A new man

It was amazing how easily a biker could transform into a businessman with so little effort. All it took was a haircut, clean shave, and a brand new set of fancy clothes. In Cal’s opinion, whoever said that clothes didn’t make the man didn’t know what he was talking about. Cal was now a new man, a suit wearing man, whereas previously, he had worn heavy boots and black leather. Thanks to his fashion makeover and new identity issued by the FBI through the witness protection program, no one would ever trace Cal now. He was safe, if not free. His life was no longer his own, but at least he was alive and not in prison. In exchange for ratting out his fellow gang members on a number of crimes, Cal was now embarking on a new life.

It had all been carefully arranged by the FBI to render him untraceable. No one in his new life knew he was a former drug dealer and gang member. Nor could anyone from his past find him. They all thought he was dead. Cal had once been a Carrion eater, or Carrion, for short. The Carrions were a bloodthirsty motorcycle gang that used any violent means necessary to achieve their own ends. The Carrion eaters were named after the scavenger birds who feasted on their own victims. Their name served as a gruesome metaphor for how they operated, hurting people indiscriminately and later ruthlessly consuming the profits of their violent acts. 

Cal had once sported a tattoo of a wicked looking vulture with its beak digging into the bloody entrails of its victims. At the time he had gotten the tattoo, he had been working as a Carrion enforcer. The tattoo was intended to scare and repulse those who owed the Carrions.

He had long since had the tattoo removed by laser. It was the first step in his makeover. He considered it a symbolic removal of his former self. The carrion eater was now gone. Even though it had been almost a year since the tattoo was erased, his arm still ached. It ached in the same way his once bullet ridden side ached where he had been shot. Both aches were ongoing reminders of his once dangerous, painful life as a Carrion gang member. 

In addition to his altered appearance, the FBI had issued him bogus papers and files to further forge his new identity. He had been issued a new driver’s license, birth certificate, and a social security number, as well as a solid back story on his personal and family history. A story he had been forced to memorize so he could recite it verbatim in his sleep. Cal was now Carl. To be Carl was to survive. To return to being Cal was certain death. Cal knew he was presumed dead by others in the gang. It was best. To turn on his fellow gang members, as he had done, was the ultimate betrayal. It was breaking a code that must never be broken. Blood in, blood out. If they knew he was still alive, they would surely kill him. 

He tried not to think about the past, although he still longed to feel the soft grip of the leather grips of his motorcycle’s handlebars, the brush of cool air on his face, and the overall exhilarating freedom of riding with his gang members. His life had taken a 180 degree turn. He now sedately drove a compact sedan, shiny and new – shiny like the wing tipped shoes he now wore to the office where he pushed paper, made nice on the phone, and felt suffocated by his too tight tie. 

Sometimes he didn’t know how he could keep on living in this stifling new life, conforming to the laws of society and being a nine to five ordinary man. He now worked eight hours a day in a tiny cubicle and came home to the dubious comfort of a microwaved meal and a flickering flat screen TV. Cal considered it a punishment that the job the FBI had found for him was working as a customer service agent for a large health insurance company, taking complaint calls. He was one of many agents in the call center. When a customer called the 1 800 number with a question or complaint about his or her insurance policy, he was the one who had to handle it, to smooth the frequently ruffled feathers.

Sometimes he felt he was losing his mind. People could be so crabby. They didn’t understand even the simplest of things. Most customers seemed to believe that their cheap health insurance policy covered every medical procedure known to man. His company, of course, denied almost each and every claim, beyond basic preventative care. The Fortune 500 company issued adequate policies for health people, but sick policy holders didn’t stand a chance of not racking up significant medical expenses. When Cal tried to explain to customers the strict limitations on their policies, they were naturally outraged and spewed righteous venom upon him as their hapless target. Sometimes he felt he had been better off taking actual bullets from rival gang members than verbal potshots from outraged, albeit justified, Karens. 

The only thing that made work worthwhile, besides the all important fact that he had saved his own hide, was the fact that he had made a female friend – someone who he hoped would soon be more than a friend. She was a woman in the sales department, and her name was Sherrie. They had met in the employee cafeteria, surprisingly struck up a long conversation, and really seemed to have hit it off. Now, he ate lunch with her everyday. It was an unspoken agreement between them and the highlight of his day. In Sherrie’s company, his thirty minute lunch break sped by all too quickly. He didn’t dare exceed the mandated time limit. Being in the witness protection program, he was careful to stay under the radar in all facets of his life. It had been drilled into him by the FBI that he must never do anything, no matter how slight, to attract unwanted attention. 

