Boosting - Chapter 11
Joe was suddenly awake. He picked up his watch from the nightstand and checked the time – 3.15 a.m. He'd only been in bed for three hours! He groaned in despair and returned the watch to the tabletop.
Unable to fall back asleep, he lay there, made himself comfortable and let his mind drift, going over what had happened that evening following his and his brother's mostly disastrous jaunt in the boat.
Once they finally moored up the boat, Joe had sent Frank back to the cabin to clean himself up and find some pain killers and went about tidying everything away, still chortling to himself at the look on Frank's face when he'd loomed up tall out of the water like some sort of mythical merman.
By the time Joe had returned to the cabin, Frank had taken a shower and was lying on his bed with the lights out and the shades down; his forearm drooped across his face. Joe assumed Frank was dozing, as he didn't give any indication that he'd known Joe was peeking around the door.
Later that evening, though, Frank was largely pain free again so they'd travelled into town and had found a bar where they could shoot pool and hang out for a few hours. Joe always thrashed Frank at pool and today was no exception.
Eventually, after being soundly beaten for the third time, Frank admitted defeat, despite being begged for another game, and limped to a vacant table as Joe went to the bar for two more beers. Frank pulled his walking stick out from under his jacket and placed it down on the table top before removing his jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair.
"Chicken!" Joe said, when he'd returned. He passed Frank's bottle across and straddled a stool opposite. "You hate being trounced, don't you? I'm so much better than you at pool, live with it, dude."
"I don't mind being beaten Joe, what I object to is your gloating afterwards. Can't you be gracious in victory? There was no need to raise your cue in air and whoop until everyone applauded!"
"You're joking aren't you, pal? I cherish these moments, there's not much I'm better than you at, let me have my celebration."
Frank smirked and took a chug of his beer, looking over Joe's shoulder at something. He carried on quickly taking glances once he'd put the bottle down and leaned his elbows on the table, to such an extent that Joe's curiosity overtook and he turned in his seat to see what was grabbing his brother's attention.
Behind him, there were three girls leaning up against the crowded bar. They all had their eyes trained on his brother, not one of them was taking any notice of Joe. Well, they were, but their gazes kept on shifting back to Frank, no matter how much Joe treated them to his 'special smile'.
"What's up with that?" Frank eventually asked, embarrassed.
"Dunno, but they're obviously—"
"—Crap, they're comin' over!" Frank interrupted and then glanced towards the exit looking for an escape route.
"Be cool, bro. What's the worse that can happen?" Joe muttered quickly and turned to welcome them.
"Hi!" the blond said. "Anyone sitting here?" she asked, putting her hand on the back of the one empty seat. She was addressing Frank.
"Um, no."
"Do you mind if we—"
Joe received a look from his brother, which Joe understood to mean, "Help". Unfortunately, the blond chick didn't quite register it in the same way.
"—Oh…sorry, I didn't realise you two were a couple, you don't look gay! Well, maybe you with the muscles an-all," she said, finally looking at Joe properly.
Joe spluttered on his beer, a quantity of it spilling from his mouth down his front. "Aw jeeze! No, no way, we're not, you know…not that I've got a problem with it…you know? Each to his own." He started pointing from Frank to himself with one hand while rubbing his chin and shirt down with the other. "Not really my thing…our thing…I'm a woman's man…all a woman's man! But I'm up with the pro-choice!"
Frank rolled his eyes. "I think what Joe is tryin' to say is that we're brothers. I'm Frank and this here is Joe. And no, the seat isn't taken, and no, neither of us is gay, and definitely not Joe...apparently."
"Oh good." The blond said and sat down. Her friends, both brunettes fetched themselves chairs, parked themselves and looked expectantly at Frank again.
"And you are?" Joe asked, deciding to jump in and help out his decidedly cornered looking brother.
"I'm Jackie," the blond said. "And this is Martina and Nesta," she answered, indicating to each of her friends in turn. "They're sisters," she finished.
"Pleased to meet you," Joe said and shook each hand in turn.
Frank did the same with a lopsided grin.
As Martina took Frank's hand, she held on and said. "We're curious, Frank. Why the walking stick?"
Joe knew immediately that Frank was going to have a real issue with answering questions to do with his leg. He was already blinking and Joe could see the tell-tail signs of stress playing around his jaw line.
"He injured his knee playing football, didn't you, dude?" Joe said, out of the blue – it was the first thing he could think off. Joe knew that Frank wouldn't have liked to lie, but this meant that he didn't have to, because he had blown his knee the first time playing football, so he had a ready story that didn't need massaging.
