by Hart, Lane
“You seem pretty spry for an old fat man with a cane,” I observe.
Turtle lets out a real belly laugh at that, then turns to look at me. “It’s an easy mistake for most folks to make. They don’t know I’m an old soldier, and they don’t expect I might have more than a little fight left in me. People tend to underestimate you biker boys, too, you know. Always thinking you’re just some dumb old racist boys. Gives folks a hell of a shock when they realize how sophisticated the club really is. It’s like that everywhere you go, I suppose. People are so full of themselves, always thinking they’re smarter or better than anyone else in the room. You can take advantage of that, when you need to.”
“What do we do now, just take this thing back to the lot and secure it?” I ask, to change the subject.
“That’s it,” Turtle agrees. “Then I’m going to hand you off to that Reese fella. He’s going to meet up with us and show you some more of our facilities.”
The way he said “facilities” sounded ominous, but instead of asking for any further details, I just look out the window and rub at my sore cheek, wondering what I should tell that golden-haired angel tomorrow at school. I’m going to have to come up with something a lot more heroic than what really transpired, or she’ll laugh me out of class. The rest of the ride passes in silence as I dream up ways to spin my black eye into something that might impress her.
Chapter Five
When we arrive back at the scrapyard, a motorcycle is parked out front in the space beside mine. After we unhook the Lincoln Navigator and get it parked, Turtle walks me up to the front office, where he plops down heavily in a battered old rolling chair.
“Reese will be out back probably, just head on over through the garage and out that door,” he says, pointing out the way to me.
“Thanks for all the help today, Turtle,” I reply, reaching out to shake the old man’s hand. I head through the garage and out the back door, where I find Reese sitting in a battered old folding chair, smoking a cigarette.
When he sees me, he gives me a nod, then stands up and walks over to me. He walks completely around me one time, stopping in front of me and reaching out to squeeze my upper arm, then poke me in the abdomen.
“What are you doing?” I ask in annoyance.
“You do any weightlifting?” Reese asks in reply.
“Yeah, I got a weight bench in my garage at home. Well, it belongs to my older brother Torin, but I use it all the time.”
“You’ve got pretty muscle,” Reese says. “Good for impressing girls. We’re going to do some work together. You’re going to get functional muscle, the kind that impresses men.”
“I’m not trying to impress men.” I snort. When Reese doesn’t respond to the joke, I try to prompt him. “So, what, you’re going to be my coach, or trainer?” I try to clarify.
“I’m going to be your brother,” Reese says. “I want you to be worthy of it.”
With that, he peels his shirt off, hanging it on the folding chair where he was sitting. I suddenly see what he means about functional muscle. Reese is as cut as I am, but he’s got to be at least fifty pounds heavier, and he’s thicker than I am all through his upper body.
“Take off your cut and shirt. Put on these,” he orders, giving me a pair of safety goggles.
Once I strip down and strap on the goggles, he puts a pair on his head and leads me further into the scrapyard, into a section where crushed cars have been neatly stacked. He stops beside the battered remains of what looks like a Ford truck, its frame twisted from some distant trauma. Reaching into the truck’s cab, Reese pulls out two massive sledgehammers, throwing one over his shoulder while letting the head of the other crash down onto the dirt.
“That one’s yours,” he tells me, moving to the rear of the wrecked truck.
“Okay…what do you want me to do with it?” I ask in confusion.
“We strip everything we can use from these wrecks. Then we crush them. Like this!” Reese grunts, swinging the sledgehammer in a sideways arc into the truck’s rear gate. The impact shatters the latch, and the gate booms open. Barely missing a beat, Reese swings again, overhanded, smashing the tailgate right off its hinges.
“That’s not how the cars normally get crushed.” I chuckle, awkwardly picking up the sledgehammer he left for me, then make sure my goggles are secure.
“I do it like this,” Reese says. “Best exercise you can get. You start at the front.” With that, he begins swinging at the rear fender, leaving huge dents in the sheet metal with each strike.
