The divorce was finalized two months ago, and now I’m trying to get my life back on track. The truth is, I’ve been a hot mess of a person since that night. And it wasn’t just that my marriage broke up, it was that I knew how my mom would respond. She’d comfort me, and she’d help me get back on my feet if she was sober enough, but deep down I knew that she was thinking, I told you so, you dumb bitch—been telling you for years, but you didn’t want to hear me. They all cheat. They all lie. They all leave in the end.
Maybe she was right.
No, I refuse to believe that.
It was just him, just Jerome. I made a mistake that I didn’t realize I was making at the time, and I let my heart do the thinking for me, instead of my brain. It could have happened to anyone, right? I’ll just keep telling myself that, maybe someday I’ll actually believe it.
But I’m tough. I love with my whole heart, but after it’s been broken I don’t sit around crying, I get back up on my feet and I figure out what’s next. And just like that, the universe spoke to me. It was July, and my divorce from Jerome had just been finalized, and that’s when the brochure came in the mail.
Continuing Adult Education.
That’s what it said on the front of the small grey pamphlet that was wrapped up in my mailbox. I usually throw those kinds of things away with the rest of the junk mail, but something about the picture on the cover caught my attention. It was a woman who looked just like me. She was sitting in a classroom, holding her hand up, and she had a notebook in front of her. I knew that it was just some promotional bullshit, and maybe I read too much into it, but when I looked at that picture I thought, she’s me. I signed up right then and there.
Creative Writing for Adults. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening from 7-9 in the Fall.
That’s where I’m headed right now, only I’m late, as usual. I can’t seem to get my shit together, but at least I’m doing something. I hit the gas on my old, beat up Honda, hoping the piece of crap will get me to school before I make the worst first impression ever.
At least I know. . .
Three—North—Now
. . . exactly where I am.
I’ve been here before. I’m in their headquarters—the back of the mother chapter of the Leviathans. I’ve been here before because it used to be the headquarters of my MC—the Mescaleros. That was a long time ago, and they’ve expanded it since.
It’s a huge complex, but the part that people see is just an auto shop which serves as a front for all the illegal things that go on. It’s how they wash their money. It’s how they keep the cops and the FBI from honing in on them. But I’m not in that part of the complex. I’m deep inside this labyrinth of a place, back where the bad shit goes down.
The Leviathans are straight criminals. Bad guys who do bad shit.
From an outside perspective, me and them might look alike, but looks are deceiving. Just because we have tattoos and look mean doesn’t mean we’re the same. The boys I ride with are good men whom I share the love of a Harley Davidson and the open road with. They’re free spirits who like to give the middle finger to the world—tough as they come, and not men to be trifled with. The Leviathans aren’t like my guys, they won’t even allow prospects into their club who don’t have some kind of a record. They seek out other criminals—the more violent the better—to engage in the darker aspects of their organization, mostly prostitution, drugs, and robbery. They function more like ISIS than they do an MC, which is why I’ve always hated them.
But right now, the last thing I’m worried about is the organization, or how it operates. My worries are much more localized. Delilah. I need to get out of here and find Delilah before Travis does. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, or if I can stay alive in the process, but I do know that there is no other choice. Travis left a few hours ago. I heard the roar of their bikes as they headed off to do all of the terrible things that the Leviathans do.
Travis left one guy to guard me. Probably a prospect. They get the shit jobs, even in criminal motorcycle clubs like this. In this case, that shit job is babysitting me while I do my best to stand up unassisted. It’s been a few hours since I took those shots, but that’s not long enough for them to heal. I’m hurting, bad, and I’m seriously worried that he broke my ribs before when he kicked me. If that’s the case, getting out of here will be much more challenging.
There’s a small wooden chair—something that time forgot—sitting in the corner next to me. I grip it with both hands and pull myself up. I can breathe, so I don’t think that my ribs are broken, just bruised and sore. I use all the strength in my arms to get my tired ass into the chair. Once I put my weight on it the whole thing collapses, and I fall to the ground again, just barely breaking my fall before my nose hits the ground. I hear the sick laughter of Travis’ goon, and I look up from the floor in anger.
“Now, that musta hurt,” he says, cackling while he does. I don’t respond. This is the kind of guy who’d love to make his name by busting me up even more than I already am. Guys with something to prove to the world are dangerous creatures, and outlaw prospects are even more dangerous, so I just let it go.
To worry about my own humiliation or pain right now would be selfish. I need a plan. I need to stay calm. I need to find a way out of this hell hole so that I can get to my wife. The idea of her. . . no, I can’t even let that thought slip into my head. I sit back up, only this time I just rest my back against the wall as my young guard stares at me. He doesn’t look much older than a teenager, but he’d kill me just as quick as he’d look at me, if given the order. How the fuck did I get here?
I press my back into the wall to straighten my torso. I breathe, as deeply as I can, and then I press my hand against my side. My ribs are okay. Sore as fuck, but not broken. No punctured lung, no fear of dying from the beating I took. That means I’ll get better, and once I do, I’m out of this place. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it.
