I stopped mid-bite. “What did she say?”
“She said that at first, she was afraid that maybe they had talked me into something, but either way, she still blamed my dad. She believes that I didn’t do it though. That means a lot on its own. Remember that whole first few months when I started school, what a hard time he gave me? I held my ground and refused to do what he wanted me to do and that pissed him off. My mom said she thought maybe he had been trying to force me into having no other choices besides the club.”
“Wow, did you tell her about Terrance and the emails?”
“Yeah, she has a soft spot for him. She didn’t come right out and defend him, but she mentioned again about how he only had his dad as an example, blah, blah, blah.”
“I thought about that too,” I told Dax, honestly. “He did get dealt a bad hand in life, but I don’t think it’s a valid excuse. At some point as an adult you have to stop blaming your crappy childhood for everything and take responsibility. Terrance is perfectly satisfied with his life. He has no ambition, no desire to change it.”
“I agree. His life wasn’t any crappier than the rest of us. My mom was always there for him and he grew up right alongside me. Anyways, I’m going to confront my dad next,” he said.
It made my stomach hurt. Bull scared me. I had never seen him be violent, nor did I have any evidence that he was. But, someone that commands the type of loyalty and respect he does from the type of guys he deals with day to day…well that tells me there’s a lot about Bull I didn’t want to know.
Chapter Five
Dax
Olivia and I talked until way past closing time that night and no one else ever came in. I let her have the room and I thought about going to my parent’s house but I didn’t want to leave her alone in the back of a bar. She said I could sleep in there too, but I had been in prison for two years. My body finally got some sweet release recently and now I could hardly think of anything else. In other words I didn’t trust myself to be good. I slept on the cot in my dad’s office instead and that’s where he found me when he came in the next morning.
“Hey,” he said in his raspy, “I smoke two packs a day,” voice. I was dead asleep and it scared the shit out of me. I literally jumped up off cot. My dad laughed. I apparently looked funny doing it.
“Hey,” I said back when my heart stopped pounding.
“What are you doing in here? What’s wrong with the bed down the hall?” I was twisting and stretching. The damn cot was more uncomfortable than my prison bunk.
“Nothing’s wrong with it. I let Olivia sleep in their last night.”
“Why does Olivia need a place to stay?”
“She broke up with Terrance,”
“Oh well then why ain’t you…?”
“Don’t say it, dad.”
He laughed again. “Alright boy, I’ll leave that one alone. Are you makin’ any progress on them security tapes?”
I cleared my throat, told myself to stop being a chicken shit and said, “Not on the robbery, but I found out a few more interesting things.”
“Like what?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and lighting up a smoke.
“I don’t know how to put any of this shit delicately, dad. I wasn’t trafficking drugs. You know as well as I do that I refused to have anything to do with that shit. I’m pretty sure I was set up. I think I was supposed to get caught and I was supposed to do time. The night of my welcome home party when I came in here, your email was open. I’m sorry that I invaded your privacy and I understand if you’re pissed. But, I saw one that Terrance wrote you, telling you that things were “all set-up and ready to go.” That was the day before I got busted. I’ve already confronted Terrance about it. He admitted getting an email from you giving him the orders. Then, I saw my mother confront you on the security tape. She thought you set me up too. I know those drugs weren’t mine and it all seems like an awfully big coincidence when you add it up.”
My dad was still staring at me, puffing on his cigarette with a thoughtful look on his face. I didn’t know if he was going to be angry about me going through his emails or not.
Finally, he said, “Let me ask you a question, boy. Why in the hell would I want to do that to my own kid? I mean you and I maybe haven’t been all that close over the years, but to send you to prison, on purpose? I ain’t a monster.”
“I’d like for you to tell me straight out that you didn’t do it and if you did, tell me that as well. In my mind, and I think in Mom’s too, the idea of it probably came from how pissed you were at me for going to college and refusing to follow in your footsteps and be a part of this club.”
“Well, let me tell you something. I watched and listened to your mama cry her eyes out every night while you were locked up. Her heart was breaking and there was nothing I could do to fix it. You might look at how I live my life here and think that I don’t care about your mama, but I would do anything for her. She’s my life. Her and my sons. Had I done this, I wouldn’t have only been doing it to you, I’d been doing it to her, and I would never do that, Dax…to either one of you.”
God help me, I wanted to believe him. “What about the emails?”
“I honestly have no fucking clue. I didn’t send Terrance an email with any orders. If he got one, it came from someone else. I also didn’t see any email he sent me about things being set up. You know first-hand since you’ve been in here snooping yourself. I forget to shut it down sometimes. That gives a dozen people access. If that email was opened already and didn’t show up as new, I wouldn’t have paid it no mind.”
Shit, I hated it when I had my mind made up that he was a dick and then he did this to me. There goes the damn conscience that the son of an M.C. Club President shouldn’t have. My dad was waiting for me to say something, but at that point I really didn’t know what to say.
After a long pause he said, “Go back to the security tapes, before you found the email and see who was in here on my computer the few days before. I didn’t send it, son.”
