“Got that in hand, Brother. Paying her your share. Knew that would be okay with you.”
“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Drummer…” There’s a wealth of emotion in my words.
“Know that too. What’s done is done, Brother. All you can do is keep your nose clean in here.”
I nod. I’m trying. I've been attempting to stay out of the fights that break out in the exercise yard and keeping my distance from trouble. I don’t want to be in here any longer than my sentence. That’s long enough.
I ask about what else is going on back at the compound to be polite. I don’t really care. All I’m concerned about is my wife, and how much I wish I was there for her.
Drummer seems to know that it doesn’t matter what he’s actually saying. His voice alone reminds me there’s a world outside these walls, a world I’ll get back to one day, however far away that might seem.
Visiting time over, I go back to my cell. I lose at chess that night, something I don’t find surprising.
Two days later I get my chance to call Allie.
“How are you doing?”
As she tells me a little better as she normally does when she comes out of the hospital, something that doesn’t last long as she soon slides back down that hill, the sound of her voice makes me close my eyes and gently put my fist to the wall in frustration. I want to be with her.
“Truck?” she asks cautiously.
“Yeah, babe?”
“I’ve thought of a name for the baby.”
Well, that’s a start. If she’s thinking positively, maybe she’s a little less uncertain about the future.
“What are you thinkin’?”
“Well,” she chuckles softly, “Sam told me I had to have hope everything would turn out right. I had to have hope. So…Hope.”
Hope. I try it out in my head, picturing a miniature Allie and calling her by that name. “I like it.”
My time’s up. My brief contact with my wife over. She says she’ll come visiting next week, even though I try to dissuade her, knowing how much the journey will take out of her. Selfishly, I want to see her, to see with my own two eyes she’s not gotten worse, but it’s her I have to be strong for.
Forgot who I was dealing with as she insists she’ll be there.
I find I’m looking forward to it.
Carrying my dinner tray through the dining hall, I’m distracted when I hear a man mention his wife just had a baby. Another man stuck on the wrong side of these walls as his woman went through labour. That will be me, I think to myself, as I make my way over to Cap and Rat. It's all my own fucking fault.
A man knocks into me. My drink spills and goes all over him. It’s only soda so he’s wet, not burned, and he’d approached on my left hand side.
“Sorry, man. Didn’t see you.”
“You fuckin’ blind?” he snarls.
“On that side, yeah,” I reply, unthinking. It draws his attention to my false eye. Swearing and muttering, showing me his middle finger, he stalks off.
Such an insignificant interaction, I think no more of it.
Next morning in the exercise yard, I notice the man who’d been the victim of the accidentally spilled drink staring at me, but think little of it. Okay, if I hadn’t been distracted maybe I’d have been looking around more carefully, scanning left and right to make sure I stayed clear of everyone. But my mind hadn’t been on what I was doing. No damage had been done though, just an affront to his dignity.
What I hadn’t yet learned was dignity is everything.
Suddenly, I find myself surrounded.
“Gonna teach you a lesson so you’ll have to be more careful where you’re going.” He’s in front of me, surrounded by a group of men, making sure we’re out of sight of the guards. In his hand is an implement which makes me shudder. It’s a razor blade attached to a handle of a toothbrush. “Gonna make you match. You’re going to need another glass eye.”
“Might make him look where he’s going,” another man jokes, encouragingly.
Oh fuck, no.
Mentally thanking Peg for teaching me how to fight using the strength in my right hand side, I throw the first punch and put up a struggle.
Hands start clutching me, and while I kick, punch, do everything I can, I’m outnumbered and gradually they’re overpowering me.
That razor blade is getting closer and closer to my one remaining eye. The fleeting thought goes through my head that I don’t know these men, and apart from the spilled drink, I’ve done no wrong to them. Why are they targeting me?
I wasn’t this scared while that house was burning down around me. Wasn’t this terrified when I felt my own flesh burning. Then, I’d had hope, and didn’t know how badly injured I’d been. Now I’m only too well aware of what that blade could take away from me. The rest of my sight. I might never see my baby.
Suddenly there are shouts. Fists causing the air to brush by my face much like the wind on my motorcycle. Hands holding me relax then release me entirely.
Cap’s standing next to me, kicking and shouting, and members of the Aryan brotherhood are circling me too. The man and his gang are being beaten back.
Finally, when it’s clear there are winners, the guards appear wearing masks, the reason for which becomes apparent when canisters are thrown and we all start stumbling around, just trying to evade the tear gas which makes us choke and blinds us. My eyes sting so badly I begin to wonder if the guards have done what my enemies failed to.
It’s while I’m completely disorientated, I feel hands once again take hold of me. I flail automatically, with blurred vision, I can’t see who’s got hold of me. In my panic I imagine that razor blade is heading for my face and get my arm free to put it up defensively.
In doing so I hit someone, and get knocked so hard on the back of the head the blow stuns me and I fall to the ground. My last conscious thought is ironic. When I served, the military was banned from using tear gas in warfare, yet it’s still allowed on domestic soil.
