Page 3 of Brother to Brother

The place I worked some nights was a cowboy bar that was mostly on the right side of the tracks as compared to where I’d come from. It was popular, and usually pretty busy. A lot of the business was college kids, and ranch hands from some of the racehorse farms around here. Usually it blared country, but right now I had some Stone Temple Pilots on the system. I could only handle that country shit when patrons were around and it was your typical work night.

“Hey Archer, wake up! Your brothers are at the door,” Cindy called from behind the bar. I looked up, and sure enough, Rush and Nox stood outside and neither one of them looked very happy. I couldn’t blame ‘em, but this shit was important. I went to the door and unlocked it, letting them in, and locking right back up behind ‘em.

“Dude, what is so fucking important that it couldn’t wait? Some of us have to get our asses up and work for a living come tomorrow,” Nox griped.

“Melody showed up today,” I said and that shut him up. Rush eyed me, and I could see the gears turning.

“Spit it out, Arch. What’s the rest?” he asked.

“She has her kid with her… Grind’s kid,” I said unhappily. Nox almost physically reeled, looking a lot like I’d felt when Grind’s boy had first looked at me with our brother’s eyes. He fell back against the bar lightly, but leaned heavily on it.

“Holy fucking shit,” Rush uttered, and swept the bandana off his head. He rubbed a hand back and forth over his close cropped hair and shook his head in disbelief.

“You’re sure it’s Grind’s?” Nox asked.

“Looks just like him,” I said unhappily.

“Where they at?” Rush asked.

“My place, for now… there’s more. She showed up herelookingfor Grind. Our old chapter, the brothers didn’t tell her. She didn’t know he’d died.”

“What the fuck? She been living under some kind of a rock?” Rush asked, the look on his face like he’d smelled something bad, which he had.The distinct odor of bullshit,I thought to myself and I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all.

“So is that why Grind left?” Nox asked, and he looked as crushed with disappointment as I’d felt when Mel had told me.

“According to Mel, she told him she was pregnant and he upped and left her an’ the boy both… came out here.”

“Karma took that one too far,” Nox muttered and sighed, swiping a hand over his face.

“I wanna see him,” Rush said.

“It’s late and she drove here by herself, all her shit’s in garbage bags too, like she left in a big damn hurry. Nothing but pampers and clothes, I ain’t seen anything like it.”

“What’s she running from?” Rush asked.

“Good question,” Nox agreed.

“No idea, I dropped her and the boy off at my place and came here. What’s a kid that’s a year old even sleep in?”

“A crib, I think. How the fuck should I know?” Rush asked.

“Well I gotta get me one. Where the fuck you find one at three in the morning?”

“Twenty-four hour Wally-World is my best guess,” Nox said.

“Got a cage?” Rush wanted to know, “I ain’t actually built any cribs yet.”

“Yeah, hers… it’s out back.”

“Let’s do this then,” Rush said, “I ain’t going home and crashing until I see this myself.”

“Pitch in, I ain’t leavin’ ‘til this place is closed up,” I told them both. Closing was wrapped up double time and my brothers followed me first to Walmart then back to my apartment, a fuckin’ crib tied to the roof of Mel’s car.

The boys helped me bring it inside and I found everything exactly as I’d left it, bedroom door still shut and all. I worried for a sec that they’d be gone but when we opened up the bedroom door it was to find them both racked out hard in my bed. Nox and Rush stood to either side of me and we watched them for a while.

Melody was drawn, and though she slept, the exhaustion was apparent in the tight lines of her face, even in sleep. The dark circles under her eyes made her seem a lot older than what I knew she was, too. Rush took a step forward like he was gonna go in and wake ‘em up and I put a hand against his chest. He glared at me and I scowled right back, knowing he’d back down. I was scarier and we all knew it.

“Tomorrow,” I grunted quietly.

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