I didn’t commit to believing him. The little boy who worshipped his dad in me wanted to, but the grown-ass man who just got out of prison was saying, “bullshit.”
I just nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll look at the tapes.”
He didn’t ask again if I believed him and I didn’t bring it up.
Chapter Six
Olivia
In the middle of the day I was sitting in a homemade bedroom in the back of a biker bar with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. I had to ask myself how I got to this miserable existence. I made a lot of mistakes, the first of them being not trusting Dax. I was so blinded by what I’d been through with my father and I projected that all over Dax. First lesson I needed to learn was that just because some people, like my dad and Terrance lie as easy as they breathe, it doesn’t mean that everyone does. Dax was still looking for proof that he was set up, but the funny thing was, I didn’t need it any longer.
I believed him.
I had to figure out what to do with my life. I had about three hundred dollars in the bank and I had almost completely stopped working for my uncle to the point he had hired a full-time guy. It was one of the guys I’d met the day before. He seemed like a good guy and I couldn’t ask my uncle to cut his hours to give them back to me.
When I was with Terrance he was paying all the bills and telling me that was how the club worked. The men took care of their women financially and the women supported them in other ways. The other ways were mostly sex, but no one ever came out and said that. Silly me, I saw myself as some kind of house wife. Sometimes I wish I could kick my own ass.
I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I wasn’t going back to Terrance just so he would support me and I wasn’t going to continue to stay there forever and sponge off Dax. I couldn’t have any kind of self-respect if that was what I resorted to. What I need to do, is go back to school. I could probably get financial aid again and maybe between tha
t and a part-time job I could make it. I wished I had stayed in school. I would have been almost finished. My life got so crazy when Dax went to jail, but most of it was of my own making. It was time to grow up and start making some good decisions.
The first one was school. I decided I was officially going back to school. I needed to go online and reapply for financial aid and start looking for a job. Suddenly I felt better. I hadn’t done anything yet, but I had some kind of direction and I felt a big surge of motivation. I was going to do it right this time and get the hell away from the club forever. I hadn’t met one person since I’d been hanging around that was truly happy. The place and the club just sucked the life out of everything it comes into contact with and I was finished letting it do that to me.
I went out into the hall and saw one of the guys. He was supposedly a nomad and that meant he didn’t have any certain logistical affiliation. But he hung around a lot. His name was Kip. I had no idea if it was a real name or not and no interest in finding out. Just the fact that I knew so much about what a nomad was said I already knew too much about the place. All I wanted was to borrow a computer so I could sign up for classes and start looking for a job.
“Hey, Kip!”
“Hey.”
“Do you think it would be okay if I used one of the computers for a few minutes?”
“Nope,” he said, obviously unconcerned.
“Thanks,” I said.
It was funny. I was headed into an office to use a computer to start my own life to get away from the place where the computer was located.
I turned on the computer and waited for the old machine to boot up. Bull was into spending money on his motorcycles, but not so much on his office supplies. It finally came up and I went to the Universities website. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to do with my life, although I hadn’t really done anything so far. I knew I wanted to get into the medical field. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a nurse or psychiatric tech, but something along those lines. I looked up the requirements of each and the pre-requisite classes. They were both about the same. I still needed to finish my General Ed before I could do anything so I found a sociology class and a psychology class that I qualified for and I signed up for both of them for the fall semester which was going to start in a couple of weeks. They were both on Tuesday and Thursday, so even if I stayed in town, it wouldn’t be so much driving back and forth.
I went to the FAFSA website and filled out my financial aid application. It was pretty easy, under income, expenses and assets, I just entered all zeros. I started scrolling some job posting websites. I wrote down addresses and phone numbers of the ones that looked interesting and I may be qualified for. I felt better after finishing all the forms. From there on out I was only looking forward.
Chapter Seven
Dax
I had spent the day my dad found me sleeping in his office going through more security tapes. I didn’t find many that were right before I got busted but I was sorting through them, diligently. It was going to take some time though and after hours of dust up my nose and an aching neck from sitting on the floor I decided to call it a night and go see what my mom was making for dinner. I checked on Olivia first but she wasn’t in the room and her car wasn’t in the lot so I figured she had other plans and went on alone.
When I got to parent’s house I was surprised to find my dad there. My mom had made his favorites, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy and asparagus. I thought maybe it was an anniversary or God forbid they were feeling intimate.
I told my mom, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys. I thought you’d be eating alone.”
“Dax, we’re all family, sweetie. We can have dinner together. It will be nice.”
“Yeah, nice,” I said, forcing a smile.
I sat at the opposite end of the table from my dad. He looked as pleased that I was there as I was about seeing him. I didn’t know what to say to him anymore and I was sure he felt the same. I didn’t know if he’d set me up or if he was telling me the truth. I was counting on my mom to keep the conversation going.
“Dax, any luck with a job, honey?”
“No, mom. Nobody wants to hire a parolee.”
“Don’t put yourself down, Dax,” she said.
I laughed. “I’m not putting myself down mom. It’s the truth. I’m a parolee and no one wants to hire me.”
“Any ideas what you’re going to do?” She had a prominent worry line between her brows.