Tear gassed for a fight I didn’t start was bad enough. After I came to and as I was hauled to my feet and led away, realising by that time it was by the guards, I wasn’t taken to a hospital room, nor back to my cell, but instead to a six foot by nine foot room, with a window too high on the wall to look out of.
At first I was concerned with nothing more than splashing water onto my face and trying to wash all residual gas out of my eye, removing my prosthetic and washing the socket behind it. I continue until the stinging begins to fade, then, when I blinked rapidly and my vision began to clear, my initial panic starts to subside as my sight regains clarity. I’d been terrified I’d damaged the sight in my remaining eye. Bemoaning that I don’t have a saline solution to clean it properly, I replace the prosthetic.
Then, once my breathing starts to slow, I look around me and wonder what the fuck had happened to me now.
There’s a concrete slab that serves as a bed, covered only by a thin mattress. I sit down, putting my head in my hands as the realisation hits. I’ve been put in solitary.
Why? Did they lock up everyone who’d been in the brawl? And why me? I was the one who’d been attacked, not the instigator in any way at all. Any punch I’d thrown had been in self-defence.
It must be a mistake. I’ll be back in the general population soon. I try to focus on playing my next game of chess with Hawker, thinking of new moves I could perhaps call into play, rather than worrying someone has locked me up and thrown away the key.
I’m a big man, this cell is small. I can’t see out. It’s not long until I feel there’s no air in the room, and I’m beginning to suffocate. My vision blurs, my hands are covered in sweat. I’m trapped. What if there was a fire?
Realistically I know there are procedures for that, and that I wouldn’t be left to burn to death. But my irrational mind sends me back to being trapped in the house with the world on fire around me.
Smoke. All I can feel is smoke burning inside my chest.
That’s t
he aftermath of the tear gas, fool.
But even as I tell myself that, my body’s already going into fight or flight mode, adrenaline rising with no release. I attack the only object I can, the door, flailing on it with my fists and yelling.
I’m successful. It brings two guards.
“Shut up in there.”
“Where am I? Why am I here?”
“You’re in solitary.”
That answers one question. Not the other. “Why? And for how long?”
“You were fighting.”
“I was defending myself. They threatened my eye.” When they appear unsympathetic, I try to protest. “Look, I was minding my own goddamn business.”
“Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before. Bet you’re innocent of the crime they put you in here for as well.”
I am not getting through to them. “I want to talk to one of your superiors. I want to call my lawyer…”
But I’m addressing thin air. They’ve shut the viewing pane and I listen to their footsteps as they turn and walk off.
Something tells me they won’t be returning any time soon, nor will they bring another officer to talk to me.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Allie…
I lived with the sweet butts for years, then moved in with Truck. Thinking back, there was never a time when I had a place to myself until Truck was arrested. In the circumstances, being alone hadn’t helped. Living with Sam and Drummer is definitely better.
It’s just little things, the sound of people moving around, hearing voices outside my door, hearing the excited shouts of the kids or the more unwelcome crying and tantrums—usually from Eli, Zane seems to be more easy going, taking after his mom—that reminds me I’m not on my own.
Sam’s even adjusted her routine for me, though I told her I didn’t mind. But the smell of coffee brewing is certain to turn my stomach, so she’s avoiding making it in her kitchen, instead topping off her caffeine levels down in the clubhouse.
When I’d been a whore I’d observed Sam from a distance, viewing her with the same suspicion we’d afforded to all the old ladies who’d come in and stolen the best of our men. Now she’s taken me under her wing I can assess for myself what a good counterbalance she is to Drum, and just how good she is at being the president’s old lady.
She’d told me straight, I can cry, rant, rage in her presence, her back is strong she can take it. No matter how bad I’m feeling, I should not hold it back and try to act polite as a guest in their home, but to consider the space they’ve allotted me as my own. When it all gets too much, I can lean on her.
I’ve come to appreciate that more than when I’d just uttered a quick thank you in response. It wasn’t just words, she really meant it.
It’s not only Sam either. If she’s not around, there’s normally another old lady visiting. Sophie, I’ve become quite close to too. Ella as well, though I don’t see her so much as she lives off the compound. Darcy’s always been really friendly, though her second baby’s just been born, a girl named Lisa, and I don’t see so much of her. Marcia, ready to give birth any day now, is tired all the time with swollen ankles.
I have spent time assuring Mariana and Tash that my condition only affects one in a thousand pregnancies, and even of them, I’m one of the worst cases according to the doctor. Neither of them currently have children, and I’d hate that what I’m going through would put them off in the future. Of course, Mariana’s got her hands full with Drew, her teenage brother who is intent on joining the Satan’s Devils, while she saw a good education in his future.
I spend time trying to persuade her he can have both.
“That easy?” she questions one morning.
“If you keep butting heads, Mariana, then Drew’s going to rebel. Tell him he’ll have your complete backing if he gets a degree first.”
“I still don’t like the idea of him joining the club. Look at what’s happened to Truck. We all know he wouldn’t have been sent down were he not a member.”
I can’t argue with that. “If you make a deal with Drew, then he’ll go out and explore the world. Might see something he likes better. It’s obvious why he’s so intent on joining the club.”
She raises her eyebrows, so I continue.
