Butch

by Trent Jordan

  How my life had gotten to this point… I knew why all too well. It had been this way for nearly a year.

  And I was starting to reach the breaking point. I had no idea how I was going to handle it if I finally shattered.

  Butch

  In the church hall where we always gathered, the six of us sat in our usual circle, in a more combative mood than usual despite our recent accomplishments.

  To my left, at the head of the table, sat the club President, Lane Carter, a man who had taken on the title with much more seriousness and genuine interest than he had for most of his early tenure. To my right sat Father Marcellus, the club chaplain, a man who was very spiritual but not exactly someone I thought local priests and bishops would call “pure in action.” To his right sat the man I had accused of betrayal, Red Raven; his breathing was often one of the few things that I could hear in silent moments. Most people didn’t hear it, but I had an especially sharp sense of hearing.

  To his right, across from Father Marcellus, sat Patriot, the young gun who had seemed to have recently gotten his shit together. Patriot was always something of the “hot young shot,” the pretty boy the club could put forward whenever it needed to charm someone with an attractive smile, but all of us knew beneath that lay a tormented soul over something that probably no one knew about. Thankfully, he seemed better in recent weeks, but we all knew how quickly things could change.

  And to his right, completing the circle, was Axle, the man that I had nearly killed in a brawl just a couple of weeks before and who now knew my greatest suspicion.

  Together, we were a crew that operated well enough; we had worked much better under the leadership of Lane’s late father, Roger Carter, but we were also almost all on the upswing from what we had once been. It had only been less than a year ago that Lane was detached, Axle and I were trying to keep the club afloat, and I was convinced that some of the members were going to join Cole in his Gray Reapers—and that was just considering the ones who had not jumped ship the night Lane expelled his brother.

  But today, it wasn’t going so well.

  “We sit back and wait,” Axle said. “And the Fallen Saints will become the Risen Saints, and everything that we did at Brewskis will be for naught.”

  The situation was easy enough. The Fallen Saints were in really bad shape after our last battle; Lucius was even in critical condition in the hospital. He had not yet perished, but the club was in hunker-down mode. If they had been recovering in their headquarters, we could have ended it.

  But they had done something that was deviously brilliant. They had all—literally all—gone to Springsville General, and as a result, they were healing in a very public place. There was going to be no private, nighttime raid to take them out.

  “I take it Kaitlyn’s not going to do anything?” Lane said, asking Patriot about his girlfriend, who worked as a nurse at the hospital.

  “No way, man,” he said. “Her and Devon are scared shitless, but there’s sort of an unspoken arrangement there. If the Saints don’t do anything to anyone on staff, then the staff will treat them as they would any other patient. And both sides know we’re not going to interfere. Just not gonna happen, man.”

  “Shit,” Lane said. “How do we know they’ll keep their end of the bargain?”

  “Family,” Father Marcellus said. “Lucius’ daughter, Lilly, is by his side. Lilly may be the daughter of the most evil man we know, but she still has a right to care for her father. She will not allow anything to come between him and his recovery, including the demonic actions of his club.”

  I shook my head. We knew Lucius had a daughter, but that was nothing but a footnote to us, like saying Lucius had hair that was getting whiter by the day. It wasn’t anything we concerned ourselves with because most of us had rarely seen Lilly. I think Lane had said he’d seen her once before, but otherwise, she might as well have been a phantom.

  “But that does not mean we cannot strike when they are weakest.”

  I never would have, in my life, guessed that Red Raven would be the one to be speaking now.

  “This is not a war in which we ought to fight fairly. They will take any advantage they can to hurt us; we must not afford them the luxury of healing. Now is the time to end them and end the war that Roger Carter fought for the last several years of his life.”

  Red Raven…

  I was biased, but I believed he was just trying to save his ass. The demolition of the Saints in the last battle had probably put him in precarious standing with them, and he had to figure their total annihilation was the only way he would live.

  Or maybe I was just wrong, maybe Father Marcellus was the rat, and I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

  “We’re going to put this to a vote,” Lane said. “We’ve argued over this for what feels like an hour now, and we’re no closer to a solution than we were when we came in. We’re going to go counterclockwise on this one.”

  Interesting. We never do it like that. I always go first.

  I wonder…

  “Axle?”

  Axle snorted.

  “As long as we don’t create casualties amongst civilians, who cares?” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t sneak in and take them out bit by bit. I say we strike now.”

  I was conflicted listening to Axle. On the other hand, murder was what I was good at, and I was especially good at murdering people who had crossed me or hurt me.

  But on the other hand, it wasn’t like I was a sociopath. I wasn’t proud of the fact that my greatest life skill was ending other people’s lives. I wanted to listen to my better half, the half that could still find redemption and salvation at some point in my life.

  But if redemption comes through the very thing that has put you in this spot, is that really redemption? Or is that just some sort of weird rationalization to keep doing what you are doing now?

  “Patriot?”

