until its too late. Five and already drinking, twelve year olds smoking pot... Got to fight the monsters, protect the weak, those who can’t see, those who can’t do it on their own.” He looked Mac dead in the eye. “Are you with me?”
“To the last breath, Captain.”
“We’ll start a movement, send a message that we won’t let it happen anymore. Start there and maybe other people will pick up the standard and set the country on fire. On fire against those who are ruining our land, raping and pillaging and destroying the future. A revolution of revulsion against these bastards.” He stopped. “Almost sound like a Klansman, huh, Mac.”
Mac smiled. “Almost, Jack, but their focus was everyone they saw as a threat to the white race. You’re focusing on anyone, white, black, Asian or native A who’s a threat to the next generation. Other than that, better get out your hood and cloak, oh mighty Mystical High Wizard, and prepare to lead us on to victory!” They both laughed. Mac offered his hand to Jack. “Let’s go get some food before they eat it all.”
As they walked down to the kitchen, Jack stopped him. “Thanks, brother.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Give me a call when you want me, or whenever you feel like it. I’ll be here. Love ya, man.” They gave each other a massive bear hug, then broke. “You gonna tell the rest of the boys ‘bout your plan?”
“I don’t know, maybe this’ll just be you and me. Okay with you?”
“Gonna need backup.”
“We’ll have them on speed dial, how ‘bout that?”
“What about D? You know he’ll be pissed if he gets left out of something like this. And he’s great with kids...” The suggestion hung for a moment.
“Alright, I’ll talk to D, but everyone else’ll be out of the loop until we think we need ‘em.”
“Gotcha covered.”
They stepped into the kitchen, where Rachel was talking to Jennie. The women stopped when they walked in. “Everything okay, guys?” “yeah, Jack just had some things on his mind. that’s all.” Jennie reached into the fridge and pulled out two plates. “We saved these for you two, since you didn’t seem to want to honor the rest of us by eating with us. There’s more in the fridge if you need it.”
Later that afternoon, Jennie and GD left for her parent’s house, where they’d be staying until they found a new one. Custer took off right after them, so he could get the Not Dead Yet ready for the next competition. Scud left to catch a flight to his house in California, where the surfing season was just beginning. Jack walked Mista D out to his car, then they went for a ride into town. They’d be staying the night, so they thought it a good deed to stock the pantry for the newlyweds. Joe left when it started getting dark, saying “Been good seeing you guys again, fighting alongside you again, but my bed is calling me home. See you next time!”
Kyle and James hugged everyone tightly before they left, and Rachel extended their hospitality. “Stop by again, any time! We mean it! Come back soon!”
It was nearly 9 o’clock when Jack and Mista D got back. They insisted on unloading the car themselves, but Rachel wouldn’t let them near the pantry closet. By the time everything was in its place, James and Kyle were fast asleep and Mista D was well on his way in following their lead. Mac led him to his room, where D promptly collapsed on the bed and fell fast asleep. Jack started for his room. Mac stopped him. “What’d D say?” Jack smiled. “He’s all for it. See you in the mornin’, brother.” “See you in the mornin.”