Nickel's Story: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance

by Cate C. Wells

  “Nickel!” Heavy waves me over to his seat at the bar.

  I slide in and rap the wood for a cold one.

  “Church?” There will be a meeting on what went down at Twiggy’s today—many—but I’m assuming Heavy’s gonna wait until there’s word from Forty on the dude who got away and from the dentist on the Raider who got stabbed.

  “Check your phone.”

  I do, and there’s a text from Heavy. Church 2morrow 10 am. There’s another one, too.

  Got news on today

  meet at midnight Barrow rd

  cm alone

  It’s from Ike.

  “What?” Heavy reads me like he always does. I hold my phone up to show him.

  “Well, that sounds like a fuckin’ trap.” Heavy belly laughs, remindin’ me of that tattooed dude from that kid’s movie about the island girl. Charge and I took his boy fishin’ up Lake Patonquin and that movie played up and back. I was like, a few more tattoos, that demi-god could be Heavy.

  “Sure does,” I agree.

  We sit in silence a few moments, nursing our beers. What happened today puts us at a whole new level, and not where we want to be. Heavy took us 100% legit five, six years ago now. We thought warring with one percenters was in our rearview. And then when shit flared up recently, we thought it was gonna be petty posturing. Some vandalism. Big talk.

  I saw Fay-Lee. She had a busted lip. This ain’t posturing.

  “What the fuck were they doing?”

  Heavy’s face gets tight under his crazy beard. “Fay-Lee told Dizzy they said two thousand for an old lady. A bounty.”

  “The fuck? Why?” I ask, but I already know. It’s ‘cause of the past. You think you’re out; you’re ahead. That things can be different. But the past…it keeps you chained in the dirt.

  “’If there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.’” Heavy’s quoting the Bible again.

  “Yeah, I’ll go eye-for-eye with those meth-head fucks.”

  Heavy shakes his head. “And as they say, that’s how we’ll all end up blind.”

  “Did this all really start over a truckload of cigarettes?”

  I never paid much attention before. The beef began before our time, when Slip, Heavy’s dad, was president. We inherited it, of course, along with the clubhouse, the nest egg that financed Steel Bones Construction, and Boots and the other old heads sittin’ at the other end of the bar.

  “In a way. The club was running cigarettes across state lines. A dumb tax scam. Low margins. Dad passed a shipment off to Stones Johnson. Stones was unlucky and got busted on Rural Route 9 past Irving. Turns out there were guns under the tobacco. Stones and his boy Knocker went down for twenty.”

  “Stones died inside.” I remember. I was twenty-one, twenty-two at the time. There was a vigil at the clubhouse. Stones had been Steel Bones before it all went to shit.

  “And his boys Inch and Dutchy founded the Rebel Raiders.” Heavy spits when he says their names. They’re both six feet under now, and it’s too good for them. After what they did to Hobs and Crista.

  “And now Knocker’s out.”

  “And now Knocker’s out.” Heavy repeats. “And we know fuck-all about what he’s doing, where he’s holed up. Nothin’.”

  “You need to go meet Ike.” Heavy sighs, shifts like he’s bearing up under a weight. “I know this dredges up shit for you. I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need it.”

  I get it. I been lookin’ out for Hobs since I was a prospect. And Crista’s been servin’ me beers in that long-sleeved sweatshirt, hood up, almost as long. I don’t give a shit how we got here. Rebel Raiders fucked with mine; that’s all I need to know.

  The ugly bursts back to life, and I realize it’s been lurkin’, all the time with Story when I thought it was quiet, it’d been there. Outside the window lookin’ in.

  “Brother, you don’t need to ask.” This is what I’m good for. The hard. The bloody.

  I stand, brush my hands down my pants. I need a piece, but there’s no way I’m gonna risk wakin’ Story up to get mine from under the bed. She’s gonna look at me with those big, round eyes, and she’s gonna expect shit—whatever men do when they find a woman they can’t breathe without, whatever words they say to make her stay—and those blue eyes are gonna go dark with disappointment when I fail to give her what she needs. And I’m a coward ‘cause I’d rather walk into an ambush than face failing Story Jenkins.