“He thinks the club saved both you and him from your father. We all know he’s no longer around to be a threat. In Drew’s eyes, he wants to give something back.”
“You think?”
So she’s been thinking he just likes the idea of living free and riding bikes. Perhaps I, as a stranger, can provide an alternative view.
“Yeah, that’s what I think. Why not get Mouse to have a word with him? Show him there’s other ways of paying it back. Mouse’s own trade is example enough of that.”
“You may have a point.”
I do, but I can’t press it. Instead I have to rush out. Christ, I wish this sickness would stop.
Mariana has restarted her training to be a nurse. She might not have experienced pregnancy but is pragmatic. She competently follows to hold a damp cloth to my forehead, and pass me paper towels. I gave up any embarrassment at vomiting in front of others a long time ago, but her no nonsense support is welcome.
The day after I’d given Mariana something to think about, I hear raised voices from the direction of the kitchen. It’s Sam, and her stepmother, but I can’t distinguish what they’re saying. I don’t try to listen, it’s none of my business.
I go back to flicking through a magazine, trying to make out the words. The coloured overlays are helping the letters stay put, and I’m practicing my reading, painfully and slowly, phonetically mouthing the words until they make sense. I’ve been thinking again, what kind of mom would I be for Hope if I couldn’t read to her?
It’s when Sam shouts out, “Sandy!” and I hear the clacking of heels approaching my room, that I pay more attention.
A knock, then, without waiting for permission, my door opens. There stands Viper’s wife, Sam’s stepmother.
We’ve successfully avoided each other since I became Truck’s old lady. Easy enough to do as I rarely go to the clubhouse any more, the smells in there mean I can’t stay for more than a moment, so what’s the point?
“Sandy,” I greet her, cautiously.
Her eyes crease as she views me. Then observes, “You’re all baby.”
I huff a quick laugh. Her observation is accurate. There’s not much of me anymore, just this huge basketball shaped bulge in my stomach.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She seems pleasant enough. Behind the open door I see Sam hovering cautiously. I raise my chin, knowing she’ll have my back if this turns nasty. She backs away, but leaves the door open a crack.
Sandy sits on the bed. “I always wanted a baby. A child of my own. I thought about how wonderful it would be to be a mom, never considered what a toll pregnancy might take. Looking at you, I might have had a lucky escape.”
Could her opening gambit be an olive branch? I’ll take it as one until there are signs it might not be.
“I’m just unlucky, Sandy. Most pregnancies are fine.”
“Yeah, so that’s why Becca’s puking up every five minutes.”
“She’s pregnant again? Rose must only be what, eight or nine months?”
Sandy chuckles. “Rock’s quite proud of it. Oh, she’s nothing like you, just a bad case of morning sickness.”
“Tell her to be careful,” I say fast.
“Yeah, they’ve been to the doctor.” What she means is they got checked out because of what’s happened to me.
We could sit here and discuss pregnancies on the compound until the cows come home. But I’m already feeling tired, so look her in the eye. “What do you want, Sandy?”
She’s quiet, studying her hands, then she says, “Wouldn’t wish what you’re going through on my worst enemy, Allie. Your sickness, your man being in the pen. No woman deserves that, however much I might hate them.”
“Hate
?” At least she’s giving it to me straight.
“I didn’t like what you did. Achieving what all the sweet butts aim for, getting a biker to themselves.” That’s not how it was. Truck’s the man for me, I didn’t set out to go after him. But I keep quiet, wondering where she’s going with this. “Most men were single, Allie. They didn’t have an old lady, they were free to do what they wanted, but my man was taken.”
“Okay,” I interrupt, sitting up fast, then have to wait a second until the dizziness leaves me. “Let’s get some things straight here. First, I, and the other sweet butts, were given food and a roof over our heads to perform certain services. Those services being to make ourselves available to any man who wanted to use us, and, in most circumstances unless it was something outrageous, in whatever way he preferred.” Dollar’s demands sometimes veered in that direction, but didn’t quite go over. “How would Drummer have taken it, if we’d refused a member? Wasn’t our decision to make, Sandy.”
It was all down to her man. But I don’t add that, I’ll let her fill in the gaps.
“He never fucked you, did he Allie?”
“Never.” I give her the truth. “Nor any of the others. You know his predilection, it was, we suspected, what he didn’t get at home. And now he’s stopped.”
“Because he was ashamed his daughter saw him for the first time with his cock down a sweet butt’s throat.”
I bark a laugh, and after a moment, she joins in too. “Yeah, it wasn’t his finest moment.”
Poor Viper, I muse. Hasn’t had a blow job in three years or so. And he did so like them, I can attest to that.
“Why don’t you… Sandy?”
She shudders. “I don’t like the taste.”
I think for a second. “Strawberry flavoured condoms.”
“What?”
My shoulders rise then lower. “Use flavoured condoms, then he gets his rocks off while you imagine you’re sucking on a lollipop.”
“My God, Al.” She stares at me, then bends double with laughter.
Again, I just shrug.
“You know, I was wondering what to get him for his birthday.”
Truck Stopped: Satan's Devils MC #11 Page 31
