by Bijou Hunter
THE HEIR
By the time Pop and I arrive home in the blistering August afternoon, I’m a soaked mop. I park in the motorcycle garage but don’t get off my ride right away. Wiping my head with a bandana, I enjoy the shade and shake off the heat.
Pop stands at the doorway, waiting for me. “Get your ass in motion,” he finally grunts when I wipe myself for too long.
“I’m hot.”
“You’re a spoiled twat.”
“Like father, like son,” I say and swing my leg off the bike. “Gram said she used to fan you when you got hot in the summer.”
Pop rolls his eyes and walks away. I consider chasing after him to see if he needs me to blow cool air on him. Instead, I choose to hone my stealth skills.
Circling around the massive two-story house, I slip inside the family room before Pop enters the front hall and finds Mom sitting in the kitchen. I don’t know if he’s getting slow or if something distracted him out front. My guess is MJ or her kid forced him to applaud their silliness. He’s a sucker for those two, and I guess I’m lucky they didn’t keep him busy for an hour. Sometimes, he forgets to enter the house and ends up next door in MJ’s tent-home. Pop really likes that weirdo setup despite all his bitching.
Even with six foot four mighty inches of muscled flesh, I disappear behind the thick curtains in the living room where I hope to eavesdrop on my parents’ conversation. I’m curious what Pop is really thinking. I just hope they don’t skip the chatter and move straight to banging in the living room. I mean, seriously! They still have a child living in the house, and I don’t need to see that crap!
“What have you heard?” Pop asks after he grossly swaps a gallon of spit with my saintly mom.
I peek out to see Mom tightening her dark ponytail before she frowns up at her hubby. “Rod raped a girl, and his father doesn’t care.”
“Fucking hell, is that what Vaughn said?”
“I don’t know about his wording,” Mom says, sounding tense, “but that’s what it sounded like by the time the news reached me.”
Pop sighs, but I can’t see them now that I’m forced to slide farther behind the curtains to avoid being seen.
“It’s not that simple. This girl made a public spectacle at Whiskey Kirk’s. People don’t know why she freaked out, only that she attacked the club. We still don’t know anything about her.”
“People don’t always think straight when they’re hurt, Coop. She lashed out, but that doesn’t make her the bad guy. How old is she?”
“I don’t know. Also, apparently, she wasn’t the girl Rod hurt.”
“Raped, Coop. Say the words, so you don’t forget what we’re talking about.”
“I didn’t forget shit,” he snaps at Mom who sighs in a way that likely makes him piss himself with guilt.
“You protect those men even when they don’t deserve it.”
“Gary Lee is dead, and he wasn’t one of my men,” Pop says, so obviously defensive about how shit went down after our club brother Jim Bean’s son shot MJ because she was mean to him and his balls couldn’t properly drop as a result.
“But he got to live longer than any other man would have if they’d hurt your daughter. You make exceptions for them.”
“It’s my job to make exceptions for them. They’re my men, and I ask them to do shit that can get them killed or locked in a cage. If they don’t trust me to have their backs, why would I trust them to have mine?”
“If Rod raped that girl, he shouldn’t be in the club,” Mom says, using her tough chick voice.
“Do you think I want a rapist piece of shit in my club? These guys spend time with my kids. Fuck, Rod held Thisbe once. I don’t want his hands on my grandbabies if he’s using them to hurt a woman. But the fact is we don’t know if he did anything.”
“Why would she lie?”
“People lie,” Pop says in that tone he uses when Mom’s naïve.
I assume Mom is glaring at him now since that’s her move when he uses that voice. “Why would you believe him over her?”
“He wears our patch, and she’s a stranger.”
“He’s a pervert,” Mom declares, and she isn’t a woman to walk back such feelings. I’m surprised she gave Pop a second chance since she tends to get pretty stubborn when she doesn’t like a person, and I heard my father acted like a huge dickhead when they met.