  “I ain’t a hundred percent that Ike didn’t have his hand in what went down at Twiggy’s today.”

  “From what Fay-Lee and Roosevelt say, it all sounds like a coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” I say.

  “Neither do I.”

  I finish my beer, and I check my phone. It’s only ten. I got time.

  “You need one of Deb’s little white pills?” Heavy’s laughin’ at me.

  “Nah.” The ugly is kind of rootin’ for this to go south, and I don’t need slow reflexes. “I need a piece.”

  “You’ve got one.” Heavy stands, and the brothers around us glance up. He has that effect. It’s like a mountain gettin’ up on its feet. “And Nicky? You ain’t ridin’ alone.”

  I didn’t think I was.

  ◆◆◆

  Fourteen Barrow Road is a rancher on the Patonquin flats that’s been slowly sinking into the clay since it was built. I lived there until I turned sixteen and Heavy’s ma let me move into their basement. It ain’t a place I ever drive by or think about on purpose.

  I thought it was abandoned since Markie went upstate, but from the light filtering out around the boards in the front window, I guess it ain’t anymore. Ike’s bike is in the drive. He opens on the third knock.

  “Welcome home, brother.” Ike greets me, arms wide, in a stained undershirt, reeking of booze. He squints past me into the dark. My brothers are out there, a hundred yards up the road, hidden by the tree line between this shithole and the nearest neighbor who built on solid, insurable ground.

  “You come alone?”

  I shrug, noncommittal, as I step in to the living room. My brothers aren’t gonna do me much good if there’s Rebel Raiders back in the kitchen. The house feels empty, though. Weird how you can sense that about the house you grew up in.

  The cigar smoke and reek of mold are so strong, I can’t take a full breath. Ike gestures to the couch, the same shit-brown one with pheasants we had growin’ up, and I shake my head.

  “I’ll stand.” The ugly’s riding me hard.

  “Suit yourself.” Ike collapses in Dad’s old easy chair, fumbles with the remote, and presses mute. Everything in the house is the same as the day I left except the TV. Ike’s bought himself a Samsung Q9 big screen. Wonder where he got the money?

  “So what you got?” I don’t need to spend any more time in this shitty time machine than absolutely necessary. I already feel the memories dive-bombing me like demon ghosts.

  “Ain’t you gonna sweet talk me some, little brother? Just gonna shove your hands right down my pants?” He cackles and kicks up the footrest.

  I let it roll over me. That’s weird, too. I don’t usually have that capability. I get down to business.

  “You have anything to do with what went down today?”

  I want him to say yes so I can stop this game and beat the beady-eyed glee off his face.

  “Other than happening upon it, no.” He’s sizing me up, seeing if I believe him. I don’t. “Lucky your boys got there in time.”

  Dizzy’s not feeling lucky tonight, I’m sure. Neither am I.

  “Where’s Knocker Johnson?”

  Ike grins and waves his arm at the couch. “Take a load off.”

  We stare at each other a beat, and I realize that unless I play this like he wants, it’s going to be pulling teeth. I sit. I’m gonna have to burn these jeans when I get home. Even the idea of Story gettin’ near this place�
��even as close as brushing against something that’s been here—it turns my stomach.

  I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees, and wait. He needs to have his say whether anyone wants to hear it or not. He always has.

  He lights a cigarillo, plays with the smoke in his mouth awhile. “You know she wouldn’t move back here when Markie got locked up?”

  “Who?”

  “Jeannie. Who else?”

  His ex-wife. I remember her comin’ around when they first got together. I was ten or so. She was sweet at first. Then she started to drink, always on edge, and she stopped coming around when Ike dropped by to raise hell with Dad and Markie and Keith. Breaking her jaw and her arm in two places was what got Ike put away.

  “I told her it’d be ours, free and clear, no mortgage, but she wouldn’t have none of it. Like she was too good for a free house. She said it was a jinx.”

  I don’t disagree with her. Nothing good ever came out of this place.

  “You know she has a kid now? With some fucker up in Shady Gap?”

