Page 64 of The Vows We Keep
“Maybe. Mom told me my job for the summer was to look after Lacey. I was bored. I played video games and tried to work out with this paltry set of dumbbells a neighbor had given me because I couldn’t afford to go to a gym. Anything to keep my mind off the fact my friends were probably down the shore, chatting up girls, swimming. And Lacey was constantly at me, asking me if I’d play a game with her, would I make her some lunch, would I stop playing video games so she could watch Alice in Wonderland, an animated movie she loved. And I remember thinking what a pain in the ass she was.”
We found Wonderland.
Oh, god. All this time I’ve been trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy about who the ‘we’ was. I touch the inked letters gently. “This is for her?”
He nods, lets go of my hand, and rubs his across his face.
“You don’t need to tell me if it’s too painful.”
“Might as well get it all out so you know the truth. She pissed me off enough that I thoughtfuck it. I grabbed the twenty bucks I knew Mom kept in a tin in the kitchen and decided to leave. Wasn’t really thinking about Lacey or Mom or consequences. I just needed to get out of the house. I needed to do ... something. It took me twenty minutes to walk to the shore. I saw these two bikers parked up. They were smoking and swearing. I remember thinking it must be amazing to do whatever the fuck you wanted. Drive bikes all day. Be fearless. There were all these women in stars-and-stripes bikinis with their tits hanging out.”
“A fifteen-year-old’s wet dream,” I say, and Niro smiles sadly.
“Yeah. So, I’m walking around, watching them, thinking about going up to one of them and asking how you join something like that, when one of them breaks off and walks into a store. I decide he’s the guy I’m gonna ask. His patch said his name was Camelot, and that he’s the president. I didn’t know shit about club structures back then, but I knew what a president was. I bugged him on the way in, asking how you join, and he just looked down at me. And we have this conversation.”
I smile as Niro tells me pieces. It says a lot about him and Camelot.
“Don’t know why the fuck you’re bothering me, kid. You’re standing between me and some smokes.”
“Because you’re standing between me and joining your club.”
“You got balls, kid. I’ll give you that. Learn to ride. Grow some fucking facial hair. Decide if you want to work for the man orbethe man. Those balls you got, grow ’em some more. Toughen the fuck up—your arms are skinnier than pool noodles. Learn to ride. Be fuckin’ heroic.”
“He sounds like an interesting man. Perrito wouldn’t give the young men in his club the time of day.”
“Best man I ever knew. Even some of the shit he pulled later, it was always because he wanted to do what he thought was best. Anyway, I wait outside the shop while he goes inside. I had more questions. Then I see three guys in different cuts, rival colors, running down the alley behind the store. So, I decide to follow them. Two of them go in the store through the rear door and come out with Camelot, who’s furious. They have knives pressed up against his back. The third guy starts to beat on him. I do the only thing I can think of. I grab a brick from a pile of builder’s rubble and charge the guy. Smack him so hard, I swear I heard his skull crack. Then it’s two on two. I just remember feeling invincible, Cat. All my anger at having to stay home and look after Lacey. Being grounded. Hating my life. It all just poured out. There were no considerations for danger or getting into trouble. It all just sort of happened. Until I heard Lacey scream at me to stop. She’d followed me. And at the same time, the guy I’m fighting uses my distraction to slice my face with while the other guy starts firing off shots.” Niro inhales sharply. “Camelot’s friend, Wrinkle, runs out of the store, and he and Camelot deal with the three guys. I don’t remember much except watching the pool of blood grow beneath my sister’s head. Camelot gave me his white T-shirt to press to my face, but I couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel anything. Blood dripped from my face onto the black asphalt. He told me I’d done good, and that he’d take care of everything.”
I throw my arms around Niro, pressing my chest to his side. “I’m so sorry. That’s a brutal introduction to this life. What happened next?”
Niro wraps his arms tightly around me. “As good as his word, Camelot cleaned everything up. He came to the hospital to see me. Paid the medical bills. Told me there was a place with the Outlaws for me if I wanted it, that I’d have to prospect for the club. He and Wrinkle cleaned shit up, made it right with the shopkeeper. Paid off the cops and made it look like both me and my sister got caught in some gang crossfire and that Camelot had saved me after I’d been knifed. I made him promise me he wouldn’t tell his club the truth. I wanted to be a part of it one day and I didn’t want to be known as the guy who let his sister get killed. Camelot had told me to be fucking heroic, and I certainly didn’t feel it. Four days later, I showed up at the club with a face full of stitches because Mom kicked me out. She couldn’t get past it being my responsibility to look out for my sister and that we shouldn’t have been down by the shore in the first place. Honestly, I think it was the excuse she needed to get rid of me. Camelot gave me a new home.”
“Do you have any kind of relationship with your mom now?”
“Camelot wanted me finish school, but I was even more disruptive back then. Kept getting suspended for shit but stuck it out as long as I could. When I finally dropped out, the school didn’t bother finding me. Then I prospected. Camelot sponsored me to become a brother when I turned eighteen. Wrinkle seconded it. And they both kept my secret. It was my first real experience of a man living up to his word. I went to my mom’s house once I had my cut. Thought she’d be proud of me. Turned out she’d sold up and moved six months earlier. I saw her about four years ago. She’d aged. She saw me, looked at me long and hard, then put her head down and walked by me without a word.”
I prop myself up on one elbow and move his hair from his forehead. In the quiet darkness of the room, he’s shared his hardest secrets. “It’s unfair, the rough kind of life you’ve had.”
“It’s her fucking loss.” His words are hard, but I hear the hurt etched in them.
“And yours. I wish you better things, Niro.”
He looks up at me. “Do those better things include you, Catalina?”
I struggle with what to say next. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I had the semblance of a plan to build a life I want. I want to be part of a club, and not just because of my relationship to a man in it. But I really like the man I’m in bed with. “It means a lot that you just shared something so deeply personal with me.”
“That’s not a yes then?”
“It’s not a no either. It’s—” The alarm on Niro’s phone makes us both jump, and I take the opportunity to climb out of bed and turn it off. “We need to get going.”
Niro sighs. “Yeah, we do.”
I know he’s letting me off the hook from answering, but eventually, I’m going to have to decide what I want. As we pull on our clothes, I realize I feel like I’ve lived my whole life forced into compromises. I would have loved to have grown up with my grandparents in Tonalá, but my father wanted a different life for us that included an American education. I would have loved to have a normal childhood, but with a father who continued to live his life as a member of Los Reyes, it was impossible. And once I embraced what the MC life was all about, once I realized whoIwas and what I was capable of, I was told my skills were valuable, but not enough to treat me as an equal. So, I do what I do on the fringes, hoping someone will open a true motorcycle club up to women someday.
Perhaps I’ve spent my whole life in search of a life that isn’t even possible.
Perhaps it’s a dream I can’t achieve.
If that’s true, I need to learn to accept it. But I’m not ready to yet.