I move to the front of the mangled truck, then take an experimental swing, smashing a dent into the hood. With a grin, I wind up for another strike, this time knocking one side of the bumper into the dirt. “Ok, I get it. This is actually fun!” I yell back to Reese.
For the next fifteen minutes, I keep pace swing for swing, hammering away at the hood and front fenders until my hands begin to blister and burn. I finally let the head of the sledgehammer fall to the earth, then lean on it as I gasp for breath. The muscles in my arms and chest are vibrating like live wires, and the hammer feels like it’s gained fifty pounds. “How long are you planning on keeping this up?” I yell to Reese.
“You stop when I stop,” he grunts, still smashing the rear fenders.
“You do this for exercise every day?” I ask, trying to engage him in some sort of conversation while I recovered.
“No,” he grunts in reply.
“What other things do you do to get ‘manly muscles,’ big guy? Wrestle bears? Coal mining, maybe?” I laugh.
Reese doesn’t respond, but if the crushing force of his next few swings are any indication, he seems to be getting irritated. I pick my hammer back up and take another couple of swings, but my arms are so tired, the hammer just bounces back while barely leaving a mark. I move to the other side of the truck and keep at it for a few more minutes, until finally my trembling arms refuse to bring the hammer up past my shoulders.
“Seriously man, how long are you planning on keeping this up?” I ask Reese again as I walk back around the truck.
He’s covered in sweat, but only pauses long enough to glare at me before taking another swing.
“Deacon told me you don’t talk much, but you could at least answer my damn question!” I yell, my voice echoing through the scrapyard as Reese suddenly drops his hammer.
“I don’t like repeating myself,” he says, not looking at me. “I already told you, you’re done when I’m done. I’m not done. Now, go get your hammer.” With that, he stretches his arms over his head, twists to each side, then picks his sledge back up. Before he takes his next swing, he glances back at me and says, “I talk when I have something worth saying. You should try it. Or not. If you can’t follow a simple order, leave.”
“Leave? So that’s what this bullshit is? Your way of seeing if I’ll break if things get a little tough? Fuck you, man, I’ll pound this goddamned wreck right down into the earth, and when I’m done, I’ll shove this hammer up your ass!”
I’ve always had an explosive temper, and the strain of trying to be professional today while working with Turtle, coupled with the indignity of having this mute fucking freak belittle me, has pushed me past my breaking point. I snatch up my hammer, the muscles in my arms bulging with the pressure of my unrestrained fury. I walk past Reese and leap up onto the bed of the truck, cock the hammer over my shoulder and bring it down on the roof of the cab. Glass shatters outward several feet in every direction as the roof collapses inward, but I’m only getting started.
I’m so angry, my vision is blurry, while my ears fill with the roaring of my blood pounding through me. The hammer seems weightless as I rain blows down on the truck, the cab collapsing underneath my assault. I would have continued until I collapsed, but on my last swing, the head of the hammer misses the rear edge of the cab, the force of my blow landing high on the handle. Instead of the ringing of metal on metal, a crack like lightning striking a tree echoes around us, as the head of the h
ammer flies off into the scrapyard, leaving me holding only the jagged stump of the shaft.
I stand atop the wreck, gasping for breath, the fragment of the hammer’s handle trembling in my grasp. I can feel my eyes bulging wildly as I turn to glare at Reese, waiting for him to hurl some insult at me. He doesn’t say anything, however, and instead just looks at me with what I swear is the slightest hint of a smile.
“Broke my hammer,” I finally sputter between gasps before throwing the broken shaft out into the scrapyard. “You going to let me use yours?”
Without answering, Reese drops his hammer on the ground, then waves a hand for me to follow him. I jump down from the bed of the truck and fall in behind him, still sweating and panting for breath. My irritation, which had been slightly abated by my outburst, begins to rise again when I notice that Reese is still dry and not even breathing hard.
He leads me back to the garage, but instead of going into the open bay, he stops and unlocks a side door leading into an attached building I’ve never entered. Once we’re inside, he flips on a bank of lights, the overhead fluorescent bulbs illuminating a large open room ringed by different exercise machines and free weights, with the center being dominated by a large thick gym mat.