  I didn’t know. Good for her. This ain’t what I came for though. “Why you tellin’ me this, Ike?”

  “She always liked you best. Did you know that? Said you were a sweetheart. Fuckin’ Dudley Do-Right.”

  I think he’s drunker than I reckoned when he opened the door. This is maudlin shit. Maybe he’s tryin’ to pick a fight, ease the demons that run in both our blood. Get me to say somethin’ nice about Jeannie and then try to beat my ass. Sounds like him.

  I consider it for a second. Doin’ some much needed demolition by throwing his carcass around this place is not the worst idea. Let out the pent up ugly from this afternoon. I guess I think on it too long ‘cause he goes on.

  “We were gonna have a kid. Jeannie and me. She was five months along. She lost it.”

  My stomach turns. The reek of mold and smoke seems to grow even thicker. I don’t want to know what happened. There’s no way this ain’t a horror story. “Can we talk about the Rebel Raiders, Ike?”

  He ignores me, stares off in space, a watery half-smile on his face. “I didn’t even mean to hit her that time. She kind of walked into it on accident.”

  My knuckles turn white as I clutch my knees. I have to get out of here before the foulness in this house seeps past my clothes and into my skin and no amount of bleeding out will get me clean.

  “Why you tellin’ me this, Ike?” I ask again, but I know why. He’s tryin’ to play me.

  His boozy eyes, genuinely sad for the briefest moment, turn speculative. Like Dad’s. He’s playin’ an angle.

  All of them—Dad and Ike, Markie and Keith—they all thought I was weak. Not physically. I could whup all of them, even when they ganged up on me, by the time I hit sixteen. But the fact I never did Ma the way they all did—they marked me as a pussy and tried to own me every minute I lived in this damn house.

  “I ain’t never gonna get my shit together—get a woman, a kid—if I don’t have work. This pissant money ya’ll are fronting me for spyin’ on the Raiders ain’t gonna cut it. I need a job.”

  I don’t trust him for a moment, and neither would Heavy.

  “A job doin’ what?”

  “I could do construction.”

  He could do a lot of damage at the sites we work. We specialize in modifications that aren’t on the schematics submitted to the county. Safe rooms, underground vaults, tunnels. We got a lot of work now on the up-and-up, and only brothers work the mod jobs, but eventually…he’d catch wind of somethin’. Is Ike tryin’ to go double agent?

  “I could ask Heavy. If you have something worth opening his mind. Steel Bones don’t hire felons.”

  “Unless it’s one of their own.”

  Yeah. He means Scrap. Brother should have never gone down for what he did; he should have got a medal. Rebel Raiders were behind that shit, too.

  The rage rises, pulling me to my feet. I stalk to the china cabinet where Ma kept her keepsakes, these figurines of kids with big eyes and big heads. Kind of like Story must have looked as a little girl. They’re all gone, but you can see circles in the dust where they used to be.

  “What do you have, Ike?” I need to end this soon before this bizarre chill I’m ridin’ burns off.

  “Rebel Raiders weren’t at Twiggy’s on accident. Your boy got lucky they had money ridin’ on the Pittsburgh game. Otherwise, your brothers would’ve never made it in time.”

  My blood runs cold.

  “Why?”

  “Knocker’s sending men out all over, lookin’ for Steel Bones. There’s a bounty. Two thousand.”

  “For old ladies?”

  “Old ladies, brothers, prospects, whatever.”

  “What does he want?”

  “That twisted fuck?” Ike acts like he can’t fathom the man, but we both know it’s a lie. There ain’t no depravity a Kobald ain’t intimately familiar with. “Why does anyone do that kind of shit? Leverage, I’d imagine. Collateral. Ransom. Revenge.”

  “Revenge?”

  “The man has a real hard-on for Steel Bones.”

  “He ain’t satisfied with carvin’ a woman up and bustin’ in a kid’s head?”

  Ike takes a swig of his beer. “Knocker don’t see that as on him.”

  “It was his brothers.”

  “You takin’ responsibility for what me and Markie and Keith get up to?”

  I fuckin’ hate it, but I take his point. “Then what’s this about?”