“You don’t know that,” Pop says, softening his tone since he’s losing the chick vote. How Mom leans, so do the other club women. Well, the top-tier ladies anyway. The old ladies are pretty fucking cliquey in Ellsberg. Pop pauses to fondle Mom—I assume since I can’t see through the curtain and they’re quiet for a long minute. “We just have the girl’s word for now.”
“Well, it’s not like he’ll admit to the rape.”
“Farah, let me handle this shit,” he says, irritated after she shut down his loving—again my assumption, but I like to think my angelic mother wasn’t swayed by his hot man loving.
“I believe her.”
“You don’t even know her,” Pop balks.
“I don’t care. Raven said she heard the girl lives in a motel with her friend and a kid. Do you really think she has nothing better to do than attack Rod?”
“How much did Vaughn blab?”
“Raven didn’t talk to him. She talked to Nevaeh, and she heard from someone else that they’d seen the girl at the motel on Highway 18.”
“Baby,” Pop says, and his voice is soft again, “you know you can’t think straight about something like this.”
“I’m thinking clearer than you since I feel no connection to Rod or his stinky father.”
Eagle Eye’s lack of deodorant is an accepted fact. He swears women crave his natural stank, but I’ve noticed he’s never released data to back up this claim.
My parents fall silent, forcing me to pull back the curtain to check if they’re still here. For a second, I expect to find them standing on the other side glaring at me, but they remain in the kitchen watching each other.
“Farah, I know when you hear about those women and the kid living in a motel that you imagine them as you and Tawny. But maybe the women are more like your parents.”
Mom’s dark eyes lose their zeal when she considers Pop’s words. My maternal grandparents were scum. Pop got rid of them long before I was born. Gram Jodi claimed they were buried under a trash pile behind the abandoned Dairy Queen.
Even knowing Stella isn’t scum, I avoid defending her honor. The number one rule of stealth is not yelling out shit during the act of spying.
“You do what you need to do,” Mom says before standing up and leaving the room. She’ll no doubt call Aunt Tawny to gossip over how they’d handle things if they were in charge.
Pop is alone—and looking in the other direction—so I emerge from my spot and pretend to have just arrived.
“Where’s Mom?”
Pop glances over his shoulder at me and frowns for a stupid long minute. I know he’s wondering why I took so long to get into the house. I ignore his attempt to intimidate me. Years ago, I built up a resistance to my father’s dark glares and threats. Plus, how many times can the man chase after me without actually beating me into a coma before I’m bound to stop fearing him?
“Did Mom hear about Stella and Rod?” I ask, sticking my head in the fridge to cool down and find a beer.
“She’s upset.”
“You know how women are.”
Pop watches me open my beer and waits for me to down the entire thing before announcing, “Your mom and aunt were raped by bikers when they were barely teenagers.”
“I know,” I say, and he shoots me a glare hot enough to equal the devil’s piss. “What? Gram has a big mouth, and I have Dumbo ears.”
“What did she tell you exactly?”
“Oh, Gram’s told me everything about everything. I know all about you and your dirty teenage deeds. Seriously, Pop, you ran the poor woman ragged.”
Rolling his brown eyes, Pop mutters, “Shut up, C
olton.”
“That’s the kind of rude mouth she had to put up with for years,” I say, thinking back to Gram’s stories when I helped her around the big, empty house she used to share with Pop-Pop before he died. I suspect she’d like a smaller place now that she lives alone, but no way can she leave the home she built with the love of her life.
“Kirk was everything, and all other men suck shit in comparison,” she told me one night while boozing on absinthe.
Pop elbows me in the side when I daydream for too long. “Wake the fuck up.”
“I like thinking of Gram. Is that so wrong?” I ask, pushing the guilt button on Pop’s heart control panel.
My father deflates a little because he’s a big old mama’s boy just like me. “No, but I need you to focus.”
“I don’t want to talk about Mom’s rape.”
“But maybe we’re more likely to believe this girl because of what happened to your mom.”