Cal found Sherrie exceedingly easy to talk to. She was soft spoken and gentle with a shy manner, but open and forthcoming at the same time. She was very down to earth and someone he felt he could confide in, although he carefully guarded his words around her, so as not to compromise his identity and divulge anything of his previous life. It was a frustrating game he was forced to play. He longed to open up to her. He hated having to monitor each and every word that escaped his lips. Still he knew he had no choice. For that reason, when he talked to her, he kept it light, talking about everyday matters and work only. 

Besides being easy to talk to, Sherrie was quite attractive, being a tall, leggy, carefully highlighted blond roughly his own age. He really didn’t know much about her personal life, beyond the fact that she was a single mother with two teenage children. Like him, she didn’t love her job but was just working to support her family. He sensed her ex-husband was not in the picture, and there was some painful story there. It seemed she received minimal support from him and her kids did not see him all that much, beyond going to his house one or two weekends per month. 

In recent weeks, he had been working up his courage to ask her out. For a once tough guy, he was surprisingly timid around women. Well, there was no time like the present. Sitting across from her in the employee cafeteria, he fiddled with the straw in his soft drink. Sherrie looked expectantly at him, sensing that he was about to speak. 

“So, any plans for the weekend?” he asked casually, smiling at her.

“No, not really. It’s the kids’ weekend with their dad, so I thought I’d catch up on things around the house.” She paused and made a face, “You know – all those things you don’t get to during the week. Grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning . . . “ Her voice trailed off in mock despair.

“Yeah, I know the drill. The weekends always fly by too fast, while the work week drags,” Cal said. “Sometimes I feel like five o’clock will never arrive. That’s why I hit the Keurig every afternoon. Just to keep myself awake.” He laughed in self depreciation, “and to keep myself from killing some of our pissed off customers.” 

“I know what you mean. Working in sales isn’t exactly exciting either. Sending out sales fliers and compiling cold calling lists of potential clients – it’s not really my dream job.”

“So, do you want to do something this weekend? Something to break up the monotony of our boring lives? Maybe grab a bite to eat somewhere?” Cal asked, giving what he hoped was a winning smile.

Sherrie smiled back, “I’d like that very much. Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll set the time. It’s been forever since I’ve been out in the dating world.” Suddenly, she was self conscious, hoping that she didn’t sound too desperate. 

“Sure thing.” Cal said solemnly. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He reached over and squeezed her hand, “Looking forward to it more than you know.”

The next day, he wasted no time in calling her and setting up the date. He was nervously anticipating the evening. Even though he had been with Sherrie everyday at lunch for the past several months, dating outside work was a huge step in their fledgling relationship. 

Later that night, after eating in a highly touted local Italian restaurant, (touted for good measure, it had been a delicious meal), Sherrie invited Cal inside her house. She knew it was forward behavior for a first date, but they were both consenting adults. Plus they worked at the same place and she had been seeing him everyday now for a very long time, she told herself in self justification. She was curious to see how the night would end.

She could feel something crackling in the air between them, a kind of spark and energy drawing him toward her. She sensed it was reciprocated and dared herself to find out. Dipping a toe into the dating world once again, post divorce, was exciting to her. The fear of the unknown. And Carl was a very unknown quantity. 

Even though they had covered a multitude of subjects in past discussions over past lunches and also that night at dinner, she sensed that he held something major back from her – some major, momentous event in his life. She knew nothing about him, other than that he seemed unencumbered by commitment or family. He was a mystery. He seemed to be from out of town and knew nothing of the area. She couldn’t fathom why he had moved there. Working in the call center, at his age, was obviously not a career move, at least not for any of the people she knew.

At the moment, they were sitting on her soft, pillow plumped gray couch in front of a crackling fire. It was the kind of the fire that was ignited by a hidden light switch, but it was nonetheless real and lent a cozy ambiance to her somewhat average suburban living room – a living room dominated by neutral looking furniture, a large flat screen TV, and framed family photos of herself and her two kids, a boy and a girl – tall, blond, and lanky like their mother. 