  Ike snorts. “Thought you were supposed to be the smart one, Dudley Do-Right.” He waits a minute, and I wait him out. “Don’t matter what has happened since. Knocker Johnson agreed to drive a truck of cigarettes for Steel Bones when he’d barely turned eighteen, and he ended up behind bars for eighteen years.”

  The Blown Job. That’s what the older brothers call it. That shit splintered Steel Bones. Stones Johnson’s other boys—Inch and Dutchy—founded the Rebel Raiders after Stones and Knocker got life bids. Took a third of the club with them. It’s been hauntin’ us now for nearly twenty years.

  I glance around the room, the peeling wallpaper and the rusted radiators, the chipped linoleum tiles visible through the kitchen door and the gap where some Kobald or other wrenched out the stove to sell it for scrap. There’s mouse shit scattered across the floor. Except for the stove, it don’t look much different from when Ma finally hit the skids and gave up.

  The past is a mass grave. Can’t make no sense of it. Can’t be made right.

  “What’s Knocker’s end game?” I don’t expect Ike to know, and if he does, I don’t expect a straight answer.

  “What does Steel Bones have that’s worth eighteen years of a man’s life?”

  Story’s perfect face, those big, blinking eyes and that sweet smile, comes unbidden to mind, and I drive it back out. I don’t want even the thought of her in this place.

  “He has to know this don’t end well for him. Rebel Raiders might follow him now cause of his name, but they’re a bunch of meth dealers and brawlers. Ain’t no army.”

  “And Steel Bones is? I see a bunch of carpenters and roofers these days, brother. Not that I’m complainin’. I can see myself with a hammer and a tool belt.” Ike grins, and the lie jerks the corners of his mouth higher.

  I know him. I know his tells. And he knows me. We only had a few years together in this house, him bein’ so much older, but a jail is a jail, and time there passes slow.

  “I’ll talk to Heavy.” I wipe my palms on my jeans as if that’ll clean off the grime.

  “Yeah, you do that little brother.” Ike stands too. Walks me to the door, his hand on my shoulder. It’s all I can do not to toss it off.

  He grabs the knob and opens the door, but when it’s less than a foot wide and I can finally smell fresh air again, he stops.

  “You would’ve been an uncle,” he says, tightening his grip, a twisted smile on his face. “That would’ve been somethin’, wouldn’t it?”

  I got no words.

  “It lo
oked just like a little person. Jeannie even had it buried.”

  Acid burns my throat, and every muscle in my body strains to throw off his disgusting hand and drive a fist into his filthy mouth. The only thing that stops me is knowin’ my brothers would see and swoop down, and then we’d be driving totally blind with the Rebel Raiders.

  But that ain’t entirely true. There’s also the strange fact that beating Ike into oblivion ain’t my driving urge right now.

  I want to breathe in the cold night air until my lungs are rid of every trace of this place. I want to ride hard. I want a scalding shower, and then I want to sit across from Story Jenkins and watch her crinkle her nose and lift her sweet lips and bug her eyes so you can’t tell if she’s surprised or teasing the hell out of you.

  I want to listen to her soft, high, bossy voice telling me be gentle and do circles. So I shake loose, head for my bike, and tear off for the clubhouse. And it occurs to me that this might be the first time I ever left this house that I been ridin’ toward something and not away.

  ◆◆◆

  I get lucky for once in my life, and Story’s still sleeping when I slip in at three in the morning. After I caught Heavy up on what was said, I rubbed myself raw in the communal bathroom showers. I didn’t want to wake her. She had one hell of a day, and even though she can handle her own, she’s small and peaceable. She’s not a fighter like Jo-Beth or Harper.

  I’m careful not to jostle the bed too bad when I climb in, but I guess Story’s a light sleeper. She pushes up on her elbows, the sheet falls to her waist, and there is all that skin, milky white and lush in the moonlight comin’ in from the window. Her nipples perk up, begging for my mouth.

  I should shut the shades so we don’t get an eyeful when the sun rises, but there’s no way I’m tearing myself away from this girl. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and wriggles up to sitting.