“Good.”
“Why should we accept a stranger’s word over our club brother’s?”
“When you say it like that, sure, it sounds like we should trust Rod over Stella. However, if one of those guys who didn’t rape Mom heard about her accusing his club buddy of raping her, he’d assume she was lying. Or he’d say it didn’t matter like Eagle Eye did.”
“He didn’t mean that shit. When Jera got roughed up at a concert a few years ago, he wanted to hunt everyone down to avenge his daughter.”
“Then why did he say it didn’t matter?”
“Because he’s protecting his boy. A parent’s instinct is to attack anyone viewed as a threat or to downplay anything that could harm your kid. I’d do the same if someone accused you.”
“What if I did rape a girl?”
“I’d fuck you up, boy,” Pop growls deep in his chest. “Just know that I don’t have the heart to kill you, but I’d fuck you up bad enough that you’d hurt for life. I have no patience for a man who crosses certain lines.”
I smile at the certainty in his voice. “You’re a good pop. I bequeath you half of the credit for why I’ll never rape a woman or smack her around. I grew up learning how there are things people never do. Too bad Rod doesn’t think the same way.”
Pop runs his hand through his still thick blond hair. “I don’t know what to do. Growing up, Rod was a good kid, and he seemed like a decent man. Having him as a legacy member felt right. Not like Gary Lee who I never planned to patch into the Reapers. That kid always felt wrong, but Rod didn’t. I don’t want to believe he did what that girl claims, but I also don’t see why she’d lie.”
Leaning against the kitchen counter, he sighs. “Grifters have a way of selling their bullshit, and she didn’t do that. Also, she didn’t claim he raped her which would be the better way to go sympathy-wise. People do lie about all kinds of shit, though. When faced with two people telling different stories, I can only think about whose makes more sense. That’s why I need you to take your dick out of the equation and tell me what you thought of the girl’s story. Rod isn’t a saint, but I never thought he’d cross that line. I’m his president, so I need to do right by him, but if he hurt that girl, he needs to pay a price.”
I don’t mind being put on the spot. All my life I’ve stood out. I’m the only Johansson son. I stood taller than most boys I grew up around. I’ve always been the best looking. Having the spotlight is my thing, so I don’t hesitate giving Pop my views.
“I’m not saying a pretty girl can’t sell me bullshit, but I had to work to get info out of Stella. Not for one second did I believe she was jealous of anyone and lying to hurt Rod. I think she was pissed and the reason she gave for being pissed felt real. The pain on her face felt real too. How she was sort of dazed after calming down felt real. Something about it checked all the boxes for me. I know women lie and they can get wild jealous and petty, but nothing about Stella felt that way.”
Pop studies me for long enough that I finally turn away to grab something to eat. Finally, he says, “I need to talk to her and her friend.”
“I’m heading over there tomorrow.”
“Are you planning on hooking up with this chick?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, opening another beer.
“And her trashing your club brother’s ride doesn’t bother you?” he growls, doing his angry old man routine again.
“No, not really. I can’t imagine he would hesitate to plow a girl who fucked up my ride after I raped her friend. Why should I have higher standards?”
“Because you plan to be president one day.”
I struggle not to roll my eyes since that’s a move my sisters perfected and I want to refrain from going girly.
“It’s true I hoped to run shit one day, but the guy in charge never plans to retire or die.”
“Your uncle could die, and you’d be VP.”
“He’s younger than the president.”
“He’s also dumber so he could drive off the road because he forgets he’s driving.”
Chuckling, I shrug. “Seems unlikely. If he were going to die stupid like that, he’d have done it as a teenager when at his most idiotic. This is a man who once forgot which side of the road that people drive on.”
“And you know that how?”
“Dementia’s a hell of a thing,” I taunt, laughing at his resting bitch face. “Did you already forget how Gram told me everything?”
“I didn’t know what everything included.”