“My job is to toughen up prospects, and make sure they can represent themselves well in any and all club activities,” Reese says as I walk around the room.
“Represent themselves? You going to teach me some manners, show me which fork to eat with at the family table, shit like that?” I snort at him.
“I’m going to teach you to fight,” Reese explains as he walks to the center of the mat. “First, you’re going to hit me.”
I size him up, trying to determine if he’s fucking with me again. He just stands there with his arms hanging at his sides, looking as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. I stalk over to him and say, “You remember you asked for this!” before I haul my right fist back and throw everything I have at him.
I feel his arm smack my forearm just before the world goes topsy-turvy, and I’m lying flat on my back on the mat. Reese had caught my punch and thrown me over his hip, before I could barely register he was moving!
I scramble to my feet, but Reese makes no sign of advancing on me. He just keeps staring at me blankly, until I charge back at him, this time coming in with my head low to wrap him up close. He raises his arms and leans forward as I slam into his belly, but instead of falling backward, he stands straight and stiff, a pure concrete wall against my hurricane.
I slam my fist into his side and kidney repeatedly until one of his arms snakes around my neck, then he falls to the floor, taking me with him. His grip around my neck tightens, choking me and causing an awful pressure to build up in my head. I thrash and pound his stomach, trying desperately to break free, but he might as well have been carved from granite. Just before I think I’m going to pass out, his arm lets loose and with a shove, he rolls me away from him.
By the time I get back to my feet, Reese has already gotten back up and walked a few feet away from me. “That was better than your first try,” he comments. “But you don’t want to try that move against someone who outweighs you as much as I do. If you don’t knock them over right away, you end up vulnerable.”
“I didn’t know what else to try,” I admit. “When I just tried to punch you, I got thrown down. I didn’t know I was going to be learning some crazy biker judo.”
“You’re not,” Reese replies. “It took me years of practice. I’m here to teach you to fight. First, I want you to understand this. Most of the people you will ever have a conflict with have no stomach for a fight, they’ll do whatever they can to get away from it. Once I’m done with you, your presence alone will deter them. Most of the people you’ll have a conflict with, who do have the stones to fight, don’t know how to do it well. I’m not going to turn you into Bruce Lee in a biker jacket. I’m going to make sure that if you run into someone who has the balls to face you, you can beat them.”
“That’s not very encouraging. What am I supposed to do if I run into someone who wants to fight, can fight, and is actually better at it than I am?”
“Then you get your ass kicked until your brothers jump in,” Reese says without a hint of humor. “The Savage Kings are a brotherhood. One of our bylaws is quite clear on this point. If a brother is in a fight with a non-club member, you have to join in.”
“Then I wish I had some brothers here to help me with you.” I laugh. “All I’m learning from you is how to lose.”
“They wouldn’t help you,” Reese says seriously. “Fights between brothers are not bound by the same rules.”
“Whatever, man,” I scoff. “So, when does the learning to fight begin for real?”
“You’re already learning. You learned not to rush someone much bigger than you, and you learned not to start your punch when you’re so far away from me.”
“What?” I try to clarify. “That’s how you threw me at first, I was too far away?”
Reese walks over to me, only about a foot away. “A man who doesn’t know how to fight will start the punch at a distance, because he doesn’t want to get hit in return. Get that out of your head. If you get into a fight, you are going to get hit, and you’re going to get hurt. There is no avoiding that. Once you commit to wanting to hit someone so badly that you don’t care if you get hit back, you’ll be in the right mindset.”
“We’re up in each other’s faces, maybe cussing each other out, you know how it goes. Usually there’s a shove or something that gets it all started,” I comment, putting my palms to his chest and pushing lightly.
“You’re not a bitch, you’re a Savage King,” Reese growls, slapping my hands away. “Don’t ever wait for the other person to start the fight. If you know it’s coming, you get close, as close as we are now, and you do this!” Reese brings his right fist up quicker than I could follow, just stopping to press his knuckles gently against my jaw. “Come over to the bag and I’ll show you,” he finishes.
