by Lexy Timms
Jace couldn’t get enough ink. His chest and stomach were covered. He also he had one full sleeve of ink done. Had it not been for his prison sentence, he’d probably have done another sleeve and something massive down one leg. All the art had some significance. Not that he was about to get all sentimental and tell people about it, but it meant something to him. He had some playing cards, the ace of spades in particular, a skeleton riding a Harley, a road sign that read ‘Hell Delivers’, a human heart, a few skulls here and there to fill spaces, and the words “Pray for my family” written in script across the top of his back, just to name a few.
Today for his appointment, he wore a cap backwards over his short, dark hair. The serious, daring look on his face had only grown more intense since his time in prison. He could feel it. He’d seen it in the mirror.
The doctor returned to her office, he smiled and looked down, waiting a few long seconds for her to step in front of him. When she did, all the blood drained out of her face. Not a word would come for almost a minute, but eventually she found her voice.
“I…I’m…” she stuttered.
“Jace Roma,” he said, extending her hand.
“Dr. Jessie Gardiner.”
“Good to meet you, Doctor.”
She nervously showed him to a seat and walked around to her chair. “What should I call you, doctor? Would you prefer Dr. Gardiner? Doc? How about Jessie? Or maybe you’d like me to call you…Jill.”
She huffed in a breath, and searched through a stack of patient files on one corner of her desk. Her skin flushed from embarrassment, now that he put it out there that he knew who she was.
Sitting behind her desk now, she looked slightly different than that night. Right now she was a slender blonde in her mid-twenties, wearing thin-rimmed glasses and playing the part of a reserved therapist. She wore a navy suit jacket with matching fitted skirt, and the top button of her white shirt was open. It revealed a subtle beauty mark at the base of her neck. Now that he made her, she put on a stern, serious look, pursing her lips tightly together. She wouldn’t look straight at him, but on the occasions when he caught her gaze, she became unreadable.
After enough fumbling and nervously searching through paper files, she straightened up in her chair and looked at him head on.
“Well, Jace Roma, I think we’re now in an unusual situation.”
“How do you mean?” He wanted her to explain herself.
“To put it mildly, there’s now a conflict of interest.”
“What are you trying to say, Doc?”
She shifted around in her chair and rubbed her hand at the base of her neck. “I don’t believe I can be your psychiatrist.”
“Why?”
“It’s clear you know who I am, Mr. Roma.”
“Please, after a night like we had, you can call me Jace. Better yet, just call me. You’ve got my number somewhere in that case file, don’t you?”
“Mr. Roma, I feel it’s best if I have you reassigned to another professional.”
He couldn’t avoid being playful. “Why? You know, that would make sense if you and I were to see each other again, but what makes you think I want that?”
“Mr. Roma, that’s irrelevant. You do know why you’re here, don’t you?”
“Because the court said I had to be here. They want to make sure I’m adjusting, and don’t have any leftover…anger issues. Or some bullshit like that.”
“Yes, Jace, they want to make sure you’re readjusting to your new life, and get the support you need to reintegrate back into a law-abiding society. The state was concerned after your incident with one of the guards. You remember what happened, don’t you?”
Her tone was condescending, but something in her voice grabbed at him. Maybe because of the different, infinitely more satisfying, setting they were in before.
“Oh, I remember, all right. I remember those pigs roughing up the only buddy I made inside. The man was sick with some kind of degenerative disease…and those guards seemed to hate him for it. Wait a minute. Are we doing this session or not? It sounded to me that you wanted to assign me to someone else just now. If that’s the case, send me on my way so I don’t have to do this shit twice.”
Jace wasn’t serious about cutting her loose just yet, but he had to test the waters. If she was serious about reassigning him, that could also be a good sign. Maybe they could hook up again.
She sat silently for a moment, probably weighing a slew of options. Whether she kept him as her patient or not, he’d still know her secret. The real question was could she set that night aside and do her job.
“Dr. Gardiner, I’ll tell you what I think. It seems to me our prior—interaction, let’s call it. It’s put us both in a vulnerable position, but maybe that’s a good thing for each of us to be a little vulnerable in the confines of this office. After all, I’ll be sharing all my deepest secrets, and fears and resentment about my time in jail. Maybe my…knowledge, about you…well, maybe that can lead to my being more open. The more I think about it the more I like the idea. You can end up being exactly what I need to successfully integrate back into life outside of prison.”
Maybe he was pushing a little too hard, but damn, he liked seeing her squirm. She seemed on the fence about his argument, so he added, “I’ll leave it for you to decide. I’d completely understand if you feel I’ll be too much of a distraction if you keep seeing me…professionally, that is.”
He stood up then and reached over the table to shake her hand. She took it with much hesitation. “I’ll be heading out now. Let me know what you decide. Enjoy the rest of your day, Dr. Gardiner.”
He released her hand and made for the exit, and turned when he was standing in the doorway. “Either way, would you mind sending that t-shirt back to my address in your file? That’s always been one of my favorites.”
He slipped out of her office with a broad smile across his face.
No matter what she ended up doing, he had her.