"Yeah, that's right. I wrecked my kneecap during a particularly physical tackle," Frank immediately replied, and smiled at Joe.
"Told you," Nesta said. "That's five dollars, please girls!" she demanded and held her hand out.
Joe watched nonplussed as each girl pulled out a bill from their back pockets and handed them across.
Nesta smiled at Frank's surprised face and sniffed the money. "The sweet smell of victory!" She laughed. "We have a tradition when we meet up that we have a random bet. Today's was how you'd hurt your leg – of course, the fact the two of you are the best looking guys in the joint was a bit of a draw."
And then Joe's ego repaired itself as the girls started to not only show attention to Frank, but also to him.
"So tell me, how did you two think my brother had hurt his leg?" Joe asked.
"I thought he'd been born with some sort of defect." Jackie said.
"And I bet he'd fallen over."
"I'm not so clumsy as to fall over that badly," Frank said.
Joe fought the urge to remind Frank of all the bumps and falls they'd both had their share of.
"No, I don't suppose you are." Jackie said and gazed at Frank, studying his features. "How did you do that?" she asked, and put her hand out to touch the left side of his face.
Joe grimaced. He didn't notice any more as he'd become so used to it, but Frank's face was still sporting some battle scars from his argument with the Pandora Posse's gun when he'd been beaten with it. Even now, when his brother smiled, it was a little lopsided due to the nerve damage, and he now couldn't raise the one eyebrow when he used to be able to independently raise them both.
He remembered when Frank had been told that the nerves possibly wouldn't ever totally recover. Frank hadn't seemed outwardly bothered, but Nancy had been distraught. Afterwards Frank had philosophised that, as there was little that could be done about it, there wasn't any point in getting overly wrought. However, Joe suspected that deep down, it did bother him as he'd seen the way Frank looked at himself in the mirror.
The scars would eventually fade somewhat, but they could be plainly seen and Joe was sure they were a reminder every time Frank looked at his reflection. Joe's gunshot scar was far worse than Frank's, but his were on his stomach and back under his clothing, his brother's were on full view and that made a huge psychological difference.
Frank flinched back away from Jackie's touch and went halfway to batting her hand clear, but stopped himself from actually making contact. However, the movement had been such that Jackie withdrew her hand at speed and almost hit Martina in the cheek.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to—" she blurted out.
"—No, it's okay. Its…a little sore still – I was in an accident, but nothing to do with my knee."
Oh yes, Joe was more than sure that the facial damage worried his brother a lot more than he'd have them believe. Joe jumped in again to save his embarrassment: "Yeah, that's right, a car accident and the windshield got smashed and Frank got hit with glass."
"You poor thing!" Nesta said.
"HEY! What's goin' on here?" shouted an aggressive male voice suddenly from some distance away, but getting closer. They all looked across to see three men heading in their direction.
"Oh, just great…sorry boys, it's my ex-boyfriend and his bozo friends." Martina muttered and stood up to face them. "What do you want, Justin?"
To Joe, Martina sounded like she was heartily sick and tired of this Justin.
"Who are these guys?" Justin asked, tipping his thumb at Frank and Joe in turn.
"None of your business!" Martina said. "Take a hike, Justin."
"Yeah, take a hike, Justin!" Joe said and stood up to stand behind Martina supportively.
Joe looked down at Frank expecting him to do the same, but he didn't. He was instead sitting very still with his face forward, his eyes fixed on something on the other side of the room. He assumed Frank was watching what was happening in his peripheral vision though. "Has he lost his nerve that badly?" Joe wondered to himself and groaned inwardly. He knew he could take two guys on his own, but three?
And then Frank did something that completely changed Joe's mind – he calmly picked up his beer and took a swig, and then leaned forward to lay his forearm on the tabletop and inspect the bottle's label. It wasn't that he'd lost his nerve; it was almost like he was disinterested.
Justin gave Joe a good looking over and turned to his friends. "He's a brave one to mess with my girl ain't he?"
"I'm not your 'girl' any more, Justin," Martina said. "When is it gonna sink into your thick skull, you bozo?"
"When you stop whoring it all over town!"
Joe bristled and cocked a warning eyebrow. "I think you'd better leave, pal, before you say something you truly regret!"
Justin laughed even more. "What'cha gonna do? Three against one – not the best odds, and your cripple mate don't exactly look up for it."
