Page 61 of Whiskey Shivers

The four of us were stuffed into the back of a van for transport to the booking facility. There was some random guy back here with us in street clothes and the four of us traded a look.

Axe asked, “The fuck you back here for?”

A little wide-eyed, and entirely too clean and un-roughed up, the guy tried to sell us on some bullshit story that he was a patron at the bar and had just started swinging when the swinging started. That he didn’t really know why he’d been picked up.

I snorted, the rest of the boys just as skeptical, and rather than chat, we shut the fuck up – and I mean all the way up. Ignoring the dude and his leading questions about us and what we’d been doing in the bar.

We could smell bacon, and we didn’t want no part of it.

At the jail, we were processed for a wide variety of charges. Seems the boys in blue decided to just throw everything at the wall, wanting to see what stuck.

Assault and battery, drunk and disorderly, destruction of property, inciting violence; you name it, we caught it.

Funny enough, though, and not gone unnoticed by me, we were the only onestocatch it. There wasn’t a Bayou Brethren boy in sight. As soon as we went into processing for our mugshots and shit, the old boy in the back of the van with us had his cuffs taken off and said to me with a shrug, “It was worth a try.”

I glared at him and spit on the sidewalk in his direction. Fucking asshole.

I used my call to phone La Croix to put things in motion. I told him to call the lawyer and to make sure that the lawyer got the damn footage from the security cameras at the bar. That Hatchet had swung first and that somehow, we were the only ones locked up. Cut and dried, this was clear targeting of our club and our boys and probably good grounds for misconduct and a dismissal, should they try to stick any of the charges to us, lookin’ for jail time out of it.

Of course, La Croix and I were old hands at this shit, and we knew that these cocksuckers were listening to the call, so we spoke in a lot of code and round-about ways to get my meaning across and shit in motion on our end.

La Croix grunted in assent just as the line clicked off, my allotted time to speak up.

They tried to grill us and get us to slipup. We sang our same ol’ song of ‘Fuck you, I want my lawyer,’ and finally,finally,we were booked into custody for the weekend, after all the fun and excitement that was a strip and full cavity search, which honestly? I just thought about my Fable, of the one time we’d managed to enjoy one another, of the view of her riding my cock above me and it worked like a fucking charm. Nothing like popping a boner on a good ol’ boy guard to make the motherfucker uncomfortable.

Did I have the potential to get my ass whooped for it before I got out of here? Yeah. Did I care? Nah, it’d be worth it. Plus, we still had our ace in the hole out there by way of Cypress’s kin.

“Looks like they put Saint with Cy right next door,” Axe said.

“Top or bottom, buddy? I ain’t got a preference.”

“Top,” he said, and I threw some chin and took the bottom bunk.

I sighed and couldn’t help but picture my girl’s smile. Was I uncomfortable up in here? Hell yeah, but it would be worth it to spare her some pain.

“What now?” Axe asked.

I said, “Now, we get some rest, and we wait. This’ll happen before the weekend is out. We just gotta be patient.”

“A little convenient we’re in here and the Bayou Brethren ain’t, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m still thinkin’ on that,” I said honestly.

I had an uneasy feelin’ about all of it, but I didn’t have all the pieces yet to make a full picture of what it was that was going on. All I knew was I smelled a rat, but it wasn’t our boys. No, this was something else, an interloper. Still, as my old man used to say,priorities.And our priorities as of right now were to hang tight and make sure this motherfucker got perished. Then it was getting the fuck up out of here come Monday, be it posting bail or on our own recognizance.

Saturday we were roused early, headed through to the cafeteria, and were served some slop that was supposed to be grits alongside grainy powdered egg substitute and sausage I was pretty sure didn’t contain any real meat.

The four of us sat together and Cypress said, “My kins is on shift today. They got McDaniel in a separate pod, but we’re gon’ be escorted to the showers. We’re supposed to stay behind, and he’ll be brought in.”

Cy, who was sittin’ next to me, passed me a shiv. I stuck it in my sock, makin’ like I was adjusting the ill-fitting jailhouse shoes.

“Good deal,” I muttered.

We went back to eating, which I passed on it to be sure, and went about the rest of the day as normal.

I kept it cool and calm. It was after lunch when we was called up. We were escorted to the shower, and we waited after we were done. Sure enough, the rest of our unit was escorted out but when we got to the door, the last four in line, the guard stepped in front of us and put a hand up.

“Stay here. He’s on his way,” dude said.

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