I close my eyes, but not to sleep. Something tells me there’ll be no sleep for a while, but there’s solace in the darkness that lies behind my bruised eyelids. When I close them, the ugly world is gone, and the hell I’m in is just a far away nightmare. I see her instead. I see my Delilah. She’s standing there, as sexy and beautiful as the day I met her, and all I want to do is remember. . .
Four—North—Way Back When
“. . .El Blanco”
JAMES NORTH
ASSIGNMENT—VERSION 2
CREATIVE WRITING FOR ADULTS—GREENFIELD COMMUNITY COLLEGE
It was Joaquin, along with some of the other boys in the neighborhood who christened me El Blanco, because I was the only white kid in a mostly Hispanic area of southern California, known for its warm climate and motorcycle clubs. That’s where I grew up, and that’s where me and Joaquin first met. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I grew up in a lower middle-class home, with the emphasis on the lower part. I didn’t know all the ins and outs of my parents’ finances, but kids don’t need an excel spreadsheet or a bank statement to know what kind of condition they’re living in. All they need is a set of eyes and some good sense, and I had both. I saw how small the houses around us were, how crime wasn’t a common thing, but is sure wasn’t uncommon either. There were no bullets whizzing by my head, but you could sometimes hear them in the distance. And if it wasn’t bullets, it was the hum of Harley engines ever present in the background.
I was a small kid, but I was never afraid to defend myself if I needed to. There are only two areas in life where people believe that size really matters—fighting and fucking—and people have it wrong in both cases. Even though my older brother used to call me ‘runt’ when we were little, I never feared anyone. I don’t mean that to sound tough, but it’s the God’s honest truth. I don’t ever remember being afraid of another person.
Despite this, my size made me a target.
All the other guys were taller than me, and there wasn’t a day of middle school that some asshole didn’t try
me. I looked like a victim back then. All of the signals that would give you a reason to pause before messing with me today weren’t there when I was a kid. I was small for my age. Skinny as all hell, no matter what I ate, and I had a tendency to not look people in the eye. It wasn’t that I was scared, it was just that I’d seen eye contact cause more problems than it was worth. Where I’m from, eye contact can be a challenge.
I saw a friend of my brother get stabbed once for holding eye contact a little too long for the liking of another kid he didn’t know was in El Emme—the Mexican Mafia, one of the largest gangs in the United States. It was a gang founded by Mexican prisoners who feared attacks from the black and white gangs who dominated the prison system in the 1960’s and 70’s, and the day that I witnessed the stabbing, I got to see first hand how brutal gangs were. My hatred of criminal organizations started that fateful afternoon.
Kevin was his name. He was one of us—the white boys who lived among the black and Hispanic kids—and because of that he was a target just like I was. That Friday afternoon, on the way home from school, I watched Kevin get jumped by two older gang members, one of whom stabbed him five times in the stomach. He was in a coma for three months, and even after he woke up he wasn’t the same. . .
One day, one of the local gang members—a kid I used to be cool with in elementary school—tried to steal my stuff in the cafeteria of our high school. I was shocked at first, amazed that gang life could transform a person from a decent human being into someone willing to rob a person they used to go to birthday parties with. That feeling lasted all of ten seconds. When he flashed a knife and told me to hand over my wallet, I was fully ready to smash his stupid face into the floor, repeatedly, until someone pulled me off his limp body.
I didn’t expect someone to do it for me.
This tall Mexican kid who was a year older than me must have heard what was going on, and before I even had a chance to handle my business he grabbed the bully and knocked him clean unconscious. That tall Mexican was named Joaquin, and I’ll tell you more about him later.
I stop writing when I hear the slamming of the classroom door.
It’s one of those heavy wooden doors, and the sound of it slamming jolts me out of my own head. I see the guy who must be the professor walk in. He looks like he’s twenty-five, if he’s a day. Once I catch the little attaché case by his side I know he’s the guy. He’s clean cut, not that tall, and he looks nervous. This must be his first class. Probably still in school. It’s alright, Prof, I won’t bite.
Class is about to start. I can’t believe I didn’t do my fucking homework like some high school burnout. Do you still call it homework when you’re in college? Whatever the hell you call it, I didn’t do it when I was supposed to, so I’m scribbling in my fucked-up chicken scratch before class like some sixteen-year-old in a high school cafeteria. Maybe coming back to school was a bad idea.
No, that’s not it. That’s just my insecurity talking. I love to write, and everyone in my family tells me that I’m good at making up stories, but I don’t trust myself yet. I was never a good student. Scratch that—I was a shitty, punk-ass kid in high school, with little respect for authority. That’s part of the reason that I never did the whole college thing to begin with. But this isn’t real college. It’s Continuing Education.
I open my notebook one more time to see where I ended my little anecdote. I got a letter in the mail after I registered telling me that the first assignment of this class was due on the first day. It read like that assignment in the film The Breakfast Club. We were supposed to write down who we were, by using some kind of narrative from our lives. I look back and read what I wrote so far, and I’m pretty happy with it, other than the fact that its hand written. I hope he accepts that.
“James North?” he yells out.
I raise my hand. “Right here.”