I didn’t really want to talk about it in front of my dad, but I said, “I’m considering trying to open up a tattoo parlor.”
“Really?” my mom questioned me, surprised. I think my dad was grinning. “Is that very expensive?”
“I’d need a shop and the basic tools, a gun, ink, sterilizer. I haven’t really figured out the bottom line just yet.”
“Why not?” my dad asked between bites of meatloaf.
“Um…I don’t know.”
“Dax, your life is not going to just jump back on track all on its own. Honey, you don’t really have anything else to do, right? You should take some time to sit down and figure this all out.”
My mom was great. She could lecture me and make it seem like normal conversation. When it was over, I came away feeling good, like maybe I’d asked for her advice. The worst part was the two of them had ganged up on me.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I told my mother. “I’ll sit down and do that tonight.”
My dad was smiling. I shot him a look and that just made him more amused. The rest of the meal, my dad ate, my mom talked and I did a lot of “Mm hmm and okay’s,” but overall she was right, it was nice. After dinner I tried to help her clean up but she wouldn’t let me.
She looked at my dad and said, “Why don’t you boys talk for a while?”
“Sure,” he responded.
After she left the room I turned towards my dad and said, “Not so funny when you’re the one she’s pushing to do something, is it?”
He laughed. “No, it’s funnier when she’s got it turned on you, but in this case you’re wrong son. I got no issue with spending some time talking to you.”
I didn’t know what to say again. His warm moments had been so few and far between my entire life, I didn’t know how to deal with them.
He actually came to the rescue by saying, “If you have any time left after sitting down and figuring out the bottom line like your Mama told you to do then tomorrow you can go for a ride with us.”
I smiled, but I wanted to flip him off for his sarcasm. I resisted.
“Yeah, I think I’ll have time to do both,” I told him. “What time are you leaving?”
“Be at the bar by ten.”
“I’ll be there,” I told him.
That night I stayed in my old room and I did sit down and go online and figure out how much it might cost to start my business. I made a list so that at the very least I could show my mom I was serious. The first thing I had to do was, apply for a business permit. California required new businesses to have a business permit. I found the address of the City Clerk’s office and wrote that down next to number one. The next thing said something about a tax certificate which if I did this, I was going to leave to my mom. She did all of that stuff for my dad. I’m sure she would help me out with it too. I read a few articles on zoning laws. I guess some cities especially in Cali had an issue with tattoo shops in general. Ours didn’t seem to have such a hang up, which was good.
It said I had to register with the County Health Department. That cost about $150. Man, this was a lot of crap. I wrote their address down too and then I read the rest. California has a lot of laws about using needles and disposing of them. Those laws extend to the inks as well.
Lastly I made a list of necessary things like needles, guns, inks, etc. and I found a business plan online that estimated the cost of start-up, including rent and utilities to be at twenty-five thousand dollars.
Before I left for the ride, my mom aske
d to see what I had come up with. I was really glad my dad was already gone. He would have had a field day with that one.
---
It was almost ten when I got to the bar and the guys were almost all saddled up and ready to go. All together there were eight of us. Terrance was there, but I ignored him. I didn’t have anything left to say to him. If we couldn’t avoid each other, hopefully he would steer clear of talking to me. I didn’t ask where we were going, but I didn’t let my saddle bags out of my sight either.
We took off with my dad in the lead and headed towards the hills. It was a beautiful day, crisp and cool. The trees that lined the freeway were covered in orange and red leaves and the hills in the distance were covered with wildflowers. I wished that I was going to be able to do some sketching on this trip up, but asking the club to take a break so I could get my charcoals out and sketch a flower or a tree wouldn’t go over well.
We rode for about an hour before I saw my dad turn off onto a gravel road that led up around the hill. We followed it up about a mile and a half and stopped in front of a rusty old gate. Beyond that, there was a good sized warehouse in the background and an old white house with a big wrap-around porch. There were about three big guys standing on the porch, looking in our direction. I didn’t see any guns, but I didn’t doubt they had them nearby.
My dad got off his bike and he and Terrance’s dad walked up to the gate. That’s when I saw the other guys ride up. There were about six of them and they had ridden up from the direction of the house. When they got off their bikes I could see that they were wearing our patch, but it was different. I was guessing a spin-off club. Two guys got off their bikes and came forward. The guy in the front looked familiar. and after he unlocked the gate and pushed it open he took off his helmet and I realized I was looking at Brock, my big brother.
Big brother is not just a statement about age where Brock is concerned. He weighed at least 275-300 lbs. and I’d be willing to bet not an ounce of that was fat. He had been solid muscle for as long as I could remember and when I was a skinny kid, I was actually a little bit afraid of him. He never hit me, but he had a hot temper and I wasn’t ever sure what he was capable of. He called me string bean and said my neck was too skinny to hold up my big head. He was six foot tall by the time he was in sixth grade and I literally looked up at him my whole life. I thought he stopped growing around six four. I was never sure where he got all that height. My dad couldn’t be over five nine and although Brock’s mother was long gone before I ever came along. I had trouble seeing my dad with an Amazon.
Dirty Biker (An MC Motorcycle Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 79