  Patriot grimaced for a second as if having second thoughts about what he had said initially. Perhaps the idea of striking at the location where his girlfriend worked suddenly wasn’t the smartest idea.

  “I vote… if we can contain the attack only to the Saints clubhouse… yeah.”

  That was not the vote. The vote was for a strike now, at the hospital. But Lane, whether because he and Patriot were best friends or just because he had a stroke of good leadership, knew better than to push forward. He could read between the lines.

  “Red Raven?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Our enemy will show us no mercy. Against an enemy like that, we have no choice but to play by their rules. To rise above their rules simply gives them our underbellies to shoot at.”

  You and your bullshit philosophical statements.

  “Father Marcellus?”

  The chaplain looked pained at everyone else’s answers. And I didn’t mean that just in expression—he was keeled over, his hands on his stomach like he was going to throw up if he heard another answer he found reprehensible.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why?”

  Red Raven?

  “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” he said, quoting one of his favorite Bible verses. “So many people think that means to get rich at the expense of their soul, but that is simply not the case. It means sacrificing your sacred values for material gain. We are no saints, and I don’t mean the fallen kind. We are criminals, we are violent, and we are troublemakers, no matter how much we say otherwise. But we have something that the Fallen Saints do not, and that is a code of behavior and honor.”

  He had regained his strength, now sitting up at a table.

  “We are a club that gets arrested for disorderly conduct or drinking, but not for murder or theft. Our crimes are crimes against the illogical rules of society, not against our fellow man. If we go and attack a hospital, where dozens, if not hundreds, of other patients are recovering of their wounds, we will create casualties even if we do not lay a finger upon the
m. We will create nightmares for the rest of their lives. And even above that, we must have empathy for the common society of Springsville.”

  “Empathy is not to be had here!”

  I had never, ever heard Red Raven speak so emphatically or so often. I saw Axle glance at me, but I did not look back—I did not want to have anything suggest that we were on to him. Red Raven is facing something serious from the Saints.

  “When the devil has barged into your home, you do not wait to clear out the home before you strike back,” he said. “You must drive your sword through his heart, even if he has held your wife and children before you.”

  “With all respect, Red Raven, that is exactly what the devil wants because if you do that, you become the devil yourself.”

  “You are—”

  “That’s enough,” Lane said, banging the gavel before Red Raven and Father Marcellus could continue their argument. “I appreciate both sides of this argument, but I did not come here for a Sunday sermon from either of you. And frankly, the reason I put this to a vote is that I knew that this would happen. We need to find common ground by majority vote, not unanimity.”

  Red Raven and Father Marcellus settled down, neither looking at the other. Everyone across from me could not contain their shock at Red Raven’s explosive behavior. I wondered how many of them besides Axle suspected him of being the rat.

  “Butch. You are the Sergeant-at-Arms. You are the one who would push for violence. What do you believe?”

  What did I believe?

  Oh, I had quite a bit I could have said on that. But that didn’t mean I wanted to say it out loud. We’d already had our philosophical, quasi-religious debate; I didn’t need to add on to that.

  “No, no strike,” I said.

  I could see the room visibly tense as it fell to Lane. He leaned forward on the table, propping both elbows up, taking a deep breath.

  “The thing I keep coming back to,” he said, his voice steady and calm. “Was how I felt the night that both my father died and Shannon died.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard him speak of that night in such calm sentences. Maybe he finally had gotten over her.

  “And because of that, I keep thinking about the fact that we know Lucius’ daughter is with him,” he said. “I won’t claim to know a thing about Lilly, but… I’m sorry, Red Raven, but I tend to agree with Father Marcellus here. I have no empathy for the man that killed my fiancée.”

  He finally admits it. He’s blamed Cole for so long… maybe there is hope for a reunion.

  “I have no empathy for the Fallen Saints. But I feel like I would become the devil if I put at risk a young woman when I know the pain of losing one like her. I am not willing to do that. And in any case, I am not going to authorize a strike against a fucking hospital unless we have a unanimous decision. And even then, I am certainly not going to launch one until Patriot can give me every assurance in the world that Kaitlyn and Devon would not be there.”

  He sighed.

  “I fucking hate Lucius. He has caused me a lot of heartache, and he’s caused this club a lot of pain. But I’m just not going to kill his daughter, even if she is evil—which none of us know if it’s true or not—to get to him, nor am I going to destroy this town’s safety. So—”

  “Wait.”

  Lane had gone to raise the gavel to declare the matter closed, or at least postponed for the moment. He had gotten as far as swinging it upward just before, once again, Red Raven had interrupted.

  “You have a chance to finish what your father fought for all these years,” he said.

  He sounded out of breath, like speaking so much had sapped most of his strength. I allowed myself to look at him and saw a man who looked much older than he normally did. I did not know how old he was, but he might have been much closer to the end than any of us realized. Was this the act of a man trying to redeem himself? Or was he still in self-preservation mode?