Cal had his arm around her, and she snuggled up next to him. She had poured them each a glass of red wine. After the bottle they had shared in the candlelit restaurant along with their lasagna, she felt a warm glow which she welcomed. She wanted to get pleasantly tipsy, but not sloppy drunk. Cal moved his arm up from where it rested on her shoulder and began playing with her hair, running his fingers through its long fall and lightly caressing her face. She knew he was about to kiss her.

Before she dove head first into their burgeoning physical attraction, a little voice inside her head warned her to tread carefully. What did she really know about him? Shouldn’t she at least know a little of his story before diving into a physical relationship?

It was almost as if he read her thoughts and sought to quell her misgivings.

“Thanks for coming out with me tonight. This is very nice and just what I needed after a long week.”

Taking sudden initiative, he turned his head towards her and kissed her full on her soft lips.

Sherrie felt a sudden thrill run through her. She was deeply attracted to him and his dark, somewhat dangerous good looks and muscular body. He had the biggest biceps she had ever seen, other than on professional athletes and Hollywood actors. He wasn’t at all like the wimpy guys that she usually encountered in her daily humdrum life. She considered herself somewhat lucky to have attracted the attention of such a fine looking physical specimen.

“Mmm,” Cal muttered appreciatively, running his eyes over her hungrily and reaching for her again. “That was nice. I wish we could stay here forever.” 

Sherrie smiled weakly, but pulled slightly away from him, shrugging out from under his outstretched arm. “You know," she paused, "I don’t know anything about you.”

Cal frowned slightly, but rapidly put his game face back on. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for one, where do you come from? What brought you here? You don’t seem like you’re from around here.”

“Woah there, we’re playing twenty questions now?” He threw up his hands, sat upright, and laughed.

“Why?” her eyes flashed with sudden fire. “Do you got something to hide? Are you married or something?”

Cal didn’t like where this conversation was headed, but at the same time, he thought she looked undeniably cute in her moral indignation. He wanted to squeeze her close once more and press another kiss upon her.

“No, I’m not married.” Suddenly inspiration hit him. Why did most people his age move to a new place and start over? A break-up, of course. 

Although he normally carefully guarded his private life and past from everyone, since the FBI had drilled that into him, Sherrie was different. He sensed she was soon on her way to becoming special to him -- in fact, she already was. She deserved nuggets of the truth.

“I moved here to get over a bad break-up,” he said. “I needed a fresh start.”

Sherrie breathed a sign of relief upon discovering that he was not secretly married or otherwise committed. Having been through a nasty divorce herself, his explanation of a bad break-up rang true and made perfect sense to her. Still she yearned to know more.

“What was her name?” She asked. Like most women embarking on a new relationship, she wanted to know her predecessors. Wanted to know if she had any competition. To see if he was truly over his past love or if his heart still belonged elsewhere.

What was her name? Cal’s mind jumped to his once demanding, former mistress. He had been a Carrion eater. Her name was Carrion.

“Her name was Carrie,” he said quietly. It was close enough. The best lies were those that were closest to the truth. The Carrions had been his whole world. But they had made his life a living hell. One he had to escape from.

“Carrie and now Sherrie?” Sherrie laughed. “How cute!” Sherrie had always felt like an undignified name to her, and she had always yearned for a more sophisticated name.

“Well, you’re nothing like her. Believe me,” he said. 

He continued, speaking encouragingly, “You’re very sweet. She was a real ball breaker.”

“A ball breaker?” Sherrie frowned. She didn’t like that kind of graphic talk. She was somewhat of a prude. “Why? What’d she do?”

“She took everything from me,” He said. “Left me with nothing,” he said bitterly. “Nothing but pain and memories . . . “ His voice trailed off.

He did look like he was in pain. She could see it in his dark eyes. They looked haunted, as if he were looking into a deep, distant, and horrific past. 

“I'm sorry. I know what that’s like.”

She suddenly wanted to remove that hurt look from his face. To make everything right again for him. To be his everything.

She turned her head and gazed into his deep, pain filled eyes. Eyes that seemed to see right through her.

“I think it’s time to create new memories,” she said softly as she pressed a lingering kiss upon his llips.

“I couldn’t agree more,” he rumbled as he also looked into her bright, innocent blue eyes. “It’s a new life."