Finally, Frank became involved in the standoff. Tipping his head slightly to one side, his eyes not leaving his beer bottle, Frank said, "Joe, he's not goin' to do anything, at least not without his friends help and I can guarantee they're not goin' to."
Joe looked from his brother to the two men who were standing at their friend's shoulder. They were both giving his brother a sneering look. He watched as Frank turned his face on them calmly, through eyes that were emotionless, detached, and dangerous. It was almost like it wasn't Frank at all, even Joe had difficulty recognising him that moment. It was wholly unnerving.
Frank continued: "And the reason why they're not goin' to do anything is because if they lay one finger on you, bro, I'll put them out of action for a long time."
The two men looked at each other and exploded into loud, aggressive, howling, mocking laughs. The nearest looked down at Frank again, and what he saw made the sardonic mirth drain from his face – he'd realised Frank hadn't reacted to their antagonism…at all. His friend, who had also taken in Frank's expression, began to look decidedly uncomfortable to be under such an intensely concentrated gaze. He looked relieved when Frank finally slid his blank stare away to address Joe instead. "If Justin here chooses to tussle with you, Joe, that'll be his undoing, because alone, he's no match for you, not by a long shot."
Justin frowned and looked behind him at his friends who were still staring down at Frank. Although their mouths were still turned up at the corners, they were plastered-on grins that didn't reach the eyes and were more for effect than anything else.
The older Hardy brother took another drink from his bottle, leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "Justin's friends are gutless, all bravado and noise. If they were gonna do anything, they would have done it by now." Frank now addressed Joe's aggressor directly. "If you want my advice, Justin, walk away, unless you want to fight someone who lifts weights for more hours in a day than you obviously work. You think I'm crazy? Wait until my brother loses it – he's liable to rip your head clean off with his bare hands."
Justin looked back at his friends again for support, but they were already disappearing into the crowds.
Frank aimlessly directed the neck of his bottle towards their retreating backs. "See…gutless. Get yourself some friends with a backbone. Go away, Justin."
"You heard him. Run along to mommy, pal," Joe said, waving his hand at him as if wafting away a bad smell.
Justin hesitated for a second, glanced at Martina who was treating him to a look of total distain, and then muttered lamely at Joe: "You're not worth the effort," and left.
Joe watched Justin to ensure that he was indeed going to leave them alone before he sat down and looked across the table in astonishment at his brother and the performance he'd just put on. Martina waited and didn't sit down until Joe did. She was apologetic, but wasn't making eye contact with Frank any more and had shifted her seat closer to Joe's instead.
After another five minutes of forced conversation with Frank entirely silent, the girls bade their farewells and left the bar to go on to another establishment. Justin followed on after them with his two friends ten minutes later, making a point of not even looking in the Hardy brothers' direction.
"You're a cool one," Joe said to Frank afterwards. "Were you channelling a demon entity?"
Frank raised his shoulders, his mouth down-turned and sullen.
"I'll get us another drink – holy water for you. Try not to petrify anyone else while I'm gone, huh? I don't think this place can afford to lose any more customers."
Now that Joe was lying in his bed with no distractions, he suddenly realised what it was that had been gnawing away at him about his brother's behaviour. Frank had acted like someone who didn't much care what happened to him. Joe supposed that so much had happened to Frank whilst in the hands of the Pandora Posse that no threat from a mere group of rowdy guys was going to faze him. And those boys had sensed it too, and they'd known that Frank's threats weren't empty ones. He'd intimidated and browbeaten them to within an inch of their lives and he hadn't even had to leave his chair to do it, and that was with his walking sick lying on the table in full view of them all!
How do you fight someone who doesn't care if he gets hurt and is impossible to bully? Frank was a black belt too, so it didn't make for a good combination – or the best combination, dependent on how it was analysed. Either way, Joe counted his lucky stars that Frank was on his side.
After Joe had returned to the table, Frank's mood had taken a distinct down-turn, so they'd small talked for quite a while until Joe had gently brought the conversation around to talking about the Pandora case. At least, Joe thought he had. Upon reflection, he realised that Frank had in fact skilfully manipulated the conversation so that they weren't actually discussing Pandora at all, but had simply recanted a largely unrelated incident that had occurred in a club that he and Nancy had visited in order to find a section of the code.
Frank told him about a creep who, when his back was turned, had pinned Nancy against a wall and had forced a kiss on her. Joe had brought his clenched hand down hard against the table top and had asked: "What did you do, Frank?"
"Well, Joe, I complimented him on his choice of women—" Frank dryly answered. "—What did you think I did to him? I made sure he wouldn't be able to talk for a week, let alone 'kiss' someone. And if security hadn't had got in my way, I'd have made sure he wouldn't have been able to walk either!"