Chapter Seven
The clubhouse was a large but unassuming brick building behind a wooden privacy fence – it looked more like a wall than just a fence around somebody’s yard. From the outside, the building seemed pretty plain and unimportant. A few members enjoyed parking their bikes along the curb out front so everyone passing by knew there were bikers here, but most of the members pulled in and parked behind the fence. They enjoyed the privacy inside the gate. Plus, when everyone showed up, there wasn’t enough room on the curb for all the motorcycles.
Today was one of those days. Jace raced over to the clubhouse from his session with Dr. Gardiner. He smiled. That look on her face when she left was classic. The image was still fresh in his mind when he pulled into the lot and saw all of the Harleys owned by his brothers in the Raging Danger Motorcycle Club. They were lined up along one side of the fence. He was finally home. He parked in the back close to the door.
He couldn’t wait to get inside. He had pictured the place in his mind for ten years, keeping it alive so he wouldn’t forget where he belonged. The clubhouse was one large open concept room with two small offices in the back corner. The one on the left was for officers only, a private place where they handled record keeping and financial business. The president had rights to the other office, and used it for meetings and anything he damn well pleased. That was his right as president. The open area on the main floor also had a fully stocked bar, pool tables, several small card tables along one wall, and a section off the side to shoot darts and indulge in the couple of old school arcade games.
Jace walked in, and was surprised to see all the faces. He’d seen all the bikes outside, and yes, there were more now than before he gone to prison. It was still a surprise to see all the faces behind those wheels. He recognized many of them, but the club had expanded while he was in, and there were a lot of faces that were new to him. They all welcomed him home just the same. They cheered just the same when he walked through the door. They were his brothers here, and even the unfamiliar ones
treated him like they’d known him forever.
A hand stretched out and handed Jace a beer when he entered. He saw Ragged standing on the bar, waving him back as the crowd parted. His boys patted him on the back as he walked through. He climbed up on the bar with Ragged and the clubhouse erupted in more cheering.
Ragged hushed them so he could speak. “Alright men. That’s a good start to welcome our brother, Jace Roma, home from prison. Thank you, everyone, for showing up and being here to show Jace how important his return is to all of us. You were missed, brother. I think you can see how much the family has grown in your absence. Ten years is a long time, and the last decade has been good to the club. Now you can enjoy it with us.” He raised his beer over the other members’ heads. “To Jace!” he toasted.
“To Jace,” the clubhouse members echoed.
After they all took a drink together, Ragged looked out over everyone and hushed them again. “Alright brothers, as you were. Thank you. Jace will have time to meet everybody eventually, but first, let us handle some business over here.”
Jace and Ragged hopped down from the bar. Ragged gestured for Jace to follow him into the meeting room. They were followed by two other long-time members of the MC, Rick Martinez and Bang, real name Pete Lewis. Rick closed the door so they could sit around the board room table and talk freely.
“Jace, you remember Rick and Bang,” Ragged said, sitting down.
“Yes, of course,” Jace said.
“Welcome back, brother,” the other two members said in turn. Voices in this room were usually hushed. Unlike the party atmosphere outside with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol permanently hanging on the air, the meeting room smelled of money and mahogany. The brothers sat back in the black leather chairs around the table. Jace ran his hands along the edge of the smooth tabletop. It felt good to be back in this room.
Jace looked around the walls, taking in all the familiar sights, and noticing a few new ones. The walls were covered in framed photos of club members throughout the years and plaques recognizing different members for achievements in the MC and in the community.
No institution could come between him and his home. Before he was released, the parole board had warned him to avoid anything and anyone that could get him into a similar situation as what landed him in prison in the first place.
Those people knew nothing. They acted as though his MC was run by a bunch of hardened criminals. True, a few members of old time Raging Danger had done time years and years ago. That was in the old days, and those men were throwbacks from the time when the MC really was an outlaw gang carrying on illicit activity within an organized crime ring. The thing that always separated bikers from common street thugs was that even in those days, a lot of them had organized into networks. They respected each other’s territories and connections.
Those days were over. These days, the rebels who found themselves drawn to MC’s like Raging Danger had another agenda—to get their own piece of the pie, and legally. There was enough opportunity around for them to carve out their own version of the American dream. Their MC had morphed into a brotherhood that in some ways, was no different from any other group built to support local entrepreneurs. The only exceptions were the motorcycles, booze, loud music, old ladies, and tattoos. The image was rougher, but the drive was the same. Unfortunately for groups like the Raging Danger MC, though, old stereotypes were still alive and well.
Chapter Eight
“We need to get you up to speed, brother. A lot has happened in the last ten years,” Ragged started.
“You’ll be excited, bro. Ragged did some groundbreaking shit in the business,” Bang chimed in. Bang was ex-Special Forces, and always a little keyed up. He brought the same level of do or die energy to everything the MC did. Defeat was not an option. Calm was not in his repertoire either.