He looks down and checks me off and calls the rest of his roll. There are only about ten people in the class, one of whom either dropped out, or is really late. When he’s done I raise my hand. I’m embarrassed to ask whether he’ll accept the first assignment ripped out of a marble notebook and hand written in my barely-legible chicken scratch, but I swallow my pride. I guess a poorly formatted assignment is better than no assignment.
“Yes? James, is it?”
“That’s right. I was just wondering. . .”
Before I can ask my question the heavy wooden door to the classroom swings open frantically. My head turns to the right, and that’s when I see her. I’m at a total loss for words. She’s gorgeous.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Professor.”
The mystery women is panting like she’s out of breath, but it’s me who can’t seem to catch mine, even though I’m just sitting here, staring at her, and she clearly ran from the parking lot to class.
“And who are you, miss?”
“Delilah,” she says. “I’m Delilah.”
“You’re late is what you are,” he says back to her. I still have my hand in the air, and when I hear him say that I get protective without even realizing it.
“Professor,” I call in a voice that’s a little too loud given the situation. He looks at me sharply.
“Yes, James?”
“Don’t be a dick, sir. The lady’s late. She apologized. It happens. Now can I ask you my question?”
I didn’t know that you could be thrown out of a Continuing Education class at a community college, but apparently you can. My twenty-five-year-old professor—sorry, my ex-professor—asks me to leave after I call him out for his rudeness. When I tell him that I paid for this class, and therefore shouldn’t have to leave, he tells me to go to the Bursar to get a full refund. I have a propensity towards anger in situations where I feel someone is being treated unfairly, but the last thing I need is to get arrested for assaulting some twerp college professor in a creative writing class.
I grab my marble notebook and the pen from behind my ear and get up, the other nine students looking at me and wondering if this little incident is going to end up on the news after I explode. I pay them no mind. I get up and leave without incident. As I do, my ungraded assignment in hand, I pass the mysterious late woman whose honor I felt I was defending to get thrown out in the first place. I can’t take my eyes off of her. She returns my eye contact, and as I pass her by I take a deep whiff of her hair.
I’m not five feet away from the classroom before I hear the creak of the door opening behind me, followed by the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard saying “Hey.” Drawing my attention, I snap my head around, surprised to see her standing there. My mystery woman looks so beautiful that I can barely focus. I stop dead in my tracks and look her in those piercing blue eyes that have a crazy intensity just behind them. She takes a few steps towards me, and I just stand there, frozen. I’m not intimidated by women, ever, but she’s giving me a run for my money. “You didn’t have to say anything, you know?”
“I know,” I tell her. “He was being a dick, though. And I have a strict policy of calling out all assholes when I encounter them. I don’t care what letters or titles they have in their name. He was taking his power a little too seriously. He should have just let you sit down and taught the fucking class.”
She smiles and gives me a flirty look. “Fair enough, but still. That was cool of you.”
“You know I didn’t do that to score any points with you, right?” This probably doesn’t need saying, but I don’t want her to think that I’m one of those guys, the sort that do outlandish things just to impress.
“I know,” she answers. “That’s why I followed you.”
I’m feeling her big time. I don’t know if she feels the same just yet, but she definitely has my heart racing more than I’m letting show on the outside. “Well, it was nothing, really. I can’t let anyone get spoken to like that when I’m around. Just not in my nature to stand by and let things like that go.”
“I see that.”
We look at each other for a few seconds, n
ot a word spoken, and it doesn’t feel uncomfortable at all. It’s like we’re studying one another. What I do notice is that she’s not some twenty-two-year-old girl. She’s got this maturity and confidence that’s really attractive, and she didn’t think twice about just coming up to me and starting a conversation. Most people see the tattoos, the hat, and the go fuck yourself expression that I wear at all times, and get too intimidated to talk to me. Not this girl, not. . .
“I’m Delilah, by the way. Sarah, technically, but everyone calls me Delilah.”
I laugh and make a confused face. “Why do people call you Delilah when your name is Sarah? If you don’t mind me saying so, that makes no sense at all.”
“It does. I mean, not really. My real name is Sarah. That’s the one Mom chose for me, but we don’t get along, and Sarah is boring. So, I renamed myself a while back. A name is something you carry around your entire life. I wanted some say in mine, and Delilah is way cooler than plain old Sarah.”
“You’re interesting, Sarah/Delilah. I’m James,” I say, extending my hand. “Most people call me by my last name, though.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
“North,” I say. “Most people just call me North.”
“I see,” she says, coyly. “Well, North, are you hungry? Cause I’m going to get something to eat and I need some company.”
“You aren’t going back in?” I ask.
“Nah, who wants to be taught by a guy like that? I’d rather hang out with you, anyhow. I can always take class again in the spring.”
I smile. It’s not a normal thing for me to do. My face is usually frozen in a stern expression that scares people off. It isn’t that I’m unhappy, it’s just not in my nature to smile a lot. But she makes me smile easily, so much so that it doesn’t even feel weird, either. “Well, alright then, I’d love to join you, Delilah. But only on one condition.”
True North: A Wordsmith Chronicles MC Standalone Page 3