1
FOUR YEARS BEFORE CHARGE
FAY-LEE
Chaos, that flaky bastard, is gone, and I’m royally screwed.
I sink to the curb in front of the Steel Bones clubhouse. I stare at my knees and pick at the frayed edge of my jean shorts.
I’ve looked everywhere, and I’ve waited for almost two days now. No one’s seen him. His bike’s gone. This rager is finally fizzling out. People are gonna start noticing that I’m not going home.
My backpack was in Chaos’ saddlebag, so I’ve got no change of clothes. No makeup. Somewhere along the line, I lost my phone.
This is not the worst situation I’ve ever been in—that’d be the shed incident, hands down, and I’m not gonna think about that now. This predicament is small potatoes. No need to panic.
There’s a nip in the air, but the sun’s shining. Everyone’s mindin’ their own business. Prospects are cleaning up inside. Over by the garage, a monstrously large and shaggy brother is showing his two boys how to change the oil on a white SUV.
In broad daylight, this ain’t a scary scene. Shit gets wild after dark, but I can handle myself. I’ve been sticking with the sweetbutts until they all pair up, and then I sit with the old-timers at the bar.
I just stayed up all night listening to a dude with no legs named Boots tell stories about a wild woman he knew who left for California and never came back. At heart, it was a tragic story, but my belly muscles still ache from laughing.
I’m three hundred miles from home, and three hundred miles away from New York City. It took me two weeks to get this far, hitchin’ and walkin’ when I couldn’t find a ride. It’s early fall now, but the weather’s gonna turn soon.
What am I gonna do?
I got lucky with Chaos. Or so I thought. When he picked me up at that rest stop, he said he was heading up to Newfoundland, and I could ride with him all the way to New York State. He took my last twenty for gas, but he didn’t try that hard to fuck me, or at least, he hadn’t yet.
He’d said we’d only be stopping in Petty’s Mill for a few nights. Petty’s Mill is every small town, everywhere. Historic downtown along the river. A gas station, a fast food joint, and a tractor supply on the road in. Probably on the way out, too, but we didn’t get that far.
Chaos said he had business with some old friends. It wouldn’t take long. Now he’s disappeared, and no one seems to know or care where he went.
No use crying about it. I need a plan. I pluck at the loose threads on my shorts and try to think.
Over by the garage, the shaggy dude has taken off his T-shirt. He’s got it hanging from his back pocket. He’s got a nice body. He’s thick, solid, but he’s got what my oldest sister calls “painter’s back.” All those muscles a man gets from manual labor, day in, day out. She should know the name for it. Her first husband hung drywall, and he was ripped. We all thought he was a catch until he brought home the clap.
I tear my eyes from the man’s muscles. I need to focus. Men are trouble, and I’m in enough as it is.
If I had my phone, I could ask one of my older sisters to send money. Dee would probably tell me she’s got her own problems, but Carol’s a soft touch. Only problem is her case number ends in eight, so she doesn’t get her benefits until the seventeenth of the month.
Heh. The shaggy dude’s oldest boy, a skinny kid maybe eight or nine, is taking his shirt off, too, but he doesn’t have a back pocket to shove it in. He tucks it in the elastic waistband of his shorts instead. I don’t particularly like kids, but that’s cute.
The boy has to stand on the bumper to see under the hood. They’re both so serious—him and his daddy—deeply considering the engine in manly silence. The younger boy’s gettin’ bored. He’s sittin’ in the gravel, drawing in the dirt with a stick.
Mama’s boyfriends never do shit like change their own oil. She likes flashy men who spend a lot of time in the bathroom. A man who can bullshit you into abandoning your better sense. Charmers. They don’t stick around long after she turns up pregnant, but damned if they don’t always come around again when their luck runs out. Like bad pennies.
I’m nearly nineteen, and since I can remember, I’ve been raisin’ Mama’s kids. And my sisters’. I’ve been cleanin’ up other people’s messes and fixin’ their problems and bailin’ them out of trouble, and I’m done with it. If I have to, I’ll walk to New York.
I sure as hell ain’t never goin’ back.
That ain’t even an option.
But still. I’d rather not walk. The blisters on my heels from the day I walked out of Dalton to the interstate to hitch my first ride are still pink and a touch raw.
Over by the SUV, the younger boy’s gotten bored, and he’s wandered off toward the dumpster and the line of recycling bins on the side of the garage. This is how you know you’re not in Kentucky. People here separate their paper and biodegradables. Back home, we burn it out back in the same trashcan.
This is a strange motorcycle club all around. They’ve got more money than most. The clubhouse is huge, and they’re building an addition. It ain’t a riding club or a gang so much as a business. Half the parking lot is taken up by yellow construction equipment: excavators, loaders, dozers. My nephews would be in heaven.
They’ve got other hustles, too, like a garage. Most of the sweetbutts work at their strip club, The White Van. A few girls have half-heartedly tried to convince me to talk to Cue, the brother who runs the place, but reading between the lines, they don’t believe I have the shape for it. I’m too skinny, and I’m an A cup. Another difference between here and back home. The club in Dalton would hire you on the day you turned eighteen, no matter how you looked.