"Right on," Joe had said simply, and took a good long drink of his non-alcoholic beer, wishing it had some kick to it.
As if actually reading Joe's thoughts, Frank muttered: "I wish I could have a real drink!" and shoved the bottle away from himself in disgust.
Joe burrowed further into the blankets to get comfortable again and wait for the sandman to put in an appearance. But he found he couldn't get the image out of his head of Nancy being held against that wall while some random sleaze had his hands and mouth all over her.
And cruelly – and as a mind is prone to – the image switched from it being Nancy to Vanessa. Even this unreal and wicked vision was enough for Joe to be experiencing corporeal feelings of anger and injustice. He was now walking in his brother's shoes and could understand why Frank would feel a huge level of frustration that the club's security had stopped him from giving the guy a good pasting. It must have eaten away for days afterwards, and that was on top of everything else that he'd been mentally coping with at that time.
Joe was wishing he could get hold of the creep himself and knocked him into next week…and he'd not even been there! God knows what Frank was thinking.
Rolling over onto his back, Joe, with another groan, sat up and punched his pillow a couple of times, threw himself back down and closed his eyes. He realised his jaw was clenching so solidly that he had no chance of falling asleep again unless he relaxed it, so he let it drop open and snuggled further down. But then he heard a creaking noise and his head was popping up above the covers again to peer into the darkness towards the living room. Someone was moving about on the other side of the closed door and that's what must have awakened him in the first place.
Without losing view of the entrance, he reached over the edge of the bed and groped around until his hand found…well, nothing! There was nothing at all that he could use as a possible weapon, but then his eyes fell onto the unused closet.
Slipping out of bed, Joe and made his way silently to the closet and opened up. Reaching into the interior, he unhooked the clothes pole, took it to the bedroom door and put his ear to the wood. Yep, there was definitely someone out there, and whoever it was had made a huge mistake burglarising this particular cabin!
Licking his lips in anticipation of a possible fight, he gripped the doorknob, and with a sudden twist and a pull, yanked the door wide and yelled. "YOU'D BETTER RUN!" making sure he appeared as physically aggressive as possible, with the wooden pole held high, starting to swing it in a murderous arc.
Frank jumped back about six feet with a yelp and raised his arms and hands defensively over his head. "What are you tryin' to do to me Joe? Dammit!" he staggered to the sofa and sank down. "Man! I'm having a heart attack!"
"What are you doing roaming about out here in the middle of the night?" Joe asked, aghast that he'd almost walloped his brother over the head with his makeshift weapon. He tossed the stick away onto the bed and entered the living room properly.
"Minding my own business and getting a glass of water. Jeeze, Joe!"
Walking by and glancing into his brother's room, Joe observed that his bed didn't look slept in, although it looked at though Frank had at least been lying on top of the covers. "Haven't you even got into your bed?" he asked, turning to look his brother up and down, noticing the signs of tiredness that were creeping under his eyes. "Are you getting any sleep at all?"
Frank sighed and rubbed his face. "Of course I am. In fact, I'm goin' back – unless you feel like you'd like to ambush me again. I hear that a rush of adrenaline is great as a sleep-aid." He gave exaggerated thumbs up and got up off the sofa to walk to his room.
Joe called quickly after him: "Frank, don't forget that I went through the same sort of thing with Iola – keeping it all bottled up doesn't do any good. The nightmares are a manifestation of you keeping everything pushed down. It'll only get worse."
Frank didn't acknowledge what his brother said to him. He'd entered the room and shut the door before Joe had the opportunity to finish his mini speech.
Joe began to return to his bed, but then had seconds thoughts and deviated back towards Frank's room to push the door open. He found his brother sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands buried in his hair.
"What, Joe?" Frank asked. He didn't look up.
"Talk to me—" Joe implored, lowering down next him. He waited for an answer, but was met with a wall of silence. Eventually, he gave a resigned sigh. "You're struggling with this thing, aren't you?" he asked, laying a hand against Frank's shoulder.
"Yeah, I am, but...and I appreciate what you're tryin' to do… but I'm beat. So we'll talk tomorrow?"
Joe shook his head and after a few seconds said, "Okay, but try to get some sleep, yeah?" He patted Frank's shoulder a couple of times and left the room again. This was a battle of wills for another time. As he'd already found, he didn't have the right weapons at hand. But at least Frank had actually admitted that he was finding it a struggle.
It was a start.