Walking up to the heavy bag suspended from a chain in the ceiling, Reese gets close enough to hug it, then demonstrated a series of punches. He throws them in quick succession, sending the bag reeling away. He catches the bag in a one-armed hug as it returns, then motions for me to take over.
“What, I don’t need to wrap my hands or something?” I quip.
Reese just stares at me with a frown, so with a shake of my head, I lay into the bag. I follow his lead, as he shows me a series of punches and then waits for me to repeat them. After a few repetitions, he backs away and waves for me to continue. When my knuckles begin to split open, he brings me two small towels that I wrap around my hands. I know better than to ask if we were finished, because he still hasn’t said anything else.
After almost an hour of this, Reese finally pulls out a phone to check the time, then says, “Stop. You’re off tomorrow to rest. Meet me at the clubhouse when you’re done with school the next day, and we’ll go from there.”
He starts to walk away, but pauses when I ask, “Where are you going? Back to the clubhouse?”
He turns around and nods at me, then waits, assuming correctly that I would have another question.
“I’m wiped out, man. I don’t know if I can ride my bike like this,” I admit. I hold up my hands to show the tremors running through my arms and hands. “You worked the hell out of me today.”
Reese gives me a sour look, but then says, “I can drive one of the tow trucks and take you to the clubhouse. Sleep there, and I’ll bring you back for your bike in the morning.”
“That’s perfect. Thanks, man.” I sigh. “Let me get my stuff.” I follow him back outside to get my shirt and cut, then send a quick text to my dad that I’ll be staying at the clubhouse tonight. After that, I climb into the passenger seat of the tow truck that Reese had idling out front, slumping wearily back into the cracked vinyl.
I don’t bother trying to strike up any conversation, I’m just too tired. I crack my window to l
et in the cool night air as Reese drives us in silence through the dark back roads to the clubhouse, not even bothering to turn on the radio.
We’ve been on the road about ten minutes when Reese suddenly glances over at me and starts talking. “One day, this sweet little old lady walked into the clubhouse,” he says. “She must have been in her eighties and was dressed in her Sunday best pantsuit. She looked around until she spotted the biggest, meanest-looking SOB in the place, and walked right up to him. She said, ‘I want to join the Savage Kings.’ Every one of us burst out laughing, but the brother she was talking to waved us to be quiet, because he wanted to have some fun with her. He asked her, ‘Do you even own a bike?’ She puffed up real proud and said, ‘I certainly do. It’s parked right out front.’ The brother is surprised, so he asks her, ‘Do you swear a lot?’ ‘Like a sailor with fucking syphilis,’ she replies. ‘Do you drink?’ he asks her. ‘Like a fish,’ she tells him. Well, everyone is impressed now, so the brother asks her one more question. ‘You ever been picked up by the fuzz?’ She looks really thoughtful for a moment, then says, ‘Well no, but I have been swung around by my titties!’”
At the last word, Reese looks over at me, waiting for my reaction. I just stare at him in shock, before blurting out, “What the hell was that?”
Reese raises an eyebrow at me and turns back to the road. “A joke I heard. I thought it was funny,” he huffs.
“It might have been, when someone else told it!” I start chuckling, and to my surprise, so does Reese. Hearing him laugh makes the whole surreal scene even more funny to me, and I break into a cackle. That must have tickled Reese, because only a moment later, we’re both laughing like madmen as we cruise through the night.
Once we pull up in front of the clubhouse and Reese cuts the truck off, he looks over at me and says, “I’m going to get some food and go to my room. Kitchen is behind the bar, anything you can scrounge up is yours.” With that, he hops out and goes on in ahead of me.
There are a lot more vehicles parked outside the clubhouse than there were earlier today, so I’m apprehensive as I approach the front door. I stop for a few minutes and smoke a cigarette, trying to settle my nerves. Finally, I steel myself with the reminder that the club members already voted to allow me to prospect, and I’ve known most of these guys for years. I rub at my bruised eye gingerly, wishing I could see how bad it looks, then go ahead and step inside.