Ragged nodded. “We expanded Arizona Hogs beyond that first shop where you first met the three of us, Jace. Now we have two here in Phoenix, one in Tucson, one in Reno, Nevada, and three out in Vegas. We took the shops into cities where we already had local chapters. That gave us the built in workforce and clientele to get off the ground. In another few years, we plan to have a presence in every major city in Nevada, Arizona, and eventually out in California. We did a lot of work, man. Every shop is a certified Harley dealer.”
“Nice. Sounds like you all kept busy.”
“We did. The biggest moneymakers are our shops in Vegas. Tourists and a lot of our local chapter members spend a shit load of money on their bikes, adding all sorts of customizations, and constantly upgrading or buying new ones. It’s Vegas. They want to be flashy, and the riding clubs out there want to feel like they’re getting in on some of the MC action,” Ragged continued.
Rick put a hand on Jace’s shoulder. “The best part is we want you to run one of the shops for us.”
“What?”
“You heard him, brother. Take your pick,” Ragged said. “If it was up to me, I could use some help with one of the Phoenix shops. Right now, I’m running both. But I owe you, man. So pick any shop you want, and we’ll get you trained up to run it.”
“Wow. That’s big. This is some serious shit. I’ll need some time to decide, man. It’s a lot to think about so soon after getting out. Especially that part about moving.”
Rugged didn’t object. “I hear you, man. There’s plenty of time. We’ll take you out to see some of the shops, and you can spend some time getting to see how they’re run. No rush at all, but we just want you to know, we got you. You won’t have to worry about finding work and shit like that.”
“Sounds good, brother.” Jace was relieved to hear it, but wasn’t sure of anything yet.
“So, now that business is out of the way,” Ragged continued, “Tell us how it was.”
“Well, everyone knows about what happened with the guard, I’m sure,” Jace started.
They men around the table all laughed. He was growing tired of that story. It seemed to be haunting him more now than it had on the inside.
Bang got up and slapped him on the back. “Yeah, we heard you roughed him up and threatened to kill him after they denied you early release the first time.”
“No, that’s not what happened. They denied my early release the first time because I threatened to rough him up. He and another guard assaulted a decent kid I met inside. As far as I’m concerned they wore him down until he died. After I found out, I cornered one of the guards and promised to show him what it felt like. He didn’t like that too much.”
“Fucking pigs,” Rick said.
“Yeah…Forget about it. That’s history now. Speaking of history, I did end up meeting a couple of old Raging Danger members.” Jace leaned his chair back. “I hadn’t even thought about mentioning it until I saw that picture of them right there above your head, Ragged.”
Ragged looked up. “That’s the original chapter. There’s no way those old timers are still around,” he said in disbelief.
“At least two of them are. The two young guys in front. Razor was one, and I forget the other guy’s name.”
Bang got up and looked at the photo closely. Underneath the picture, the frame had a plaque with the names on it. He squinted. “Blades, I think.”
“Yeah, that was it. Blades. I remember the names were associated like that,” Jace said.
“As the story goes, those two were twins,” Ragged added, “and they started a lot of trouble for the MC.
“Well, I talked to them, and they weren’t twins, although they admit they could have been. Back in the sixties, they had tried to get the club into the drug trade. They saw it as a lucrative business. When I told them that the MC owned a bike shop, they were so proud we were moving away from all the risky ventures they were involved in. All that shady shit is what nearly brought the club down.”
“It was a bad time for a lot of them,” Ragged said. “Almost every MC had their hands in either drugs or guns or both.”
“I bet everyone on the inside was
afraid of those guys,” Rick said.
Jace laughed. “They damn well were.”
“Well, don’t give these boys any ideas, Jace. Let’s leave the past in the past and move the fuck on. It’s a new day, Jace. For you and the whole MC.” Ragged held up what was left of his beer and toasted the brothers at the table with him. “Now let’s finally get you some pussy.”
The men went on to have a good laugh about taking Jace to a club that ended up getting raided. None of them were arrested, so it was funny after the fact. Jace didn’t bother mentioning anything to the brothers about Jessie aka Jill aka Dr. Gardiner. He could have given them hell for inadvertently introducing him to his psychiatrist, but something told him to keep that tidbit about her to himself. For now, anyway.
Chapter Nine
“Have you given any thought to my suggestion?” Dr. Gardiner asked the question at the start of their next session. She started in on the topic before he even sat down.
“You really want to get rid of me, don’t you?” Jace asked.
“I’ve crossed the line professionally, Jace. I don’t think I can help you rehabilitate, given the circumstances under which we met. I’ve prepared this form for you to sign. With your agreement and signoff, I’ll be able to get you assigned to a new therapist.”
“I still don’t understand. What are you really afraid of, Doc? You think I’ll tell someone? That I’ll hold what happened over your head? Or are you just afraid you can’t trust yourself to be a professional around me?”
“I won’t get into this with you. The fact is our…circumstances won’t allow for a productive doctor-patient relationship,” Jessie admitted to him.
“You know for a professional, you seem to like conversations that cross the line. Do you ever listen to some of the things you say?”
Jessie was wearing slacks this time. Her legs were completely covered, shirt buttoned up, glasses in place, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she happened to be sitting at the edge of her table. Jace stood near the door imagining all the things he could do to her on top of that desk.
