Page 36 of Forty

“Ain’t how this works.” The table at large does a double take. Truth be told, Boots spends most of church snoring. Grinder elbows him when it’s time for a vote, and he raises his hand if Grinder does.

“Every man makes his own choice.” Boots slaps the table and points his finger at Pig Iron. “That’s freedom. What’d I give my legs for if not so every dumbass can do as he damn well pleases?”

“Leg,” Charge corrects. “You lost that second one off eatin’ too much sugar and shit.”

“Point still holds,” Boots grumbles, folding his arms. He’s said his piece.

Heavy bangs his gavel. “Point seconded?”

“Seconded,” Grinder spits around a mouthful of chaw.

“Motion carried.” Heavy slams the table.

My dad bitches about Heavy’s “college boy shit,” says they never took votes and signed paperwork in Slip Ruth’s day. I remind him that in Slip’s day, the club was stuck hauling black market smokes into New York, providing protection for the Russians’ gun operation, and doing wet work for the Renelli’s. Dead end shit. High risk, low reward.

“College boy shit” bought the RV that Dad’s got parked in his driveway and the weekend trips to Atlantic City. I’ve only been back a few years, and it’s already bought me a big ol’ empty house, a Softail Slim, a Jeep, and a Ford 450 Limited.

“We gonna talk Raiders now or what?” Nickel asks, swiping his nose. He’s on edge, hardly sitting still. He’s like Nevaeh in that way, always in motion. With him, it’s aggression. Nevaeh’s more like how a bird or a bee goes flower to flower. Busy going nowhere.

Fuck. Where’s my head? This is my cue.

I clear my throat. “We need a strategy.” All eyes pivot to me.

Heavy and I plotted this out beforehand.

I propose the plan. Cue and Big George will nix it ‘cause they’re focused on the businesses. Pig Iron, Dizzy, and Nickel will want all-out war ‘cause of what the Raiders did to our women. Dad, Bullet, or Grinder will suggest doin’ something stupid. Heavy’ll act like he’s considering everyone’s point, and then he’ll go with my plan, which is really his plan.

I told him I feel like a damned liar. He said I should feel like a politician. I said same difference.

I take a deep breath and swallow my spit. I’m not much of a public speaker. “Here’s the situation. The Raiders vandalized the Patonquin site and The White Van. We went after them, shook the trees, but they’d gone to ground. We torched their clubhouse and Rab Daugherty’s tattoo parlor.”

“That was a public service. Their clubhouse was a rat-infested shit heap.” Cue interjects. Pig Iron raises a beer in agreement.

Growing up, Heavy, Charge, and I used to hunt rats out back of this place by the junk heaps, but I guess we’ve got a short memory.

“Then the Raiders attacked Fay-Lee and Roosevelt,” I continue.

“And Story,” Nickel snarls.

The way we hear it, it was more that Story attacked the Raiders, but I’ll allow it.

“And Story. For that, they paid in blood.” I cross myself. Mom was a good Polish Catholic before she broke bad and took up with Dad. She raised us in the church, and Grandma kept dragging us there after Mom bailed.

“Not all of them paid.” Nickel stares me down. “The skinny guy with a tattoo. He’s in the wind.”

“True. So, that’s a good dozen or so men we can’t find, and we’ve burned down all their assets and hidey holes. We’re fighting an insurgency.”

“I did that once. It sucked.” Dizzy leans back and sniffs. He did two tours in Iraq. He was a jarhead. Hard to imagine now with his 80s’s rocker ‘fro and mountain man beard.

“Knocker Johnson is not going to quit. And he’s not smoking his own product like the Daughertys.”

“Motherfuckin’ blown job.” Eighty slaps his palms on the table. “Been plaguing us for too damn long. I say we call chaos on Knocker Johnson, the Daughertys, and any asshole in a Raiders cut. Put an end to this bullshit once and for all.” There it is. The stupid idea.

“Amen,” Grinder adds. “Goddamn blown job.”

In this club, everything traces back to the blown job. It went down back when we were young. Heavy’s dad Slip was president. His mom Linda had just had Hobs, and she was having a hard time. Turned out to be cancer, but we didn’t know it then.

Slip was up in the rotation to make a run into New York. Linda asked him to stay home. Stones agreed to take the load. Brought his kid Knocker along for the ride. To us kids, Knocker was a legend. Eighteen and neck-deep in pussy with a green mohawk, a Willie G. special with a blacked-out engine, and full sleeves.

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