“Every-fucking-thing,” I say, stressing each word. “She told me about the first girl who showed up at the house looking for you after you’d ghosted her.”
“We broke up.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t know that because you avoided her. Gram said she showed up crying and she leaked mascara all over Pop-Pop’s new wife beater.”
“It washed off,” Pop says, waving away my accusation. “Let’s stick to the present.”
“As compared to the future hypotheticals you were throwing out about me being in charge because my uncle dies?”
“Yeah, as compared to that,” he says, smiling grudgingly. “I want to talk to Stella and her friend tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to be a dick, are you?”
“This is my club and Rod is my brother. If these girls are lying, I want to know. If they’re not, I plan to beat the fucking snot out of Rod.”
“Fine. I’ll set it up with Stella and Rae, but don’t treat them like you do Sissy.”
Pop grits his teeth. “I’m fine with Sissy.”
“Now, sure, but you had your moments in the past.”
“Mullens piss me off.”
“Especially that one who knocked up your firstborn, huh?”
“Shut up, Colton.”
Patting his jaw, I grin. “No, but feel free to keep hoping.”
Pop exhales hard and acts like an annoyed teenager. He gives me this look often these days. “I need you to get this girl to be square with me.”
“Why do you think I have that kind of power?”
“I know all about how you and she were sharing a drink and flirting.”
“I flirted. She sat in awe of me. Not the same thing.”
Oh, shit, Pop wants to smile so badly! He fights the urge and stays professional, though. I’m very proud of him.
“Get her to talk to me. If she won’t, I’ll have to let the Rod thing drop. That’s how shit works, understand?”
“Sure, Pop,” I say and mumble under my breath, “I just hope Mom understands.”
My father again tries to break my ego with the weight of his evil fucking glare, but the days of me peeing my big boy pants are long gone. He must realize he’s wasting his time because he ditches me and goes looking to make peace with his woman.
Alone in the living room, I let the air conditioner chill the top layer of heat off my skin. I know only a shower will truly cool me down. Defeating my B.O will involve a whole shit ton of soap too. Rather than rush to clean up, I sit on the couch and think about Stella.
Tomorrow, I plan to answer all those questions along with the one nagging at me since Stella rode away on the Ellsberg bus. What do her sweet lips taste like?
THE UNWANTED
I’ve always had an active imagination. Some might call my hope delusional, but I believed with all my heart that I’d be saved from my loneliness. For years, I was convinced my mother would return for me. I found her on Facebook, studied all her family pictures with her wanted children and their father. My sister’s hair was similar to mine, and she had a gap between her front middle teeth just like me. My brother suffered from the same learning disability as I do. Every night as I tried to sleep, I imagined my mom finding me. We’d return to her home, and I’d be in those pictures she posted so often of her “babies.” Sometimes, I imagined her husband was the reason she couldn’t add me to her family. Sometimes, I pretended the government kept her away. I had so many fantasies where I’d be swept away out of a foster home and into her arms. Mom and I would catch up, and she’d be proud of me, and I’d matter to her.
But of course, none of that ever happened.
I gave up that fantasy at some point. Slowly, over time, I came to accept how no one was keeping her from me. She was where she wanted to be, and she didn’t care where I was.
I don’t think about her as much anymore. Once a month, though, I go somewhere private and let myself look at her Facebook page. Mom is just as beautiful as when I was a kid despite all her “#wrinklesaremybattlescars” posts. My sister’s teeth are perfect now because of braces. Her hair is different than mine, edgier, I guess. She went through a wild phase with pink and purple stripes in high school. Mom would post a picture and “sigh” at the ordeal of it all. Now my sister is past her teenage angst and nearly finished with high school. My brother is an athlete with a pretty blonde girlfriend who joins the family on their ski vacations.
For twenty minutes a month, I let myself look at those pictures and accept how I’ll never be in them. I sob hard like a stupid baby when I remember that my mom blocked my old account when I tried messaging her. I grieve for my dreams of having a family like the one I see in their pictures.