  “You have a chance to end the madness that afflicts this town,” he continued. “And you would allow this to slide? War is hard and requires some awful choices, son. Ask Patriot or Axle. You know that you cannot have a bloodless battle with the Fallen Saints.”

  Lane swallowed. He doesn’t suspect Red Raven of being the rat. Or, if he does, he hasn’t brought himself to believe it. Red Raven was getting to Lane. We all could see it.

  “We’ll talk about this again on Saturday morning,” he said, somewhat weakly. “We have to have our annual family-friendly party tomorrow afternoon and evening, and we cannot cancel it. But it also means we won’t get trashed like we usually will. So sit on it for the next forty hours or so.”

  With that, Lane slammed the gavel, but unlike most meetings, when someone would get up to move immediately, none of us moved. We all recognized the gravity of the opportunity in front of us, but we all also recognized the serious tragedy that could ensure if we handled it poorly.

  I looked at Axle, who briefly made eye contact with me. Without a word, we both knew we needed to get someplace else to talk more.

  I was the first to stand up. It took several seconds before everyone else rose, and even then, it felt like we were violating some sort of unspoken agreement by standing to end the meeting. Such was the gravitas of this particular meeting.

  Rose wasn’t working at Bottle Revolution that night, but we still had the place to ourselves without concern of someone eavesdropping. We sat on the back porch, no one else nearby. The cashier, a man named Isaac with a ponytail, had done so much to placate us that he had even agreed to put up a “Closed” sign.

  “I see it,” Axle said.

  I didn’t need to ask what “it” was.

  “We gotta start working on the case,” he continued. “What have we got so far?”

  Not enough.

  “What you saw,” I said. “The sniper evidence. We can set him up for more. Or I can just kill him.”

  It was said far too casually to suggest I was trying to be a better man, but when I had my mind set on ending someone…

  “I’d like to, but it won’t be that easy,” Axle said. “Killing him is easy. Killing him and keeping the club in line won’t be.”

  Because of his son.

  “Pink Raven,” I mumbled.

  “The minute that we accuse Red Raven, his son will be looking for anything to protect him,” he said. “And God forbid if we kill Red Raven before informing Pink Raven. That’ll be the fastest way to start a civil war in this club.”

  The killer in me wanted to say, “Fuck that.” The killer in me wanted to do what he knew best. The killer in me needed to end that traitor’s life.

  But…

  Not yet. Be a wiser man. Be a thinker, not a killer.

  “I know you’re right,” I said. “But, we will kill him at some point.”

  We discussed the merits of how we could set him up and present Lane with the evidence a little bit more, but we didn’t make too much more headway. We both knew talking wasn’t what we needed to do. We needed to just get the damn job done.

  Eventually, at the end of my first and only beer, I stood and told Axle to start doing his own digging. I suggested that we avoid telling anyone else for now, and he agreed. He made me promise I wouldn’t so much as grab Red Raven’s shoulder until we had full evidence; I was in full agreement.

  When I got home, I opened the door, listening for the pattering of my little dog’s paws on the carpet.

  “Lucky!” I shouted as I shut the door behind me.

  The dog murmured and barked as me as he came forward and leaped on my leg. I laughed and picked him up, smothering him with kisses. Wonder what the club would think if they saw me like this.

  Probably wouldn’t know what the hell to think.

  “Who’s a good boy, huh? Huh? You are, Lucky Luck! You are!”

  I placed Lucky back on the floor and gave him belly rubs as he rolled. I laughed some more, both in delight at my dog and in the fact that I could act freely here.

  It woul
d have been nice to have been myself in the club. Actually, it would have been nice to have been myself in almost any situation away from my dog. It would make everything easier, from dating to socializing to just being at peace with myself.

  But if I did that, people could get a glimpse of just how dark of a person I could be. They would recognize that the image of Butch, the big, badass Sergeant-at-Arms, was practically a fucking teddy bear compared to the monster I could be. And if that happened, I doubted even the Fallen Saints would want me around.

  Someday, I prayed, I’d get rid of this darkness forever.

  Because I had no idea how the hell I’d live with it. It made suppressing it the only real option.

  Thea

  It was of enormous relief when I woke up Friday to a message from Axle.

  I didn’t know why, but there was just something about seeing a message from him that always warmed me, even as I knew he had found someone—apparently, an old romantic flame of his—that genuinely made him happy. Maybe it was because I lacked so much genuine human connection, or maybe it was because I was that desperate to be with someone I was attracted to, but getting a text message from Axle was like getting a splash of water after being dehydrated—but in this case, the dehydration wasn’t sex or even literal dehydration.

  It was just a lack of friendship.

  And the worst part about it? It wasn’t even like Axle was especially nice to me. The last time we had hooked up, he was distant and rude and kicked me out right after he had come. I wasn’t taking my drops of water from Axle, the man. I was taking them from Axle, the image.

  But sometimes, imagination and our minds are the only things that keep us from fully dissolving into something truly chaotic and dark.